Free Republic

As reported by the Miami Herald, another good guy with a gun drew his firearm outside a grocery store in Florida over the weekend, in response to a pregnant woman being beaten and stomped on the head by her boyfriend. As you might guess, the good guy brought an end to the brutal attack — pronto. The woman told Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputies that her boyfriend — 27-year-old Cole Danisment — got angry and repeatedly punched her in the face in the parking lot of a Publix in Largo around 5:15 p.m. on Saturday. Largo is approximately 45 minutes southwest...

MIAMI — Florida Democrats are fretting over Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ popularity among Latinos, saying they are boosting his chances of becoming the first Republican governor in 20 years to win traditionally blue Miami-Dade County and therefore propelling his chances of a successful presidential run in 2024. Miami-Dade, the state's most populous county, is 70% Hispanic. The last time a Republican governor won Miami-Dade County was Jeb Bush in 2002. Unlike DeSantis, Bush held press conferences in fluent Spanish and his wife is Mexican-born. DeSantis is an “outlier” among Republican governors, said Fernand Amandi, a Democratic consultant and pollster in...

Florida has become a “refuge of sanity in a world gone mad.” That was the assessment of Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., in remarks Saturday evening at the third National Conservatism Conference in Miami. DeSantis’ speech focused on the core theme of how Florida has become a bastion of liberty—a refuge for those seeking better governance and a freer life. He said that his state, in many ways, has gone in the opposite direction compared with many other states and the federal government. “It is said that our federalist system creates ‘laboratories of democracy’ where different states can approach things in...

Days after the unprecedented raid of Donald Trump’s Florida home, AG Merrick Garland finally decided to address the public on Thursday regarding the matter. Some naively hoped that he’d provide a legitimate justification for the raid, but as expected, that didn’t materialize, mostly because there was no justification.Instead, Garland danced about while revealing a few noteworthy things. One, we learned that he was the one that ordered the raid, which is not surprising given he’s a partisan who obviously holds a grudge against the former president. Two, the DOJ is asking the judge in the case to unseal the warrant,...

The pro-life movement suffered a defeat in Kansas on Tuesday when the state overwhelmingly voted to uphold abortion “rights.” The vote in Kansas on Tuesday centered on whether or not the state would remove abortion rights protections in the State Constitution, potentially paving the way for “state lawmakers to pass far-reaching abortion restrictions, or even to pursue a ban,” according to the New York Times. With 76 percent reporting, the “No” votes to keep abortion rights in place beat the “Yes” votes by double digits – 62.2 percent versus 37.7 percent as of this writing. Both NBC News and the...

One of the side effects of war is economic dislocation. No matter what Vladimir Putin chooses to call his war in Ukraine, it is a war, and it is dislocating markets worldwide. Most of the attention has been on the potential disruption of Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe, but a more significant problem than cold Euros is looming. Ukraine is one of the world’s leading exporters of wheat and sunflower oil. Because of Putin’s War, Ukrainian products can’t pass through the Black Sea to get to market.Fears of a global food crisis are swelling as Russian attacks on...

Just before Easter, the Russians announced that they had accomplished all of their pre-invasion objectives and were beginning a new phase. The new phase required the abandonment of Russia’s attempt to seize control of Kiev and focus the war on gaining control of Donbas and establishing a land bridge from Russia to Crimea (read Ukraine’s Future Depends on These Three Fights That Russia Must Win and 10 Days Into Putin’s ‘New Phase’ of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, There Are Minor Advances but the Clock Is Ticking). That goal eventually expanded to creating Russian-owned territory from Russia to Moldova and stripping...

Tuesday, it became evident that the Russian Army was abandoning territory in Ukraine that it seized shortly after Putin’s War began on February 24 (Russian Troops Retreat From Ukraine to Russia: Planned Redeployment or the Beginning of Collapse?). That withdrawal opened the way for Ukrainian forces to recover previously occupied territory from north of Kharkiv to the border with Russia.What a difference a week makes. Russian positions a week ago on the left; from yesterday on the right. h/t @Militarylandnet pic.twitter.com/5gVye2hQra— streiff (@streiffredstate) May 10, 2022Unconfirmed but solid reports that Ukrainian troops have reached the Russian border to the North-East...

Over the last week, the Russian position north of Kharkiv has collapsed. There are two explanations, and both involve an endgame for Putin’s War.Most commentary on military operations over the last week has focused on what is assumed to be the center of gravity of the Russian campaign in Ukraine, Donbas, and the siege of Mariupol. However, in my opinion, the real activity to watch has been occurring on the Ukraine-Russia border. Kharkiv had been under daily artillery and rocket fire, destroying most of it.When I saw the city center of Kharkiv, destroyed by air bombs, I was shocked. Last...

It is now May 9, and the speculation about what Russian President Vladimir Putin will do on the occasion of the 2022 Victory Day Parade has been answered.Due to the war raging in Ukraine, a lot of SmartSet™ types had been speculating that Putin would use the Victory Day Parade as the catalyst to mobilize Russia for his war in Ukraine, if not declare war outright. Read my coverage of Putin’s possible courses of action at Tomorrow Is ‘Victory Day’ in Russia but Vladimir Putin Is Losing, So What Does He Offer Russia?.The preliminaries of the parade are in the...

