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”...

Electricity shortage in the southwest! In order to reduce costs and CO2 emissions, people in Baden-Württemberg should use as little electricity as possible on Friday from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. The transport capacity of the power lines from the north of Germany to the southwest was overused, the transmission system operator TransnetBW in Stuttgart informed via the app “StromGedacht”. In order to stabilize the grid, large amounts of electricity from conventional power plants and from abroad are needed, it continues. In 2024, Germany will import more electricity from its European neighbors than ever before! "With your help, the high...

There’s a raging debate on X right now about H1B visas and Vivek Ramaswamy is getting slammed for suggesting American culture is bad and thus can’t product high level talent that top tech companies want.Let’s start back from the beginning:THE HILL – Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, co-chairs of President-elect Trump’s new “Department of Government Efficiency,” are defending the tech industry’s reliance on foreign-born engineers as the incoming Trump administration prepares to crack down on immigration.Musk and Ramaswamy both pointed to a lack of engineers stateside.“The number of people who are super talented engineers AND super motivated in the USA...

The IRS portrayed the ultimatum as part of a diversity program for “development of future leaders” but Gary Shapley's lawyer alleges it is retaliation. IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley, whose testimony to Congress changed the course of the Biden family corruption case and resulted in Hunter Biden’s felony convictions, has been given an ultimatum from his agency: accept a forced transfer, a demotion or leave the agency, according to correspondence reviewed by Just the News. In a letter dated Oct. 15, Shapley was given three options for his future at the IRS: leave his post as a supervisory special agent in...

Politically incorrect words don’t kill, but Venezuelan gangs do. Donald Trump this week warned rally-goers in a small Wisconsin community that “if Kamala is reelected, your town and every town . . . will be transformed into a third-world hellhole.” He’s repeatedly said that Biden-Harris open borders are turning New York into a “third world nation” and America into a “third world disaster” — and the rhetoric makes left-wing elites apoplectic. Never mind the violence perpetrated by migrant gangs and the societal disorder caused by open borders: Their problem is with the words. NPR says the term “third world” is...

Earlier this week, crooked New York Judge Juan Merchan rejected a recusal request for the third time in Trump’s “hush money” case. The dirty judge’s decision was released to the public on Wednesday. Judge Merchan’s daughter’s platform made tens of millions of dollars from her father’s case against Trump. President Trump is STILL under a partial gag order in the case. Can someone please explain how this is legal? And why are Republicans not outraged by this criminal lawfare against the party’s presidential candidate? In May, Trump was convicted on all 34 felony counts after he was accused of paying...

First lady Jill Biden is unleashing fury at those who are trying to force President Joe Biden to quit his re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. ABC News host Martha Raddatz said following Biden’s interview with the network on Friday that sources inside the White House have told her that Biden’s “very tight inner circle” is pushing Biden to stay in the race and that he will win as long as he keeps going. “This of course includes his wife Jill who they said is lashing out at those who want him...

How Moldova Became the poorest country on the wealthiest continent. – Contents of this video ---------------------------- 00:00 - A Kidney for Fuel 04:19 - The Crossroads of Empires 07:39 - The Empire's Orchard 13:52 - Transition to Destitution 25:50 - Grand Theft Moldova

Transcript Search in video 0:00 as history continues evolving with Time 0:01 new and old countries come in and out of 0:03 existence pretty much all the time 0:05 dozens of new UN recognized countries 0:07 have come into existence in only the 0:08 past 30 plus years since the Cold War 0:10 Began coming to a close back in 1990 and 0:12 as a result the world map has officially 0:14 changed dozens of times in many of our 0:16 lifetimes East Germany faded out of 0:18 existence in 1990 when it was legally 0:20 absorbed by West Germany...

Around the world today, lots of countries claim to be “democracies”; but then the state thugs use various ploys to assure that no opposition can ever prevail. Among such ploys, the tactic currently in vogue is to gin up some collection of flimsy criminal charges to get the opposition leader and/or his/her supporters arrested or otherwise sidelined. If you haven’t been following the subject closely in recent months, you may not realize how pervasive the use of this tactic has become. Sure, imprisoning the opposition leaders has long been part of the playbook of the worst thugocracies. It’s what you...

A New Mexico man has died of complications from the bubonic plague as state health officials scramble to assess the ongoing risk in the region. The unidentified Lincoln Country resident had been hospitalized recently with the bacterial affliction, although the details surrounding how he contracted it and how his health deteriorated remain unclear, the state Department of Health (NMDOH) announced Friday. Despite medics’ best efforts, the patient succumbed to his symptoms, marking New Mexico’s first recorded case of bubonic plague since 2021. This was also the state’s first BP-related fatality since 2020; the state recorded four cases of the disease...

