Free Republic

Over the course of the 20th century, capitalism preserved its momentum by molding the ordinary person into a consumer with an unquenchable thirst for more stuff...

Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” chief political correspondent Dana Bash detailed her morning phone conversation with President Donald Trump. Co-host Wolf Blitzer asked, “You had a chance to speak with the president this morning. How did that go?” Bash said, “Well, look, the headline in our conversation about Elon Musk is that the president says that he has no plans to speak with Musk, and he said that he thinks that Musk has got a problem. So the reason why that is the question right now is maybe, perhaps very obvious but behind the scenes, the push is on...

It is a fantasy that just will not die. Another Kremlin security scare, another flash of speculation online, another round of breathless commentary. Maybe someone is finally trying to kill Vladimir Putin. Maybe that is what it will take to end the war. One clean shot. One collapsing regime. Peace at last. But if that idea is serious – if we are not just indulging a lurid Western daydream – then we need to ask a much harder question.

The Big Beautiful Bill is 1,100 pages. Massive. The arguments for and against are deafening. And all miss the point.“So here’s the thing. Despite all the spending cuts, the Beautiful Bill still increases the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”—Lawrence Wilson, The Epoch TimesConclusions based on principle, if that principle is forged on the bedrock of eternal truth, blow away petty arguments, which fall away like chaff.Prior to our nation’s inception, the masses were taught that the divine spark resides in a pharaoh, a pope, a monarch. In the world of politics...

WASHINGTON (7News) — While President Donald Trump will be hosting a military parade in Washington, people across the country are getting together to protest his administration. According to organizers, this mobilization is inspired by the success of the Hands Off! and May Day protests. The NO KINGS Nationwide Day of Defiance is set to take place on Flag Day, June 14, at over 100 locations. Gatherings in the area include: Garrett Park, MD: Strathmore Avenue, Garrett Park **SNIP** You can find a full list of them all here. Indivisible is organizing the protests with the following partners: 50501, American Federation...

The US is essentially “facilitating the persecution of Christians in Ukraine by supporting the Kiev government, which has been waging a purge campaign against the nation’s canonical Orthodox church,” American journalist Tucker Carlson has said. Carlson made the statement during an interview with a former Ukrainian MP, Vadim Novinsky, released on Friday. The Ukrainian government has been cracking down on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) for months, which it views as having ties to Russia.

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that Democrats had to “fight like hell” to take the government back from President Donald Trump. Raskin said, “We got to take the government back from all of the grifters and autocrats and dictators and people who are just trashing the basic values of the country, whether we’re talking about a professional civil service, whether we’re talking about due process, which is what separates the rights and freedoms of the people from arbitrary governmental power and dictatorship, whether we’re talking about free speech or free press. You know, there kicking the...

Despite all the excuses and finger pointing, liberals/socialists don’t think that they lost the last election -- they think that the people just voted wrong. As Lenin said: “People always have been and they always will be stupid victims of deceit and self-deception in politics.” To influence these people, Lenin said: “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.” We have seen this tactic repeated in the negative stories about Trump and his supporters over the past decade. This is where totalitarianism starts. It ends...

KEY POINTS -The ultra-wealthy are increasingly moving their gold to Singapore. -A growing sense of unease is driving the surge. - Wealthy investors are also opting for physical gold bars instead of paper for several reasons. The ultra-wealthy are increasingly moving their gold offshore as economic and geopolitical uncertainty roils markets — and Singapore is emerging as a favored destination. Not far from the city-state’s airport sits a six-story facility covered in onyx and fortified by tight security. Tucked behind its steel doors are gold and silver bars amounting to about $1.5 billion. Known as “The Reserve,” the storage facility...

The President of the United States spent his Tuesday morning publicly harassing a 16-year-old high school junior. Her only crime? The talented student athlete won two California Interscholastic Federation titles in the girls’ long jump and triple jump at the Southern Section finals held Saturday and is now entitled to compete in the state finals in Clovis, May 30-31.

The fiscal impact of President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which one prominent budget hawk called a “debt bomb,” is becoming a significant political concern among Republican lawmakers who have made little progress toward offsetting the $3 trillion projected cost of the legislation. Some GOP senators fear that the bill’s failure to rein in federal spending in a substantial way over the next decade is fueling jitters in the bond market, where soft demand for U.S. debt has caused yields to climb in recent weeks. And they worry that if Republicans pass Trump’s bill on party-line votes in both chambers, they...

