Free Republic

With Russia’s central bank having just profoundly altered the international trade and monetary system by linking the Russian ruble to both gold and commodities, journalists in Moscow asked me to write a Q and A article on what these developments mean, and the ramifications of these changes on the Russian ruble, the US dollar, the gold price and the global system of currencies. This article has been published on the RT.com website here.Since RT.com is now blocked and censored in many Western locations such as the EU, UK, US and Canada, and since many readers may not be able to...

"★★★ YOUR PATRIOT PATH TO FREEDOM! ★★★ A Democrat Governor has declared an end to the pandemic all as Biden’s control over his own party collapses! In this video, we’re going to look at the declaration by one Democrat governor that the covid emergency is over and done with, we’re going to see how he’s the latest Democrat politician to turn his back on Bumblin’ Biden, and stick with me to the very end of this video when I’ll show you how more voters than ever are abandoning the Democrats in droves; you are NOT going to want to miss...

A noted pollster is warning that Joe Biden's approval numbers, though slightly positive, are a dark omen because they are significantly below most recent presidents. "The fact he's only in the low 50s right now is a really bad sign for Joe Biden," pollster John McLaughlin said in a report by Just the News. He said the problem is that the president is governing as an extreme leftist – after having promised the American people he would be a moderate. "He's taken what should have been very popular issues — COVID relief, infrastructure — that Americans overwhelmingly support and turned...

The president’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent – an all time low in CNN polling and 8 points lower than where Obama was only three weeks ago. Moreover, 56 percent of all Americans think the president has fallen short of their expectations… In even worse news for congressional Democrats, likely voters say they are considerably more likely to vote for a candidate the president opposes than one he supports. On the other hand, 50 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a Tea Party-backed candidate while a third of Americans said Tea Party...

Even before "State of Play," his new movie celebrating the watchdog role of newspapers, Ben Affleck was partial to print. He grew up a reader of The Boston Globe and can't imagine his hometown paper going out of business. "I was definitely shocked to hear about the Globe," the actor told us, referring to The New York Times Co.'s threat to shutter New England's newspaper of record unless it gets concessions from the paper's unions. "I fundamentally misunderstood what was going on. Boston.com has 5.6 million readers a month, and yet this hugely successful news gathering operation is going out...

Pakistan's security forces have missed the opportunity to capture al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior government official has said. Rehman Malik, the adviser to Pakistan's prime minister on security affairs, said on Monday they also received a report al-Zawahiri's wife had been in the tribal region of Mohmand. Pakistani forces stormed the location but did not find the couple, he said, without indicating when the raid took place. He said al-Zawahri moved between Mohmand and the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Paktika."We certainly had traced him at one place, but we missed the chance. So he's moving in Mohmand and,...

And when Democrats fail to act on Republican initiatives, expect Bush to denounce the do-nothing Congress as Harry Truman did back in 1948. Moreover, Bush can create showdowns with Congress on issues where he has the stronger hand, as Bill Clinton often did, putting Democrats into no-win situations that will quickly erode their support. Thus, we see that even if Democrats retake control of the House and maybe the Senate as well, there are many challenges that await them. The Republicans will still have a lot of leverage against Democratic initiatives. And let us not forget that everything that goes...

Do you need some motivation to get you to the polls today? I do. And here's mine. As you know, I've been extremely disappointed by the Republicans who have been in control of Congress and the presidency since 2001. They waited far too long to act on border security. They increased spending beyond imagination. Far too often, they talked and acted like Democrats. I've been a strong advocate of not voting for the lesser to two evils as a means of stimulating more competition in the political marketplace. But I'd like to present the other side of that story today,...

David Cameron has made another break with the Tories' past, admitting that Margaret Thatcher been had been wrong to brand Nelson Mandela's African National Congress "terrorists" during the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Writing in The Observer, the Conservative leader praised the former president - whom he met on Wednesday during a visit to Johannesburg - as "one of the greatest men alive". "The mistakes my party made in the past with respect to relations with the ANC and sanctions on South Africa make it all the more important to listen now," he wrote. "The fact that there is...

Offenders got more than token citations in Denver On Oct. 2, 1937, in the somewhat shady Lexington Apartments at 1200 California St. in Denver, Samuel R. Caldwell became the first person in the United States to be arrested on a marijuana charge. Caldwell, a 58-year-old unemployed laborer moonlighting as a dealer, was nailed by the FBI and Denver police for peddling two marijuana cigarettes to one Moses Baca, 26. If you're wondering why it took the U.S. government so long to bust a pot dealer, it's because until the Marijuana Stamp Act was passed - on you guessed it, Oct....

Aug 22, 7:08 PM (ET) TOWSON, Md. (AP) - Armed with a tape measure, Sophia Jennings keeps her eyes open for overgrown weeds and the owners of the yards that have them. Jennings, a Baltimore County code enforcement officer, checks on residents who are not in compliance with rules about overgrown lawns. In most area jurisdictions, letting grass grow more than a foot high, or 8 inches in Baltimore city, is against the law. In some jurisdictions, the grass "cops" come in the form of code enforcement officers. In others, public works officials or environmental health workers are assigned to...

No, seriously. Remember Republicans? Sober men in suits, pipes, who'd nod thoughtfully over their laterst paen to market-driven fiscal conservatism while grinding out the numbers on rocket science. Every one of those serious-looking 1950's-1960's science guys in the movies -- Republican to a one. They were the grown-ups. They were the realists. Sure they were a bummer, maaaaan, but on the way to La Revolution you need somebody to remember where you parked the car. I was never one (nor a Democrat, really, more an agnostic libertarian big on the social contract, but we don't have a party ...),...