Free Republic

For a long time, I sympathized with Dr. Anthony Fauci. There he was, trying to deal with a pandemic caused by a virus no one knew much about. Sure, he was often wrong about pandemic-related matters, but so were plenty of others, on both sides of the political spectrum and in between, who opined on these subjects. Everyone was shooting in the dark.But at some point — possibly because of all the attacks on him, some of which were over-the-top, possibly because of a personality flaw or maybe old age — Fauci decided to cast himself as Mr. Science. Criticize...

Some of them, anyway. Donald Trump has endorsed candidates in 15 Senate contests to date, according to Politico. Many of them are incumbent Senators. They are expected to cruise to renomination by the GOP. But, says Politico, some of the others are struggling. Politico cites Mo Brooks in Alabama, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, Ted Budd in North Carolina, and Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania (Parnell recently withdrew from the race due to allegations of spousal abuse). Trump hasn’t endorsed Blake Masters, but did appear at a Mar-a-Logo fundraiser for the Arizona Republican. Masters is also struggling, according to Politico. I don’t...

We apologize deeply for the email that was sent today. $14.92 was our average donation amount this week. It was an oversight on our part to not make the connection to a year of colonization, conquest, and genocide for Indigenous people, especially before Thanksgiving.

I hadn’t heard of Winsome Sears until she appeared to acknowledge victory in her race for Virginia lieutenant governor on the evening of November 2. My immediate reaction was that a star is born. Of the politicians who spoke that night, she said what I most wanted to hear. Yesterday she appeared for a segment on CNN’s State of the Union with Dana Bash. Bash went in search of a cudgel with which to bash Sears and somehow landed on vaccines (see CNN story here). Neither our nor CNN’s State of the Union is good. However, I stand by my...

GET WOKE, EMPTY THE PEWS It would be a full-time job to chronicle all of the irrational reactions by liberals to the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, and scarcely worth the effort. But I do want to note one such response because it affects me directly: that of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA, of which my congregation is a member, sent out this “Pastoral Letter” authored by Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton. Here is the letter, titled “A pastoral message on the Rittenhouse acquittal,” with my comments interpolated: ​Dear church, In the book of Leviticus we read: “You shall not...

A whistleblower has leaked an email exchange dating to October 2020, in which the Chief of Staff to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tells the state’s Department of Health that the Department’s numbers on how covid was spreading were “less useful than what I expected” because “these numbers are small.” The Commissioner of Health said, in turn, that “people look at the primary case numbers and think those are small impacts that don’t justify the dial backs we propose.” She urges her staff to engage in “creative thinking.” LEAKED! Email from last fall shows Walz chief of staff scheming with Malcolm...

index, consumer confidence fell last month to 66.8, down from 71.7 the previous month. The latest number is the lowest in 10 years. This is another one of those “unexpected” developments. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected that the consumer confidence index would rise slightly. (Would you participate in a survey about what another survey will find? I wouldn’t.) The University of Michigan survey found: Half of American families anticipate bringing home smaller incomes after adjusting for inflation next year. One in four consumers say inflation has led to a reduced standard of living. Rising prices for homes, vehicles, and...

The New York Times has now published its fourth story on the investigation of James O’Keefe and Project Vertitas in connection with their possession of the diary of Ashley Biden. The otherwise questionable authenticity of the diary can be inferred from the involvement of the FBI. It has somehow become a federal case in the Age of Biden. Today’s story is “Project Veritas Tells Judge It Was Assured Biden Diary Was Legally Obtained.” Subhead: “But a search warrant in the case suggests the Justice Department believes the diary kept by the president’s daughter Ashley Biden was stolen.” The story is...

James O’Keefe et al. were raided under a federal search warrant procured by the FBI. Although O’Keefe was instructed to remain mum, the authorities promptly leaked news of the raid to the New York Times. All this in the matter of Ashley Biden’s diary. Among the items seized in the raid were O’Keefe’s cell phones. Fox News reports that a court order has enjoined the Department of Justice from extracting material without judicial oversight. BREAKING! The federal court has just ordered the DOJ to STOP extracting data from our client, journalist James O’Keefe’s phone, and ordered a hearing. Counsel for...

No, not necessarily. Electric vehicles may be fine cars; Teslas certainly are (while Chevy Volts evidently are not). But the idea that our hundreds of millions of gasoline-powered cars are going to be replaced by EVs within the next century is ridiculous. Where will the electricity come from? There is no sane answer to that question, especially since the only plausible solution–an enormous amount of nuclear power–is off the table. And of course, greatly expanding the electrical grid to accommodate EVs, mining the lithium necessary for batteries that vastly exceed anything that now exists, and developing an infrastructure of charging...

