Free Republic

Putin’s ‘Russian Spring’ Idea was Invented by Russian Fascists in 1920s Staunton, July 30 – Commentators in Moscow and the West ever more frequently draw parallels between Vladimir Putin’s ideas and actions and those of fascist regimes in the first part of the 20th century, but few have focused on the fact that one of the Kremlin leader’s most-cherished ideas, that of the ‘Russian Spring,’ was invented by a Russian fascist in the 1920s. In a blog post, Pavel Pryannikov corrects that gap, pointing out that “the ‘Russian Spring’ in fact is not an invention of the present time” but...

Christian group Child Evangelism Fellowship (CEF) has set its sights on bringing the children of Portland to Christianity. CEF’s Good News Club is targeting kids at typical summer locations such as pools and parks to join the group amidst harsh criticism. Oregon is known as the least religious state in the nation from Gallup polls in 2008 and 2012 which is why CEF chose the location for its outreach. And as the current law stands, the Good News Club does not need parent consent forms to approach children in public spaces, as they do for schools. According to the AP,...

‘My great fear,” Neil deGrasse Tyson told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes in early June, “is that we’ve in fact been visited by intelligent aliens but they chose not to make contact, on the conclusion that there’s no sign of intelligent life on Earth.” In response to this rather standard little saw, Hayes laughed as if he had been trying marijuana for the first time. All told, one suspects that Tyson was not including either himself or a fellow traveler such as Hayes as inhabitants of Earth, but was instead referring to everybody who is not in their coterie. That, alas, is...

Ian Rutherford Plimeris an Australian geologist, professor emeritus of earth sciences at the University of Melbourne, professor of mining geology at the University of Adelaide, and the director of multiple mineral exploration and mining companies. He has published 130 scientific papers, six books and edited the Encyclopedia of Geology. Born 12 February 1946 (age 67) Residence Australia Nationality Australian Fields Earth Science, Geology, Mining Engineering Institutions University of New England,University of Newcastle,University of Melbourne,University of Adelaide Alma mater University of New South Wales,Macquarie University Thesis The pipe deposits of tungsten-molybdenum-bismuth in eastern Australia (1976) Notable awards Eureka Prize (1995, 2002),Centenary...

I’m a bit miffed, I’m not gonna lie. Not for myself mind you, but for a little four-year-old boy who has the distinct misfortune of residing with a mom who fears guns. Allow me to explain; in this morning’s Washington Post “On Parenting” there’s a piece by Zsofia McMullen. The title of the piece is: “My four year old loves toy guns and I don’t know how to parent that.” In it, she describes in great detail, her son’s infatuation with gun play and pretend violence. The piece starts out innocuously enough, with a detailed description of the little boy’s...

With the party united, the odds are now at least even that the GOP will not only hold the House but also capture the Senate in November. But before traditional conservatives cheer that prospect, they might take a closer look at the foreign policy that a Republican Senate would seek to impose upon the nation. Specifically, they should spend time reading S. 2277, the "Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014," introduced by Sen. Bob Corker on May 1, and endorsed by half of the Senate's GOP caucus. As ranking Republican on the foreign relations committee, Corker is in line to...

Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, Washington, D.C.'s non voting delegate to Congress, has a novel definition of the separation of powers. Becoming exasperated at House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's insistence that a subpoena to David Simas, director of the administration's Office of Political Strategy, should go forward, Holmes Norton dressed down Issa by claiming the Oversight Committee, which oversees the executive branch, didn't have the right to investigate the White House. Washington Examiner: "You don't have a right to know everything in a separation-of-powers government, my friend. That is the difference between a parliamentary government and a separation-of-powers government," Norton...

Liberals are forever struggling to understand the basic tenets of human nature that most other people just take for granted. You’d think they would have picked something up from the death throes of the Soviet Union, Greece, or Detroit, but as Talleyrand might say, “They have learned nothing, and forgotten nothing.” Whether that’s some sort of genetic defect liberals are born with, ignorance, or just willful blindness is hard to say, but the results are the same in any case. Since it’s easier for light to escape a black hole than it is for a liberal to entertain a new...

Barak Hussein Obama's introduction to the world in 2004 occurred on July 27 July. The date on the Jewish Calendar was Tisha b'Av. The 9th of Av. The same date of virtually all major Jewish Calamities occurred: (see them below) The First Temple built by King Solomon and the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed The Second Temple built by Ezra and Nehemiah was destroyed by the Romans The Romans crushed Bar Kokhba's revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 100,000 Jews Following the Bar Kokhba revolt, Roman commander Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Temple and the...

Fossilized Brain May Give Paleontologists Headache by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Who has ever heard of a fossilized brain? Few would expect such a discovery, yet it looks like that's what researchers found inside a Stone Age skull from Norway. If so, it would confirm a published creation prediction and challenge many evolutionary timescales. Ten archaeologists have been digging out fossilized human remains from a fjordside location called Brunstad, an area that encompasses two Stone Age human encampments.1 The scientists' findings include Norway's oldest unburned skeletal remains and a skull remnant with an unexpected attachment. University of Oslo archaeologist and...

