Free Republic

Whether or not Vladimir Putin moves his troops into Ukraine, he has once again confronted Europe with a most painful reality: while being too weak to defend itself, it can no longer rely on the United States to come to its rescue. We are facing a reality in which Russia, despite its economy only having the size of Italy's, can bully and intimidate a continent thanks to its energy reserves and its readiness to project vast military power. Sure, any Russian invasion of Ukraine would cost Russia a fortune and likely degrade into a grinding war of attrition. Invasion is...

Paul Craig RobertsThe Russians called a security conference with Washington and NATO. The Russians explained that security is a joint undertaking and that security only exists if every country feels secure. The CIA responded with accusations against Russia handed to the CIA-puppet Biden regime and the CIA-puppet US media. The national security advisor read the script to us peons: Russia intends a false flag attack on its own troops so that it will have an excuse to invade Ukraine. The national security advisor is so stupid that it does not occur to him that if Russia wants to invade Ukraine...

The dramatic exit last Friday by Rep. John Katko (R-NY), who announced he would not run for reelection, may have shocked liberals but was no surprise to Trump supporters. One by one, the Republicans who voted for the second impeachment or who publicly blamed Trump for the Jan. 6th rally at the Capitol are leaving public office. Katko was the third to prematurely retire among the impeachers, and the most significant due to his seniority and otherwise bright future. He was in line to become chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee after the predicted takeover of the House by...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told a gathering of America’s mayors on Wednesday that the Biden administration’s coronavirus relief bill was like a vaccine preventing catastrophic economic damage that could have returned the nation to the financial woes seen at the beginning of the pandemic. President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan “acted like a vaccine for the American economy, protecting our recovery from the possibility of new variants,” Yellen said at the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ 90th winter meeting in downtown Washington. “The protection wasn’t complete, but it was very strong,” Yellen said. “It prevented communities...

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A smartphone app that’s expected to be widely used by athletes and others attending next month’s Winter Games in Beijing has glaring security problems that could expose sensitive data to interception, according to a report published Tuesday. Citizen Lab, an internet watchdog group, said in its report the MY2022 app has seriously flawed encryption that would make users’ sensitive data — and any other data communicated through it — vulnerable to being hacked. Other important user data on the app wasn’t encrypted at all, the report found. That means the data could be read by Chinese...

The Biden administration on Tuesday quietly launched its website for Americans to request free at-home COVID-19 tests, a day before the site was scheduled to officially go online. The website, COVIDTests.gov, now includes a link for "every home in the U.S." to access an order form run by the U.S. Postal Service. People can order four at-home tests per residential address, to be delivered by the Postal Service. It marks the latest step by President Joe Biden to address criticism of low inventory and long lines for testing during a nationwide surge in COVID-19 cases due to the omicron variant....

When Ohio State played Utah at the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day, 87,842 people packed into that stadium to watch the game. On New Year's Eve, 66,839 attended the Orange Bowl to watch Georgia take on Michigan, and 76,313 attended the Cotton Bowl to watch Alabama take on Cincinnati. COVID-19 did not stop them. When the 2022 Winter Olympics start in Beijing in a little more than two weeks, the various venues for that event will hold only those who the Communist government of the People's Republic of China allows to be there. No one will be allowed to...

Huge Housing Bubble, worse than Japan or US, has burst, and everything is going to Hell on roller skates.

The Global Times, an English-language newspaper operated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), wrote an article bragging about President Joe Biden’s reliance on China to implement his coronavirus testing plan. Biden announced a plan last month to deliver 500 million at-home coronavirus tests to Americans across the country. As of Tuesday, citizens may order tests directly from the U.S. Postal Service, which ships them in 7-12 days. The Global Times article boasts that Biden’s purchase of tests led to a “bull run” in Andon Health Company’s stock. Andon Health Company is the parent company of its U.S. subsidiary, iHealth Labs,...

