Free Republic

Ukraine and Russia poured reinforcements into eastern Ukraine this weekend, preparing for what is likely to become the war’s biggest battles as refugees continued to flee the looming Russian assault. Russia’s main objective now is to seize the parts of the eastern Donbas region not yet controlled by Moscow. Unlike the first phase of the six-week-old conflict, that shift is forcing Ukraine into fighting conventional battles involving tanks, artillery and aircraft on flat, often barren terrain that allows Russia to leverage its superiority in military equipment.

When seeing America’s we’ll-fight-to-the-last-Ukrainian approach to Russian aggression, many Arabs conclude that the U.S. can’t be counted as a security guarantor, and that nuclear weapons—which Russia has, Iraq didn’t and Ukraine gave up—make all the difference. To be sure, many of my Arab interlocutors have perfected the art of expressing grievance through historical cherry-picking: highlighting America’s inadequacies while sidestepping their own governments’ follies and self-inflicted wounds. The reality is more complicated, and no critique of American policy can justify indulgence of Russia’s criminal behavior or reluctance to lend assistance to the Ukrainian people. These Arabs have a point, however. If...

In a secret chat room run by a group of Russian-affiliated cybercriminals, a hacker expressed excitement about a plan to attack and disable more than 400 U.S. hospitals. “There will be panic,” the hacker wrote, in Russian. The hacking enterprise, called the Trickbot Group by federal prosecutors, and its affiliates had already collected hundreds of millions of dollars by shutting down emergency rooms, city governments and public schools since 2018. Security researchers and U.S. officials say the internal conversations amount to the most complete and candid public look yet at the operations of a criminal ransomware enterprise. A malware developer...

A credible deterrent is designed to alter a potential aggressor’s calculations of risk and reward. Vladimir Putin determined that the potential cost of invading Ukraine was relatively low, and on Feb. 24 he attacked. It will be the job of historians to try to understand why deterrence failed. Deterrence involves two factors: capability and will. Capability means having the military strength to deliver intolerable damage to an adversary. Will is the determination to use that strength and deliver that damage. .....snip..... By signaling that the U.S. had no intention of using its capabilities, the Biden administration seriously weakened their deterrent...

Russia’s Push for Self-Sufficient Economy Fails Before Western Sanctions Building Fortress Russia was supposed to protect the country from sanctions. It is still highly dependent on imports. A Uniqlo store in Moscow this month. Sanctions have hit consumers who are used to getting imported products. Russia spent years trying to wean itself off imported goods to fortify its economy against Western sanctions. Now, the impact of sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made it clear that Moscow’s efforts didn’t work. Russia’s continued dependence on imports means it is facing a painful economic readjustment. Parts of Russia’s auto industry...

Melinda French Gates said she was upset with Bill Gates’s past meetings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, addressed the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s earlier affair and said she and her former husband have a working relationship focused on philanthropy. Ms. French Gates, speaking in her first televised interview since the billionaires’ divorce last year, cited many matters that led to their split. But she made it clear to Mr. Gates that she didn’t like that he had held meetings with Epstein, she said in the CBS program that aired Thursday. She said she herself had met once with Epstein, who...

Thank you Peggy https://t.co/eiy4gKyeYs— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 12, 2022 wsj Republicans, Stand Against Excess Be the party of the big center—of normal, regular people—against the forces of ideology assailing them. By Peggy Noonan Feb. 10, 2022 6:35 pm ET "A great party can’t be a cult. Cults are by definition marginal, not of the majority. Donald Trump brought new voters in, it’s true, and the party would do well to hold them by taking good stands. But don’t forget the votes he lost. He never came close in two tries to winning the popular vote, he lost once-Republican suburbs,...

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board threw a big wrench into the media machine celebrating President Joe Biden’s so-called win on the better-than-expected January jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics published a Feb. 4 report showing the economy added 467,000 jobs, which blew past estimates. The media swallowed the news whole. CNBC’s headline was: “Payrolls show surprisingly powerful gain of 467,000 in January despite omicron surge.” ABC News salivated: “US economy defies omicron and adds 467,000 jobs in January.” But The Journal had a surprisingly different take, and it was an eye-opener: “Who knows what to make of Friday’s...

The Wall Street Journal called out American companies for sponsoring the Olympics in a country the U.S. has accused of genocide.

