Free Republic

Last year saw “the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the United States in more than a decade,” according to a report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. In 2023 — the first full calendar year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade — there were an estimated 1,026,690 unborn babies killed in abortions in the formal U.S. health care system and a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, the institute’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study found. That number is a ten percent increase in abortions from 2020.

House Republicans have moved quickly and strongly to the right, embracing the most extreme positions on cultural issues (including abortion, gay and trans rights, and guns) and isolationism on foreign policy and national security. snip The House now has a long list of extreme ideologues, ranging from Eli Crane and Andy Biggs of Arizona to Clay Higgins of Louisiana, Troy Nehls of Texas, Bob Good of Virginia, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who don’t care if government works at all. In fact, they are content with gridlock, as they pander to the needs of former...

The reputation of the “Iron chancellor” Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) was established by his remarkable achievement in unifying Germany through three short victorious wars, from 1864-1870, that completely remade the European balance of power, and then orchestrating a generation of peace through a series of complex treaties that placed his country in amicable relations with all the continent’s great powers, except the irreconcilable French who were kept in a permanent state of diplomatic isolation. However, in 1890, Germany’s blundering new sovereign, Kaiser Wilhelm II, dismissed Bismarck from office and subsequently rejected the renewal of the Russo-German Treaty of Accord, which...

Conspiracy theorists celebrated this week after the arrest of the CEO of an election software company, who they accused of flipping the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. But is their rejoicing actually valid? The fiasco began on Monday after the New York Times released an article centered around a small elections company in Michigan that had become the target of unfounded voter fraud claims. The company, known as Konnech, had been accused of not only having secret ties to China but of giving the Chinese Communist Party backdoor access to personal data on roughly two million poll workers in...

Liz Truss, the U.K.'s new prime minister, billed herself to the public as that, but the mess she's made of the British economy, which includes a cave-in on a proposed tax cut, is pretty much the opposite of What Thatcher Would Do. According to Fox News:The U.K. is canceling plans to impose a major tax cut for the nation's top tax bracket following widespread frustration and market chaos, U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss announced Monday.Truss' plan had called for eliminating the U.K.'s highest tax bracket, resulting in major cut for citizens making more than $168,000 annually. Truss and her government...

The next pandemic is already here – why our world leaders should take notice of antimicrobial resistance Infection prevention and control must underpin any future economy. The main thing we know about the G7 summit discussions is that the world response to Covid-19 will feature heavily. We need a joined-up approach to recovery, along with preparedness and resilience for the next pandemic. After all, despite history telling us that they occur once every 100 years, the next one is already here. Alongside climate change, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the most urgent global healthcare challenge for the human species. Micro-organisms such...

The fastest way to get back to a safe, mask-free life is for everyone to get a Covid-19 vaccine. But just because you've gotten a shot of protection doesn't mean you should rip off your mask immediately. That could actually set you back and put your friends and family at risk. Here's why you should keep masking up in many cases -- and when it's safe to go mask-free: You're not fully vaccinated until two weeks after your last dose of vaccine, according the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That means at least two weeks have passed since...

The United States is sleepwalking into what could become the largest coronavirus outbreak of the pandemic so far. In the past week alone, as voters prepare to go to the ballot box, about one in every 1,000 Americans has tested positive for the virus, and about two in every 100,000 Americans have died of it. Today, the United States reported 73,103 new cases, the third-highest single-day total since the pandemic began, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic.

I think we can agree that it had nothing to do with caring about the slaves. I was thinking that 4 million sudden extra bodies in the poor southern economy would have the same effect as high immigration, keeping the wages of the poorest workers suppressed and it would keep the South from developing economically, while the North would benefit from their ownership of Southern industries. Does that sound about right or am I wrong on this?

When Beto O’Rourke proclaimed, during the second round of Democratic presidential debates, that “there’s a new battleground state, Texas, and it has 38 Electoral College votes,” eyes rolled in unison across America. We’ve all heard that nonsense before! Pundits and progressives have been predicting that minority-white Texas would go blue for so long, it’s practically become a running joke. And while O’Rourke came tantalizingly close to knocking off Ted Cruz last fall, that race seemed to have all the hallmarks of a fluke—a Republican senator who even Republicans can’t stomach, running in a strong Democratic midterm cycle against a fresh-faced...