[2:22 video clip] One person in Northern Beijing, 15 miles from Olympics, tests positive for Omicron so communist China locks down 20 million people.

"[American leaders] don’t think the balance of power matters any more…. If you think we’ve had trouble with the Russians, just wait for the trouble we are going to have with the Chinese. I am very popular in China. I go to China quite often. I usually start my talks by saying, ‘It’s good to be back among my people.’ Because when I get to China I’m intellectually more at home there than I am in Washington…." PROFESSOR JOHN MEARSHEIMER, 2016 Will there be a war over Ukraine? Have recent negotiations opened a path to peace? Unfortunately, the diplomats have...

Billionaire investor Chamath Palihapitiya is under fire for saying that he - and most Americans - "don't care" about abuses against the Uyghur minority in China. Mr Palihapitiya, a part-owner of San Francisco's basketball team, made the comments during a podcast discussion of whether President Joe Biden's action on the issue had helped him politically. The remarks drew social media backlash. Mr Palihapitiya later admitted that his comments "lacked empathy".

Olympic athletes must “exercise extreme caution” as they eat Chinese meat, which can be contaminated with the prohibited substance clenbuterol, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) warned last week. A WADA spokesperson said its guidelines for traveling athletes “only to eat at places given the all-clear by event organizers” in countries such as China remained in place, Olympic news website Inside the Games reported. It came after the German Anti-Doping Agency alerted its athletes to avoid Chinese meat at all cost and to seek an alternative over possible clenbuterol contamination. Concerns over contaminated Chinese meat have existed for decades, although China...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s recent cancelation of its plan to buy 50 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion from the United States showed that the close trading partnership between the UAE and China could be playing a role. The cancelation means that the UAE has chosen Huawei’s 5G technology over the F-35, which is used by the US as a “favor” to form military alliances with other countries. At the US request, the UAE previously agreed to halt the construction of a logistic port that is being built by China. But this time, strong US pressure has failed...

Kenneth Wollack, a Co-Chair of the Commission of Presidential Debates, participated in several “off-the-record” dialogues with Chinese Communist Party officials and influence groups, The National Pulse can exclusively reveal.Wollack – also the Chairman of the publicly-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) board – was one of ten principal delegates for what was called the inaugural U.S.-China High-Level Political Party Leaders Dialogue, hosted by the EastWest Institute “in partnership” with the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

GENEVA (AP) — Athletes at the Beijing Olympics were urged by human rights activists Tuesday to avoid criticizing China because they could be prosecuted. The IOC has not yet publicly committed to how athletes who speak out would be protected, activists said in a briefing hosted by Human Rights Watch. “Silence is complicity and that’s why we have concerns,” said Rob Koehler, the director general of the Global Athlete group. “We know the human rights record and the allowance of freedom of expression in China, so there’s really not much protection.” The IOC has not responded to requests in recent...

Is the COVID pandemic really reaching its final stretch? That’s what Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla would like the public to believe – he said during a recent series of interviews with the French media that life on earth should “return to normal” in the coming months. Of course, the “experts” said the same thing last winter. But the reality on the ground shows that we’re a long way away. Globally, the number of new COVID cases has declined from a single-day peak reached earlier this month. Meanwhile, a growing number of governments are taking extreme measures to try and crack...

Chamath Palihapitiya, a billionaire Silicon Valley venture capitalist and part-owner of the Golden State Warriors, attempted to backtrack from recent comments he made that “nobody cares,” including himself, about the ongoing Uyghur genocide in China.

The Golden State Warriors issued a statement regarding owner Chamath Palihapitiya’s controversial comments on Uyghur genocide in China. “Let’s be honest, nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs. You bring it up because you care and I think it’s nice that you care. The rest of us don’t care,” Palihapitiya said Saturday on a podcast that he co-hosts called “All In.” “I’m telling you a very hard, ugly truth. Of all the things that I care about, it is below my line.” “I think that human rights in the United States is way more important to me than human...

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