Free Republic

The contempt with which Vladimir Putin holds President Obama and his entire foreign policy team fairly oozes out of the Kremlin. Josh Rogin of the Daily Beast noted "sarcasm and derision from Russia’s Twitter-happy deputy prime minister Dmitry Rogozi," including a Tweet mocking "Comrade @BarackObama." Putin's speech yesterday was full of venom towards the U.S., as have been most Russian media outlets. But the key detail is how Putin played Obama, as the Wall Street Journal noted this morning: Mr. Obama in four phone calls with Mr. Putin over the past month totaling 4½ hours also failed to make headway...

Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya´alon is apologizing for the second time in two months about critical statements he made against the U.S. government. In the wake of tremendous anger in Washington, a telephone call between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a personal talk with the prime minister, Ya´alon told his American counterpart, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, that there was no defiance, criticism or intention to hurt the United States or Israel´s relations with its ally with his words. Ya´alon said he sees utmost importance in the strategic relations between the countries, as...

DETROIT (WJBK) - Thursday afternoon a Detroit homeowner fatally shot an intruder. A second intruder was also at the scene but ran away and is still being sought by police. Police say the homeowner heard glass break around 12:30 p.m., ran to the back of his house and saw a person climbing in the window, so he grabbed his gun and fired. Police say the 17-year-old suspect then collapsed on the driveway, appearing to have died from a gunshot wound to the chest. The other suspect is in his 20s. Police continue to question the homeowner about the incident, and...

The nation’s top military commander painted a dark picture Tuesday of future U.S. defense capabilities clouded by shrinking Pentagon budgets and adversaries’ technological advances that he said would erode American battlefield superiority. Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, provided his sobering views as part of the Quadrennial Defense Review, a congressionally mandated evaluation of U.S. military strength issued every four years. Dempsey predicted that it would become increasingly difficult to balance the competing demands of protecting allies abroad, securing Americans at home and deterring future wars. “The smaller and less capable military outlined in...

Fiscal Irresponsibility: Just how out of touch is President Obama? In the midst of a faltering economy and rising global threats, he proposes a budget that would sharply cut defense spending and impose $1.8 trillion in tax hikes. Despite its relative insignificance in the grand scheme of things, the annual White House budget proposal does provide a window into the president's thinking on the size and scope of government. The fiscal 2015 budget — released a month late on Tuesday — also manages to showcase Obama's worrisome detachment from reality. The budget rests, for example, on the assumption that real...

GOP lawmakers say the Obama administration is ignoring history in planning a defense budget that bets there won't be another protracted ground war in the near future. The White House is expected to unveil the 2015 defense budget on Tuesday that would cut the active duty Army by more than 20 percent over the next five years. “After Iraq and Afghanistan, we are no longer sizing the military to conduct long and large stability operations,” Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said last Monday as he previewed the president’s 2015 defense budget. Republicans say this move is foolish, given the effects of...

In this dramatic video, a snowmobiler is traveling along a remote snowmobile trail.   A moose is blocking the trail, and the snowmobiler does everything they can to defuse the situation without bloodshed.  They make considerable noise to warn the moose that they are there.  Snowmobiles do not have a reverse, and the track is narrow and hemmed in by thick woods.  To get off the snowmobile would make the snowmobiler much more vulnerable.   In the deep, fluffy snow, he and or his machine are likely to bog down.   Unknown to the viewer, a companion snowmobiler is coming up...

Russia, flush with new-found wealth from oil exports, expands its military reach and political influence abroad. A war-weary America slashes defense spending and retreats from the world. The president embarks on a massive government-subsidized program to develop alternative energy to replace fossil fuels. Pundits cluck about America in retreat, and point to the rise of an Asian economic superpower. That’s the world circa 1976, but it sounds like quotes ripped from today’s headlines. History has a way of repeating itself, or to quote the great Yogi Bera, it’s déjà vu all over again. The Obama administration is looking a lot...

Barack Hussein Obama seeks to use the teachings of ancient Chinese military genius Sun Tzu, as described in his famous quote: “One hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the most skillful, subduing the enemy’s military without battle is the most skillful.” The question is: Are we going to let him? Recently, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced that he is proposing huge cutbacks in the military, especially with regard to Army personnel . The set-up for this fall included prematurely withdrawing from Iraq and announcing that all U.S. combat operations in Afghanistan would end by December 2014. We...

If you are surprised by this week's announcement of major manpower cuts to the U.S. Army, you haven't been paying attention. For a long time.There are two components to understanding America's defense spending choices -- the political and the budgetary; they are not the same. The Administration has made the political case clear. Beginning in 2011, President Obama pronounced himself committed to "ending the wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan "responsibly."The president committed to a turn inward, beginning with a 2011 statement that "the nation we need to build is our own," coupled with the promise to cut troops deployed abroad...

