Free Republic

A Mi-26 led the flypast over the Victory Day parade in Moscow, followed by Mi-17s. A successor heavy-lift helicopter will be jointly developed by Russia and China. (photo: Vladimir Karnozov) Russian Helicopters and Avic on May 8 signed a breakthrough deal on joint development of the Advanced Heavy Lift (AHL) helicopter. The ceremony took place in the Kremlin and was witnessed by President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jingping, who was in Moscow for the parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. In a sign of closer ties between Russia and...

EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has accused the EU insitutions of being too ready to use the data protection “shield” as an argument against being more transparent. “Data protection is viewed as a major shield against transparency in these institutions. I see it on so many levels,” she said at a public discussion on Brussels lobbying on Wednesday (11 May). She noted that while in some member states a distinction is made between an official acting in their private capacity and acting as a public servant, “that distinction is far too blurred” in Brussels. Her remarks were directed at EU commissioner...

BOSTON (CBS) — A Somerville man is facing charges after calling for help while allegedly trespassing in Boston’s tunnels. Massachusetts State Police said they responded at 9:20 p.m. Monday to a man who said he was trapped in a storm drain. “Dispatchers were able to determine the man was located somewhere in the Boston tunnels,” police said. Troopers kept the man on the phone as he described the white walls and light blue floor around him. Police said they then asked all troopers to slowly drive around the D ramp and Ted Williams/Connector tunnels with their sirens on to see...

Verizon Communications Inc. is buying AOL Inc. in a $4.4 billion deal aimed at advancing the telecom giant's growth ambitions in mobile video and advertising. The all-cash deal values AOL at $50 a share, a 23% premium over the company's three-month volume-weighted average price. AOL shares rose 18% in premarket trading to $50.27. Verizon shares fell 1.6% to $49. The acquisition would give Verizon, which has set its sights on entering the crowded online video marketplace, access to advanced technology AOL has developed for selling ads and delivering high-quality Web video.

Tells press “This is your opportunity to get out of my face right now.” So this should be interesting: Matthew Apperson, the man who yesterday fired a bullet at George Zimmerman’s head and missed, is now claiming through his lawyer, Mark NeJame, that he did so in self-defense in response to Zimmerman brandishing a gun at him. Florida news station WFTV is also reporting that Apperson has a history at least six arrests in Seminole County alone, including twice for DUI in 2000 (once found guilty of DUI, once found guilty of reduced charge of reckless driving-alcohol related), twice for...

US Air Force's 411th Flight Test Squadron and F-22 Combined Test Force successfully test fired two guided AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles this year as part of the latest phase in getting the Raptor closer to using the missile operationally. The AIM-9X is an advanced infrared missile and the newest of the Sidewinder family of short-range air-to-air missiles carried on a wide range of fighter jets. The first guided launch of the AIM-9X from an F-22 Raptor was Feb. 26, 2015, by Maj. Christopher Guarente, 411th FLTS assistant director of operations and F-22 test pilot (Credit: Lockheed Martin) The first guided launch...

Russian president Vladimir Putin over the weekend celebrated the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany with a military parade on Red Square and a series of smaller events. But while standing next to German chancellor Angela Merkel, he appeared to justify the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact which the Soviet Union signed with the Nazi regime in 1939. “This pact made sense in terms of guaranteeing the Soviet Union’s security,” he said on Sunday (10 May). Putin noted that Moscow, in the 1930s, had tried to stop Nazi Germany, but felt isolated after Germany, France, and the UK signed the...

SACRAMENTO — Seven years ago, a newspaper investigation found that a little-known state program designed to protect police and judges from the public disclosure of their home addresses had expanded into a massive database of 1.5 million public employees and their family members, few of whom face any on-the-job dangers to merit the protection. Because of this Confidential Records Program, “Vehicles with protected license plates can run through dozens of intersections controlled by red light cameras and breeze along the 91 toll lanes with impunity,” according to the Orange County Register report. They evade parking citations and even get out...

Cathy Young and The Daily Beast clearly intended her hit piece on Pamela Geller and me to be a comprehensive source for lazy journalists, for everything that is wrong with us. The problem is that her piece is a farrago of misrepresentations and outright lies. Pamela Geller and I respond at Breitbart today.

