Free Republic

War may be a boon to politicians and bankers, but it is life-or-death for everyone else. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky is returning to the White House on January 28 to discuss the Russia-Ukraine War. The visit ostensibly concerns a proposed twenty-point “peace plan” that European Union “elites” have constructed to counter President Trump’s ongoing peace negotiations with Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Given that the European proposal essentially denies Russia any of its stated military objectives, Zelensky’s efforts appear to be little more than another theatrical scene designed to demonstrate to the world his (insincere) willingness to sue for peace....

As national education spending per pupil rises, student enrollment is dropping and test scores across the United States are falling, which raises concern over how effectively taxpayer dollars are being used in public schools. Since 2002, K-12 public school spending has increased by more than 35%, yet enrollment has dropped 2.1%, which is over a million students over the past five years. Student achievement has also declined, with only one-third of students nationwide scoring at or above the proficient level on the National Assessment of Educational Progress in reading, according to the National Assessment Governing Board. Currently, 40% of fourth...

The gold price is racing from one all-time high to the next. That’s good news for friends of the precious metal and bad news for anyone still hoping for a stabilization of global debt dynamics. Assuming the markets close out the year without major volatility, gold holders can look forward to an approximate 70 percent increase in value within a single year. This is remarkable -- not least because 2024 already ended with a 26 percent gain for the otherwise conservative asset class of precious metals. That amounts to a doubling of value in just two years -- a surge...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent predicted that Americans will see "gigantic" refund checks in the upcoming filing season, thanks to tax cuts in President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Bessent, who also serves as the acting commissioner of the IRS, made the remark during an appearance on the "All-In Podcast." The treasury secretary told the hosts that the tax provisions in the act, which Trump signed in July, applied retroactively to the beginning of the year, and because most workers did not change their withholdings, many can expect sizable refunds in 2026. "I can see that we’re gonna...

The contretemps at TPUSA and Heritage are less significant than the Democrats’ legal and economic challenges. Charlie Kirk was a one-off, it seems. His assassination and the turning over of TPUSA to his wife Erika may prove that his legacy handoff is more than she is able to effectively manage. So much of what I saw at this week’s Am Fest triggered by Tucker Carlson (and Jack Posobiec’s cosplaying Jesus Christ Superstar while posting with a disgusting anti-Semite) undercuts -- indeed denigrates -- what Charlie and TPUSA once stood for. While Vice President J.D. Vance used his opportunity there to...

Officials in Maine have suspended state Medicaid payments to a Somali-run charity after more than a million dollars in possible fraud was discovered in several audits of the charity’s services. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has cancelled MaineCare payments to Gateway Community Services after the audits found that the charity over billed the state for $1,068,598 from March 2021 through December 2022. The cash was supposedly to cover the costs of “interpreting services” to Somali migrants, the Bangor Daily News reported. This same organization has been under investigation before. Gateway reportedly overbilled for more than $600,000...

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This week at Starbase construction rolls on at the launch site and air separation plant, work continues on Booster 19 and Ship 39, and an interesting new truss structure begins taking shape at the Massey Outpost. Meanwhile, in other space news, SpaceX reaches an important milestone with this week's Starlink launches, Rocket Lab contributes a pair of launches to this week's activities, along with one from ULA and another from Arianespace, and NASA's 15th administrator is officially sworn in. Is SpaceX Ready to Start Testing Orbital Refilling? - Spaceflight Weekly #198 | 9:42LabPadre Space | 250K subscribers | 19,838 views...

https://x.com/Real_RobN/status/2005086582995669193🇺🇸RealRobert🇺🇸@Real_RobN·4hHere it is:The organization whose sole goal is to overthrow the United States government and bring down Western civilization with it.The Democrat Party, through the Biden–Harris terrorist administration, paid $6 billion in American taxpayer money to a network of United Nations agencies and over 200 NGOs to take down and overthrow the Constitutional Republic of the United States.Mike Howell: currently serve as the executive director of the Oversight Projects and previously was at DHS and on Capitol Hill conducting oversight of immigration matters.“The United States of America is still reeling from the worst border invasion in its history.”Mike Howell: “This...

https://x.com/BrianRoemmele/status/2005049676886933967Brian Roemmele@BrianRoemmeleBefore Your Heart Ever Beat Once, Thousands of Cells Made a Silent Decision That Still Controls You Today.Before a heart ever beats, life organizes itself in complete silence.Scientists have captured the exact moment when cardiac cells begin acting as one second before the very first heartbeat exists.No heart chamber.No pumping.No pulse.Instead, thousands of individual cells synchronize their electrical signals, creating a wave of energy that triggers the heart's first contraction - and sets a rhythm that can last a lifetime.Using fluorescent proteins and ultra-high-resolution microscopy, researchers watched this electrical chain reaction spread, transforming biological chaos into perfect coordination.This is...

