Free Republic

Forgive us if we missed it, but we don’t recall Donald Trump campaigning to invade Panama and retake its famous canal. But there was the President-elect on the weekend, threatening our Central American ally with punishment if it doesn’t meet his demands. “Our Navy and commerce have been treated in a very unfair and injudicious way. The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous, highly unfair, especially knowing the extraordinary generosity that has been bestowed to Panama—I say, very foolishly, by the United States,” Mr. Trump told a crowd in Phoenix. “This complete ripoff of our country will immediately stop.”...

Former Obama administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports” that President Joe Biden should drop out of the presidential race. Castro said, “I should begin by saying that I campaigned against Joe Biden. I served with him in the Obama administration, the Obama/Biden administration. I watched him the last three and a half years, he’s done an excellent job as president. It is also true that he is not the campaigner that he was in 2020 and the debate was just one more indicator of this. This has been coming for a...

1. Stuck At Home:How many of us have heard the terrible stories about what happened to children from abused homes who were forced to stay there during the pandemic? 2. The Homeschool revolution and parents more involved in learning.Before the pandemic, I helped my kids with their homework, but I honestly had no idea what lesson plans were being taught in my children's classroom. I am not alone. 3. Reassessing Priorities:During the pandemic, people had more time to think…about everything. And many of them realized they didn't want to be a slave to an office job, driving back and forth...

Members of Russian military intelligence unit 29155, who allegedly have access to microwave or ultrasound weapons, had been placed at the scene of reported attacks that resulted in US personnel suffering health problems, according to a year-long investigation by the Latvia-based Insider in collaboration with CBS’s “60 Minutes” and Germany’s Der Spiegel. Christo Grozev, the head of investigations with The Insider, told “60 Minutes” that he uncovered accounting records that show a 29155 officer received a bonus for work related to the development of “non-lethal acoustic weapons.” Unit 29155 has reportedly operated around the world since 2008, and is suspected...

14 min clip from Viva/Robert Barnes podcast. Barnes explains why DeSantis is running for president, donors convinced him Trump would be kneecapped by numerous indictments (most have failed) and thus DeSantis would win the primary. Secondly, DeSantis will not win the general because Trumpers will not vote. Outcome - destroy Trump, DeSantis and MAGA in one swoop. Barnes also explains the case against Trump and other insights. Worth the time.

Philosophers seeking to answer questions around inequality in household labour and the invisibility of women's work in the home have proposed a new theory -- that men and women are trained by society to see different possibilities for action in the same domestic environment. They say a view called "affordance theory" -- that we experience objects and situations as having actions implicitly attached -- underwrites the age-old gender disparity when it comes to the myriad mundane tasks of daily home maintenance. For example, women may look at a surface and see an implied action -- 'to be wiped' -- whereas...

During an interview with Tampa’s WFLA News Channel 8 on Tuesday, 2020 Democratic presidential nominee former Vice President Joe Biden stated that he would “absolutely” roll things back a little bit if there is a second coronavirus spike. Reporter Keith Cate asked, “If you were president right now, let’s say we had a sudden spike in COVID-19 cases, what actions would you take? Would you encourage another shutdown? Would you enforce a national mask mandate? How would you respond?”

On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Deadline White House,” 2020 Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden “absolutely” joined calls for Attorney General William Barr to resign. Host Nicolle Wallace asked, “So, we have been talking about the letter signed by more than 2,000 former Justice Department officials of both political parties calling on Attorney General Barr to resign. Do you join their calls for his resignation?”

Men should have the same right as women to decide not be parents, according to a controversial new proposal from the Liberal Party’s youth wing in western Sweden (LUF Väst).Men who don’t want to become fathers should be permitted to have a “legal abortion” up to the 18th week of a woman’s pregnancy, say the young liberals. The cut-off date coincides with the last week in which a woman can terminate a pregnancy in Sweden. “This means a man would renounce the duties and rights of parenthood,” LUF Väst chairman Marcus Nilsen told The Local. By signing up for a...

Should People Stop Saying “Absolutely” So Much? Absolutely! – A Short Rant on an Overused Expression and Why it Should be Avoided By: Msgr. Charles PopeOne of the most overused terms in modern speech is the word “absolutely.” As in, “Do you want some gravy with those potatoes?” “Absolutely!” Or, “Would you agree that solution ‘X’ is the best solution to problem ‘Y’?”  “Absolutely!” What to call this … an expression? A semantic substitution for “yes?” A logism? A hyperbole? A grandiloquence? A periphrasis? Why this obsession with saying “absolutely” or its strange step-sister, “exactly”?It is a strange paradox...

