Free Republic

<p>So for the time being the shaky centre of Europe is holding. Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin are at least talking, while the Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko continues to show admirable restraint. But listen closely and it is hard not to hear the echoes of history in Europe’s collective failure to confront naked Russian aggression.</p>

This week, two of the most pugnacious actors on the Florida political stage clashed over whether President Barack Obama should be impeached.

We’ve frequently addressed the mounting evidence showing the deep ties between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, just recently we reported on Mohammed Elibiary’s tweets about America being an Islamic country – he just happens to be an Obama administration advisor on Homeland Security with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. As par for the course, liberal progressives prefer to put their heads in the sand and dismiss the growing evidence – like this particular story, for instance. According to the Gulf News, cooperation between the Obama administration and the Muslim Brotherhood has been going on for quite...

My trip to the desert southwest two weeks ago helped me understand practically, even more than physically, why most of us in the East don’t really know what it is like to live in the West. Yet we desperately need to learn about the increasing obstacles to the pursuit of happiness in the West if we hold our liberties dear. Fortunately, help is on its way. The urban elites of California, Washington State, and Oregon are hard at work growing government debt and inventing new schemes to shrink our liberty, but urban progressives are similar throughout America. The western lifestyles...

Former U.S. Congressman and Lt. Col. Allen West expressed his opposition to a potential move by Pres. Obama to use military enlistment as a vehicle to grant amnesty to illegal aliens. In a post on his website on Thursday, Lt. Col. West said, "the purpose of serving our nation should not be about earning citizenship. It should be about being a guardian of the Republic." Lt. Col. West added that he'll speak out against any Member of Congress who supports a policy to grant a military amnesty.

OSCOW, May 12, /ITAR-TASS/. RF President Vladimir Putin will formulate his attitude to the referenda, held on Sunday, on the status of the Donetsk and Lugansk Regions, "on the strength of their results", presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov told the newspaper Kommersant. What the RF President's decision will be "is difficult to forecast", Peskov added. Asked by the newspaper whether Putin's attitude would be influenced by the fact that he himself had asked the federalization supporters to postpone the referendum until a later date, the presidential press secretary pointed out as follows: "Not asked but made such a recommendation". "However,...

Stockholm. Carl Bildt, Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and one of the architects of the EU Eastern policy, thinks Russia has changed for the worse in the past several years. While it demonstrated attachment to western values in the first decade after the Soviet Union fell apart and tried to impose them on its citizens, Russia’s current leadership takes a firm stand against the West, the Russian agency REX reported. In the words of Mr Bildt, Vladimir Putin demonstrates attachment not to world but to Eastern Orthodox values, which becomes clear from a Twitter post of his [Bildt’s]. ”The new...

After losing his father to the fertilizer plant explosion that almost destroyed his hometown, Parker Pustejovsky is spearheading the effort to recover—and he’s barely old enough to read. WEST, Texas — One year ago on April 17, five-year-old Parker Pustejovsky lost his father in the fertilizer plant explosion that wrecked the small Texas town of West. Joey Pustejovsky was one of 10 first responders to die trying to put out the fire that precipitated the blast. It wasn’t long before young Parker declared he would rebuild the city park, stripped bare by the explosion—and he’d do it by selling hot...

The fight over Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy’s cows grazing illegally on federal land is a symbol of a much larger issue: control of land in western states, where the federal government is dominant

The latest from the White House is that it has "overwhelming evidence" that Russia is now fomenting unrest in eastern Ukraine. You think? How do you suppose our super-sleuths can tell? Maybe it's the busloads of the usual bullyboys being trucked in to take control of police stations, government installations and other key points in Donetsk, Slovyansk, Kramatorsk ... and points all along the next slice of Ukraine the Russians have their eye on. Some of these thugs are in uniform, some without, and many wear St. George ribbons, the unofficial symbol of the old Soviet Union, and they're...

