Free Republic

Russia has adopted a new military doctrine, keeping North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expansion first among its list of primary external threats. The revised doctrine [PDF in Russian - 29 pages with 58 sections], signed by President Vladimir Putin on Friday, is comparable to a 2010 version, which also listed NATO expansion as a primary threat. Additions to the doctrine include a highlighting of the threat from "global strategic antiballistic missile systems" and a Russian goal to protect its interests in the Arctic region, according to Russian state-funded news organization RT. The doctrine’s adoption comes days after Ukraine took a...

Kiev (AFP) - Ukraine took a historic step toward NATO on Tuesday in a parliamentary vote that stoked Russia's anger ahead of talks on ending the ex-Soviet state's separatist war. Lawmakers in the government-controlled chamber overwhelmingly adopted a bill dropping Ukraine's non-aligned status -- a classification given to states such as Switzerland that refuse to join military alliances and thus play no part in wars. President Petro Poroshenko had vowed to put Ukraine under Western military protection after winning an election called in the wake of the February ouster in Kiev of a Moscow-backed president. "Ukraine's fight for its independence,...

A Republican lawmaker claims the real reason the Obama administration is opposing a travel ban for Ebola-stricken African countries is that U.S. officials are concerned about hurting their economies -- a dollars-and-cents reason, the lawmaker says, doesn't make much sense. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., whose House subcommittee held a high-profile hearing Thursday on the Ebola virus, told Fox News that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Tom Frieden is the one who gave him that explanation.

If, when in February Victoria Nuland infamously launched a (not so) covert campaign to replace the ruling Ukraine president oblivious to the human casualties, resulting in a civil war in east Ukraine, NATO encroachment along the borders of Russia, and a near-terminal escalation in hostilities between Ukraine, Russian, and various regional NATO members, the US intention was to provoke the Kremlin so hard that the nation with the world's largest reserves of mineral and energy resources would jettison the US Dollar and in the process begin the unraveling of the USD reserve currency status (as much as Jared Bernstein desires...

The United States and European Union plan to stop billions of dollars in oil exploration in Russia by the world's largest energy companies including Exxon Mobil Corp and BP Plc, U.S. government sources said. The planned sanctions over Russia's aggression toward Ukraine would ban U.S. and European companies from cooperating with Russia on searching its Arctic territory, deep seas or shale formations for crude, said two U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because the measures have not been made public. The measures, which one of the sources said represented "preliminary thinking," would expand sanctions the Obama administration announced...

Here's a transcript — edited for length and clarity — of The Texas Tribune's in-depth interview with land commissioner candidate George P. Bush, in which he lays out his positions on environmental policy. Texas Tribune: Commissioner [Jerry] Patterson has talked about, as part of his legacy, promoting the development of renewable energy on some of [the] land [managed by the General Land Office, or GLO] … that’s a way of diversification, and you never know what’s going to happen to the price of natural gas or with the shale boom. Is that something that you’re interested in and plan to...

The former Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin wrote in the Washington Post on July 27, 2014, “How ignoring climate change could sink the U.S. economy.” Not counting the non-enforced southern border and the hordes of new and lawless Democrat citizens who demand their fair share of the American dream now turned into a welfare nightmare, the national debt is most likely to sink the economy sooner than any other variable and that includes climate change that has been changing for millennia.

Using information within the TAGGS system for Health and Human Services we are able to identify the recipients for Grants specifically designated for “Unaccompanied Alien Children”, or UAC’s.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)The British newspapers, like the British government, are pinning the blame for the Malaysian Airlines disaster on Putin. Most Americans, whether Democrats or Republicans, would see things the way these UK headlines do: "Putin is a pariah – he must be treated as such" "Britain and America implicate Russia in Flight MH17 missile attack" "Two British families killed by 'Putin the terrorist'" And over a column written by Prime Minister David Cameron, this headline: "This is an outrage made in Moscow" However, some well-informed conservatives in Britain are pointing the finger for the war in Ukraine not at Putin, but...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that the U.S. and Europe should work together to develop tougher sanctions on Russia while she backed President Barack Obama's calls for a thorough investigation into the passenger jet that was shot down last week over Ukraine. Clinton said in a Facebook chat from the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, that tougher sanctions would make clear to Russian President Vladimir Putin "that there is a price to pay for this kind of behavior." The former secretary of state said she agreed with Obama's comments earlier Monday urging "immediate and full access"...