Conservatives on Twitter had a field day Wednesday bashing Gov. Gavin Newsom, D-Calif., for getting his far left talking points all mixed up. At an abortion rally, he denied that men can get pregnant, which goes against current woke ideology. On Wednesday, Newsom posted a video of himself speaking to abortion and Planned Parenthood supporters about his commitment to defend the "reproductive rights" of women and girls in California in a rebuke of the potential SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe v Wade that was leaked in a court draft opinion on Monday. Newsom’s speech consisted of the typical boilerplate pro-abortion...

The Russian ammunition dump in Tomorovka, Russia, was wracked by explosions on Sunday morning. Tomorovka is just west of Belgorod and barely 40 miles north of the Ukrainian strongpoint city of Kharkiv. This ammunition dump would be critical to sustaining the Russian offensive in Donbas. There is no claim of responsibility, so it might be another of those mysterious fires plaguing Russian strategic installations and those installations supporting the Donbas operation. Video of the explosion and aftermath are posted below.There have been a series of explosions and fires at military logistics and storage points inside #Russia that are used to...

According to the Jerusalem Post, Belarus faces an organized sabotage campaign aimed at railroad lines carrying Russian troops and supplies into Ukraine.The General Prosecutor of Belarus opened a criminal case into what it called an act of terrorism carried out by an organized group against infrastructure of the Belarusian Railway, according to TASS.The general prosecutor added that signaling facilities and other transport equipment were rendered “unusable.”The BYPOL group, which consists of former security officers who support the opposition in Belarus, said on Tuesday that a series of sabotage actions had targeted the railway system in Belarus, disrupting the movement of...

On Wednesday, as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was touting a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ to the war in Ukraine (see Proposed ‘Fifteen Point Peace Plan’ in Russia-Ukraine War Is a Total Defeat for Putin, but Zelensky Is Biding His Time), President Vladimir Putin gave a speech that did not indicate that he had any intention of settling for less than total victory in Ukraine and signaled a crackdown on elements of his own society.<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>The first part...

Multiple sources report that Vladimir Putin has ordered the arrest and detention of General Roman Gavrilov, the deputy director of Rosgvardiya, or the National Guard of Russia. This National Guard is not to be confused with anything like our National Guard. The Rosgvardia is composed of internal security troops, from police to paratroops and special forces, that report directly to Vladimir Putin and whose responsibility is the stability of the state.In 2016, President Putin signed a decree that created the National Guard, known in common parlance by its Russian name Rosgvardiya. This did not entail whole new organizations or the...

On Wednesday, the Financial Times ran an exclusive story on the ongoing peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Those negotiations started only four days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was little progress until March 10, when Turkey announced it was hosting a “high level” meeting between the two parties. On Monday, I posted how the Russians and Ukrainian peace delegations were making pleasing noises about “progress,” see Russians and Ukrainians Say Peace Talks Show Progress but ‘Getting to Yes’ Seems Very Far Away.Today’s news comes in a story titled Ukraine and Russia explore neutrality plan in peace talks.IMPORTANT...

There are reports in British papers that Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the arrest of at least two senior officers in the Russian Federal Security Service or FSB. The FSB is the successor to the KGB but without the overseas portfolio. However, it does operate within the now-independent states that comprised the former Soviet Union, which by Russian law (lolol) is forbidden territory to the foreign intelligence service or SVR.A Russian spy chief is said to have been placed under house arrest in a sign that President Putin is seeking to blame the security services for the stalled invasion...

The Russian terror campaign against Ukrainian civilians continues unabated even as its military operations resemble something dreamed up by the Three Stooges. On Wednesday, the Russian Air Force bombed a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol. They claimed that a very pregnant wounded woman, who happens to be a Ukrainian beauty blogger was a “crisis actor” (Alex Jones needs to demand royalties for this) before deleting their tweet. The Russians are claiming, without a shred of evidence, that the hospital was used for military purposes, that they had notified the UN (apparently in secret) that the hospital was...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit the campaign trail in Texas over the weekend. The following is a key portion of her speech at San Antonio:Texas turning blue is inevitable. It will happen, the only question is when, Texas. The only question is: When?Texas is currently the most populous Republican-controlled state.Ocasio-Cortez speaking in San Antonio (YouTube screen grab).Texas has 38 Electoral College votes and 36 representatives in the U.S. House. The Texas House is controlled by the Republicans and consists of 82 Republicans and 67 Democrats. The Texas Senate is also controlled by Republicans and constitutes 18 Republicans and 13 Democrats.The governor of...

As a rule, few things are less likely to be the source of humor than court decisions. Sometimes there are excellent puns or low-key snark, but you don’t find belly-laugh material. Usually. Last Friday, a panel of the Ninth Circuit published a decision on a complaint arising from Ventura, California, that covered both the COVID panic and the Second Amendment. During the height of the COVID panic, that county ordered firing ranges, and gun shops closed. Presumably, this is because the Wuhan virus has a particular affinity for recreational venues. Several groups and individuals sued to overturn the order as...