Free Republic

President Biden announced on Monday that his domestic policy adviser Susan Rice will be stepping down from her role. Rice, who has been in the role since the beginning of the administration, handled politically-charged issues from gun violence to student loans in her portfolio. Biden praised her in a statement, saying, “there is no one more capable, and more determined to get important things done for the American people than Susan Rice.” “[W]hat sets her apart as a leader and colleague is the seriousness with which she takes her role and the urgency and tenacity she brings, her bias towards...

Sad but true, history is now all but a forgotten subject in our schools. But economic history?With luck, you may find the topic in some esoteric book written by a professor and hidden on some dusty library shelf.Yet it is there, within those pages, that you will find the history of nations who harnessed the power of a balanced budget and assumed global dominance. Of equal importance will be the parallel lesson of those that failed to appreciate that the most sophisticated military in the world can win a war only to come home to a nation that will eventually...

Elbridge “Bridge” Colby is, as Donald Trump might say, straight out of central casting for a member of D.C.’s foreign policy elite. He has degrees from Harvard and Yale, a membership to Washington’s Metropolitan Club and the kind of coiffed hair and clipped accent that you’d expect from an American blue-blood. So pristine is his pedigree — his grandfather was head of the CIA — that a lightly fictionalized version of him appears in the New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s memoir of his undergraduate years at Harvard, titled Privilege. But Colby, far from being a deep state darling, is...

EXCLUSIVE: Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will headline the Heritage Foundation’s 50th leadership summit in April after skipping the annual Conservative Political Action Conference attended by former President Donald Trump earlier this month. DeSantis, who pundits widely expect to launch a White House bid later this year but who currently remains on the 2024 sidelines, will deliver a "major policy speech" concluding Heritage’s two-day annual summit on April 21 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, according to a press release by Heritage. "Conservatives are craving a bold and visionary leader who gets things done...

Just because counterproductive economic policies have been around for a long time doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try for a better world. There’s a proven pro-growth, pro-liberty path.Both Republicans and Democrats at the national level have put us down a path of slow growth, massive deficits, and high inflation. With a new Republican majority in the U.S. House and the daunting debt ceiling fight over the bloated $31.4 trillion national debt almost exclusively due to excessive spending, there’s a proven pro-growth, pro-liberty path.In 2022, the U.S. had real GDP growth of just 0.9 percent (Q4-over-Q4), the highest inflation in 40 years,...

There Must Be InvestigationsEight leading critics of the United States’s COVID-19 response have called for an investigation of the many failures of policy architects and key decision makers — at institutions ranging from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration to universities and hospitals — over their repeated mishandling of the pandemic. Given the immense harm inflicted on our society by the follies of a ruling class and their expert advisers who never failed to make a wrong decision when presented with the opportunity, as well as the fact that lives are still being destroyed...

US foreign policy collapsing with Ukraine

John Davis Ferron and his wife moved to the Village of St. James in 2020. They loved their new home, including two “very nice looking cranes” already in their front planter. The birds were placed there by the previous owner and had been there for years. Then came the dreaded knock on the front door by Community Standards. An anonymous complaint had been received about the birds. The couple grudingly removed the cranes. “However, many of our neighbors who also have cranes and other decor in there front yards are unaffected,” he said. Ferron said it’s a perfect example as...

The Chinese government is warning of an impending crackdown on protesters opposing the country’s “zero-COVID” approach to containing the coronavirus as protests spread. China’s Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission released a statement Tuesday saying it would “resolutely crack down on infiltration and sabotage activities by hostile forces” following rare protests that have become the largest in decades. The protesters are pushing back against China’s policy to try to keep the number of COVID-19 cases in the country to as close to zero as possible. This has led the government to consistently order widespread lockdowns throughout the pandemic, often for...

Why? Because that's what the policy is! Nobody is allowed to ask why, not even Stanford faculty. The policy is: "Just shut up, do what you are told, and don't ask questions." That's how science works. ... My previous article on Stanford’s vaccination policy was incorrect. I was fooled because they issued very unclear guidance on Oct 17, 2022 which basically said they encourage people to take the shots. I clarified this with Lucia Sinatra of NoCollegeMandates: the primary series and a booster is required for Stanford students. Why? This makes no sense. Well, it’s the policy. And even Stanford...