On July 9th 2014 President Obama made a visit to Dallas Texas for two reasons.   The first reason was fundraising, the second reason was to meet with Governor Rick Perry and “Faith Leaders” to discuss the border crisis....The impression intended would be that President Obama just met with a bunch of religious organizational heads, perhaps priests, pastors and ministers.  Along with “faith based” advocates who are helping to deal with the immediate needs of the illegal aliens, unaccompanied minors, and the larger “border crisis”.You would be wrong.To avoid my calling our President of The United States a liar, I will instead say President Obama is being...

<p>KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — An Air Force fighter jet has been shot down by an air-to-air missile fired from a Russian plane, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security Council said Thursday.</p> <p>Andrei Lysenko also said Ukrainian troops had been fired upon by missiles from a village just inside Russia.</p>

According to local reports, pro-Russia rebels were the first to arrive and have taken control of the crash site. The deputy prime minister of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), Andrei Purgin told Russian news agency Interfax that militants were on the site and planning on handing over the recordings of the plane to Moscow. "Of course, we most likely will give them to the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), to Moscow. High-level experts, who will be able to determine exactly the reason of the catastrophe, work there, though it is clear," Purgin said.

A Ukrainian official said Thursday that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, a passenger jet traveling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down near Snizhe today, a town close to the Ukrainian-Russian border. The plane was carrying 295 people and crashed early evening, local time. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but immediate reports say that the airplane was grounded by a BUK surface-to-air missile system. The BUK, developed by the Soviet Union in 1979, has remained widely in use throughout the former Soviet states, including Ukraine. General Philip Breedlove, the commander of the U.S. European Command, said that...

In 1943, having murdered most of the Jewish population of the occupied portions of the Soviet Union, the Nazis launched a campaign to exterminate the Slavs as well. As part of this effort, Nazi SS units under the command of Himmler protégé Jochem Peiper (who later achieved infamy in the West as well for his massacre of captured GIs at Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge) systematically rounded up Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarussian villagers, herded them into their churches, blocked the doors, and set them ablaze. Over a thousand such massacres were perpetrated, and the memory of these horrific...

Soldiers from a private US security company with a record of alleged atrocities in Iraq are supporting Ukraine’s security forces in the volatile east of the country, the German newspaper Bild reported Sunday. The report, citing Germany’s federal intelligence agency BND, said 400 of the heavily-armed men employed by the group formerly known as Blackwater were deployed in the vicinity of Lugansk where pro-Russian separatists are seeking self-rule. The BND declined to comment on the report, while the security company -- now known as Academi -- dismissed similar reports in March. Bild reported that according to a BND assessment, US...

In March 2011, Reuters announced a secret order signed by Barack Obama to provide covert support for Libyan rebel forces. The operation became known as Zero Footprint, but after Obama finished with it, Big Foot was identified. For about 18 months before the attacks on our Benghazi Special Mission, intelligence had successfully identified terrorist factions inside the rebel factions. Those terrorists included the Muslim Brotherhood as well as al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, Senator John McCain said the rebels were his heroes. Qadhafi made a fatal mistake, literally, by working toward one currency for Africa, which threatened the West. The idea of a...

DENVER — Behind the hoopla surrounding Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s standoff with the Bureau of Land Management is a growing resentment over the federal government’s status as the largest landowner in the West. “This is so much bigger than one rancher in Nevada,” Utah state Rep. Ken Ivory, who heads the American Lands Council, said in an April 23 online debate sponsored by The Salt Lake Tribune. How much land does the federal government own? A 2012 Congressional Research Survey said the federal government owns about 640 million acres, or 28 percent of the nation’s land mass. Roughly 90 percent...

Berlin (AFP) - Dozens of specialists from the US Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation are advising the Ukrainian government, a German newspaper reported Sunday. Citing unnamed German security sources, Bild am Sonntag said the CIA and FBI agents were helping Kiev end the rebellion in the east of Ukraine and set up a functioning security structure.

In a crass and ill-timed intervention, the unelected president of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy has warned Vladimir Putin that the EU intends ultimately to control every country on the western flank of Russia. In an interview with De Standaard newspaper, Van Rompuy speaks about his “dreams” that all the Balkan states will join the EU. He calls it an “inspiring thought” that in the long term “the whole of European territory outside Russia” will be tied in some way to the EU. He admits he does not know if there is public support for such a move, “But we do...