Free Republic

Confident that he had an "ace-in-the-hole," House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) expected Rep. Matt Gaetz's (R-Fla) motion to oust him from his position would fail. It didn't. "When I expressed my apprehension about allowing a single member to call for such a vote to former Speaker Pelosi (D-Calif) back in January she assured me 'I'll always back you up,'" McCarthy recalled. "But when it came time to vote she was absent and the current Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) urged the entire Democrat caucus to vote against me." Pelosi explained that "my absence fulfilled my personal promise that I would...

China is adding to Xi Jinping's vast powers with a new law that will assert Beijing's interests on the world stage. The law threatens to punish entities that act in ways "detrimental" to China's interests but does not specify which lines should not be crossed. Experts say the law underscores China's aggressive diplomacy, but how actively it will be enforced when it takes effect on 1 July remains to be seen. After all, China has been keen to court foreign investment post Covid. Jacques deLisle, a law and political science professor from the University of Pennsylvania, said much of the...

In the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden declared to the nation and world: "We are engaged anew in a great battle for freedom. A battle between democracy and autocracy."On her trip to Taiwan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi echoed Biden: "Today, the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America's determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and in the world remains iron-clad."But is this truly the world struggle America is in today?Is this the great challenge and threat to the United States?Are autocracy and democracy in a climactic ideological crusade to determine the destiny of mankind?For...

Beacon of democracy’ cracks down on dissent.. Ukrainian authorities have banned the country’s main opposition party and seized all its assets, once again undermining the narrative that President Zelensky is presiding over a beacon of democracy. The country’s Ministry of Justice announced the move via Facebook, revealing that the Opposition Platform — For Life had been shut down and its assets, money and property transferred to the state. The party had previously had its operations suspended in March after it was accused of being complicit with Russia and being “anti-Ukrainian.” The ban means that Zelensky’s main political opposition has been...

Editor’s Commentary: There was a time not so long ago when I would lambast “Chicken Littles” for claiming we’re on the verge of an economic collapse. I’ve been hearing it for decades and I’ve made a habit of pushing back. Even as recently as 2020, I railed against those who were buying up all the face masks, flour, and hand sanitizer because I thought the unhinged reaction to the pandemic was destructive, not to mention my annoyance of having to go to the grocery store several days in a row to find out they still had no toilet paper. This...

KYIV, Ukraine — The suspected Russian missile hit the tall apartment building, engulfing it in flames and smoke. It killed at least four people, including elderly residents, and shattered the lives of a close-knit community. For lawmaker Oleksii Goncharenko, the tragedy was yet another example of potential Russian war crimes. “They are just hitting residential buildings in these areas,” said the Ukrainian parliament member, who arrived at the scene shortly after the explosion two weeks ago. “You can walk around, you will not find any military targets, or any military people. This is just terror.” Yet a few minutes later,...

Canada needs wartime #censorship of internet, @MelanieJoly tells MPs: "My mandate as @CanadaFP Minister is really to counter propaganda online" mindingottawa TwitterMélanie Joly (Canada government official) Twitter

Thank goodness the public understands at least some of the horror that would be unleashed on us if Biden's Build Back Bankrupt plan were to become law. One of the worst features of the bill is that it would sic hordes of new and inexperienced IRS auditors on middle America, not the billionaires that Democrat propaganda would have believe are going to be forced to "pay their fair share."These new agents would be under pressure to prove their worth by shaking down businesses that have done their best to comply with the complex and often difficult to understand IRS regulations,...

Alyssa Farah, an ex-aide to former President Trump, says she's deeply concerned about him potentially running in 2024, believing that, given a second term, he would undermine democracy and "weaponize" the government against his political opponents. CNN's Jake Tapper said in a recent interview with Farah, who served as a White House communications director and assistant to the president, that Trump "challenged our institutions near to the breaking point," asking if she believed that he would try to impose "some sort of autocracy" if he returned to the Oval Office. "I think he absolutely would," she replied. "There were things...

Former First Lady Michelle Obama used her podcast to thank the pandemic "for opening our eyes to a new way of distributing the nation's wealth. Barack always thought it would require an act of Congress to implement the kind of redistribution needed to achieve social justice. But the unilateral power wielded by almost every governor during the COVID crisis showed that it could be accomplished much more easily than he thought." "In state-after-state we saw governors decreeing which businesses were essential and which were not," she observed. "Declaring a business nonessential effectively confiscated an owner's right to earn an income...