The Second Amendment is why we can’t go to school, or work, or a house of worship, or a nightclub, or a movie theater, or a music festival, or pretty much any public gathering without fear of getting shot to death. The Second Amendment is why you can’t be immediately arrested for openly carrying around an assault rifle in a public place, and why you can’t be immediately arrested for smuggling a hand-cannon in your gym shorts. The Second Amendment is how law enforcement justifies the need for military-grade armaments—to match the “firepower” they meet in the streets. The Second...

Actual title: Congress Is About to Ban the Government From Offering Free Online Tax Filing. Thank TurboTax. Just in time for Tax Day, the for-profit tax preparation industry is about to realize one of its long-sought goals. Congressional Democrats and Republicans are moving to permanently bar the IRS from creating a free electronic tax filing system. Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., passed the Taxpayer First Act, a wide-ranging bill making several administrative changes to the IRS that is sponsored by Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Mike Kelly, R-Pa. In one of...

Heedless of the consequences, or perhaps welcoming them, America’s Cold Warriors and their media platforms have recently escalated their rhetoric against Russia, especially in March. Anyone who has lived through or studied the preceding 40-year Cold War will recognize the ominous echoes of its most dangerous periods, when actual war was on the horizon or a policy option. Here are only a few random but representative examples: § In a March 8 Washington Post opinion article, two American professors, neither with any apparent substantive knowledge of Russia or Cold War history, warned that the Kremlin is trying “to undermine our...

Since the dawn of civilisation, kings, emperors and other men and women of wealth have wanted to rule the world, but none has succeeded. Every empire that arose on the blood of the people it subjected and enslaved – the ancient kingdoms of Egypt and Assyria, the successive Persian and Chinese empires, the Roman empire, the Islamic caliphates, the Ottoman empire, the various European colonial empires and even the communist regime of the Soviet Union – all eventually fell. Even the United States’ global primacy, a logic result of the end of the Cold War, is now being tested by...

The broadcast news media has not been kind to President Trump since he was elected. Consistent studies from the Media Research Center showed that, on average, 90 percent of the coverage of Mr. Trump has been hostile. Broadcasters now appear intent on creating a negative grand finale as the midterm elections loom, lashing out at the GOP as well. “The broadcast networks are heavily spinning their campaign coverage against the Republicans. The spin of this coverage was lopsidedly anti-Republican and anti-Trump,” writes Rich Noyes, a senior analyst for the conservative press watchdog. Based on coverage from Sept. 1 through Oct....

Panthers safety Eric Reid’s visible beef with Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins in today’s game was indeed for the expected reasons. After Philly collapsed and Carolina took the 21-17 victory, Reid was at first hesitant to explain why he exchanged words with Jenkins during the pregame coin toss, but then he kind of explained it anyway.

There are critical points about the 70th Emmy Awards to keep in mind, starting with this: The ceremony airs Monday. Typically held on a Sunday, it was punted one day so this year’s host network, NBC, could accommodate its “Sunday Night Football” franchise (New York Giants at Dallas Cowboys, for viewers inclined toward that spectacle). As for what the 8-11 p.m. EDT awards telecast will offer, the basics are 26 categories with nominees including defending drama champ “The Handmaid’s Tale.” It’s challenged by 2016 winner “Game of Thrones,” which aired outside the eligibility window for last year’s awards and wants...

In the 1920s, ’30s and ’40s, many American leftists — including quite a few members of the Democratic Party — regarded the Soviet Union through a pink-tinted filter of earnestly held ideals. The U.S.S.R. was a “socialist paradise,” a place run by gruff but honest workers who were doing away with the economic and political injustices that plagued the United States. The appeal of this vision was so powerful that many who clung to it had trouble confronting the brutal realities of the Soviet system. True believers dismissed the reports of famines, purges and concentration camps as capitalist propaganda, and...

In the future, seas will rise far higher than they are today. The question is whether it happens quickly or slowly. There's enough ice stacked on top of Antarctica to raise seas around the globe by almost 200 feet. While it takes time for major changes to occur with that much ice, Antarctica is melting faster than we thought, according to a study recently published in the journal Nature. The melting rate has been speeding up significantly in recent years. Between 1992 and 2017, Antarctica lost more than 3.3 trillion tons of ice, causing sea levels around the globe to...

The Democratic National Committee and members of Congress are turning to Hollywood for help with voter turnout and messaging ahead of the midterm elections and 2020 presidential campaign, quietly consulting with a group of actors, writers and producers here. DNC Chairman Tom Perez, several House members and other top elected officials have already met with the group, formed by members of the entertainment industry in the wake of the 2016 election, that participants liken to a TV writers’ room, complete with producers of such programs as “Veep.” The existence of the group and details of the meetings have not been...