During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee into allegations that the Internal Revenue Service scrutinized conservative groups’ tax-exempt status filings unduly, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) exploded at Committee Chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (D-CA). Cummings charged that the way in which the proceedings were being conducted were “Un-American.” In apparent protest, Issa then walked out of the committee hearing. While making a statement before the committee, Issa stood up and asked Cummings to yield. “If you will sit down and allow me to ask a question,” Cummings insisted. “I am a member of a Congress of the United States of...

This is about as weak as it gets. This morning as seen here (saved here at my web host for future reference), an unbylined 90-word Associated Press report at 9:57 a.m. told readers the following, in part: Facing criticism over the amount of taxes it pays, General Electric announced it will repay its entire $3.2 billion tax refund to the US Treasury on April 18. GE uses a series of foreign tax havens that the company says are legal and that led to an enormous refund for the 2010 tax year. At 10:40 a.m., CNBC called BS on AP: GE...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said this weekend that he is "absolutely" running for reelection next year. The Louisiana governor, who has sometimes been mentioned as a GOP presidential candidate in 2012, said he fully intends to seek a second term. "I'm absolutely running for reelection," Jindal said during an interview with a local NBC affiliate. "You know, there's been a lot of speculation: would I run for another office, would I go to Washington, D.C.? I'm interested in helping to lead our state."

It’s “absolutely clear” the U.S. economy is heading in the right direction, President Barack Obama said Thursday, amid fears that the economy had faltered. Obama made his case during a visit to Missouri that his administration’s efforts, particularly through its signature $787 billion stimulus package, had staved off a second Great Depression and put the country on the path toward economic recovery. “But what is absolutely clear is that we are headed in the right direction — and that the surest way out of these storms we’ve been in is to keep moving forward, not back,” the president said in...

US Senate Candidate Richard Blumenthal today held a press conference, to defend himself against a New York Times article citing a video in which Blumehthal says he served in Vietnam. Blumenthal served in the Marine Reserves during Vietnam, but not in Vietnam. "On a few occaisions I have misspoken about my service, I take full responsibility," Blumenthal said.

Thanks to GOP Senators Arlen Specter, Susan Collins & Olympia Snowe, the federal government has passed a bill enabling them to devour approximately one trillion dollars of our future wages. That is only the beginning as Barack Obama is just weeks into his unchecked, unbalanced presidency. These Senators have brought dishonor to our party and we can no longer afford to allow them to hide behind the Republican banner. We would be better off taking the "risk" of losing their seats to the Democrats as their presence has already caused many in our conservative base to leave in disgust. Indeed...

The White House said Tuesday afternoon that President Obama has "confidence in the process" of vetting senior administration and Cabinet officials despite the withdrawal of two high-profile nominees earlier in the day. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs came under fire during his daily briefing for declining to answer questions about whether there was a breakdown in the vetting process after Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, nominated to be Obama's first chief performance officer, withdrew amid troubles over taxes. In response to questions about the two nominees' vetting, Gibbs would only say: "The president...

WEB VOTE Should Disney be able to stop employees from bringing guns to work? Yes. No.

Listening to the tone of many Hillary supporters, they are angry. Even the slaves in the old slavery states were considered “3/4th’s of a person” under law, but apparently the DNC and many leading Democrats - the same ones who in the General election(s) against Republican Bush demanded that “every vote be counted” - now demand that Michigan and Florida voters only be counted as “1/2 of a person”. One could argue that the DNC elite, which is for Obama, considers these voters as perhaps less than even the slaves of the Old Democratic Party South. Putting Michigan aside, if...

WASHINGTON, May 26, 2006 – The morale of U.S. soldiers in Baghdad is "absolutely tremendous," a U.S. Army commander there said today. "When I talk to my soldiers on the ground, they're absolutely committed to what we're doing here," Army Col. Michael Beech, commander of 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, told Pentagon reporters via teleconference from Forward Operating Base Prosperity in central Baghdad. He said this high morale is reflected in his unit's re-enlistment rate -- 116 percent of goal for first-term soldiers. "They volunteered knowing they were coming to Iraq," he said. "A hundred and sixteen percent...