Free Republic

Thirty years after the restoration of Ukraine’s independence, the bonds between the United States and Ukraine are stronger than ever. Our shared values and commitment to a Europe that is whole, free, democratic, and at peace provide the basis for our strategic partnership. We are working together to address shared global challenges, including energy security and diversification, climate change, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Our relationship serves as a cornerstone for security, democracy, and human rights in Ukraine and the broader region. We are committed to Ukraine’s implementation of the deep and comprehensive reforms necessary to fulfill its European and Euro-Atlantic...

This interview is an hour and 18 mins. It's well worth the time to listen. Historian Stephen Kotkin has written 2 volumes on the biography of Stalin and is working on the 3rd and final volume. His knowledge of Russia leading up to Putin is comprehensive. He's optimistic about America and the western world.

"DEFCON LEVEL"

How did neoconservatives get their name?It started out as an insult. The founders of the movement were liberal intellectuals who became disenchanted with the direction of the American left during the 1960s and 1970s. Their original goal was to reform the Democratic Party from within. But mainstream leftists scoffed at these people who called themselves new, or neo-, liberals, saying it was more apt to call them neo-conservatives. The first neocons soon embraced the name. To them the prefix highlighted the fact that while they had once been leftists, they now had a new orientation. Irving Kristol, the godfather of...

A weird thing happened right after the Nov. 3 election: nothing. The nation was braced for chaos. Liberal groups had vowed to take to the streets, planning hundreds of protests across the country. Right-wing militias were girding for battle. In a poll before Election Day, 75% of Americans voiced concern about violence. Instead, an eerie quiet descended. As President Trump refused to concede, the response was not mass action but crickets. When media organizations called the race for Joe Biden on Nov. 7, jubilation broke out instead, as people thronged cities across the U.S. to celebrate the democratic process that...

The following is adapted from a speech delivered at a Hillsdale College reception in Overland Park, Kansas, on November 18, 2021. Here are two questions pertinent to our times: (1) How would you reduce the greatest free republic in history to despotism in a short time? and (2) How would you stop that from happening? The answer to the first question has been provided in these last two disastrous years. The answer to the second has begun to emerge in recent months. Both are worthy of study... In answering the second question, I will tell two stories that are suggestive....

Here are some of my thoughts on the billing of electricity with respect to homeowners with solar panel installations. The topic is complex. My suggestions are intended to be possible improvements and not perfections. There are a number of components that could go into the computation of a solar panel homeowner's bill: the capital cost of the related non-solar backup capacity, the cost of the utility lines dedicated to the customer, the cost to collect payment, the fuel cost of the electricity and credit for the electricity supplied to the grid by the customer. A CUSTOMER'S USAGE-BASED SHARE of the...

The red revenge... Pelosi's retirement vote... Water main breaks won't stop this... Time to kick some commie butts...

Research published earlier this week shows that a nasty Android banking malware has evolved, bringing with it a number of alarming new features—including the ability to factory reset your device after stealing your money. The malware in question is called BRATA, short for “Brazilian Remote Access Tool Android.” As you might expect from its name, it originally popped up in Brazil several years ago but has since spread to many other parts of the globe. Researchers with security firm Cleafy wrote this week that the newest version of the malware, first spotted in December, has a number of additional features...

For years an obscure doctor hailing from Australia’s hardscrabble west coast watched in horror as ulcer patients fell so ill that many had their stomach removed or bled until they died. That physician, an internist named Barry Marshall, was tormented because he knew there was a simple treatment for ulcers, which at that time afflicted 10 percent of all adults. In 1981 Marshall began working with Robin Warren, the Royal Perth Hospital pathologist who, two years earlier, discovered the gut could be overrun by hardy, corkscrew-shaped bacteria called Helicobacter pylori. Biopsying ulcer patients and culturing the organisms in the lab,...

A couple of years ago, I located a video of Michael Harrington, one of the founders of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), speaking to a group probably sometime in the 1970s about how they knew they couldn't start a third party so they were going to embed themselves into one of the existing political parties. I cannot find this video any longer and would like it for reference purposes. If anyone out there in FR Land can help, I'd certainly appreciate it.