The issue of affirmative action may soon find itself again before the Supreme Court of the United States. university of texas-austin Court watchers will remember that it was just recently (a little more than a year ago) that the Court took up the issue, in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Despite what some may have been looking for in a broad, sweeping denunciation or approval of using race-based factors in college admissions, the Court decided to remand, or send the issue back down to the circuit court so that the case could be “considered and...

The “Iron Maiden." She was the staunch and sturdy leader of Great Britain who once held up F. A. Hayek’s masterwork “Road to Serfdom” and declared “This is what we believe in.” Hayek’s work is a road map for what could go wrong when individual freedoms are lost and central planning becomes the answer for every ill. When truth is bent to meet the moment and government decision making is the proposed cure all, “serfdom” is the destination. Margaret, in believing Hayek’s cautionary, also declared that Socialism cannot sustain itself. Socialism can not last because eventually “you run out of...

An Ohio State University (OSU) class has apparently determined another fundamental difference between Christians and atheists: their IQ points. An online quiz from the school’s Psychology 1100 class, provided to Campus Reform via tip, asked students to pick which scenario they found most likely given that “Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125.” The correct answer? “Aine is an atheist, while Theo is a Christian.” According to a student in the class who wished to remain anonymous, the question was a part of an online homework quiz. Students were required to complete a certain...

In the fall of 2011, Breanne Fahs, an Arizona State University (ASU) Women’s and Gender Studies professor, taught a course called “Psychology of Gender.” As a part of the course, Fahs asked students to break into groups and engage in what she termed "menstrual activism." More specifically, students were asked to choose some aspect of cultural attitudes toward menstruation that they wanted to "improve." Before you continue reading this column, please know that I'm not making this up and I'm not hallucinating. I stopped dropping acid in the late 1980s. Some of you may be wondering what kinds of "cultural...

James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute noticed a very revealing moment in President Obama’s Thursday interview with CNBC’s Steve Liesman: STEVE LIESMAN: Mr. President, I just want to pivot back one more time to domestic issues.  You’ve said a bunch of times that getting the wealthy to pay a little bit more, and you’ve succeeded in raising that top tax rate to 39% or rolling back the tax cuts. Is there a limit there?  Is there a limit to how much you believe the government should take from an individual in terms of a top tax rate? PRESIDENT OBAMA:...

Thirty-three years ago, on September 6, 1981, Father Józef Tischner preached one of the great sermons of the 20th century at a Mass opening the second day of the inaugural Solidarity Congress in Gdań​sk. Tischner, an old friend of John Paul II and the pope’s fellow philosopher, combined the rugged good humor and patriotism of a Polish highlander with a first-class intellect. So he began his sermon with some essential truth-telling to the men and women about to deliberate the future of the Communist world’s first independent, self-governing trade union. Father Tischner didn’t tell the thousands assembled in Gdansk that...

Slandered, despised, insulted, degraded, Israel is nonetheless winning its war against Hamas. The number of rocket attacks launched by the terror group each day has been halved. The IDF is uprooting the underground tunnels Hamas uses to smuggle weapons, contraband, and terrorists in and out of the Gaza Strip. On Wednesday evening, Israel’s Channel Two newscast carried footage of Hamas terrorists surrendering to the IDF. The jihadists carried white flags. They stripped to their shorts, proving they were not wearing suicide belts. These are facts Hamas does not want you to know, images Hamas does not want you to see....

As legend has it, Groucho Marx sent the Friars Club a telegram that read, “Please accept my resignation. I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member.” At least the Friars Club had standards. What to make of the United Nations? It has a single criterion for membership: existence. Admittedly, this is an unattainable standard for such fictional realms as Westeros, Erewhon, Kreplakistan, and numerous locales from the TV series MacGyver (Gnubia, Kabulstan, et al.). But if you’re a nation-state that actually exists, you’re a shoo-in, like Kate Upton trying to get...

A New York University professor has a revolutionary idea for combating global warming: making ourselves greener.Matthew Liao, director of NYU’s bioethics program, thinks that human engineering is a possible solution to global warming, and he lays out his ideas in a new paper. While previous environmental efforts have been focused on reducing the carbon emissions that are said to be causing global warming, Liao says we should look to changing ourselves.“We tried to think outside the box,” Liao told BBC News. “What hasn’t been suggested with respect to addressing climate change?” One of his ideas is to artificially induce...

What Exiting Is and Isn't Virno believes a radical disobedience is needed to challenge the state's ability to command. This cannot be expressed through resistance to a specific law on the grounds, for example, that it contradicts a constitution. Such resistance is actually a vote of confidence in the state qua state; that is, such activists fight to enable a purer vision of state authority rather than against the idea of a state itself. A wholesale rejection is required. And, yet, revolutionaries who violently confront the state usually suffer one of two fates: they are slaughtered or otherwise broken or...