Free Republic

America’s Lebanese fantasy hits a road-bump Lebanon Follow Tony Badran Published: 13 December ,2022: 12:39 PM GST Updated: 13 December ,2022: 01:25 PM GST For the past two years, the Biden administration has been hell-bent on getting Saudi Arabia to underwrite the US project of administering Lebanon. And for two years running, the Kingdom has refused, having no desire to bankroll an Iranian equity run by Hezbollah. The administration, however, is demanding US allies suspend disbelief and pretend that Lebanon is in fact a real, normal state. In the latest iteration of its Lebanese project, the Biden team is trying...

@scotthortonshow Worst president since Truman Quote @ryangrim The White House is whipping against Bernie Sanders Yemen war powers resolution, urging a no vote this evening, sources involved tell me @SenSanders Today, I withdrew from consideration by the U.S. Senate my War Powers Resolution after the Biden administration agreed to continue working with my office on ending the war in Yemen.

Very good YouTube 17 min. video from HistoryLegends on the ongoing battle in Bakhmut. They do an excellent job (complete with pictures and maps) to spell out the pros and cons for both sides in this fierce battle. Also spells out KIA casualty figures for both sides to date in the Ukraine war. Over 100,000 KIA Ukrainians; 15,000 KIA Russians. The presenter has a sense of humor and does a good job mimicking neocons complete with accents...:-)

Interesting live stream round table analyst discussion of where the Ukraine war is now and how it is likely to end. These analysts agree that there is not likely to be "big arrow" moves, but rather grinding of Ukraine with slow Russian territorial gains and continued huge Ukrainian casualties. They see no possibility of a negotiated settlement and are particularly critical of Angela Merkle's recent disclosure that the Minsk agreements were always a sham in order to buy time for Ukraine to prepare for war. They believe Russia has come to the conclusion that the West can never be trusted...

I apologize, the proposal began in 1991 for Russia to join NATO. But the final agreement with respect to Ukraine’s nukes was not in Belgrade but in Budapest. History has been rewritten to support the war against Russia for climate change. I have never seen any account of history that reports NATO invited Russia to join in 1991. Some people are so pro-Ukrainian that it is insane. They are really cheering for World War III and no doubt believed in COVID, Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and Hillary’s RussiaGate. They refuse to open their eyes to see that they...

While Europe correctly perceives that some sectors of the U.S. economy are raking in profits at the expense of Europe, the economy of the United States is showing clear signs of a retracting economy on multiple fronts.

Breaking: Biden Admin Can't Account For 20 Billion In Aid To Ukraine.

The US economy is in “The Deep.” Deep into yield curve inversion, that is. The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve swam deeper into inverse at -75 basis points. The deepest inversion since just before The Great Recession and housing market crash.

Russia and Ukraine agreed to a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in April, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened to stop the peace deal, and the US and EU escalated the proxy war to try to weaken Moscow.

The FTX scandal is only getting started. Another cryptocurrency by the name of Tether is also on the brink of failing and both FTX and Tether appear to have been tools of the Deep State. A week ago TGP reported that FTX was used as a money laundering scheme in Ukraine where money sent there was sent back to US politicians. Revolver added more to this story overnight. In a lengthy article, Revolver notes first that FTX may not be the largest cryptocurrency-related entity to collapse in the coming months. Another crypto by the name of “Tether” or USDT...

I don’t think we’re about to see Twitter implode but if you’re on Twitter this evening there are a lot of people suggesting everyone who works there has quit. This latest round of departures started yesterday with an email Musk sent to the remaining work force (about half had been fired earlier this month).Early Wednesday morning, the world’s richest man and newly installed Twitter CEO emailed the site’s employees with an ultimatum, obligating them to commit to an “extremely hardcore” work ethic or leaving the company.Musk argued that Twitter must be ready for a more “increasingly competitive world” and therefore...

