Free Republic

Amid chaos on many fronts, globalists march forward into the night. Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum convening in Davos, Switzerland, welcomed fellow globalists with this: “The future is built by us, by a powerful community, as you, here in this room.” Meanwhile in the United States we face soaring gas prices, shortage of baby formula, and the highest inflation seen in 40 years. The global elite would find more reality than their self-aggrandizing meeting if they drove to nearby France for the 75th annual Cannes Film Festival, where Tom Cruise drew a five-minute...

In the days after Russia attacked Ukraine, there was a lot of talk among Republicans that Vladimir Putin would not have invaded had Donald Trump still been president. Trump was so difficult to predict, so impulsive, so impetuous, the thinking went, that Putin would not have risked a massive U.S. response under Trump. "The sheer unpredictability of Trump, his anger at being defied or disrespected, his willingness to take the occasional big risk (the Soleimani strike), all had to make Putin frightened or wary of him in a way that he simply isn't of Joe Biden," National Review editor Rich...

It is a curious twist that many on the left who consider themselves to be refined iconoclasts, who feel obliged to incessantly belabor the flaws of figures like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, are also among the most fervent idol-worshipers. The latest of these idols is, of course, none other than Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, now the subject of a cult that, in its amorous overtones, mirrors closely the ill-fated cult of Andrew Cuomo. Conservatives, sick of being told to worship the media-approved Hero of the Day, are understandably skeptical. This skepticism is justified: Zelensky, a comedian in an olive-green...

Americans, like the planet's other 7.5 billion people, are not prone to talk or think much about nuclear weapons. Of course, some of us are old enough to remember how "mutually assured destruction," or MAD, was supposed to ensure the general peace. Some recall the eerie Cold War-era nuclear bomb movies like "Dr. Strangelove" or "Fail Safe" or the more recent post-nuclear Armageddon films like "The Book of Eli." Millions have grown up referring to the scary "doomsday clock" of atomic scientists that usually ticks closer to a midnight nuclear holocaust in times of crisis. So the planet is not...

My British friend, Andrew Roberts, the Churchill biographer, spoke at a conference of conservatives in Brussels recently, and his remarks were reprinted in The Wall Street Journal over the weekend. He reminded the assembled that there are times when conservatives are duty-bound to stand out and speak up. Roberts was disappointed in his remarks by people like David Stockman, the budget director under President Ronald Reagan, who, by the way, had a spotty career with the Old Cowboy. In his own words, Reagan "took him to the woodshed" on at least one occasion. It is time for Stockman to return...

By now you may have forgotten resident Joe Biden gave his State of the Union address last week. On Monday, Biden walked across the White House lawn alone and in a mask. On Tuesday, he walked into a crowd of House members rejoicing that no more masks were needed. It was the perfect metaphor for Biden at governance and Biden at speech. First, forgive Biden for his flubs and twisted words. He is almost 80 and has a stuttering problem. As someone who grew up with a stuttering problem, I'm sympathetic. He is neither Cicero nor Churchill, King nor Kennedy....

Campaigning politicians have always inflated their own importance and the benefits of the policies they espouse -- and exaggerated the perils of electing the other guy. It used to be the case that these self-aggrandizing stump speeches were tempered by a (mostly) diligent press that went out of its way to poke holes in those exaggerations and deflate egos with some sharply pointed facts. And Americans have historically trusted their elected leaders to tell the truth in matters of grave national importance. No more. We are swimming in a cesspool of lies so fetid that it’s almost impossible to know...

The tragic events of the past week highlight the wisdom in maintaining a fiscally sound house, rather than a highly indebted government, before emergencies strike. Russia's barbaric invasion of Ukraine and the West's response will likely drive inflation even higher. At home, expect calls for more government spending to help Ukrainians defend themselves and enable us Americans to better deal with supply-chain disruptions. No matter what lawmakers decide, they'll be hindered in one way or another by past fiscal mistakes. The United States finds itself with an inflation rate not seen since the early 1980s, thanks to too much COVID-19...

Russian President Vladimir Putin -- he's crazy and delusional. For many troubling reasons this diagnostic narrative has emerged as a common media theme, a narrative to help explain in personal terms Russia's senseless invasion of Ukraine and Putin's irrational threat to wage nuclear war. From the right (e.g., Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and The Epoch Times), from the left (CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, etc.), from the street (Ukrainian women crossing the Polish border), people express doubts about Putin's mental state. It's an insistent topic, one with characteristics of a weaponized narrative employed in "narrative warfare." A...

