Free Republic

[…]Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC), tie the financial freedom of citizens to the government and the banking establishment. The central bank issues its centralized digital currencies, and essentially creates a new monetary system, "fiat on steroids", a system that takes everything that is bad in the fiat system, and adds more of it; surveillance, control, censorship, and enforcement capabilities. A modern prison? Indeed, the CBDC is the ultimate prototype of a prison without physical chains. By connecting CBDCs to digital identity cards, and to government systems such as universal basic income, social credits and more, we get the ultimate control...

I've heard and read spurious posts about 'mysterious white vans', 'unmarked buses', etc. allegedly transporting illegals to the interior of the country. I thought it was just conspiracy-theory/tin-hat stuff, save for the hard-to-ignore reports of clusters of outbreaks of disease in various parts of the country, including my State. Seriously: It never rose above the level of a few mysterious videos posted online (at least that I ever saw). Just today I saw an odd vehicle for the first time: A bus with the logo for GEO Transport on the side. This is the company http://www.geogroup.com/geo_transport_inc This is what I...

In the years since the Cold War ended, the U.S. military has become heavily dependent upon satellite communications to maintain its global connectivity. Without such links, it would be difficult for the military to operate in a coordinated fashion or exchange information critical to situational awareness. Defense experts have repeatedly warned that the availability of space-based communications could be compromised in future conflicts by the fact that 80-90% of all military traffic is transmitted on vulnerable commercial satcom channels. However, there is a related problem that far fewer military observers have noticed: only about 1% of defense communications today are...

MOSCOW, Aug 28--Russia on Thursday successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile designed to overcome anti-missile systems, short after the United States got signed a controversial anti-missile base deal in Poland earlier this month. The Topol RS-12M missile was tested "to develop equipment for potential combat use against ground-based ballistic missiles," Alexander Vovk, a spokesman for the forces, was quoted as saying by Interfax. In the face of Russia's vehement opposition, Warsaw and Washington signed a preliminary deal on August 20 basing part of the US missile shield in Poland which Russia considers as a threat to its national security. Moscow...

Another smear campaign/conspiracy theory/myth about the Bush administration has been pretty much debunked. For three years now, Joe Wilson, Democrats, communists and the liberal media have been saying that Karl Rove should be indicted and imprisoned for revealing the name of a CIA operative in order to discredit Wilson. Chris Mathews, one of the leading proponents of this conspiracy theory, acted as Rove's judge, jury and executioner. He insisted that Rove was the source. We now know this was not the case - and never was. It was a former State Department official who inadvertently disclosed the information One by...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

I'm a big fan of hot springs and usually visit them purely for pleasure. But last month my soak at Chena Hot Springs was all business. Well, mostly. The Alaskan Geothermal Working Group's first "summit" at Chena focused on geothermal as a power source for Alaska. Over the two-day meeting the 75 participants learned a lot -- like how Iceland is now getting almost 20 percent of its electricity from geothermal. We also heard from Roy Mink, who heads the U.S. Department of Energy's Geothermal Technologies Division in Washington, D.C. He told us the DOE considers Alaska one of a...

MADRID - The burial chamber where Francisco Javier Torronteras, the agent of the Special Group of Operaciones (GEO), was buried, has been found desecrated this morning in Madrid's South cemetery. Mr. Torronteras was killed in the Leganés explosion, by suicidal Islamic terrorists. The marble covering was set aside, and the body was removed. The covering was then replaced, apparently to escape detection. The investigators think that a dumbbell was used and that they had to be more than the two attackers, to be able to lower to the coffin from the second floor - where the chamber was located. Later,...