Free Republic

So, I just got a message from a friend who was in Afghanistan. His friend is in hiding with his family, cannot go out to get food, and fears they will all be killed. He is begging for help. The message could be posted on The Palmieri Report soon. It simply amazes me that the Biden Regime let in millions of illegals, while it left our friends in war zones to twist slowly in the wind. Who elected them? Less than a majority...

A veteran US diplomat who headed the Kabul embassy twice - including in 2002 soon after it reopened after five years of Taliban rule - said he has 'grave' concerns over President Joe Biden's ability to lead the United States after Afghanistan fell to the insurgent group once again on Sunday. Former Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker on Monday called the Taliban's takeover a predictable 'self-inflicted wound' to US foreign policy. 'That's why this is all so sad,' Crocker said.

Uzbekistan says about 750 Afghan military personnel have arrived in the country in the past 48 hours. About 600 of those were aboard Afghan military aircraft, while a further 158 troops crossed into the country on Sunday. Uzbekistan shares a narrow northern border with Afghanistan. Uzbek authorities said they forced down 46 military aircraft in the southern city of Termez. According to the Uzbek prosecutor-general's office, one Afghan aircraft and the Uzbek fighter jet that was escorting it collided. Both pilots ejected. Video posted to social media showed an Afghan Black Hawk helicopter on the ground on what was said...

A new study by Douglas Wilbur, a visiting scholar in the UTSA Department of Communication, examines the claims made by the fact-checking website Prop or Not that Russian propaganda targets the American public. He found evidence that popular sites such as Zero Hedge, a Wall Street focused site, echoes Russian propaganda in line with the claims leveraged by Prop of Not. Wilbur analyzed over 600 articles and found a strong, positive correlation between Sputnik, Russia’s state-owned media, and popular alternative media sites that are thought to provide favorable coverage in the U.S. of Russia and its allies. “Covert manipulation of...

The U.S. has reached a deal with the Taliban to ensure that evacuations from Kabul's airport can take place without interference from the group, according to a report by The Associated Press. The deal was reached in talks in Doha, Qatar, between senior Taliban officials and Gen. Frank McKenzie. The two sides apparently agreed to a "deconfliction mechanism” in which operations at the airport in Kabul are permitted to continue without interference from the Taliban.

Several Gold Star families say their “hearts are broken” amid the deadly and chaotic withdrawal of Americans from Afghanistan after the Taliban regained control of the country. Speaking to Fox News on Monday, Gold Star wife Jane Horton – whose husband Christopher was an Army specialist in Afghanistan, said she feared for the US personnel and Afghans still trying to flee. “My heart is broken, our hearts are broken as a Gold Star community,” she said. Her father-in-law and Chris’ father, David Horton, added that the feeling among many Gold Star families was “sadness.” “My son… laid down his life....

Black holes are great at sucking up matter. So great, in fact, that not even light can escape their grasp (hence the name). But given their talent for consumption, why don't black holes just keep expanding and expanding and simply swallow the Universe? In 2018, one of the world's top physicists came up with a dazzling explanation. Conveniently, the idea could also unite the two biggest theories in all of physics. The researcher behind this explanation is none other than Stanford University physicist Leonard Susskind, also known as one of the fathers of string theory. He gave his two cents...

The Center for American Progress – a leading left-wing think-tank influential in the Biden White House – partnered with a Chinese Communist Party influence group on reports guiding American policy in the Middle East.Often highlighted as for being “closely aligned” with the White House during the Obama years, the Center for American Progress (CAP) carries similar influence under Biden, counting several former employees and fellows as officials in Joe Biden’s White House. The think tank’s Chinese Communist Party-sponsored paper from July 2015 is entitled “Exploring Avenues for China-U.S. Cooperation on the Middle East”. One of the paper’s authors is now...

Aug. 16 (UPI) -- The Texas Supreme Court has temporarily blocked Dallas and Bexar counties from mandating masks at public schools, siding with a ban from the state's Republican governor's barring government institutions from requiring face coverings amid surging COVID-19 cases. The temporary injunctions put in place Sunday come in response to a flurry of litigation over the weekend concerning Gov. Greg Abbott's ban, which he issued by arguing that "Texans, not government, should decide their best health practices." As the start of the new school year approaches, several independent school boards have imposed mask mandates despite the executive order,...

