Free Republic

people are familiar with the common construct of “the third world.” they are also familiar with the idea of “the first world.” what’s interesting to me is the idea of how one becomes the other and the presumption of the causality and the pathways by which that occurs. it’s worth some exploration. worryingly, this is a topic on which i think most people’s intuitions and utopian hopes are hopelessly wrong to the point of being outright dangerous. in an attempt to clarify and circumvent such, i’d like to add a new construct to the list, that of “the second world”...

Western governments undermine elections, religious freedom, free markets, and free speech. The same Western leaders who speak endlessly about “protecting Democracy” continue to rig elections, outlaw political parties, and prosecute candidates. Germany has declared Alternative for Germany — now the country’s most popular party — an “extremist group” on par with domestic terror organizations. The European Union helped Marxist globalists in Romania invalidate a presidential election and ban the winner from office. France and Brazil have followed the U.S. example of bringing ludicrous criminal charges against popular anti-Establishment politicians, and while President Trump overcame the sham prosecutions targeting him, Marine...

Iran’s so-called “Supreme Leader,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was reportedly persuaded to talk with the Trump administration about a new nuclear deal after being told by advisers that the regime could collapse if he did not. Khamenei had previously rejected talks with Trump. But with Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign of sanctions, his military action against the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen, and Israel’s destruction of Iran’s air defenses last year, Khamenei’s advisers appear to have believed that the regime was on the ropes. The New York Times reported Friday: Mr. Khamenei had publicly and repeatedly banned engaging with Washington, calling it unwise...

Many small businesses are still threatened by the trade war facing the United States, even though President Donald Trump suspended most tariffs for 90 days. The escalating tariffs on China have halted imports — and manufacturing — for many American companies, including mom-and-pop stores and family-owned businesses that cannot easily shift production or sourcing to other countries. ‘This is life or death,” says Rick Woldenberg, the CEO of Learning Resources, a century-old toy manufacturing company that makes educational materials for thousands of American schools. Woldenberg told Breitbart News that the Trump administration’s tariffs on China — which hit 145% as...

Russia's economy is facing further turmoil as the price of its flagship Urals crude oil plummets to its lowest value since early 2023. On Friday, Russian Urals oil prices fell to about £43 per barrel ($53), with projections suggesting they could dip to £40 ($50) if the downward trend in global oil prices continues. -snip- The oil price crisis comes just as Russia faces rising domestic inflation, with everyday goods, such as food and fuel, becoming increasingly expensive. Ordinary Russians feel the impact, with the cost of basic goods, including bread, milk, and potatoes, rising dramatically. The country now finds...

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - The Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case on Monday that challenges Louisiana’s congressional map after it was redrawn to include a new majority-black district. The case began years ago, when Louisiana’s state legislature drew a congressional map following the 2020 census. It included one majority-Black district out of the state’s six. The map was challenged because roughly a third of the state’s population is Black. “After years and years of litigation, the legislature was finally compelled to do the right thing and pass a map that provided black voters with a fair opportunity to...

Dark energy, a mysterious force that scientists believe is behind the accelerated expansion of the universe, is weakening — which could result in the universe over the course of billions of years collapsing on itself, according to new research. An international group of more than 900 researchers studying the expansion of the universe presented their findings on Wednesday during the American Physical Society's Global Physics Summit in Anaheim, Calif. The scientists, who are collaborating on something called the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI) are studying the history of the universe's expansion out to 11 billion years in the past. They...

Hollywood may soon need to bid farewell to a visual effects giant credited with bringing classic films such as “Gone with the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” to full color. Technicolor, the 110-year-old company that pioneered color motion picture processes, told its employees this week that it has been unable to find emergency investments to keep the firm afloat. “Due to inability to find new investors for the full Group, despite extensive efforts, [Paris-headquartered] Technicolor Group has filed for Court ‘recovery procedure’ before the French Court of Justice to give a chance to enable to find solutions,” Technicolor Group...

Feet of snow across parts of central New York caused more than two dozen homes and businesses to collapse under its weight, according to Oswego County officials. A lake-effect snowstorm started on Feb. 14 and did not let up until Feb. 19, piling feet of snow on roofs. According to the National Weather Service’s Buffalo office, the highest weekly totals included 79.1 inches in Palermo and 55.8 inches in Minetto. On Feb. 19, the city of Oswego had 20 inches of snow on the ground, the highest snow depth so far in February, according to the NWS.

