Free Republic

This is a rather detailed dissection of the recent HOAX claiming that two yachts were purchased for Zelensky at a cost of $75 million. The discussion dissembles the original story, the subsequent parroting of the story, and the forged documents underlying the story. Detailed links in the footnotes. This is probably the very best analysis of the hoax claims on the net.

With Barack Obama publicly warning Israel about the deaths of civilians in Gaza, the Biden White House leaking its doubts about Israel’s ability to carry out a ground invasion and the head of the United Nations suggesting Israel provoked the Hamas terror attack, the question arises: Whose side are they on? Less than three weeks after Israel suffered the deadliest day in its history, the Jewish state is being treated like the problem rather than the victim by some of its supposed friends. Instead of getting support for its justified aim of eradicating Hamas, demands are mounting for Israel to...

We live in a world that is getting even weirder with each passing month. In the old days, if you talked about “UFOs” and “aliens” a lot of people would be tempted to think that you were nuts. But now “UFOs” and “aliens” are the subject of high profile hearings in Congress, and corporate news outlets are constantly running stories about new sightings. It has become quite clear that something is going on in the skies above our heads, and this has sparked a tremendous amount of speculation. Are we really being visited by entities from another world, or is...

Highlights: French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the expansion of the BRICS group signals the intention to build a new world order. . French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that the expansion of the BRICS group signals the intention to build a new world order.Macron said in a speech at the annual conference of ambassadors of the Republic at the Elysee Palace: "The expansion of the BRICS indicates the intention to build an alternative world order, which is seen as too Western.Macron explained that this creates the risk of "fragmentation of the world" that must be avoided,...

Are the BRICS a threat to the U.S.?The summit of the so-called BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has closed with an invitation to join the group extended to the Emirates, Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, and Ethiopia.The summit has generated a lot of headlines about the impact of this widespread group of nations, including speculation about the end of the U.S. dollar as a global reserve currency if this group is perceived as a threat to the United States or even the International Monetary Fund.Several things need to be clarified.Many political analysts believe that China lends, invests,...

The Pentagon currently has no information on the testing of Russia's Poseidon nuclear torpedo-drone that would change the United States' strategic posture, a senior US military official said in a US Defense Department press briefing Monday evening. The statement came in response to reports in La Repubblica that NATO intelligence had warned allies that Russia's Belgorod nuclear submarine was in the Artic Kara Sea to possibly test the "super torpedo." The Times said that that the weapon could also be tested in the Black Sea, where the Russia Navy has been launching ballistic missile attacks on Ukrainian positions to limited...

There’s a lot happening in the world right now, so let’s get the most pressing stuff out of the way and sorted: was the late Gong Show creator/host Chuck Barris really an assassin for the CIA? Barris claimed in his 1982 memoir Confessions Of A Dangerous Mind to have been secretly working for the intelligence organization during the sixties and seventies—around the same time he was developing kitschy and iconic television shows like The Dating Game, The Newlywed Game, and The Gong Show. Is it possible that the unassuming and at-times silly Barris could be telling the truth here—or was...

early 1989, I was working as a business reporter in Washington, D.C., and interviewing a private investigator for a story about his company. At the end of our conversation, he casually mentioned he’d done some research into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. “Oh yeah?” I said, in an ironic, indifferent way. “So who killed him?” He said: “Well, I think this gunsmith in Baltimore, a guy named Howard Donahue, figured it out.” The private eye showed me a magazine article from 1977 and as I read it, my skepticism began to fade. Within a week, I was heading...

Sephardic Kabbalist (mystic) Rabbi Yitzhak Kaduri could have predicted the political unrest surrounding recent struggles by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White leader Benny Gantz, according to a report by the Hebrew daily Israel Hayom on Sunday. Information alluding to Kaduri's predictions spread throughout social media and on the messaging application Whatsapp in recent days, as well. Kaduri reportedly wrote in And He Swore to Isaac, a "hidden book" that was recently found in the Kabbalistic school of Nahalat Yitzhak, that "On the eve of the year 5780 (the upcoming Hebrew year), the year of corrections, there will...

Following the revelations that a series of bizarre encounters between Navy pilots and UFOs had occurred off the east coast of the United States from 2014 to early 2015, The War Zone set out in search of any possible explanation for at least some of these incidents that don't involve fantastic origins or extremely advanced technology. Over the last month, we have identified one possibility, in particular, that is worth mentioning. Instead of anti-gravitational propulsion or flying machines from space, this possibility—and that is all it is, a possibility—has to do with specially designed radar reflector balloons and submarines, as...

“Someone” is getting desperate. Throughout the last week, anytime stocks have begun to correct or drop, “someone” has bought S&P 500 futures to prop the market up. Anyone who’s been involved with the markets for a while knows the difference between real buyers and manipulation. This is manipulation plain and simple. Look at all those “V” rallies. Three days in a row stocks opened DOWN and someone immediately stepped in and began buying aggressively. Another tell-tale sign of manipulation: the buying halts almost the moment stocks get to 2,100 on the S&P 500. At this point the manipulation ends. And...

Things seem to be looking up for rats. After more than 500 years, rats may be off the hook for causing the Black Death, the horrible plague that claimed up to 60% of the European population. In virtually every textbook the Bubonic Plague, which is spread by flea-ridden rats, is named as the culprit behind the chaos. But mounting evidence suggests that an Ebola-like virus was the actual cause of the Black Death and the sporadic outbreaks that occurred in the following 300 years. At the forefront of this theory are two researchers from the University of Liverpool, Dr. Christopher...

Three-quarters of handprints in ancient cave art were left by women, study finds.Women made most of the oldest-known cave art paintings, suggests a new analysis of ancient handprints. Most scholars had assumed these ancient artists were predominantly men, so the finding overturns decades of archaeological dogma. Archaeologist Dean Snow of Pennsylvania State University analyzed hand stencils found in eight cave sites in France and Spain. By comparing the relative lengths of certain fingers, Snow determined that three-quarters of the handprints were female. "There has been a male bias in the literature for a long time," said Snow, whose research was...

AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW FROM DOWN UNDER Quite clearly, Dr. Hayhoe and I are both credible professional scientists. Given our training and research specializations, we are therefore competent to assess the evidence regarding the dangerous global warming that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) alleges is being caused by industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Yet at the end of her article Dr. Hayhoe recommends for further reading the websites RealClimate.org and SkepticalScience.com, whereas here at the outset of writing my own article I recommend the websites wattsupwiththat.com and www.thegwpf.org (Global Warming Policy Foundation). To knowledgeable readers, this immediately signals that Dr....

Legion of the Damned: Did Boudicca's curse cause 6,000 of Rome's fiercest warriors to vanish without trace? Over the course of its ...1,000-year history, Ancient Rome gave rise to many extraordinary stories which live on to this day. ...No wonder Hollywood has always loved Rome, whose ...sheer spectacle have given rise to great epic movies from Ben-Hur to Gladiator. Mystery: The unexplained disappearance of the 6,000 legionaires from Ninth Legion in Scotland is the inspiration behind two competing filmsYet the latest movies... comes not from the heart of Rome, but from a remote northern province...we now call Scotland, but which...

Empire building isn't for sissies. Just ask the Spanish conquistadors of the 16th century. Before attacking Indian settlements, they were required to read a summons called the Requerimiento, which spelled out the consequences of resistance: "I assure you that, with the help of God, I will attack you mightily. I will make war against you everywhere and in every way ... I will take your wives and children, and I will make them slaves ... I will take their property. I will do all the harm and damage to you that I can ... I declare that the deaths and...