In Stunning Strategy Reversal, Pentagon Will No Longer Rule Out Use Of Nuclear Weapons Against Non-Nuclear Threat Well, we’re finally there: stocks are officially trading off nuclear war headlines. Moments ago, as part of his closely-watched speech, Vladimir Putin appeared to talk down the likelihood of a nuclear attack in Ukraine: Which, however, is more than can be said about the US. As Bloomberg just reported, the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy rejects limits on using nuclear weapons long championed by arms control advocates (and, in the not too distant past, by Joe Bide) citing burgeoning threats from Russia and...

BEIJING, Oct 15 (Reuters) - China's COVID-19 measures are the best, most cost-effective and will continue to improve, a spokesman for the ruling Communist Party said on Saturday. "We firmly believe that the light is ahead and perseverance is victory," Sun Yeli told a news conference in Beijing ahead of the party's 20th congress. Sun was responding to a question about whether China risks being isolated from the rest of the world if it continues with its zero-COVID policy.

It's no big secret that Big Tech's tentacles have a vast reach, with platforms like Facebook and Twitter admitting in so many words after the fact to deliberately suppressing news content prior to the 2020 presidential election that portrayed then-Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden and his international wheelin' and dealin' son Hunter in a less than flattering light being one of the more notable examples.But as has already been made clear by online payment systems like PayPal and Venmo, even more silencing of alternative points of view is needed in the form of financial strangulation if necessary, which can...

Friday, during an appearance on MSNBC, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas claimed to be taking a proactive approach on the U.S.-Mexico border to enforce the law. Diaz-Balart also blamed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) partly for the problems at the border.

During a portion of an interview aired on Friday’s broadcast of “The Issue Is,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg responded to a question on whether he likes California’s plan to ban the sale of new gas-powered vehicles by 2035 — a plan that drew praise from Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last week — and whether he thinks it could be a national model by stating that it’s “interesting” to see what states are doing and he’s “really interested to follow these developments” at the state level. Host Elex Michaelson asked, “California recently announced that, by 2035, all vehicles that are new...

President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive some student loans was attacked Sunday by former adviser to Bill Clinton, Paul Begala, who despaired at what he called “terrible policy.” Addressing the $300 billion loan bailout during CNN’s “State of the Union,” the Democrat strategist found any number of flaws in the plan.

There’s a brewing trade dispute between the U.S. and Mexico on energy policy, and it’s getting ugly fast. “Ooooh, I’m so scared,” Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) said at a Wednesday press conference, referencing a popular Mexican song and taunting the Biden administration by ordering his staff to play it. When reporters asked him how he proposes to solve the policy spat, AMLO was defiant: “Nothing will happen.” What is going on here? It started early on Wednesday, when U.S. officials argued that AMLO’s energy policies favor Mexico’s state-run electrical utility and oil companies and undermine American business....

Reporting from Washington — For decades, Republican doctrine has viewed Russia as a power to mistrust. But in Donald Trump’s GOP, Moscow’s sins seem to matter less. The platform written at the GOP convention in Cleveland this week eliminated references to arming Ukraine in its fight with Russia, which seized the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and has supported separatists in eastern Ukraine.Those represent sharp departures from U.S. policy and recent GOP positions and sparked immediate concerns that Trump would abandon treaty commitments to allies. Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who is not attending the convention in his home state, was among...

To President Biden, public health researchers, and the media, violent crime is all about guns. But a new survey finds that people are badly misinformed about how much violent crime involves guns. The average likely American voter is way off, thinking that over 46% of violent crimes involve guns. In fact, the true figure is less than 8%. Not surprisingly, those who believe that most violent crime involves guns are more likely to view gun control as the solution.

United Airlines on Monday said it would no longer enforce COVID mask mandates for employees and travelers after a federal judge’s move to void the Biden administration’s mask mandate for travelers. "Effective immediately, masks are no longer required at United on domestic flights, select international flights (dependent upon the arrival country’s mask requirements) or at U.S. airports," the company told FOX Business in a statement." "While this means that our employees are no longer required to wear a mask – and no longer have to enforce a mask requirement for most of the flying public – they will be able...