Free Republic

The Democrats have the “fascist” business wrong. Donald Trump isn’t a fascist, or even a semi-fascist, in President Biden’s term. Mr. Trump is an opportunist. His ideology is coextensive with his temperament: In both, he is an anarcho-narcissist. He is Elmer Gantry, or the Music Man, if Harold Hill had been trained in the black arts by Roy Cohn. He is what you might get by crossing the Wizard of Oz with Willie Sutton, who explained that he robbed banks because “that’s where the money is.” As for Mr. Trump’s followers, they belong to the Church of American Nostalgia. They...

Democrats are entering the homestretch before November’s election in better shape than earlier this year, boosted by gains among independent voters, improved views of President Biden and higher voting enthusiasm among abortion-rights supporters, a Wall Street Journal poll shows.

Stocks took their worst beating in months Friday, with the Dow industrials shedding more than 1,000 points and notching their worst day since May. The S&P 500 closed 3.4% lower The Dow industrials dropped about 1,008 points, or 3% The Nasdaq Composite dropped 3.9% All 11 of the S&P 500's sectors finished in negative territory. Only 5 components in the benchmark index closed higher. The major averages each posted roughly 4% losses for the week.

As many as 80,000 Russian troops have been wounded or killed in less than six months of fighting in Ukraine, the Pentagon said Monday, the first time the U.S. military announced its estimates of the toll of the invasion on Russia. According to U.S. estimates, Russia has suffered 70,000 to 80,000 casualties, Colin Kahl, the undersecretary of defense for policy, told reporters at a press briefing Monday. In the days leading up to Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion, Western officials estimated that Russia had staged roughly 150,000 troops near Ukraine’s border.

I am a minor-league philanthropist. I give modest sums to animal shelters, the preservation of wildlife, children’s hospitals, my local public library, the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation and several other organizations and institutions. I don’t give to universities, lest they think I encourage their wanderings from their true mission—although I have considered giving $5,000 to Northwestern University, where I taught for 30 years, and earmarking the money to be spent exclusively on a Jewish tight end for the football team. I have never given money to politicians or political parties. Yet I am about to send a $200 check to Liz...

The conflict in Ukraine is driving a modernization of NATO weaponry, honing the alliance’s ability to face off against Russia and adding to the list of unintended consequences from Moscow’s invasion of its smaller neighbor. Former East Bloc NATO members have been arming Ukraine with Soviet-designed equipment similar to Kyiv’s existing gear. That has permitted a military housecleaning of their own arsenals on a scale that would have been unimaginable months ago. In turn, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will help its eastern members replace those arms with newer ones, greatly improving efficiency.

Russia was poised to default on its foreign debt for the first time since 1918, pushed into delinquency not for lack of money but because of punishing Western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. Russia was likely to miss payments on two foreign-currency bonds late Sunday, according to holders of the bonds who had yet to see funds deposited. The day marks the elapse of a 30-day grace period since the country was due to pay the equivalent of $100 million in dollars and euros to bondholders.

You would think by now that, informed by so many examples from history, we would be familiar with the stages of a policy disaster in the making. Calamitous wars and foreign-policy misadventures; economic, fiscal and regulatory blunders, costly social policy initiatives—almost all seem to follow the same pattern. First denial, the refusal to accept the mounting evidence that we are on the wrong track. Next, complacency: Even when the inconvenient facts are reluctantly acknowledged, a misplaced confidence that a small adjustment is all that is needed to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. When that fails, the policy maker...

Ukraine and Russia poured reinforcements into eastern Ukraine this weekend, preparing for what is likely to become the war’s biggest battles as refugees continued to flee the looming Russian assault. Russia’s main objective now is to seize the parts of the eastern Donbas region not yet controlled by Moscow. Unlike the first phase of the six-week-old conflict, that shift is forcing Ukraine into fighting conventional battles involving tanks, artillery and aircraft on flat, often barren terrain that allows Russia to leverage its superiority in military equipment.

When seeing America’s we’ll-fight-to-the-last-Ukrainian approach to Russian aggression, many Arabs conclude that the U.S. can’t be counted as a security guarantor, and that nuclear weapons—which Russia has, Iraq didn’t and Ukraine gave up—make all the difference. To be sure, many of my Arab interlocutors have perfected the art of expressing grievance through historical cherry-picking: highlighting America’s inadequacies while sidestepping their own governments’ follies and self-inflicted wounds. The reality is more complicated, and no critique of American policy can justify indulgence of Russia’s criminal behavior or reluctance to lend assistance to the Ukrainian people. These Arabs have a point, however. If...

