Free Republic

The Russian economy contracted steeply in the second quarter as the economic consequences of its war in Ukraine took hold. The economy shrank 4 percent from April through June compared with a year ago, the Russian statistics agency said on Friday. It is the first quarterly gross domestic product report to fully capture the change in the economy since the invasion of Ukraine in February, when Western sanctions shut Russia off from much of the global financial system, and many countries severed trading relationships with Moscow. It was also a sharp reversal from the first quarter, when the economy rose...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) refused Sunday to visit the Auschwitz concentration camp, after a Jewish group had invited her to tour that camp and others this summer to educate herself about the facts of the Holocaust. Last Monday evening, Ocasio-Cortez compared detention facilities for illegal aliens caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to “concentration camps,” adding the phrase “never again,” which commonly refers to the Nazi Holocaust. The remark drew outrage and criticism, even from fellow Democrats. Nevertheless, Ocasio-Cortez doubled down, first claiming that she had not been referring to Nazi Germany, then drawing parallels to the U.S. internment of Japanese-Americans...

After Saturday night brutal gang rape of a young girl in Malmö, the police are now out with a message to the city's population: "Women should not be afraid". Reports SVT News Skåne on Saturday afternoon. However, in Malmö several women are still noticeably shaken.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told supporters at Long Beach City College on Monday afternoon that she's "tired of" Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. [Snip] Clinton called herself "a progressive" who wants to get things done. "We're gonna fight climate change," was among her promises. "I have a plan to install half a billion more solar panels by the end of my first term," she added. ... Clinton made other promises, including "equal pay" for women, an increase in the minimum wage, "affordable" college, college debt forgiveness, adding on to Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), "ending over-incarceration," expanding abortion...

A shocking editorial in the Charlotte Observer counseled young girls to get over the "discomfort" they feel at the sight of male genitalia when transgender facilities are allowed in North Carolina. The newspaper assumes the law will eventually be repealed or declared illegal. While that may or may not happen any time soon, it is the justification for this position used by the Observer that reveals the true nature of this battle of the bathroom. (snip) So, biological men enter the bathroom used by biological women and this is not threat to the privacy of women? What spaceship brought this...

After a second grader complained to First Lady Michelle Obama that she “ruined” Taco Tuesday with her healthy lunch rules, Trip Klibert has accepted the White House’s consolation: Bo and Sunny trading cards and a note from Mrs. Obama that said you’ll get used to it.

ISIS has now beheaded a second American hostage. According to the SITE Intelligence Group, the terror group posted a video showing the killing of Steven Sotloff, a journalist who has been held for months but whose captivity was made public only two weeks ago, when he was shown at the end of the video depicting James Foley’s killing. Though I have not seen the video, a still image circulating online shows a similar setup to that of the Foley killing, with Sotloff kneeling in an orange jumpsuit in a desert landscape next to a fighter in a black mask holding...

What's with the recent trend of tagging articles with palin or sarahpalin that have nothing to do with Sarah Palin? If your article has nothing to do with Palin, please don't tag it as such. It's bad enough that journalists use her name to get hits to their articles or as a cheap source of writing material. We don't need that attitude here too. Just because people want to increase traffic to their posts, doesn't mean they should tag their posted articles with palin or sarahpalin. This just clutters the keyword/tagging system.

As President Obama prepares to talk health care reform on Sept. 9 at a joint session of Congress, he is being warned by several of his own allies not to walk away from a government insurance option. "Why would the White House step away from something that is going to weaken their side and that isn't going to pick up a single vote on the other side?" asked Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager of Health Care for America Now, in an interview with ABC News. Some of Obama's progressive allies are questioning whether the president is preparing to back...

24 June 2008 Zagreb _ A former US ambassador to Croatia has accused Zagreb of plotting and sanctioning the exodus of Serbs in 1995 to create an "ethnically clean" country. Peter Galbraith told The Hague war crimes trial of three Croatian generals, that the leadership headed by late President Franjo Tudjman used ‘Operation Storm’ to ‘cleanse’ Croatia of Serbs. “Croatian authorities either ordered or allowed a mass destruction of the Serb property in former (Serb-held region of) Krajina to prevent the return of the population. I consider that to have been a thought through policy,” he said, testifying at the...

For the first time since October 1999, McCain's favorability rating among American voters has dropped below 50 percent. A Gallup poll taken last month showed him at 48 percent, down 6 points from November, and down from a high of 67 percent in February 2000. Giuliani, in contrast, has held above 60 percent favorability in Gallup polls, most recently at 62 percent. Now that Giuliani has signaled a serious intention to run, stating on Monday "I'm in this to win" as he filed papers with the Federal Election Commission, the comparisons grow in importance. For Giuliani, winning over enough of...