Michael Ledeen, the controversial national security journalist, scholar and schemer who died at age 83 on May 17 from complications following a stroke, played a significant covert role leading up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as other productions of false intelligence for political ends. Ledeen was featured prominently in The Italian Letter, a 2007 book by SpyTalk Contributing Editor Peter Eisner and Knut Royce, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter at Newsday. Obituaries published this week gave scant attention to the key role Ledeen played in fabricating intelligence to justify the eventually disastrous military campaign to oust...

Introduced from South America, mathenge was intended to halt desertification, but now three-quarters of the country is at risk of invasion by the invasive tree For his entire life, John Lmakato has lived in Lerata, a village nestled at the foot of Mount Ololokwe in northern Kenya’s Samburu county. “This used to be a treeless land. Grass covered every inch of the rangelands, and livestock roamed freely,” he says. Lmakato’s livestock used to roam freely in search of pasture, but three years ago he lost 193 cattle after they wandered into a conservation area in Laikipia – known for the...

The U.S. Federal Reserve just pulled off something stealthy — over four days last week, without fanfare, the Fed vacuumed up $43.6 billion in U.S. Treasurys. That’s $8.8 billion in long-dated 30-year bonds on May 8 alone, plus another $34.8 billion earlier in the week. Not exactly small change. Quietly returning to the quantitative-easing trough isn’t standard Fed housekeeping — it’s like a bank robber returning to the scene because he forgot his car keys. Let’s talk straight: This isn’t tightening. It’s stealth easing. It’s monetary policy on tiptoes. Some traders have begun to notice, and smart investors should too....

The U.S. Federal Reserve just pulled off something stealthy — over four days last week, without fanfare, the Fed vacuumed up $43.6 billion in U.S. Treasurys. That’s $8.8 billion in long-dated 30-year bonds on May 8 alone, plus another $34.8 billion earlier in the week. Not exactly small change…. … Commodity traders, in particular, have a nose for monetary sleight-of-hand. Gold GC00, the ultimate financial cynic’s metal, has risen sharply since early 2024. Gold doesn’t believe in politicians, central bankers or economists — even the Ivy League types who wave their hands and promise stability. It believes numbers. But this...

The U.S. Federal Reserve just pulled off something stealthy — over four days last week, without fanfare, the Fed vacuumed up $43.6 billion in U.S. Treasurys. That’s $8.8 billion in long-dated 30-year bonds on May 8 alone, plus another $34.8 billion earlier in the week. Not exactly small change. Quietly returning to the quantitative-easing trough isn’t standard Fed housekeeping — it’s like a bank robber returning to the scene because he forgot his car keys.

“The best way to destroy an enemy . . . is to make him your friend.”— Stanislav Petrov, The Man Who Saved the WorldHumans—a problem-solving species—cannot solve its worst problem; not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Why is that the case? The solution’s in the hands of states that created it and they don’t want it solved.Some problems go away on their own, and maybe this is one of them. It could happen in the next millisecond or 100 years from now. And, in the aftermath, all other problems—personal and societal—go away. Think about it: No more rigged elections, rampant...

The world is on the brink of a climate apocalypse—one caused not by gradual greenhouse emissions but by a sudden exchange of nuclear weapons, a possibility made more salient by the current conflict between India and Pakistan. While the long-term effects of emissions are uncertain, we know that a nuclear war would result in an immediate nuclear winter. When we think about nuclear apocalypse, we tend to think of the immediate effects: thermonuclear explosions that incinerate cities and vaporize populations. But the worst consequences unfold long after the weapons have detonated. A major thermonuclear exchange would shroud the atmosphere in...

Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted on July 9, 1962 as part of a group of tests collectively known as Operation Fishbowl. While Starfish Prime was not the first high-altitude test, it was the largest nuclear test ever conducted by the United States in space. The test led to the discovery and understanding of the nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP) effect and a mapping of seasonal mixing rates of tropical and polar air masses. Key Takeaways: Starfish Prime Starfish Prime was a high-altitude nuclear test conducted by the United States on July 9, 1962. It was part of Operation...

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff didn’t mince his words. In a meeting late on Sunday with former hostages and relatives of those still held in Gaza, he told them Israel is drawing out a war the US wants to end, local media reported. On the eve of the release of Edan Alexander, the last living American being held by Hamas, Witkoff spelt out the gulf between his boss and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu. “We want to bring the hostages home, but Israel is not willing to end the war. Israel is prolonging it – despite the fact that...