Just how effective have Western sanctions been against Iran — and for that matter, Russia? The US has spearheaded efforts to deny both countries access to Western technology, especially that with dual-use capabilities for military purposes. In the case of Iran, those sanctions and trade restrictions go back decades.And according to an exclusive from the Wall Street Journal today, they appear significantly ineffective. Ukrainian and Western experts have begun looking at the remains of Iranian drones that targeted infrastructure in the Russian invasion, and a lot of the parts come from Western supply chains:New intelligence collected from downed Iranian drones...

At 8:18AM Zelensky on a video call to G20 leaders told them that Russia was a “terrorist state” among them and that the attack was deliberate by Russia and that the missiles were a “true statement brought by Russia for the G20 summit.” It is now confirmed that the missiles were fired by Ukraine. To pretend it was not another “Ukrainian False Flag” they claimed the missiles were fired at a Russian missile and were not intentional. Forget saving the planet for climate change which is also a natural occurrence, the ONLY way to save the planet is to get...

Click to skip to bottom of this long transcriptransomnote: I copied the computer generated transcript of Clayton Morris’ interview with Colonel MacGregor. I made many corrections to help improve readability as the transcript contains phonetic and spelling errors. I recommend watching the video if you have time.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bePModNEzUU~TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~ Interviewer Clayton Morris: Well theWestern media, in particular TheWashington Post, today calling thesestrikes on Ukraine overnight and intothis afternoon a ‘turning point’ in the war and Icouldn't help, when I saw that, wondering.I couldn't wait to ask you this question,you know, is that a rhetorical devicedesigned to elicit some sort ofemotional response...

Daniel Lacalle wrote a nice piece about disastrous Keynesian policies that led the US with high debt, inflation and weak wage growth. The main problem of the past decades, but particularly since 2008, is that government spending and monetary policy have become solutions of first resort to any slump in economic activity, even if that decline was created by government decisions, such as shutting down the economy due to a health crisis. Furthermore, government spending increases and loose monetary policy continued even in growth periods. This, in turn, creates an unsustainable public deficit that needs to be monetized or refinanced....

Video at link.

An anti-Russia “bot army” of fake automated Twitter accounts flooded the Internet with pro-Ukraine propaganda at the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, according to a mostly unreported study by a team of researchers at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Up to 80 percent of tweets pushing the pro-Ukraine side in the beginning days of the Russia-Ukraine war were posted by bots, according to the study which examined over 5 million tweets. “The university researchers also found these automated tweets had been purposely used to drive up fear amongst people targeted by them, boosting a high level of statistically measurable...

‘We did not fight a civil war about oboe players,’ Chief Justice John Roberts said, shooting down Harvard’s attorney during oral arguments on Monday.WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday morning, I swept through the marbled halls of the Supreme Court of the United States, off First Street NE here in the nation’s capital, to enter the highest room of jurisprudence in the land. The sound of my footsteps muffled atop thick carpeting, the blinds on the massive windows mostly drawn and the room packed with rows upon rows of chairs, slowly filling.A daughter of India who grew up in Morgantown, West...

On October 7, 2022, US congressman Alex Mooney (a Republican from West Virginia) introduced a bill (the Gold Standard Restoration Act, H.R. 9157) that stipulates that the US dollar must be backed by physical gold owned by the US Treasury. The initiative clearly indicates that the increasingly inflationary US dollar is triggering efforts to get better money.It should be noted that there have already been many legislative changes to make precious metals more attractive as a means of payment in recent years: in many US states, the value-added and capital gains taxes on gold and silver, but also on platinum...

Often I have referred to the situation that the UK, Germany, California and others have set themselves up for as “hitting the green energy wall.” But now that the UK has actually gotten there and has begun to deal with the consequences, I’m not sure that “hitting the wall” is the best analogy. A better analogy might be “driving into the green energy cul-de-sac.” After all, when you hit a wall you can probably just pick yourself up and turn around and be on your way. In the cul-de-sac you are trapped with no evident way of getting out. You...