Free Republic

OPINION China’s recent outcry over the alleged breach of ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ with the Philippines reveals a profound irony, given the history of its coercion and deceit There is a huge amount of insincerity and gall involved in the Chinese complaint that the Philippines had torn up the bilateral ‘Gentleman’s Agreement,’ between Beijing and Manila. While the term ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’ has an implicit assumption of ‘trust’ as a fundamental tenet besting a relationship, which may otherwise not be legally binding -- to even imagine that there has been any element of ‘trust’ between these two sparing countries, is to put oneself...

On Friday, April 26, 2024, Governor Bill Lee signed the popular school reform bill that would allow a few voluntary, highly regulated school staff to carry concealed firearms to protect the children under their care. The reform bill moves Tennessee from the few states that completely ban school staff from carrying concealed firearms to those states that allow staff to protect their children but with extreme restrictions. Most states have programs that are much less restrictive than the bill signed by Governor Lee. The bill, SB1325/HB1202, was popular in the state legislature, where it was passed with veto-proof majorities. The...

On March 8, 2024, the Florida legislature overwhelmingly voted for the HB0087: Taking of Bears. The Bill restores the ability of people in Florida to protect themselves, their pets, and dwellings from Florida black bears, which were administratively taken from them in 2012. The population of Florida black bears has skyrocketed, along with complaints and damage done by bears, particularly in Northern Florida.Florida legislative procedures require the governor to sign bills (after the legislature adjourns) within 15 days, or they become law without his signature. The timing starts when the governor receives the bill from the legislature.SECTION 8. Executive approval...

Attempting to quantify the effectiveness of defensive methods for use against bears suffers from significant selection bias. It is impractical to enlist large numbers of volunteers, randomly select half, give half a method of protection, leave the others as a control group, and place both in equal chances of being attacked. Instead, we rely on gathering data from people who were attacked and who had various types of defensive weapons. Obtaining a valid sample is nearly impossible because successful defenses have a strong bias of not being reported. The more spectacularly a defense fails, the more likely it is to...

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday implored the judge in charge of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago documents case not to force the government into complying with defense discovery motions. In January, attorneys for the 45th president accused Smith and his office of myriad discovery violations in a rambling defense filing that also asserted that the genesis of the federal Florida case could be traced to “politically motivated operatives” within President Joe Biden’s administration who launched a “crusade” against their client to hamstring his chances in the 2024 presidential election. In the government’s response in opposition, Smith aims to methodically...

Iran has launched an attack on Israel. Get he latest on the Iran attack on Israel in our LIVE breaking news coverage. In this interactive live stream host Steve Lookner brings you the latest updates on the Iranian attack on Israel and he’ll also read your comments and questions on the air!

As the Navy’s largest U.S. trade show gets underway on Monday, officers in charge of the service’s marquee shipbuilding programs won’t offer the usual briefings with reporters and analysts about them. That break from the tradition of sharing program updates at the Navy’s Sea-Air-Space Exposition comes just days after the Navy announced that four of its most critical shipbuilding programs are years behind schedule. The Navy’s top admiral and civilian secretary have still not responded to questions about a damning Navy report released Tuesday outlining the sweeping failure of the Navy and its industrial partners to make expected progress on...

The Navy today released a rare public accounting of major delays for key shipbuilding programs, with ships from nine programs running behind, in some cases up to three years. In total, the Navy forecasts a cumulative delay of more than 11 years, at a time when lawmakers and Pentagon planners agree that the Navy needs to be modernizing and growing for a potential conflict in the Pacific.

James Albert Maierle was a well-known educator and sportsman born in 1942 in Calumet, Michigan. He was an enthusiastic hunter, fisherman, and woodsman. He is well known in his local area and published a few stories in hunting magazines. He died in 2022. His son related the circumstances of his father’s shooting of a black bear in self-defense in the early 1960s on the Montreal River in the upper peninsula of Michigan. The location is only a few miles from where Maierle grew up. The area was pretty wild in the early 1960s. After the major copper mine shut down...

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged European nations to step up investment in their defense, saying the continent isn't ready for the current "prewar era." Tusk made the remarks during a recent interview with various European newspapers. "I don’t want to scare anyone, but war is no longer a concept from the past," he said before referring to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. "It’s real and it started over two years ago." On Friday, Italian news agency AGI reported that Italian fighter jets at a Polish military base in Malbork intercepted two Russian spy aircraft in the Baltic Sea. The Russian...