A once quietly prosperous city in California's bay area has been gripped by a crime wave. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Program has named the city of Vallejo, just 30 miles outside San Francisco, as having one of the highest crime rates in the state. The problem has become so bad that frustrated residents have started a petition pleading with Governor Gavin Newsom to increase the police presence in the area. 'As a resident of Vallejo, I am deeply concerned about the safety of my community. Vallejo is currently experiencing an alarming increase in crime rates,' Paula Conley, 55, wrote...

Certain 2024 election results in California took many by surprise. The Golden State's residents, for example, rejected another term for progressive Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, backed by billionaire George Soros. They also overwhelmingly voted — at more than 70% — in favor of Proposition 36, the Homelessness, Drug Addiction and Theft Reduction Act, which seeks to undo portions of Proposition 47 from 2014 by increasing penalties for some crimes. The proposition, which took effect Dec. 18, will allow felony charges to be filed against those possessing certain drugs and those who commit thefts under $950. Additionally, people...

It’s high time to shatter the myth of Nancy Pelosi as a master strategist. Nobody deserves more blame than the ridiculously self-titled “speaker emerita” for the Democrats’ $1 billion electoral collapse. Under her ruthless leadership, her party lost the White House, the House, the Senate and the popular vote. You can’t say that enough. Voters rejected the Dems coast to coast, even in Pelosi’s deepest-blue home city of San Francisco, which saw a 7-point swing to Donald Trump. She’s the only speaker in history to have lost control of the House twice. She’s finished. The empress emeritus has no clothes,...

New Hampshire is now a tossup state after leaning toward Vice President Kamala Harris, RealClearPolitics forecasted on Thursday. The forecast suggests former President Donald Trump is expanding his path to victory by challenging Harris in a state that political experts expect the vice president to win. The same is not true for Harris, who does not seem to be making any inroads into solid red states: The shift came after New Hampshire Journal/Praecones Analytica released a poll showing Trump leading Harris by 0.4 points (50.2- 49.8 percent). “There’s a reason Kamala Harris has been spending money in New Hampshire. She’s...

Russia has made sweeping advances in recent days that threaten to outweigh the gains made by Ukraine in its cross-border attack into the Kursk region. Russian forces are just a few kilometres from the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a crucial logistics hub used by the Ukrainian military. Home to a key railway station and major roads, Pokrovsk is an essential supply and reinforcement point for Ukraine’s troops on the eastern front line. Critics in Kyiv fear that the country's military has made a serious miscalculation.

Four key pillars of the global climate are melting in the heat trapped by rising fossil fuel emissions, a new study has found. The relatively stable climate that nurtured human civilization depends in large part on these structures: the ice sheets of Greenland and West Antarctica, the Amazon rainforest and the Atlantic currents that warm Europe. Under current policies, the world faces a scenario in which those pillars have roughly even odds of either surviving or collapsing during the next three centuries, according to results published Thursday in Nature Communications. The scientists warned that if the pillars are fatally undermined...

Germany is not the well-functioning, environmentally super-conscious, high-tech nation it used to be. You go to a train station, half the trains are cancelled, the other half is delayed, the escalators are broken, the announcements are barely audible, and in the unlikely event that you can connect to the wifi it’s so slow that by the time the news is streaming it’s become a historical documentary. Or maybe it’s quantum wifi, collapses the moment you touch it

Martin Armstrong sees striking similarities between the multitude of crises that plague the modern world and the conditions just before the fall of the Roman empire. Martin argues that endless debt issuance, wars for profit, unchecked migration, and rampant political corruption are setting the stage for a future where many Western countries cease to exist as we know them.

In the wake of two high-profile building collapses last year, the City Council will pass a bill Thursday that overhauls the Department of Buildings’ inspection system by requiring the agency to investigate properties proactively.

According to the mathematician [Immanuel Niven], the "Putin system" is beginning to collapse, exactly what he predicted mathematically already in March: "The announced drastic tax increases in Russia (the highest tax increases in the history of modern Russia) as well as Putin's recently published slogans (according to which "everyone must work as if they were at the front") are dramatic signs that the toxicity of the Russian war economy is reaching a critical level." In a post on X some days ago, he explained what this 'toxicity' means: "If the cost of replacing material losses (in such a way that...

School systems complain about the rising costs of handling illegal immigrants. Here’s a spotlight on two cities, one in Massachusetts, the other Colorado.In Stoughton, Mass., students arrive with traumatic pasts and little English. The same is happening in Denver.The Wall Street Journal comments on The Massive Immigration Wave Hitting America’s ClassroomsMillions of migrants, most seeking asylum, have crossed the border in recent years and have been allowed to settle in the U.S. until a federal immigration judge decides their fate, a process that can take years. Among the record numbers, federal data suggest, are as many as one million children...