TBILISI, Georgia—Halfway through an otherwise coherent conversation with a Georgian lawyer last week—the topics included judges, the court system, the police—I was startled by a comment he made about his country’s former government, led by ex-president Mikheil Saakashvili. “They were LGBT,” he said, conspiratorially. What did that mean, I asked, surprised. Were they in favor of rights for sexual minorities? For gay marriage? Were they actually gay? He couldn’t really define it, though the conversation meandered in that direction for a few more minutes, also touching on the subject of the former president’s alleged marital infidelity, his promotion of female...

PETROPAVLOVSK KAMCHATSKY, March 29. /ITAR-TASS/. The contact group proposed by the West for talks between Russia and Ukraine is “absolutely unacceptable” as it would mean that Moscow will have to start a dialogue with the persons who have seized power in Kiev, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told Sergei Brilev’s Vesti v Subbotu (News on Saturday) television programme on March 29. “My latest meeting with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in The Hague and my contacts with Germany, France and several other countries show the outlines of a possible joint initiative that could be offered to our Ukrainian colleagues. This...

Russia gave its clearest signal yet Monday that it plans to move fast to annex Crimea, defying U.S. and European threats of sanctions a day after a referendum in the breakaway Ukrainian region to secede passed handily. The Moscow-backed leadership of Crimea wasted no time in formally asking to join Russia following the hastily called referendum in which 97% of voters supported becoming part of Russia. "We will take care of our part quickly, quickly and responsibly," Sergei Naryshkin, speaker of the lower house of Russia's parliament, told reporters in response to the Crimean parliamentary vote, according to local news...

In a letter published on his website on Friday the former Soviet President and Nobel Peace Prize winner said that his position on the Ukrainian crisis remains unchanged. “Our main task is to stop the dangerous escalation and find a solution that would be supported by Ukrainian and Russian citizens and prevent a new Cold War,” the message reads. At the same time, Gorbachev wrote that he would prefer not to get personally involved in the talks and the diplomatic contacts President Vladimir Putin is having with other national leaders almost daily. The former Soviet leader holds that the original...

"Al-Qaeda unveils new magazine aimed at Western jihadis Advert for 'Resurgence' magazine uses words of Malcolm X in appeal to disaffected Muslims in US and Europe, as it turns focus away from Middle East" SNIPPET: "Al-Qaeda is starting an English language magazine as part of a fresh effort to recruit and inspire Western jihadis to launch attacks in their own countries, according to security analysts. A video posted on YouTube uses the words of Malcolm X to justify violent struggle, before announcing the name of the magazine, Resurgence." SNIPPET: "However, the new magazine appears to be the first English language...

Does the West have no future? SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2014 BY SPERO NEWS Speaking before a conference in London on February 21 was Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, who leads his church's Department of External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate. Said the churchman, "The Russian Church, which has paid in millions of lives for the godless Soviet experiment, can and must testify before the adherents of militant secularism to the fact that a society torn from its spiritual roots and faith has no future." Well known throughout the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Hilarion has been notable for his defense of the...

If I asked you to describe the state of Christianity in Europe, you'd probably answer "not good." And there'd be ample reason to do so. Most of us are familiar with the depressing statistics regarding church attendance in Western Europe and Scandinavia. But there is more to Europe than Britain, France, and Sweden. And in Central and Eastern Europe, a different story is being written. This story was the subject of a recent First Things article by Filip Mazurczak. In it, Mazurczak reveals to readers what is going on in former communist societies such as Hungary and Croatia. For instance,...

Former Congressman Lt. Col. Allen West talks about his view of the State of the Union.

When Kanye West arrived after being informed of this, he walked straight up to the teen and punched him in the face. Now, in the aftermath of the incident, he said he is seriously considering leaving the United States. West said he is dreading explaining the incident to his daughter, whose name is “North”, because it will lead to seriously negative discussions about American culture, society and history. West said he would prefer to leave the U.S. than have to have regular conversations about racism with his daughter.