Free Republic

Our ancestors made America great, and so shall we, again In the Soviet Union, a.k.a. the Evil Empire, over 90 percent of eligible citizens voted in national elections, of which over 90 percent voted for the members of their ruling clique. All the candidates were government-approved, and national propaganda (all Soviet main-stream media) were 100 percent in favor of those whom the ruling clique wanted to get elected. Although formally a democracy (“People’s Democracy” was sometimes used to describe it), the above insidious arrangement was the main instrument in the hands of the Soviet ruling clique with which to decide...

As Hitler's troops withdrew from Poland in 1945, Stalin's Red Army advanced towards Berlin. Instead of liberation, the Soviet troops raped and pillaged as they followed the retreating Nazis.  In January 1945, as the war continued, French authorities sent Dr Madeleine Pauliac to Moscow to assist with the efforts to repatriate any French prisoners of war discovered by the Soviets.

5 minutes long ...worth a listen , or even a 2nd listen if you have , as I have , heard it before .

Before dawn on June 22, 1941, German bombers began to rain destruction down on a swath of Soviet cities from Leningrad to Sevastopol. It was the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the largest military operation in the history of the world. By the end of the day, three million German soldiers and their allies crossed the Soviet border, inaugurating the bloodiest phase of World War II. The invasion also brought to a bloody conclusion 20 years of secret cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union. While Soviet-German military cooperation between 1922 and 1933 is often forgotten, it had a decisive impact...

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

Williams single-handedly shot down four Russian fighters, a record-breaking feat never recognized or even known until recentlyRetired U.S. Navy Cpt. E. Royce Williams will never forget November 18, 1952. “Here came four of them from the front side all firing and the others were coming around from the other side…We came in head on,” Williams remembered. “I saw bullets go over me and under me then over me… So the fight went on and on and on.” Williams, who fought in the Korean War, single-handedly shot down four Russian fighters – a record-breaking feat never recognized or even known until...

Janna Sundeyeva still remembers life in the Soviet Union, where stores in remote regions would lack meat for months at a time and toilet paper had to be snatched up quickly on the rare occasions it appeared. But the minor indignities paled in comparison to what happened to her grandfather: He had the chance to come to America in 1929, but he opted to stay, sensing an economic thaw. Seven years later, Sundeyeva says, he was arrested and never heard from again. Sundeyeva immigrated to San Francisco from Moldova in 1994, and now she and her husband run a Russian-language...

In the previously unseen footage, Kim Philby gives a seminar to East German spies A previously unseen video of one of Britain's most infamous spies describing his career as a Soviet agent has been uncovered by the BBC. The tape is of Kim Philby giving a secret lecture to the Stasi, the East German Intelligence Service, in 1981. It is the first time the ex-MI6 officer can be seen talking about his life as a spy from his recruitment to his escape. He describes his career rising up the ranks of MI6 whilst providing its secrets to the Soviet Union's...

I had never heard about this story before, but a clever and competent reader shared it on our Facebook page, and I thought some of y’all might enjoy it too. Back in 1989, card-carrying Communist and Politburo member in the Soviet Union Boris Yeltsin visited Johnson Space Center, and then took a tour of a grocery store in Clear Lake, Texas. According to a Houston Chronicle reporter, Yelstin was far more affected by the grocery store visit than he was the space center. He apparently was stunned by the aisles and aisles of supermarket products, and told the other Russians...

Mounting Evidence Putin Will Ignite WWIII By letting Putin get away with whatever he likes in Syria, Obama has created a deeply dangerous situation By John R. Schindler 02/11/16 10:51am Relations between Russia and Turkey have been dismal since late November, when a Turkish fighter jet shot down a Russian bomber on the border with Syria, killing its pilot. That began a war of words between Moscow and Ankara that ought to concern everyone, since the former has several thousand nuclear weapons and the latter is a member of NATO. Kremlin propaganda against Ankara has increased of late, setting the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is and has always been fond of communist "ideas", while also comparing the Soviet code of conduct to the Holy Bible, independent news agency Interfax reported. ... "I was not, as you know, a party member by necessity," he said. "I liked communist and socialist ideas very much and I like them still."