Religious women living on the frontlines in Judea and Samaria are taking up arms to defend their homes, particularly after the Oct. 7 massacre. Srugim, a news site catering to the religious Zionist community, reported on Sunday that women from the disputed territories have drawn conclusions from Hamas’s mass slaughter in the northwestern Negev. “I felt that you couldn’t rely on the army—no one, in fact. My husband was conscripted, and I needed a tool to save my children,” Esther Sultan, who lives in Beit El, a Jewish town north of Ramallah, told the news site. “It’s only a matter...

GILLESPIE COUNTY, Texas - Deputies are investigating after a woman called to report that she was kidnapped and drugged and had shot someone in Gillespie County. On March 15, around 12:42 p.m., deputies tracked the woman down near a winery in the 10800 block of East US Highway 290, where they say she described the vehicle and the weapon used. A deputy found the vehicle in the outside lane of westbound traffic and found a man dead in the front-seat area. An investigator interviewed the woman at the local hospital while deputies gathered evidence. Police identified the dead man as...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is preparing for how the state will deal with any potential Haitian migrants fleeing their home country for the U.S., should they enter from Florida’s coast. Personnel will be sent to the Florida Keys and Florida’s southern waters. With the governor’s orders, up to 133 Florida State Guard soldiers will be deployed to assist.

The aerospace industry desperately needs young talent if we expect it to grow, innovate, and continue providing the services we need and expect in the modern era. The jobs are plentiful, but the skilled workers are not. The leaders of the industry must do a better job of communicating with the next generation of aviation pilots, machinists, and mechanics. If they don’t, the future of aerospace is in jeopardy.A recently released industry report a detailed that “the aircraft mechanic shortage has reached a critical point" and the outlook for growth is precarious. This is detrimental not only to commercial aviation,...

SALINE COUNTY, Ark. – Deputies said an armed burglary suspect was shot by a Saline County man returning home Tuesday when he saw the suspect draw a weapon as he left the man’s house. Officials with the Saline County Sheriff’s Office said deputies responded to a call of shots fired at the home in the 10000 block of East Sardis Road. When they arrived, the deputies said they found the homeowner, who told them he had called 911. The man said he saw the suspect coming out of his house pointing a firearm at him. The homeowner then said he...

On February 21, 2024, the Florida Senate amended and passed HB 87. The bill allows people threatened by bears to use deadly force to protect themselves when they reasonably believe a bear is a danger to themselves, others, or their pets or is causing significant damage to their dwelling. The bill has already passed the House. The changes made in the Senate are not large. It seems likely the bill will end up on Governor DeSantis’ desk and be signed into law. Floridians had the authority to protect themselves and their property from bears until the Florida Fish & Wildlife...

There are currently around 600 ranges in Finland, compared with 2,000 at the turn of the 21st century. Consider the trend. It means 1,400 shooting ranges were closed and or destroyed in the last 25 years. It coincides well with the fall of the Soviet Union, and the belief Finland no longer had to worry about invasion. The hard lessons of the Winter War of 1939 - 1940 were minimized. Although completely outmatched by Soviet manpower and material, Finns fought the Soviet behemoth and kept their independence. They are said to have caused 300 thousand Soviet casualties while suffering only...

A recent article in the Telegraph was republished on Yahoo. The article touted the Finnish government’s decision to open 300 shooting ranges to encourage the development of shooting skills by Finnish citizens, for the purpose of national defense. From the article: “This is because of our defence model, which benefits from people having and developing their shooting skills on their own.”In 2023, Finland’s new Right-wing coalition agreed plans to increase the number of ranges to 1,000 nationwide by the end of the decade, as well as plans to allow diabetics to serve in the army and encourage more women to...

On February 8th, 2024, my brother had started his morning exercise walk. It was 6:27 am his time when I received the phone call; it was still dark in northern Wisconsin. It wasn’t what I expected.Only 200 yards from his home, on a lonely country lane with dense forest and brush on both sides, he was confronting a pack of wolves, their reflective eyes easily visible in the beam of his headlamp. The pack of six was less than 30 yards away. Wolves are common in the area. Common and protected. The brush was fairly thick; the eyes were relatively...

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now estimates that, this year, 2024, the U.S. federal government will spend more on interest on the national debt than on national defense. Or Medicare. You read that correctly. The CBO says that the federal government will spend $850 billion on defense, as opposed to $870 billion on debt interest. Moreover, interest payments on the national debt are the fastest-growing part of the preposterously bloated yet still fast-growing federal budget … and are projected to reach a mind-blowing $5.4 trillion by 2053. So, effectively, taxpayers are going to have their hard-earned money confiscated to pay...