There’s no reason for Kamala Harris to participate any longer in the failing presidency of Joe Biden. If she chooses to assert her constitutional authority and seeks to build a majority political coalition, she can unify the country, ensure American prosperity and win election to the presidency in 2024. Starting today she can simply decide unilaterally to dominate policy-making in what’s left of the Biden era. This week brings more reports of her struggle to add value to Team Biden. But this team is losing and she can best help the country and herself by entering the political equivalent of...

Eleven people including Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers, have been indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy, marking an escalation of the Justice Department’s investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. An indictment unsealed Thursday accused Mr. Rhodes, 56 years old, of organizing an armed plot to storm the Capitol and stop the certification of President Biden’s election victory. The case marks the first time the Justice Department has filed charges of sedition in connection with the attack and comes days after Attorney General Merrick Garland...

An elitist economist is insulting his readers by doubling down on the much-criticized notion that spiking inflation is only “transitory.” Princeton University professor Alan Blinder penned an absurd Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined, “When It Comes to Inflation, I’m Still on Team Transitory.” Blinder even conceded in his subheadline that “transitory” apologist Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell “may have retired the term," but proceeded to claim that "bottlenecks and shortages should be over soon.” This was the same Blinder who wrote an equally absurd March 15 op-ed headlined: “There’s No Need to Panic About a Little Inflation.” Another Blinder piece...

The Wall Street Journal has released its first election poll of this cycle. Not only is it more extensive than some past surveys this year, but it delivered some very interesting results. For example, one question measured what issue Americans believe should be the top priority of a president. We’ll get to that in a moment — because it shows how screwed Democrats are.But first, let’s get to the topline numbers. As expected, they were just terrible for the president. Joe Biden, in all his glory, clocked in at only a 41 percent approval rating. But perhaps worse, the disapproval...

<p>In recent days, Taliban representatives began telling gatherings of villagers in the southern province of Kandahar, one of the country’s main opium-producing regions, that the crop—a crucial part of the local economy—would now be banned.</p><p>This followed a statement by Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid at an Aug. 18 news conference in Kabul that the country’s new rulers won’t permit the drug trade. Mr. Mujahid at the time didn’t offer details of how the Islamist group intends to enforce the ban.</p>

Truthandaction.org reports: A classic case of ‘hiding out in the open’. They don’t have much of a choice since it is quite obvious that they would want nothing more than to kill of our nation’s sovereignty and join the elite as ‘rulers of the world’.

The Biden administration is making preparations to invoke an emergency civil aviation program, while adding to the number of U.S. bases that can house Afghan evacuees

ORLANDO—Nurse Darlene Andrews stood before a small crew responsible for stopping the latest pandemic surge from overrunning seven of AdventHealth’s Orlando-area hospitals. She quickly listed occupancy at each hospital. Six were beyond full capacity, with one at 123% for adults. Nearby wall-mounted screens streaming hospital data showed more than 90 patients—some with Covid-19, some seeking other care—needed beds. One had been waiting more than two days. A hospital in Altamonte Springs, Fla., and another east of downtown Orlando were the current hot spots, nurse Andrew Stakelum told the group, a team that oversees work that has become critical for U.S....

The Food and Drug Administration claims to follow the science. So why is it attacking ivermectin, a medication it certified in 1996? Earlier this year the agency put out a special warning that “you should not use ivermectin to treat or prevent COVID-19.” The FDA’s statement included words and phrases such as “serious harm,” “hospitalized,” “dangerous,” “very dangerous,” “seizures,” “coma and even death” and “highly toxic.” Ivermectin fights 21 viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the cause of Covid-19. A single dose reduced the viral load of SARS-CoV-2 in cells by 99.8% in 24 hours and 99.98% in 48 hours, according to a...

Communist China detained a reporter from The Wall Street Journal who sneaked to the cave in southern China where the Wuhan Institute of Virology collected coronavirus samples approximately eight years ago after six miners became extremely ill, three of whom later died, after cleaning out the cave’s bat feces.The backstory about the six miners, which was reported nearly a year ago by The Sun, took place in a copper mine in the mountains of southwest China in the Yunnan province.“Chinese authorities have obstructed independent efforts to investigate the mine, setting up a checkpoint nearby where unidentified men stopped several foreign...

Let’s face it, lots of people aren’t very good at math, even rather basic math. On the other hand, some people are quite good at it. If you aren’t very good at math, there are plenty of other things for you to do in life. My own field of law practice mostly does not require much skill at math, and there a plenty of math-challenged people who are nevertheless very good lawyers. But some big societal decisions require a certain level of math competence. Some of these decisions can involve multi-hundreds of billions of dollars, or even multi-trillions of dollars....