Free Republic

In fact, European leaders are finally beginning to reveal the true nature of the ongoing debt dispute, and the answer is not pleasant: it is about power and democracy much more than money and economics. Of course, the economics behind the program that the “troika” (the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund) foisted on Greece five years ago has been abysmal, resulting in a 25% decline in the country’s gross domestic product. I can think of no depression, ever, that has been so deliberate and had such catastrophic consequences: Greece’s rate of youth unemployment, for...

The Russians responded to the sanctions against Russia. A group of Siberian entrepreneurs have started selling toilet paper featuring the text of the sanctions imposed against Russian Federation by the European Union and the United States.

National Journal reporter Ron Fournier said Monday on Morning Joe that Hillary Clinton has undermined the public’s trust in government and politics. “White House officials tell me they’re disgusted with the fact that Hillary Clinton violated their rules on foreign donations, violated their rules on email,” Fournier said. “Well, I haven’t heard the president rebuke her. I haven’t seen his State Department investigate this. So I’ve got to assume that the Obama White House is complicit in this lack of transparency and in this rule breaking and whatever else is going on that we don’t know about.”

New documents released by a federal court show President Obama called then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on the night of the 2012 Benghazi attack -- but the contents are being withheld by the State Department. It had previously been disclosed that Clinton and Obama spoke the night of the terror attacks. But the documents offer additional information about the timing of the call -- after the initial attack on the U.S. consulate, but before the second wave where mortars hit the nearby CIA annex and killed former Navy SEALs Ty Woods and Glen Doherty. The contents of the call, however,...

Less than two weeks before the Srebrenica massacre’s 20th anniversary, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox Serbs in the Bosnian town are as divided as ever. Serbs put up anti-European Union posters on Sunday with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s portrait on them and the words “Eastern alternative” and “Republika Srpska,” or “Serb Republic.” Most of them were plastered on the bullet-riddled walls of a warehouse in the nearby village of Kravica, where Serb forces executed Muslim Bosnians during the 1995 genocide.Bosnia’s Muslims want the country to join the EU, while Serbs would like their half—called Republika Srpska—to secede and stay close to...

An unmanned SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket traveling at 2,900 mph, about 27 miles above the earth disintegrated 2 minutes and 19 seconds into its flight from Cape Canaveral to the International Space Station. It was a severe blow to NASA, still reeling from two previous failed Space Station resupply missions. The SpaceX failure is a reprieve for Russia’s Soyuz TMA-17M spacecraft that will remain the prime Space Station servicer, despite recently renewed US sanctions against Russia. The SpaceX launch, its seventh robotic cargo mission to the International Space Station, was running at what NASA called “on course, on track” before...

Cruz said, “Mainstream media is not fair and impartial. They are protecting Barack Obama and this presidency. I think no one is more ready for Hillary than the mainstream media.” He continued, “If any Republican did what she’s [Hillary Clinton] doing right now, she doesn’t take any press interviews and the press is docile … How many criminal investigations are ongoing into Hillary Clinton right now?”

Welcome to the age of vanity politics and campaigns-for-hire. What would our founders make of this nightmare? Four qualities have distinguished republican government from ancient Athens forward: the sovereignty of the people; a sense of the common good; government dedicated to the commonwealth; and resistance to corruption. Measured against the standards established for republics from ancient times, the American Republic is massively corrupt. From Plato and Aristotle forward, corruption was meant to describe actions and decisions that put a narrow, special, or personal interest ahead of the interest of the public or commonwealth. Corruption did not have to stoop to...

The Clinton Foundation is billed as a philanthropic organization that mobilizes wealthy power brokers w/ a mission to solve global problems. It's raised an incredible $2 billion for an eclectic range of programs...fighting elephant poaching, improving schools, and raising AIDS awareness in Latin and African countries. The Foundation is under intense criticism...the watchdog Sunlight Foundation charges donations from individuals, corporations, and foreign governments, are conflicts of interest b/c these entities give Bill Clinton exorbitant speaking fees......that millions in honoraria lead to Hillary's State Dept approving contracts and treaty agreements. The Clinton Foundation's lengthy list of foreign donors is where most...

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday praised the Supreme Court's ruling declaring same-sex couples have a right to marry and suggested that her Republican opponents were being left behind by history. In one of her most partisan speeches since announcing her presidential campaign, Clinton criticized the field of more than a dozen Republican candidates for opposing gay marriage, gun control, immigration reform and women's reproductive rights. "We can sum up the message from the court and the American people in just two words: Move on," she said in a fiery speech to Democratic activists gathered in Northern Virginia...