Washington -- I hate Russian President Vladimir Putin! I would put him in a category with Fidel Castro, Adolf Hitler, and his countryman, J.V. Stalin. It took Castro, Hitler and Stalin years to achieve their distinction, at least with me. KGB Col. Putin moved more rapidly, but now he has arrived. He is a full-blooded tyrant. People throw the term "hate" around very cavalierly, at least in politics. I recall former President Donald Trump introducing me to one of his acquaintances thus: "You know how I hate the Clintons. Well, let me introduce you to a guy who hates the...

As of this writing, predictions of a Russian day or two romp through Ukraine, all the way to the point of threatening NATO countries, have proven wrong. Profoundly wrong. War is always unpredictable. But clearly much of the American news coverage underestimated both the totalitarian appetite of Russian President Vladimir Putin and the grit and determination of the outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian people, a resolve against Putin's designs that has inspired the West and caused Europe to rethink its dependence on Russian energy. In response to the United States' offer of evacuation to a safe-haven extended to Ukraine President Volodymyr...

You’re aware of the phrase “history repeating itself” but I want to share a story of how history is being turned upside-down as millions of Ukrainians try to flee the Russian siege of their country. It’s especially appropriate to do so from a Jewish perspective, and especially this month as we celebrate Purim, commemorating the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia, at a time when all Jews were threatened with murder by the evil Haman, a plot that was also turned around. As recounted in the Book of Esther, rather than the Jewish people being killed, Haman, his...

Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine has waged another misinformation campaign to justify his illegitimate invasion. But this time around, we can’t afford to buy in. The war will be won with weapons, but history will judge truth from falsehood. I am the son of Ukrainian-Jewish refugees. My entire extended family lives in the Eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, where they face artillery bombardment and threat of ground force invasion. Even worse, Russian president Vladimir Putin now threatens to prepare his nuclear arsenal. My family are no strangers to bloodshed. My great grandparents perished in the Holocaust and on the battlefields of...

From his principal avenues of attack on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin began this war with three strategic goals. Send an army south from Belarus to capture Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, and replace the government. Send forces into northwest Ukraine to capture its second largest city, Kharkiv, with 1.4 million people. Third, extend the Donetsk enclave westward to establish a land bridge to Crimea and give Russia full control of the Sea of Azov and most of the Ukrainian coast along the Black Sea. This last objective is almost achieved. Yet, as of Monday evening, five days into the war, neither...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that calls for the United States to increase fossil fuel production and open up the Keystone Pipeline in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a “misdiagnosis.” Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “Senator Tom Cotton says the United States should be doing more to crack down on the Russian energy sector.”

You may have heard that if you’re four hands into a high stakes poker game with a card shark and you haven’t figured out who the mark is, it’s probably you. Our guy Brandon is still sitting at the poker table. It’s not at all clear that he realizes that the game is over. Vladimir won. President Putin picked up his chips, completely cleaning our President out. Vladimir got everything he really wanted. He went all in. Consider what he has accomplished. Putin had already absorbed Georgia and Crimea back into Mother Russia. Soon he will complete the annexation of...

Let's begin with the obvious: Ukraine is toast. There is little or no chance that the country will be able to endure, given Russian military superiority. Thus, the Western “strategy,” such as it was, to tempt Ukraine progressively closer to NATO and the EU, all while shielding Ukraine against potential Russian aggression with (mostly idle) threats of “severe economic sanctions,” has failed, and spectacularly so! The key question now is: what penalty will Russia pay for its impertinence, as the West sees it? And how long will it pay? Will sanctions be mild or severe? Will they last weeks, months,...

What are the implications of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Could it be that we are on the edge of a massively costly, truly disastrous, global war? And what does this feel like for the people of Ukraine? The brother of my personal assistant is married to a Ukrainian woman (they both live here in the US), and as of Thursday morning, my assistant received this report from his brother: “Her parents, who live now in Nova Kakhovka [in Ukraine] have Russian flags planted in their city. Roads and bridges and some airports have been blown up. There’s no access to...

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was facilitated by alarmist policies enacted by the United States and Europe, meant to combat alleged runaway global warming. Germany, for example, decided to abandon coal and nuclear energy in favor of supposed climate-friendly “renewable” energy sources. And in the United Kingdom, after briefly considering allowing fracking a few years back, the government has basically doubled down on wind and solar, erecting bans or nearly insurmountable hurdles to natural gas development on the U.K. mainland. Those costly sources simply are not reliable enough to sustain the German, U.K., or the wider EU economies. Partly as a...

What’s going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin? Why did he choose this moment to invade? The conditions are perfect right now for Putin and tyrants around the world to expand their power and territory. Who among the Western leaders has the moral authority to demand that tyrants like Vladimir Putin resist their dictatorial urges? For the past two plus years of the pandemic, Putin observed Western leaders repeatedly lying to their people. When they weren’t outright lying, they were hiding the data. As they pushed mask and jab mandates, Western politicians hid data on their efficacy or lack...