Free Republic

Four angels and the Virgin Mary mark the spot where the Communist used to stand. “We used to get drunk next to the Lenin,” a 45-year-old mechanic named Volodymyr said as he passed by. “Now it’s a sin to drink there, I guess,” his friend Yulia said. Five years after the start of Ukraine’s pro-Western revolution, the once-ubiquitous figure of Vladimir Lenin has been eradicated by law. So have other symbols of the Soviet era — gone from the country’s squares, streets and buildings. But Ukrainians are still searching for meaning — and identity — in the spaces left behind....

A new Stalin statue will be erected in Russia’s third-largest city of Novosibirsk next spring as the legacy of the Soviet dictator continues to divide society. Contemporary attitudes are split in Russia toward the historical role of Stalin, who is responsible for the deaths and suffering of millions of Soviet citizens during his rule from 1924 until his death in 1953. Polls show Russians view him as a “remarkable” figure and the younger population is unaware of Stalin-era purges, while President Vladimir Putin has dismissed attacks on Stalin as a ploy to demonize Russia. A Novosibirsk action group voted Saturday...

Thanks to the current imbroglio over Brexit, Britain could soon be Venezuela without the oil or the warm weather. The stunning incompetence of the last two Tory prime ministers, David Cameron and Theresa May, might result in a Labour government, one led by Jeremy Corbyn, a man who has long admired Hugo Chavez for having reminded him—though not the people of Venezuela—what governments can do for the poor and the achievement of social justice. Corbyn’s second in command, John McDonnell, would, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, be in charge of the economy. Only five years ago, he said that the...

Chinese telecoms giant ZTE is helping Venezuela build a system that monitors citizen behavior through a new identification card. The "fatherland card," already used by the government to track voting, worries many in Venezuela and beyond. At the headquarters of Chinese telecom giant ZTE Corp, they learned how China, using smart cards, was developing a system that would help Beijing track social, political and economic behavior. Using vast databases to store information gathered with the card’s use, a government could monitor everything from a citizen’s personal finances to medical history and voting activity. As part of a $70 million government...

After the Antifa group "Smash Racism DC" showed up outside the home of Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, one of the participants decided to give us their side of the story. Here's Alan Pyke's first-hand account of took place, which was originally written for ThinkProgress (emphasis mine): oped at link What this guy is saying is that the protestors who showed up outside of Carlson's home were "peaceful." If that was the case then they wouldn't show up at night, when Carlson was set to do his show and some wouldn't deface private property. If they were trying...

The mob attack on Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s home this week by radical Marxists – leaving his home with a broken door and vandalized with leftist slogans – has triggered widespread shock on the part of most decent Americans. For those aware of the way “Antifa” elements operate internationally, however, the incident was nothing new. Pro-democracy and right-leaning political activists, journalists, and artists 90 miles from our shores, fighting for their rights in communist Cuba, have faced similar mob attacks on their homes for years. Unlike the Carlson incident, in Cuba, the government actively organizes the mobs. The riots...

President Trump marked a national observance on Wednesday for the millions victims who died as a result of international communism. "On the National Day for the Victims of Communism, we honor the memory of the more than 100 million people who have been killed and persecuted by communist totalitarian regimes," the president said in a White House statement. "We also reaffirm our steadfast support for those who strive for peace, prosperity, and freedom around the world." Communism, or Marxism-Leninism, is a political ideology whose adherents first seized power during the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Often referred to by the...

A victory for Democrats this midterms, President Donald Trump warned before the election, is a victory for a terrible, dangerous idea: open borders. Trump is entirely making this up, to be clear, but he’s hammered this point repeatedly. “The Democrat platform is a 2018 socialism, open borders edict,” he declared at a rally in Cleveland the night before the election. In October, he informed a Kansas crowd that “Every single Democrat in the U.S. Senate has signed up for the open borders, and it’s a bill, it’s called the ‘open borders bill.’” (No, they haven’t, and there’s no such bill.)...

The group is threatening Carlson and demanding that he leave town, saying that "tonight, we remind you that you are not safe either." BREAKING. Activists ring doorbell, hold protest at the Washington DC area home of @TuckerCarlson, racist, sexist, bigoted FOX News personality. So far no one has opened the door. "Tucker Carlson, we will fight! We know where you sleep at night!"#KnockKnockTucker pic.twitter.com/A3S3c6croi — Smash Racism DC (@SmashRacismDC) November 7, 2018 It is unclear if Carlson's wife or four children are currently at home. It is unlikely that the host was home, as the harassment began less than an...

Wide-ranging Chinese state rules on what video games can depict are believed to be behind the need to modify Rainbow Six. The revamp would mean Rainbow Six had a "single, global version" so it would be easier to maintain and introduce new features, said Ubisoft. It illustrated its blogpost with images showing what some scenes and icons would look like in the new version. The illustrations depict skulls and knives being swapped for more anodyne images and some elements, such as slot machines, being removed entirely. The modified images and maps will be introduced with the Year 3, Season 4...

Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the argument to abolish capitalism in a recent op-ed for Truthout, linking capitalism to the prioritizing of profit over the environment and everything else. The professor has previously donated half of the profits from his book chronicling Antifa to the organization, written an introduction to an Antifa comic book, and tweeted glowingly about Antifa flags made by kids at a summer camp. Dartmouth professor argued on Tuesday that "if we don't abolish capitalism, capitalism will abolish us." Dartmouth College lecturer Mark Bray made the remark in an op-ed for Truthout, titled "How Capitalism Stokes...

Here is something almost all Americans agree on: we’re divided.Nine out of 10 Americans say political divisions in our country are a serious problem, according to a recent poll. Six in 10 say it’s a very serious problem. One doesn’t have to look very far to find examples.In a New York Times editorial, Paul Krugman wrote“hate is on the ballot next week.” Why is that? Because Republicans are on the ballot and they are “peddling hatred.” Krugman blames the recent massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue on a “climate of paranoia and racism deliberately fostered by Donald Trump and his allies in Congress.” And...

Josh Hawley, the Republican candidate for Senate in Missouri, on Saturday, demanded an FBI probe of a dirty-tricks campaign mailer that wrongly accuses him of opposing gun rights. The mailers urge voters to back a Libertarian or Independent voter over Mr. Hawley and do not include required disclaimers identifying who paid for them. “Voters telling me about fake & illegal mailers pro-Dem group is putting out. There should be an FBI investigation,” Mr. Hawley, the state attorney general, wrote on Twitter. He called for Democrat incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill to cooperate in a probe.

Two years ago, millions of Americans woke up from a deep sleep and did not recognize what they saw or how we got here As I write this article there are thousands of people walking, riding part way, determined to enter the United States, legally or otherwise to join the 20+ million other illegal immigrants already in the country. America has raised government, a standard of living, and a security level to a point never before seen anywhere in the world. And yet, we live in a country of contradictions and dichotomy. How did we get to a place where...

Nigel Farage burst out laughing at Mr Tajani’s speech where the President of the European President suggested the Nazis and the Soviet Union were defeated “thanks to the European Union”.

The eternal return—Friedrich Nietzsche thought the idea was horrifying. Life as an endless merry-go-round in which the same things keep recurring, forever. That prospect, Nietzsche thought, was the hardest, weightiest, most depressing idea mankind could ever confront. It was part of Nietzsche’s blustering nihilism that he should first conjure the most unpleasant idea he could think of and then announce that true heroism lay in embracing it. The rest of us may be less enthusiastic about the prospect of ceaseless repetition. After all, we’ve all had a foretaste of what it entails in the remarkable career of socialism. Like the...

They already had made the decision of leaving everything they had worked for: their jobs, their business and especially the rest of their family because they wanted freedom and opportunities. Life wasn’t easy in the U.S. My parents had to work graveyard shifts and often couldn’t afford groceries. But these sacrifices were small compared to the chance to live in a free, democratic country. I was able to fulfill my parents dream of going to college. I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in interior design and was fortunate to work in my profession for 11 years. While in school, I...

Sugar: it’s so quintessentially Cuban that even a young, machete-wielding Fidel Castro used to hack away at the cane stalks vital to the Caribbean island’s economy. Now, the long-time world leader in sugar production is importing the stuff for the first time, and in large amounts, from France after another bad harvest. Sugar used to account for the vast majority of Cuba’s exports. But the fall of its big brother, the Soviet Union — a key, hungry customer — changed everything, as did a lack of investment in seeds, fertilizer and pesticides. To wit: in the early 1990s, Cuba produced...

Full title: ‘This is what local corruption looks like’: In Florida, DeSantis highlights reports that an FBI agent bought a ‘Hamilton’ ticket for Gillum Republican Ron DeSantis seized on reports that Andrew Gillum, Democratic opponent in Florida’s race for governor, used a ticket from an undercover FBI agent to see the Broadway show “Hamilton” in 2016. [snip] ... text messages were made public that appeared to contradict previous statements by Gillum, the current mayor of Tallahassee, whose city has been the subject of a federal public-corruption probe.

Sixty-two years ago, a peaceful student demonstration in Budapest turned to a bloodbath in a single, explosive moment. The Communist secret police fired on the ranks of the students, slaying many on the spot. It is no exaggeration to say that this uprising captured the attention and imagination of the world. For good reason, it is widely known as the first major threat to Soviet control in Central Europe. Despite the shining promise and rallying cry for a “Free Hungary,” that ideal was not to be realized for at least another generation. The Soviets responded quickly and cruelly. On Nov....