The humanitarian group Oxfam's warning that the economic shutdowns imposed to combat the coronavirus may lead to more than 120 million additional people starving to death this year was brushed off by viral expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as "a false narrative. Look, millions of people starving to death each year is normal. The coronavirus is novel. It is incumbent that this novel threat remain the primary focus of world heath efforts." "I am especially concerned about the rise in the number of confirmed cases that has followed the risky decision to allow nonessential businesses and activities to prematurely resume," the...

One of the most commonly observed natural phenomena around us is that of turbulence. We experience turbulence everywhere that we see fluid flow – in the air which airplanes pass through, in the wakes of boats traveling in the water, in the rising of smoke and the movement of clouds, and many other everyday things. Yet, for all of its commonness, turbulence is still little understood and is difficult to control or predict. Turbulence is a chaotic phenomenon, in the “chaos theory” sense of the term. Most commonly, a chaotic system is one which exhibits the property of sensitivity to...

Despite urging from a variety of left-wing luminaries, discussions in most households over the Thanksgiving holiday did not pan out as hoped. Early summations of conversations picked up from eavesdropping by "smart TVs" revealed that the vast majority leaned toward right-wing views. "The President asked Americans to talk about gun control," Press Secretary Josh Earnest said. "They did, but the gist of the sentiment was that more people wanted to arm themselves. Likewise, conversations about immigration evinced a preference for less of it. And practically no one seemed concerned about global climate change. Obviously, American opinion is not where it...

Technocracy (Alternate link) PART I. Human Instincts in Reconstruction. An Analysis of Urges and a Suggestion For Their Direction. By William Henry SmythNote The author shows that the forces of the four great human instincts to live, to make, to take, to control are as essential in modern social life as at any time in the past. But all of these urges in a living democracy should be controlled without being controlled. To achieve this seeming paradox we must have a great national purpose, and unselfish leadership such as could come through a National Council of Scientists. Mr. William Henry...

"In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, Turkey was often seen as the model for a democracy in the Muslim world. The economic policies of the current government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Islamic Fundamentalist party AKP have been praised widely in the West, just last week again by star-economist Jeffrey Sachs. So, where is the uprising coming from? To understand what is happening in Turkey, it makes sense to look at neighbouring Iran. In some ways, Iran could be seen as the prototype of the current regime in Turkey.".....

After being injured on his second tour of duty in Afghanistan, Lt. Augustine Kim spent the night in a D.C. jail for possessing unregistered guns. After being pulled over, handcuffed, arrested, thrown in jail overnight, his guns were confiscated by the city. In the end, the platoon leader felt forced to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge, which was later dismissed, but the District still refuses to return to him $10,000 worth of firearms and parts. The national guardsman will deploy to Kosovo this summer. The city should return his property before he leaves to serve our nation overseas for...

It's gotten so obvious that even the New York Times has taken notice. Europe is no longer governed by old-fashioned electoral democracies. That fact is even acknowledged by the European Union, which admits that, yes, Europe does have a "democracy deficit." Czech President Vaclav Klaus has seriously compared the EU to the Soviet Union. The cynics now call it the EuroSoviet Union.

"Call the Prime Minister a Turkey, Get Sued Turkish Leader Erdogan Is the Litigious Sort; to Him, Booing's a Tort" "...Mr. Guler had just accused the students, who couldn't all fit into the tiny courtroom, of "booing" the prime minister and calling him a "street vendor." Some of the students giggled. The hearing was adjourned until June 8..."

New studies say that lowering the rate of infection helps lead to political liberalization. Greater wealth strongly correlates with property rights, the rule of law, more education, the liberation of women, a free press, and more social tolerance. The enduring puzzle for political scientists is how do the social processes that produce freedom and wealth get started in the first place? Many political theorists have associated democracy with the rise of wealth and the establishment of a large middle class. As Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan, and Christian Welzel, a political scientist at Jacobs University...

A third-grader at Brazos Elementary was given a week’s detention for possessing a Jolly Rancher. School officials in western Fort Bend County are defending the seemingly harsh sentence. The school’s principal and superintendent said they were simply complying with a state law that limits junk food in schools. But the girl’s parents say it’s a huge overreaction. “I think it’s stupid to give a kid a week’s worth of detention for a piece of candy,” said Amber Brazda, the girl’s mother. "The whole thing was just ridiculous to me." Leighann Adair, 10, was eating lunch Monday when a teacher confiscated...