The United States is scrutinizing developments in Poland, the U.S. trade czar said on Sunday when asked if Washington was concerned about the European Union's rule of law inquiry into Poland and Standard and Poor's cut to Warsaw's credit rating. "As a fellow democracy we do follow developments here very closely," U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman told reporters during his visit to Google Campus in Warsaw. "We certainly do follow it. As a democracy, we want to make sure that Poland's democracy continues to address the issues."

It’s official: the blizzard of ‘16 is historic. Like so many other things in the age of Obama.Of course history isn’t what it used to be. Historical revisionism, also known as “negationism” and  “historiography” in the old USSR, makes it easier to get your message out. For example, who could forget BHO’s “bio-bombing” of presidential history: In a June 28, 1985 speech Reagan called for a fairer tax code, one where a multi-millionaire did not have a lower tax rate than his secretary. Today, President Obama is calling for the same with the Buffett Rule. – Reason.com Butt as long...

Welcome to the first workday of 2016 and maybe the first day of World War III.The last two World Wars started when a couple of countries got into it and everyone else began to choose up sides.Over the weekend, the Saudi Arabian government executed 47 people including one senior Shiite cleric who had been an outspoken opponent of the Saudi rulers.  The Iranians immediately set fire to the Saudi Embassy in Tehran.  The Saudis immediately emptied its embassy of diplomats, cut off diplomatic ties, and ordered the Iranian mission out of Riyadh within 48 hours. As a reminder, the royal family...

What is it about worn-out socialist "worker paradises" like the old Soviet Union and Cuba that bring out the romantic in American radical politicians? After Vermont senator Bernie Sanders announced his run for president, Britain’s Guardian newspaper pawed through old archives in his home town of Burlington, Vermont where he served as mayor in the 1980s. They discovered that Sanders really did practice the socialist solidarity he preached about rhetorically. During Bernie's mayoral tenure, Burlington formed an alliance with the Soviet city of Yaroslavl, 160 miles northeast of Moscow. When in 1988 he married his wife, Jane, the mayor decided...

Terrorists use terrorism because it works, although not against everybody. The Soviet Union’s flaws were without number, but the effete, obsequious squeamishness that characterizes the current American approach to Islam was not among them. From 1986: The Jerusalem Post said the Soviet secret police last year secured the release of three kidnaped Soviet diplomats in Beirut by castrating a relative of a radical Lebanese Shia Muslim leader, sending him the severed organs and then shooting the relative in the head. The incident began when four Soviet diplomats were kidnaped last September by Muslim extremists who demanded that Moscow pressure the...

In the late 1970s, in the American state of Connecticut, a hockey official got fired, took out a $9,000 cash advance on his credit card and convinced an oil company to help him launch a sports network called ESPN. By contrast, Russia’s new 24-hour sports network had a quintessentially Russian origin: Kremlin Decree Number 365. President Vladimir Putin signed that decree in mid-July, laying the groundwork for a dedicated federal sports network called Match TV. Putin hailed the network as a way to display “spectacular competition” and “popularize a healthy way of life.” The network launched this week, free of...

US Navy say "light in the West Coast sky" was a Trident II (D5) missile test at sea from the submarine "Kentucky" www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xLmB81v-BI

Late in September, we brought you "US Readies Battle Plans For Baltic War With Russia" in which we described a series of thought experiments undertaken by The Pentagon in an effort to determine what the likely outcome would be should something go horribly "wrong" on the way to landing the US in a shooting war with Russia in the Balkans. The results of those thought experiments were not encouraging.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter on Saturday accused Russia of endangering world order, citing its incursions in Ukraine and loose talk about nuclear weapons, and said the U.S. defense establishment is searching for creative ways to deter Russian aggressive and protect U.S. allies. [...] Carter said Russia is undertaking "challenging activities" at sea, in the air, in space and in cyberspace. "Most disturbing, Moscow's nuclear saber-rattling raises questions about Russian leaders' commitment to strategic stability, their respect for norms against the use of nuclear weapons, and whether they respect the profound caution nuclear-age leaders showed with regard to the brandishing of...