A fringe white nationalist is generating millions of views of anti-Indian content. Research reveals 61% of his engagement comes from bot farms in Pakistan, Indonesia, and Russia. There is a particular moment in every demagogue’s career when rhetoric turns into a project. Not the early period of noisy adolescence, when insult functions merely as theatre, or even the intermediate stage when vitriol becomes an organising principle. No, the moment that matters is when hatred acquires a constituency, when contempt ceases to be performance and instead aspires to become politics. Nick Fuentes has arrived at that moment. For years, Fuentes existed...

From the island of Kekova, off the southern coast of Turkey, renowned underwater archaeologist Hakan Öniz takes viewers on a journey through the underwater wonders of Turkey. Turkey's Island of 400 Ancient Shipwrecks The SpeciaList | BBC | 4:04 BBC Global | 717K subscribers | 32,063 views | November 24, 2024

Generation Z is taking over. In the rich world there are at least 250m people born between 1997 and 2012. About half are now in a job. In the average American workplace, the number of Gen Z-ers (sometimes also known as “Zoomers”) working full-time is about to surpass the number of full-time baby-boomers, those born from 1945 to 1964, whose careers are winding down (see chart 1). America now has more than 6,000 Zoomer chief executives and 1,000 Zoomer politicians. As the generation becomes more influential, companies, governments and investors need to understand it. Recent “research” from Frito-Lay, a crisp-maker,...

A potent winter storm brings blizzard conditions to the Great Lakes and dangerous icing to the Northeast Sunday through Monday. Simultaneously, an arctic front plunges southward to clash with record warmth across the South. Video is 10:19 minutes long

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https://x.com/ValerieAnne1970/status/2004864547929157860 Valerie Anne Smith@ValerieAnne1970·13h🚨WARNING: The Shingrix shingles vaccine is grown in Chinese Hamster Ovary Cells using an SV40 Promoter—linked to cancer in lab studies.FDA black box warning: Guillain-Barré paralysis risk!New 2025 study: 11X shingles surge within 21 days post-vax. Is this "protection"?...NOShingrix production raises red flags: Immortalized CHO Chinese Hamster Ovary cells engineered with plasmids containing SV40 promoter to crank out viral antigens. SV40 drives high gene expression but has oncogenic potential—linked to cancerous tumors.Ingredients you won't love:• GMO Chinese hamster ovary cells (host proteins & DNA remnants)• AS01B adjuvant: MPL (Salmonella cell wall toxin), QS-21 (plant saponin), Polysorbate 80•...

President Trump championed his import tariffs Saturday as an economic game changer — while predicting the upcoming midterm elections will hinge on “pricing.” The tariffs have brought in more than $200 billion this year, according to the Customs and Border Protection agency, but face the potential of being struck down by the Supreme Court. “Tariffs are creating GREAT WEALTH, and unprecedented National Security for the USA. Trade deficit has been cut by 60%, totally unheard of. 4.3% GDP, and going way up. No inflation!!! We are respected as a Country again,” Trump wrote Saturday morning on Truth Social. Trump has...

I see stupid people. Not the harmless kind who get lost in the Walmart parking lot, but the ones who descend on public hearings like a flock of caffeinated pigeons, clutching reusable water bottles and muttering dark omens about “produced water” as if it’s the name of a demon summoned from an oilfield hellmouth. These are the people who read three paragraphs of a conspiracy blog and suddenly believe the periodic table is a government psyop. The sight of a chemistry diagram sends them into full fight-or-flight, usually choosing “rant.” Meanwhile, outside their fluorescent echo chambers, New Mexico is cooking...

The fate of Rita Loncharich underscores how moonbattery-induced societal decay has left us safe anywhere. Via Fox News:Police in Florida are investigating after a 65-year-old woman died from stab wounds she suffered inside a Barnes & Noble bookstore in Palm Beach Gardens.Witnesses told police that the suspect, 40-year-old Antonio Moore, ran out of the store after stabbing Loncharich…According to the Palm Beach Gardens Police Department, “Investigators are still trying to determine a motive for this attack.”They should ask Decarlos Brown or Lawrence Reed. They might be able to explain the motive.The national media has not had much to say about...

BA Texas teenager was rescued by her father after she was forced into a truck at knifepoint on Christmas Day, police said. Patrol deputies with the Montgomery County Sheriff's Office were called to an area home at about 4:50 p.m. on Thursday, the agency said on social media. The officers were told that the teenager, 15, had taken her dog out for a walk but had not returned. Her father then used parental controls to track her phone's location and find it in a "secluded, partially wooded area" about two miles away. The sheriff's office said the father, who has...