For a head of state to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Binyamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip seen in Jerusalem tonight as a disastrous humiliation. After failing to extract a written promise of concessions on Jewish settlements, Mr Obama walked out of his meeting with Mr Netanyahu but invited him to stay at...

Uproar in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps: Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has relieved Gen. Qassem Soleimani,the Al Qods Brigades chief and supreme commander of Iranian Middle East forces, of his Syria command after a series of war debacles. He was left in charge of Iran’s military and intelligence operations in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon. This is revealed by exclusive Iranian intelligence sources. Since Soleimani last visited Damascus on June 2, in the aftershock of the historic town of Palmyra’s fall to the Islamic State, the situation of President Bashar Assad and his army has gone from bad to worse. The Iranian general’s...

In Jerusalem flyers were spread throughout the old city claiming to be ISIS.The bulletin which had the ISIS logo demanded that all Christian Arabs must leave eastern Jerusalem by the end of Ramadan accused of being “Israeli collaborators”. ISIS also demanded that in the case the Christians refuse to leave that Muslims in eastern Jerusalem are mandated to kill all the Christians living there.Photo Credit: Islamic State / JerusalemAl-Quds (Jerusalem Newspaper), the main Arab newspaper there had posted a reply from Theodosios (Hanna) of Sebastia, the Archbishop from the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem. In his reply the Archbishop condemned the...

Helicopters came into being after the major wars of the 20th century were fought. The helicopter had neither the altitude nor speed to work in either of the world wars fought in the last century. But the helicopter has come into its own, with a number of advantages over attack jet aircraft, as a means of battle support. Historic insight The Soviet Union built two attack helicopters in the 1980Â’s. Two Soviet design bureaus, Mil and Kamov, built them as a counter to the American AH-64. Test results till the end of the 80s showed the single-seater Ka-50, built on...

Like the AK-47 but for tanks, T-54 and T-55s endure on battlefields around the world. Simple to operate and maintain, these decades-old Soviet armored beasts are still popular in small nations and with non-state irregular forces — a true “people’s tank.” If a coup or fratricidal civil war breaks out in one of Moscow’s current or former beneficiaries, there’s good chances T-54 or T-55s are taking part. When Afghanistan collapsed in the 1990s, the Taliban and Northern Alliance coalition both inherited T-55s formerly belonging to the communist government. The tanks served in Yugoslavia’s multi-sided civil war during the same decade. Today, captured...

NAPLES, Italy — The Marine Corps is preparing to deploy a company-size unit equipped with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery to Bulgaria, an expansion of its Black Sea footprint meant to reassure allies and add new crisis-response options. The first rotation of the Combined Arms Company will bring 150 Marines to the Novo Selo Training Area, Bulgaria, in September. Accompanying the unit will be four Abrams tanks, six Light Armored Vehicles and three howitzers, said Brig. Gen. Norm Cooling, deputy commander of Marine Forces Europe-Africa. Current plans call for three consecutive six-month rotations, Cooling said, though the presence could be...

Karen Finney, a top advisor for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, declined to answer if she believes churches that refuse to perform same sex marriages should lose their tax exempt status. Responding to a question from Breitbart News, Finney dodged with, “honestly today just thinking about what this means for my LGBT friends.”

A mock invasion of Sweden and Norway has been carried out by 33,000 Russian troops, a US security think tank has claimed. Tens of thousands of soldiers rehearsed a military takeover of Swedish and Norwegian territory near the Baltic Sea in March, security expert Edward Lucas said in a report for the US-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). The exercise also simulated the invasion of other areas including the Danish island of Bornholm, Finland's Swedish-speaking Åland islands, and northern Norway, according to the report, The Coming Storm.

From mass invasion of insects suffers Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, Buryatia and the Orenburg region. Throughout the Orenburg region of Russia introduced a state of emergency because of the invasion of locusts, reports "Iodine" referring to the official Russian media. "Decree of the Governor of emergency regime imposed after the destruction of crops particularly dangerous pests. From locusts cultivated fields in the area over 91 thousand. Ha", - said the representative of the Ministry of Agriculture Region. To combat pests and insects assistance to victims of farmers in the region have created a special headquarters. To fight the locusts in 2015 allocated...

Russia on Thursday sent into Ukraine more than 100 trucks that Moscow claims are carrying aid for people in Ukraine’s Donbas region - the 31st such convoy that has crossed into Ukraine without permission from the Ukrainian government. Read more on UNIAN: http://www.unian.info/society/1093631-russia-sends-another-massive-aid-convoy-into-ukraine.html The Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations said the vehicles were delivering food and medicine in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. The truck convoy, as with previous ones, split into two after crossing from Russia into militant-held Ukraine, with one section heading for Donetsk and the other for Luhansk, according to Russian state news agency TASS, with reference to...