The movement seems to be spreading, and the college football season is just getting under way. Why do so many of America’s young people hold Joe Biden in contempt? I don’t know–there are many possible reasons–but it is good to see. Actually, I have mixed feelings about this one. In principle, I disapprove of crude language, especially when directed at an individual, and especially when joined in by crowds of people. On the other hand, given how the Democrats have treated every Republican president after Dwight Eisenhower, my capacity for outrage is exhausted. As far as I am concerned, the...

Only one man lost his job over Afghanistan. Lt. Col. Stuart Scheller challenged Biden’s incompetent and spineless Joint Chiefs of Staff to take responsibility for their dereliction of duty that led directly to the catastrophe in Afghanistan. Taking responsibility meant resigning. Biden’s military men immediately smeared him as mentally ill and forced him out of the Marines. Biden is directly responsible for the worst, most humiliating, most dangerous – yet completely avoidable – defeat in the history of American warfare. He has betrayed the country that elected him and that he is sworn to serve. Yet Biden has shown no...

There is little doubt that China was already giddy that they get to deal with U.S. “climate envoy” John Kerry, but having watched Biden’s weakness in Afghanistan, they aren’t even being coy about it any more. They are openly telling Kerry that the U.S. won’t get any Chinese cooperation on climate change unless the U.S. backs off pressuring China on other issues, such as trade, human rights, etc. The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday: China Warns Kerry Climate Cooperation Depends on Overall Ties HONG KONG—Senior Chinese officials told U.S. climate envoy John Kerry that continued U.S. hostility on a range...

The first estimate I saw from an administration spokesman was that there were between 5,000 and 10,000 Americans in Afghanistan. Just two weeks ago, Jen Psaki told us with seeming specificity that there were 11,000, or perhaps more: We are — there have been — how the process works, I should say — I’ll tell you — is that there are individuals who will self-identify as American citizens — that number is around 11,000. Beyond that — around the country — beyond that, though, there are individuals who may not have self-identified, who may come and request assistance and come...

This ad, produced by the Trump organization, may be the most devastating I have ever seen. Of course, they have an unprecedented amount of failure and incompetence to work with.

Finally President Biden submitted to an interview with George Stephanopoulos that went disastrously, and then . . . he headed to his Delaware home, where he remains at present. Why not back to Camp David? I have a theory: one thing we know about treating people suffering cognitive decline is that familiar surroundings help them cope. Is this the reason for hunkering down at his Delaware home? Yesterday I heard some startling numbers: at this point in his first year in office, President Trump had given more than 50 interviews to the media. At this same point in 2009, Obama...

Sometimes you have to turn to the foreign press to get the straight story on events in America, or events in which American actors feature. Like Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yesterday, per the Telegraph, “the Houses of Parliament delivered an unprecedented rebuke to a US president.” Parliament’s assessment of Joe Biden’s performance was, to put it mildly, unsparing: Joe Biden’s handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal was condemned as “catastrophic” and “shameful” on Wednesday…. “The West could not continue this US-led mission – a mission conceived and executed in support and defence of America – without American logistics, without...

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley held a press conference yesterday to address the national humiliation in process in Kabul (transcript here, video below). Their performance aggravated the disgrace. One can’t help but wonder if these folks have misspent their time absorbed in CRT, “white rage,” vaccinations, and sundry other distractions. General Milley appears to have been struggling to suppress a little rage of his own. Austin and Milley are Wynken and Nod. A review of the transcript makes it clear that Blinken (Secretary of State Antony) should also have made an appearance. Whatever happened...

Along with inherent intermittency and ridiculously high cost, one of the fundamental problems with wind turbines and solar panels is that they require an enormous quantity of minerals. This is because they are such low-density sources of energy. So meeting current U.S. electricity needs with wind and solar would require a 50% increase in global copper production, a tripling of global nickel production, and a 2,150% increase in global cobalt production. This would be the largest mining and manufacturing project in world history, and even if one assumes that sufficient supplies of those minerals exist somewhere, the vast increase in...

Tuesday was election day in a special race to select a successor to Rep. Ron Wright in Texas’ Sixth Congressional District. Wright died from the Wuhan coronavirus. The candidates were Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, and Texas state Rep. Jake Ellzey. Both are conservative Republicans. Susan Wright was the favorite and the leader in polls. She won the most votes in the primary, in which Ellzey barely finished second, just 354 votes ahead of the leading Democrat. In addition, Wright had the endorsement of former president Trump. But Ellzey won the race by a margin of 53-47. How did he do...