We don’t usually flak for The Washington Post, but every so often the Washington elite’s liberal “paper of record” gets something right, or at least asks the right question. Such was the case on Monday, February 24, when the Post published an opinion piece by Richard Cohen entitled “Susan Rice and the retreat of American power,” that detailed a bill of particulars against President Obama’s national security advisor, Susan Rice, and the President himself, for the treasonous squandering of American lives, treasure and influence in the world’s affairs. While what happened at Benghazi, Libya and how the events there led...

They offered more insight Monday. #According to Flowery Branch Police Chief David Spillers, Homer resident Dustin Cody Holcombe and a female were walking toward their car that morning when they were “confronted” by Battle. #“Battle was armed with a handgun pointing it at Holcombe and (the female) and talking in a threatening manner,” Spillers said in a news release. “Holcombe retrieved a firearm from his vehicle and stated that in shooting Battle it was his intention to defend himself and (the female).” #Spillers offered no further theories on what might have been said between Battle and Holcombe, or anything else...

According to news reports, the US military will be cut dramatically: "Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has proposed shrinking the Army to its smallest size in 74 years through a series of base closures and troops cuts, and by completely eliminating several Air Force aircraft fleets. The move comes as the U.S. Army moves into the final phases of a massive troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and Congress raises new red flags about American deficit spending. Hagel surprised some observers on Monday when he outlined a global military philosophy that removed America from the center of its universe. [SNIP] I oppose these...

Teeing up what could be a politically explosive fight before the midterm elections in November, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday will recommend billions of dollars in annual budget cuts that would reduce housing allowances and other benefits, increase health-care premiums, and limit pay raises, CBS News confirms. The recommendations, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, are part of a broader effort to trim the Pentagon's budget while minimizing the impact on preparedness and capability. But they're likely to provoke fierce opposition from veterans' interest groups and lawmakers on Capitol Hill. The Pentagon argues that personnel costs are simply...

Typifying the utterly ineffectual foreign policy that has been endemic for the entirety of the Obama administration, Ukrainian Defense Minister Pavel Lebedev rebuffed U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, refusing to take even one of the phone calls Hagel made to him. Pentagon Press Secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby admitted on Thursday, "Secretary Hagel has been trying, himself, since early this week," adding that Lebedev refuses "to communicate, to accept a phone call" from either Hagel or the Pentagon.

SAN JOSE -- A cook who stabbed an off-duty bouncer to death during a confrontation downtown has been released from jail after prosecutors declared that he was acting in self-defense, a decision sparked by the revelation that the man who died was also armed with a knife. The 22-year-old San Jose man who works as a cook at a downtown restaurant may have at some point worked with 26-year-old San Jose resident Ryan Viri, who was well known in the downtown bar and restaurant scene. Assistant District Attorney Marc Buller, who reviewed the case, said security cameras in the area...

<p>Defense relations between India and Israel have come a long way, against all odds. Israel has emerged as India’s second-largest arms supplier, behind only Russia, with bilateral arms trade over the last decade estimated at $10 billion. 2013 witnessed major developments in India-Israel defense cooperation, most of which involved enhancing arms trade and furthering joint projects. There were certain constraints as well, none of which curbed ties.</p>

The past two years have seen a number of developments with the military aircraft programs of the People’s Republic of China’s aerospace industry. The twofold focus of these efforts has been to expand the export portfolio for PRC-made weapon systems, while at the same time pushing the development of indigenous programs that would reduce Chinese dependence on foreign (mostly Russian) critical technologies and subsystems–although this could be a rocky road if it ends up competing directly with Russian industry in export markets. The results on both scores have been mixed. The message coming from the central government in Beijing continues...

Defense: Budget cuts, sequestration and indifference to maintaining what was once "the arsenal of democracy" have led to units that are not deployment-ready and soldiers with weapons their grandfathers could have used. The standing ovation given at the State of the Union to Sgt. 1st Class Cory Remsburg, seriously wounded in an Afghan war that his commander in chief did not believe was winnable, was well deserved. It also served as a tribute to all the heroes we send into battle, particularly under rules of engagement that often make the proverbial "one hand tied behind your back" a preferable option....

CLEARLAKE -- A man reportedly shot an intruder at his home on West 40th Avenue Wednesday afternoon, according to authorities. At about 1:08 p.m., Clearlake Police Department (CPD) officers responded to a report of a shooting that had just occurred in the 4600 block of West 40th Avenue, Sgt. Rodd Joseph stated. The caller, identified as Christopher Charles, reported that he just shot an intruder in his home. When officers arrived at the home, Charles was found on scene; however, the intruder, whose name is being withheld because of medical reasons, had allegedly already taken off on foot, Joseph stated....