An inexpensive anti-depressant curbed the number of COVID-19 patients ending up in hospital by 30 per cent, making it a potential breakthrough treatment for a virus that continues to spread widely, a Canadian-led clinical trial is reporting. If confirmed by more research, the drug, fluvoxamine, would be one of the most effective and convenient to treat the virus outside of pricey new “monoclonal antibodies.” They typically have to be administered in a hospital, as opposed to a pill taken orally at home. Fluvoxamine is given early in the course of the disease, potentially staving off more severe outcomes and their...

Washington coach Ron Rivera rarely shies away from saying what needs to be said. Although he typically reserves the profanity for the locker room, the sideline, and/or the practice field, he made an exception when speaking to Albert Breer of SI.com regarding the avalanche of misinformation regarding the COVID vaccine. “Gen Z is relying on this,” Rivera told Breer, referring to a phone. “And you got some, quite frankly, fucking assholes that are putting a bunch of misinformation out there, leading people to die. That’s frustrating to me, that these people are allowed to have a platform. And then, one...

To anyone who regularly reads the Liturgy of the Hours, some of the psalms seem downright boastful. They sound too much like the Pharisee who went to pray and said, God, I thank you that I am not like other people — robbers, evildoers, adulterers — or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get (Luke 18:11-12). In the very next verse, Jesus recommends a briefer prayer for us: God, have mercy on me, a sinner (Luke 18:13).How, then, are we to understand some of the psalms that seem to...

ennsylvania registered 5,951 new COVID-19 infections over the weekend, according to data from the state’s tracking dashboard. It continues the surge that began in early July, when the daily average of new infections had fallen below 200. As of early Monday, 1,115 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, up from 935 on Friday. Of those, 301 were in intensive care and 128 were on breathing ventilators. Cannot see the graphic? Click here. Hospitalizations in Pennsylvania had fallen to 256 on July 13, with fewer than 50 in intensive care. The average daily number on ventilators had dipped to 32...

President Joe Biden refused to be swayed by his top generals to keep 3,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, instead ordering their swift removal, a stubbornness that "paved the way for havoc" in the country, reports Politico. The move ultimately led to Taliban forces taking Kabul and declaring the war "over" and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fleeing the country Sunday

A huge horde of mixed animal bones, including the remains of humans, has been found in an ancient lava tube in Saudi Arabia. The hollowed cave, called Umm Jirsan, is a sprawling lava conduit system underneath the volcanic fields of Harrat Khaybar in the northwest of the country. Umm Jirsan extends for a staggering 1.5 kilometers (almost a mile), making it the longest known reported lava tube in Arabia. Within those extensive shadows, wild creatures have been busy. In a new study, researchers report the discovery of hundreds of thousands of bones belonging to at least 14 different kinds of...

China on Monday said it is ready to pursue "friendly and cooperative" relations with the Taliban after the insurgent group took control of Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul and brought about the fall of the country's government. France24 reports China has sought to maintain unofficial ties with the Taliban as the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan. China and Afghanistan share 47 miles of border. "The Taliban have repeatedly expressed their hope to develop good relations with China, and that they look forward to China's participation in the reconstruction and development of Afghanistan," China's foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said on Monday....

Where is the Biden press conference? How is it possible he has decided not go before the American people and address the epic chaos occurring in Afghanistan?

There’s a message already surfacing from CNN and other American mainstream media outlets. The Taliban aren’t that bad. They’re just misunderstood. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so despicable and sad. Watch this clip of CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward, who is dressed from head to toe in a black burqa and headscarf, as she seems torn between being a reporter and embracing the Taliban’s plight. “They’re just chanting ‘death to America’ but they seem friendly at the same time,” she said. Shortly after, she was warned to stand to the side because she’s a woman. CNN and...

Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta compared the fall of the democratic government in Afghanistan over the weekend to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961. "I think of John Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs," Panetta said during an appearance Monday on CNN. "It unfolded quickly and the president thought that everything would be fine and that was not the case." The Taliban overtook the capital city of Kabul on Sunday after a quick resurgence in Afghanistan following President Biden's decision to remove U.S. troops from the country and end the nation's longest war.

After more than a decade of war and nation building, members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan are heading for the exits. Although what ISAF will leave behind is better than what was there in 2001, Afghanistan remains a battered land. However, the resources Afghanistan’s land holds — copper, cobalt, iron, barite, sulfur, lead, silver, zinc, niobium, and 1.4 million metric tons of rare-earth elements (REEs) — may be a silver lining. U.S. agencies estimate Afghanistan’s mineral deposits to be worth upwards of $1 trillion. In fact, a classified Pentagon memo called Afghanistan the “Saudi Arabia of...