Free Republic

Ukraine is believed to be running out of weapons as it continues to hold off Russian forces, amid warnings some countries have failed to send promised aid. Western nations have thrown their support behind the war-torn nation following Vladimir Putin's invasion on 24 February. According to The Times, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Boris Johnson that his country was getting through a week's supply of weapons in just 20 hours as the Russian attack and constant shelling comes on multiple fronts. But while many countries have promised weapons to help bolster the Ukrainian arsenal, some have not kept up...

While the number of Americans receiving some form of government assistance steadily expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people paying taxes fell to a modern low. In 2020, 61% of all Americans — an estimated 107 million U.S. citizens — paid no taxes, according to a new report from the Tax Policy Center.

It's hard not to be a conservative and revel in the chaos that the dominance of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) is causing in the Democrat Party presidential primaries, as their establishment works to reject their party's populist choice similar to what the Republicans tried to do to Donald Trump in 2016. Like with the Republicans in 2016, it will be difficult for the Democrat elites to reject the people's choice. Sanders' lead is demonstrable, perhaps even insurmountable, with all of the momentum accumulated behind him, as his competitors dilute the vote of waning moderate and conservative voters among Democrats. Every...

We are being eaten alive (figuratively speaking, of course). Gun control, anyone? There has been a common misconception about the nature of the American political spectrum. In a naive man’s view, the American electorate is like a coin with its two opposing sides, the Left and the Right. At times of elections, one of the two sides of the coin ends up on the top and the respective party prevails, much like in a football game when one team wins and another loses. After the game, the teams and their fans go home and life returns to normal until the...

Of course, our old friend Van Jones, teamed up with Reverend Jackson, has cooked up a graft befitting the 21st century: “Van Jones, founder of #YesWeCode, an ambitious project to teach 100,000 low-income youth to code, said the talent is out there: It just needs someone to provide opportunity.”

It is long past time to speak the truth. The blacks rioting and looting in Ferguson, Missouri, are not oppressed, frustrated people. They are a pernicious and hardly secretive camorra. The rioters and looters didn’t steal food, or medicine for sick children; they stole televisions, clothing, DVDs, CDs, jewelry, cigarettes and the like. There exists no acceptable excuse for their behavior. Ergo, there remains only the truth: They are an ungodly, stiff-necked lot given over to rage and evil behavior. Even more egregious is the fact that they are encouraged and given emotional sanctuary for their condemnable actions by those...

On Saturday, TheBlaze brought you Mike Rowe’s inspiring new ad about work. By Monday, major news networks were covering it. But that ad wasn’t just a innovative spot about getting factories running. Sure, it was that, but it was also a spot for Walmart, which was announcing an initiative to purchase purchase $250 billion of American-made products over the next 10 years.

A disgusting $3.7 Trillion was spent on welfare since Obama took office. And this obscene figure accounts only for free benefits paid out without any sort of contribution having been made by the recipient. It does not include Social Security or Medicare. Under Obama’s reign of Socialism, the amount spent on welfare was almost 5 times greater than what was spent on transportation, education, and NASA, combined. And this figure doesn’t include the $200 Billion spent on welfare by the states. According to a CATO study, the cash value of federal welfare benefits for one household can equal almost $50,000....

---snip--- So, with all of these statements in mind, how is the Welfare State NOT a giant machine of theft and redistribution? Yes, yes, I know. I’m a heartless SOB for asking the question. I’ve never struggled to feed myself (even though I have), and I’ve never been “low income” (even though I have), and I don’t care about poor people (even though I do, and deeply so). I get it. I’m a cold blooded scoundrel, I hear ya. Fine. But can you answer the question? If statements 1, 2, and 3 are all accurate, how does welfare manage to...

Federal workers who are furloughed because of the government shutdown are beginning to file for unemployment benefits with the District of Columbia. Najla Haywood, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Employment Services, says all initial claims for unemployment need to be filed online due to the increased demand.

President Barack Obama talked about "climate change" with the U.N. secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, today at the White House. Via the pool report: On North Korea: “We will continue to try to work to resolve some of those issues diplomatically even as I indicated to the Secretary General that the United States will take all necessary steps to protect its people and to meet our obligations under our alliances in the region.”

<p>WOONSOCKET, R.I. – The economy of Woonsocket was about to stir to life. Delivery trucks were moving down river roads, and stores were extending their hours. The bus company was warning riders to anticipate “heavy traffic.” A community bank, soon to experience a surge in deposits, was rolling a message across its electronic marquee on the night of Feb. 28: “Happy shopping! Enjoy the 1st.”</p>

Dinesh DSouza and Michael Shermer discuss "Alternative View to ObamaCare". (Sorry if it was posted before... didn't find it listed. Not even sure)

President Obama defended the idea of entitlements like Medicare and Social Security in his second inaugural address Monday, arguing that these programs strengthen the nation and free Americans to "take the risks that make this country great." "We reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future," Obama said. "For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn." He continued: "We do not believe that...

On any day of the week you can hear someone declaring the injustice of insufficient government spending on this or that deserving group: the ill, the old, the unemployed, university students, filmmakers, rail passengers, you name it. Yet they rarely explain why it is unfair. They speak as if the injustice of it ought to be obvious to any decent person. Perhaps it is obvious to most people, and especially to members of the allegedly mistreated groups. Nevertheless, it isn't true. They want the money, of course, but they have no proper claim on it. This is easier to see...

Once upon a time there was a little red hen. She lived with a pig, a duck and a cat. They all lived in a pretty little house which the little red hen liked to keep clean and tidy. The little red hen worked hard at her jobs all day. The others never helped. Although they said they meant to, they were all far too lazy. The pig liked to grunt in the mud outside, the duck used to swim in the pond all day, and the cat enjoyed lying in the sun, purring. One day the little red hen...

In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore — equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird — Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric.... “I have $80 bucks left!” Magida said. “I’m so happy!” “I have $12,” Mak said with a frown. The two friends weren’t tabulating the cash in their wallets but what remained of the monthly allotment on their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program debit cards, the official new term for...food stamps. Magida, a 30-year-old art school graduate, had been installing museum exhibits for a living...

A painful adjustment to last Tuesday's election. Last Tuesday evening I went to bed in denial, thinking that there must be some mistake. I declined to believe that a majority of the voters were stupid enough to re-elect a President whose incompetence makes Jimmy Carter seem Washingtonian by comparison, whose mendacity far surpasses that of a pathological liar like Bill Clinton, and whose administration is so corrupt that it actually evokes nostalgia for the Nixon era. I was sure that, when all the actual votes had been counted, they would reveal that the voters of Florida, Virginia, Ohio and Colorado...

Only in America can a president who inherits a deep recession and whose policies have actually made the effects of that recession worse get re-elected. Only in America can a president who wants the bureaucrats who can’t run the Post Office to micromanage the administration of every American’s health care get re-elected. Only in America can a president who kills Americans overseas who have never been charged or convicted of a crime get re-elected. And only in America can a president who borrowed and spent more than $5 trillion in fewer than four years, plans to repay none of it...

Obama administration officials have insisted that their decision to grant states waivers to redefine work requirements for welfare recipients would not “gut” the landmark 1996 welfare reform law. But a new report from the Congressional Research Service obtained by the Washington Examiner suggests that the administration’s suspension of a separate welfare work requirement has already helped explode the number of able-bodied Americans on food stamps. In addition to the broader work requirement that has become a contentious issue in the presidential race, the 1996 welfare reform law included a separate rule encouraging able-bodied adults without dependents to work by limiting...