A 28-year-old New Jersey man who was next to Ashli Babbitt when she was shot by police during the siege of the US Capitol building has been arrested, authorities said Wednesday. Thomas Baranyi, a Peace Corps member who appeared in a widely circulated clip showing his bloody hand, was busted Tuesday [01/12/2021] by FBI agents on charges of disorderly conduct and being in a restricted building, according to court documents. Baranyi appeared in court later that day and did not dispute that he appeared in the interview, officials said. He was released on $100,000 unsecured bond and barred from entering...

Late last year, popular podcast host Joe Rogan invited onto his show Dr. Robert Malone, a world-class Covid denier and medical quack, who told Rogan’s millions of listeners that public health experts advocating for vaccines today are akin to Nazi’s in the 1930s. Getting vaccinated against a deadly virus was a sign of “mass formation psychosis,” and Malone suggested Biden was leading a hypnotized cult. It was a misinformation-fest that Rogan said at the time he hoped would go viral. It did. Then the whole thing got banned by YouTube, where the Joe Rogan Experience gets uploaded, for violating the...

New York City authorities on Friday announced they have arrested a suspect in the Sunday morning killing of 19-year-old Kristal Bayron-Nieves. Winston Glynn, 30, has been charged with murdering Bayron-Nieves and criminal possession of a weapon. He has four prior arrests on charges of menacing, criminal possession of a weapon, assault and criminal mischief, authorities said during a press conference Friday. Glynn is accused of shooting Bayron-Nieves, who was working at a Burger King in Harlem after midnight, while she was struggling to unlock a cash register he demanded she open.

August 14, 1936 Rainey Bethea, executed August 14, 1936 at Owensboro, Kentucky, was the last public execution in America. He was publicly hanged for rape on August 14, 1936 in a parking lot in Owensboro, Kentucky (to avoid damage to the courthouse lawn by thousands of people who were expected to attend).

ABSTRACT Operation Warp Speed brought to market in the United States two mRNA vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna. Interim data suggested high efficacy for both of these vaccines, which helped legitimize Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the FDA. However, the exceptionally rapid movement of these vaccines through controlled trials and into mass deployment raises multiple safety concerns. In this review we first describe the technology underlying these vaccines in detail. We then review both components of, and the intended biological response to, these vaccines, including production of the spike protein itself, and their potential relationship to a wide range...

Background The recently emerged SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant raised concerns around potential escape from vaccine-elicited immunity....Here, we report VE of 2 or 3 mRNA-1273 doses against infection and hospitalization with omicron and delta, including among immunocompromised individuals. Methods This test negative study was conducted at Kaiser Permanente Southern California. Cases were individuals aged ≥18 years testing positive by RT-PCR with specimens collected between 12/6/2021 and 12/23/2021.......In analyses of 2-dose VE against delta infection by time since receipt of dose 2, VE at 14-90 days was 82.8% (69.6%-90.3%) and subsequently declined, with VE of 63.6% (51.8%-72.5%) at 91-180 days, 61.4% (56.8%-65.5%) at...

This is making the rounds on the internet. If you take the number of years between 2021 and your year of birth and then subtract those years from your year of birth, what year would that be? In my case, 2021-1968 = 53. Then 1968 - 53 is 1916. Just for fun, what year would you get?

A historic archive of Freemasonry amassed by the Nazis in their wartime purge could still reveal secrets about the society, researchers say. From insight into women's Masonic lodges to the musical scores used in closed ceremonies, the trove - housed in an old university library in western Poland - has already shed light on a little known history. But more work remains to be done to fully examine all the 80,000 items that date from the 17th century to the pre-World War II period.

A leading QAnon promoter who urged both her followers and strangers she passed on the street not to take the COVID vaccine died Thursday of the coronavirus, making her just the latest vaccine opponent killed by the disease. Cirsten Weldon had amassed tens of thousands of followers across right-wing social media networks by promoting the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy under the screenname “CirstenW.” She was prominent enough to become a sort of QAnon interpreter for comedian conspiracy theorist Roseanne Barr and started recording videos about QAnon with her. In late December, however, Weldon started showing symptoms of coronavirus infection. In her...