A federal judge has agreed to reopen a lawsuit that seeks to gain access to emails from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private server. Judge Reggie B. Walton’s decision Friday came after the State Department and Judicial Watch, which brought the lawsuit, agreed that the documents that Clinton kept on her own email server separate from the government should be turned over. “This is the first case that’s been reopened,” Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch told The Washington Times. “It’s a significant development. It points to the fraud by this administration and Mrs. Clinton.”

Congress, led by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), is preparing to betray American workers, and the grassroots should rise up and say, "No, you don't." The secretive underhanded deal is called Fast Track, and that's an appropriate title because, indeed, it puts Americans on a fast track to lower wages and fewer available jobs. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), one of the few members of Congress who have actually read and studied Fast Track plus its companion trade bill called Trans-Pacific Partnership, has compiled a list of objections to it that are downright frightening. They should be...

A Galveston, Texas, man arrested for stabbing a man nearly to death has more legal problems after spitting his own feces at the arresting officer. Following an investigation by officers responding to a reported stabbing, the suspect took off on foot and officers were forced to chase him down to secure the arrest. This is where things went from bad to worse, says a reporter for KTRK 13 in Houston. Officers placed 29-year-old Jonathon Glenn in the back of their patrol car. Glenn somehow managed to not only defecate in the back seat of the patrol car, he managed to...

Hey Barack? Yes, Your Royal Majesty. Look, know what I said about coming to that thing at your place? Of course, oh Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Not going to make it--turns out I have to rearrange my stallion's sock drawer. On today's Morning Joe, Andrea Mitchell acknowledged the undeniable: that the last-minute decision by Saudi King Salman not to attend the White House summit, after previously having informed John Kerry that he would be there, was such an "in your face" snub, so embarrassing to Kerry and the Obama White House, that "I don't see any way that...

...Portman will star as U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a new film. “On the Basis of Sex” will follow Ginsburg’s obstacles-filled career on the road to becoming the second female justice and the first Jewish female justice on the high court, Deadline Hollywood reported. President Bill Clinton appointed Ginsburg to the Supreme Court in 1993.

As the debate about excessive police force against unarmed civilians rages throughout the U.S., the Obama administration is involving itself again in the case of an American teen severely beaten by members of the police force of Israel, a U.S. ally with whom there already exist increased tension. CNN has learned that White House National Security Council staffers recently took the unusual step of meeting in the West Wing with Tariq Khdeir, the Tampa teenager of Palestinian descent beaten unconscious by Israeli police last summer during a protest in East Jerusalem. According to cell phone video, after Tariq was in...

In a list of the world's most eligible bachelors, Prince Harry would certainly be somewhere near the top. So when the fair-haired royal, now fifth in line to the throne, spoke yesterday about his desire to share his life with someone, a million or more ears pricked up around the globe. While on an official tour of Australia and New Zealand, following a month-long army deployment there down under, Harry hinted that he might be ready to bid farewell to life as a single man, saying he would 'love to settle down... and have kids'.

It all boils down to Gang Greed. That was how a hero soldier honored by the Jets reacted to news that the team and 13 other NFL franchises were paid by the National Guard and the Department of Defense to salute the troops at home games.

Word For The Day, Tuesday May 12, 2015 In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of "Word for the Day". hidebound [hahyd-bound] -adj1.narrow and rigid in opinion; inflexible: 2. oriented toward or confined to the past; extremely conservative: 3. (of a horse, cow, etc.) having the back and ribs bound tightly by the hide. [1550-60; hide2+ -bound1]

The doomsayers always come out whenever stock markets get more volatile, like they have this month. These gloomy prophets go on and on about how derivatives are going to cause another financial crisis, or how valuations are stretched, or how equities will collapse whenever interest rates rise. Individual investors read the commentary by these experts and wonder if they should adjust their portfolios, or even sell everything and wait out the impending collapse. But before you do that, take a moment to calm down and have another think. In every single one of our 30 years in the business, someone,...

Since 2008, Congress has annually appropriated $150 million for Metro's capital improvement budget under the Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. The District, Maryland, and Virginia have matched that, contributing $50 million each. The proposed GOP legislation would mean Metro would start its fiscal year in July with just $75 million in federal money. Lawmakers who represent House districts in the Washington metropolitan area criticized the spending bill when it was unveiled last month. "It really feels like a betrayal of trust," Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia said then. "It also is a failure to recognize that Metro is...