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) took to social media to tell former President Trump to “eat dirt” after Trump called the United States a third-world country in his Super Tuesday victory speech. “Trump just called America a ‘third world’ country.’ With all due respect (which is none), eat dirt scumbag,” Kinzinger posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “This is the best country on earth. You, are our biggest embarrassment and stain. But you’ll be over in a year. In a roughly 20-minute speech from his Mar-a-Lago estate after winning more than 10 primary contests, Trump highlighted a...

BABYLON, Suffolk County (WABC) -- A park in Babylon, Suffolk County reopened Friday after the discovery of several body parts belonging to a man and a woman the day before. A female head, leg and arm and two male arms were found, and autopsies are underway to determine the identities of the victims and what happened to them. The grisly discoveries began Thursday morning, when a group of teenagers walking near Babylon Memorial Grade School found a severed arm on the side of the road at the edge of Southard Pond Park. A girl in the group called her father,...

It’s now more than sixty years since the independence movement in the late 1950s and early 1960s transformed nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa into independent countries. Hopes soared for a new era of progress and prosperity. But six plus decades on, with essentially no exceptions (maybe Botswana?), the 49 countries of sub-Saharan Africa are about as poor as ever. The New York Times treats the subject in a big piece by Patricia Cohen a few days ago on September 18. Sorry if this is behind their paywall, but I subscribe to this stuff so that you don’t have to. In...

The scenes of asylum-seekers living on the streets of New York City are without parallel in America since the Great Depression. The migrant crisis in New York City is nearing a breaking point with shelters at capacity and asylum seekers now being forced to sleep on the street. pic.twitter.com/DHNUCKnMyU— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) August 2, 2023'Migrant crisis in New York City worsens as asylum seekers are forced to sleep on sidewalks.' From @CBSNews: https://t.co/YNOBVgs3uB— Byron York (@ByronYork) August 3, 2023Thousands of people who crossed the border have come to New York looking for the city to fulfill its promise of...

On Tuesday, April 25, 2023, Huw Pill, the Bank of England's chief economist, warned U.K. citizens that they need to accept that they are poorer and stop pushing for higher wages. "Yes, we're all worse off," he said, saying that seeking to offset rising prices with higher wages would only fuel more inflation. "So somehow in the U.K., someone needs to accept that they're worse off and stop trying to maintain their real spending power by bidding up prices, whether higher wages or passing energy costs through on to customers, et cetera." This was a somber assessment of the state...

Hundreds of teenagers stormed the streets of downtown Chicago, smashing car windows, attacking bystanders and sending panicked tourists running from the sound of gunfire. "Where are their parents at, that's my question," a woman who identified as a Chicago native told Fox 32 as the unruly scene played out in Downtown Chicago Saturday night. Fox 32 cameras captured video of teenagers flooding the streets while police struggled to restore order to the area. Large groups of teens were seen blasting music from Bluetooth speakers and spilling in front of traffic, with some attempting to gain access to the city's Millennium...

The legal team representing former President Donald Trump reportedly expects that the Manhattan judge will put a gag order on him as the case awaits trial. A source close to the legal team told the Daily Mail the judge will take an “unprecedented step” to silence the 2024 presidential candidate. The gag order could potentially undercut his ability to campaign on the issue of legal corruption during the primary. “The Trump legal team now thinks that the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the presidential frontrunner with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow,” the source said. “The Trump...

Bomb a pro-life pregnancy center? Cool. Bomb the RNC on 1/6? Cool. Burn cities, kill people, & destroy property for a whole summer? Cool. Kill Christians? Cool. Especially children. Speak up at a school board meeting? Domestic terrorist. Pry near an abortion clinic? Criminal. Criticize Transgender Day of Vengeance after the killer is transgender? Shut that down. Life in Biden's Amerika.

More than a million UK households will be offered money for them to cut their electricity use between 5pm and 6pm on Monday in a move that follows the National Grid bringing back mothballed coal plants today to ensure supply. Some people across Britain are to be offered up to £20 (~$24.76) to dramatically reduce their electricity usage between 5pm and 6pm on Monday evening in an attempt to curb the country’s electricity use in the face of potential shortages. It will be the first time such payments will be issued under the National Grid’s Demand Flexibility Service, which was...