Free Republic

STOCKHOLM (AP) — The U.S. is sending Ukraine about $325 million in additional military aid, including an enormous amount of artillery rounds and ammunition as the launch of the spring offensive against Russian forces approaches, the Pentagon said Wednesday. The U.S. has declined to say exactly how much munitions will be sent to Ukraine, but the latest package resembles other recent deliveries, which included rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, and howitzers, as well as an array of other missiles and anti-tank ammunition. It will all be pulled from Pentagon stocks, so it can go quickly...

The United States is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against Russian aggression, and we’re not doing it on the cheap. The Biden administration announced on Friday that we were sending another $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. This comes after Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed victory over the eastern Luhansk region last week. Putin jumped the gun a little, although Russian troops hold the upper hand throughout most of the region. The problem for Putin is that those pesky Ukrainians refuse to surrender. And the United States is making their continuing resistance possible by giving Kyiv high-powered weapons...

A $40.1 billion aid package to help arm the Ukrainian military and provide economic and humanitarian relief is on its way to President Joe Biden’s desk roughly three weeks after he asked Congress for another emergency cash infusion. The Senate voted 86-11 Thursday to clear the supplemental funding bill, with all of the “no” votes coming from Republicans. Biden is expected to sign the measure quickly, as Thursday was the day his administration anticipated Defense Department funding and “drawdown” authority to send weapons and equipment to Ukraine would run out. The outcome was preordained after a 368-57 vote in the...

While it’s a truism that for every finger you point at someone else you’ve got three pointed right back at you, for liberals it’s part of their laws of physics. It would be impossible for the laws of liberals to govern without this binding hypocrisy that keeps them in orbit. That’s why it shouldn’t surprise you that for all the leftist rhetoric about corporations and greed contributing the decline of the country, there’s one corporate outfit that’s really screwing up this country- and it’s a creation and a creature of the left. Like most Big Left organizations it is...

President Obama, I'd like to follow up on my most recent column and ask you a few more questions, please. I am assuming you don't dispute that our nation faces a very serious financial problem, with unfunded liabilities in excess of $100 trillion. I use the word "assuming" because I don't remember you ever spending much time talking about this problem, which is odd because the very subject haunts so many Americans and makes them fearful for the future of this country. Yet if you do recognize that these liabilities threaten our nation's solvency, how is it conceivable that you've...

Well, your ability to guess why the Murray Energy Corporation today announced that it is closing a mine in Brilliant, Ohio will be largely dependent on whether you rely on local news or not. If you’re just paying attention to local news… you won’t be told at all why a coal mine that employed 239 people at its peak laid off 24 of its remaining 56 employees today, with the remaining to be (hopefully) integrated into the company elsewhere; in fact, you won’t even be told that the mine employed that many people directly. But if you go to the...

I hope you're not eating or cleaning your guns, put everything away, relax, sit back in a nice chair with your favorite drink before you read on. It's time for some grisly details on government-run welfare costs. I've been reviewing some numbers on http://www.usgovernmentspending.com, and perusing the wonderful website of the "Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development", with it's British "s" instead of "z" and all. It's a real hoot if you sometime you feel just a little too "Sound of Music" and feel the need to unhappify yourself a little. Of course, I had to find the About section...

House Republicans launched a fresh attack on the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this week, blasting Administrator Lisa Jackson for setting aside millions of dollars in grants to foreign countries aimed at reducing global pollution. Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released a report Monday night detailing what they say is nearly $100 million in “foreign handouts” to countries like China, Thailand and Indonesia to support various environmental programs over the last decade.....But EPA defended its grant program Monday, arguing that the agency must work to reduce pollution around the world. “Pollution doesn't stop at international borders, and neither...

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales chided fellow Republicans on immigration, urging them to work toward comprehensive immigration reform. Gonzales, the first Hispanic attorney general of the U.S., said it was a "failure" by both parties to have not achieved immigration reform yet, and warned against a proposal favored by some Republicans to amend the U.S. Constitution to deny birthright citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants. "My recommendation not just to the Republican Party but also the Democratic Party is that this country, our federal leaders need to pass comprehensive immigration reform," Gonzales said Sunday on Univision's "Al Punto" program....

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (MarketWatch) — The evidence of a double-dipping housing market and economy are becoming undeniable, even to those who cling perilously to the notion that government intervention has been a salve instead of a poison. The main evidence presented on the part of the “permabulls” of a healing economy is that corporate earnings have been good. However, S&P 500 earnings from multinational corporations have been significantly boosted by a U.S. dollar DXY +1.28% that has lost nearly 15% of its value in the past 12 months. So earnings look great, but they don’t buy you very much, while...

The Obama administration plans to overhaul how it's tackling the foreclosure crisis, in part by requiring lenders to temporarily slash or eliminate monthly mortgage payments for many borrowers who are unemployed, senior officials said Thursday. Banks and other lenders would have to reduce the payments to no more than 31 percent of a borrower's income, which would typically be their unemployment insurance, for up to six months. In some cases, administration officials said, a lender could allow a borrower to make no payments at all. The new push, which the White House is scheduled to announce Friday, takes direct aim...

To The Editor: I am bothered by almost everything our new president has done, but one item is, by far, the most toxic: • Not the ‘Cap and Trade’ tax, which will dramatically drive up the cost of gasoline, heating fuel and electricity. • Not the proposed takeover of the entire medical profession. • Not his proposed presidentially-controlled “civilian” army with his own estimated cost equal to one half the current military budget. • Not the control of major industries such as banks, brokerage firms, Chrysler and General Motors. • Not the ‘Pay Czar’ who will oversee the salaries of...