In a secret chat room run by a group of Russian-affiliated cybercriminals, a hacker expressed excitement about a plan to attack and disable more than 400 U.S. hospitals. “There will be panic,” the hacker wrote, in Russian. The hacking enterprise, called the Trickbot Group by federal prosecutors, and its affiliates had already collected hundreds of millions of dollars by shutting down emergency rooms, city governments and public schools since 2018. Security researchers and U.S. officials say the internal conversations amount to the most complete and candid public look yet at the operations of a criminal ransomware enterprise. A malware developer...

A credible deterrent is designed to alter a potential aggressor’s calculations of risk and reward. Vladimir Putin determined that the potential cost of invading Ukraine was relatively low, and on Feb. 24 he attacked. It will be the job of historians to try to understand why deterrence failed. Deterrence involves two factors: capability and will. Capability means having the military strength to deliver intolerable damage to an adversary. Will is the determination to use that strength and deliver that damage. .....snip..... By signaling that the U.S. had no intention of using its capabilities, the Biden administration seriously weakened their deterrent...

Russia’s Push for Self-Sufficient Economy Fails Before Western Sanctions Building Fortress Russia was supposed to protect the country from sanctions. It is still highly dependent on imports. A Uniqlo store in Moscow this month. Sanctions have hit consumers who are used to getting imported products. Russia spent years trying to wean itself off imported goods to fortify its economy against Western sanctions. Now, the impact of sanctions imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made it clear that Moscow’s efforts didn’t work. Russia’s continued dependence on imports means it is facing a painful economic readjustment. Parts of Russia’s auto industry...

Melinda French Gates said she was upset with Bill Gates’s past meetings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, addressed the Microsoft Corp. co-founder’s earlier affair and said she and her former husband have a working relationship focused on philanthropy. Ms. French Gates, speaking in her first televised interview since the billionaires’ divorce last year, cited many matters that led to their split. But she made it clear to Mr. Gates that she didn’t like that he had held meetings with Epstein, she said in the CBS program that aired Thursday. She said she herself had met once with Epstein, who...

Thank you Peggy https://t.co/eiy4gKyeYs— Jeb Bush (@JebBush) February 12, 2022 wsj Republicans, Stand Against Excess Be the party of the big center—of normal, regular people—against the forces of ideology assailing them. By Peggy Noonan Feb. 10, 2022 6:35 pm ET "A great party can’t be a cult. Cults are by definition marginal, not of the majority. Donald Trump brought new voters in, it’s true, and the party would do well to hold them by taking good stands. But don’t forget the votes he lost. He never came close in two tries to winning the popular vote, he lost once-Republican suburbs,...

The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board threw a big wrench into the media machine celebrating President Joe Biden’s so-called win on the better-than-expected January jobs report. The Bureau of Labor Statistics published a Feb. 4 report showing the economy added 467,000 jobs, which blew past estimates. The media swallowed the news whole. CNBC’s headline was: “Payrolls show surprisingly powerful gain of 467,000 in January despite omicron surge.” ABC News salivated: “US economy defies omicron and adds 467,000 jobs in January.” But The Journal had a surprisingly different take, and it was an eye-opener: “Who knows what to make of Friday’s...

The Wall Street Journal called out American companies for sponsoring the Olympics in a country the U.S. has accused of genocide.

There’s no reason for Kamala Harris to participate any longer in the failing presidency of Joe Biden. If she chooses to assert her constitutional authority and seeks to build a majority political coalition, she can unify the country, ensure American prosperity and win election to the presidency in 2024. Starting today she can simply decide unilaterally to dominate policy-making in what’s left of the Biden era. This week brings more reports of her struggle to add value to Team Biden. But this team is losing and she can best help the country and herself by entering the political equivalent of...

Eleven people including Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers, have been indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy, marking an escalation of the Justice Department’s investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. An indictment unsealed Thursday accused Mr. Rhodes, 56 years old, of organizing an armed plot to storm the Capitol and stop the certification of President Biden’s election victory. The case marks the first time the Justice Department has filed charges of sedition in connection with the attack and comes days after Attorney General Merrick Garland...

An elitist economist is insulting his readers by doubling down on the much-criticized notion that spiking inflation is only “transitory.” Princeton University professor Alan Blinder penned an absurd Wall Street Journal op-ed headlined, “When It Comes to Inflation, I’m Still on Team Transitory.” Blinder even conceded in his subheadline that “transitory” apologist Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell “may have retired the term," but proceeded to claim that "bottlenecks and shortages should be over soon.” This was the same Blinder who wrote an equally absurd March 15 op-ed headlined: “There’s No Need to Panic About a Little Inflation.” Another Blinder piece...