Free Republic

What began as a fairly straightforward U.S. policy of arming the Ukrainians with defensive weapons against Russian aggression has now expanded into a dangerous and rapid escalation. We now have embarked on the inevitable slippery slope of mission creep and where we will end up will probably not be where we had intended. If history has taught us anything, it is that before engaging in an armed conflict, we must have a clearly defined end state and the strategy (the ends, way, and means) of achieving it. Right now, we have neither. The New York Times on Wednesday published an...

Weapons said to be for sale include not just Ukrainian-origin arms such as old Soviet-era AK-47 rifles, but also American-made rifles like the M16 and the M4, along with other NATO member-origin firearms like the ARX 160 A1 manufactured by the Italian weapons company Beretta, newspaper Il Giornale reports. It remains unclear whether the weapons are being sold by Ukrainians or by Russians who have collected them over the course of the war. Canadian NGO Project Ploughshares warned earlier this year of the possibility that arms from the West could end up on the black market, with researcher Kelsey Gallagher...

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors has tearfully sobbed that she was being harassed by conservative commentator Candace Owens who calmly asked to speak to her outside her $1.4 million Los Angeles mansion. Owens, 33, who works for The Daily Wire, released footage of the incident calling Cullors, 38, a 'liar' as she shared the edited video of her team calmly asking last Saturday to speak with the troubled activist. In Cullors' clip, she sobs while she says she was shaken by the encounter, despite never speaking to Owens herself. In the clip of Owens visiting Cullors' Topanga Canyon Home,...

Joe Biden's crew and a lot of Democrats out there are calling anyone who supports abortion restrictions of one kind or another an "extremist." I would say the extremists are people who think the way to solve inflation and help the economy is to kill unborn babies. Why would we ever trust people who have these beliefs to run anything? Of course, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted birth control to weed out the "unfit." She basically believed that people who were mentally or physically disabled or otherwise, again, "unfit" (read: poor) should never have been born, and she...

Joe Biden's crew and a lot of Democrats out there are calling anyone who supports abortion restrictions of one kind or another an "extremist." I would say the extremists are people who think the way to solve inflation and help the economy is to kill unborn babies. Why would we ever trust people who have these beliefs to run anything? Of course, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, wanted birth control to weed out the "unfit." She basically believed that people who were mentally or physically disabled or otherwise, again, "unfit" (read: poor) should never have been born, and she...

Forty or fifty years ago, my friend Wendy dragged me to an abortion debate, an event populated mostly by women. The debate began in an orderly manner and then devolved into chaos. Simplifying for concision, the dialogue proceeded something like this: Pro-abortion woman: "It's my body" Pro-life woman: "It's not your body that dies in the abortion." Pro-abortion woman: "It's my choice." Pro-life woman: "You made your choice when you got pregnant!" Pro-abortion woman: "It's my privacy." Pro-life woman: "The same privacy as bank-robbers!" Pro-abortion woman: "It's just a clump of cells." Pro-life woman: "It's alive!" Pro-abortion woman: "It's not...

Vladimir Putin told the President of Finland he is making a 'mistake' by joining NATO as it faces 'no security threats' in a phone call this morning. And in a speech on the 80th day of the war in Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: 'The collective West has announced a total hybrid war on us. -snip- A senior Putin ally threatened to fire nuclear weapons at Britain, claiming it would take just three minutes. Finland, whose President today called Putin to reveal his plans to join NATO, would be wiped out in seconds, Duma defence committee deputy chairman...

Technical Question. Can I put links on my phone? I have a phone and I have a tablet. Since the loss of Rush I listen to podcasts as if they were radio. I go to websites and click on the podcast audio. That way I bypass all the garbage and advertising on the players. What I would like to do is see if I could have a little picture and link for each site on my phone. So I could just roll from site to site. I already have them in my favorites on brave which is yhe browser on...

UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that he’s ready to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said “we must find an agreement,’’ - but with no ultimatum as a condition. Zelensky told Italian RAI state TV in an interview: “We want the Russian army to leave our land, we aren’t on Russian soil". “We won’t save Putin’s face by paying with our territory. That would be unjust.” In another comment, Zelensky said of the future: “We have to think of the future of Russia. I, as president of Ukraine, say these are our neighbours. There will be other presidents, other...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been upfront about his low opinion on the caliber of reporting at The New York Times, but Friday he presented new findings on the outlet that suggest they’ve moved beyond biased journalism, and he alleged the newspaper “is committing fraud.” During the latest episode of “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the host explained that a member of his production team had signed up for the Times’ monthly subscription nearly a year ago. When the monthly fee increased to $17 the decision was made to cancel the subscription and a representative for the Times told them in...

Texas residents are being asked to conserve power after six power plants tripped offline. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which manages the majority of the state's power grid, wrote Friday that the incident resulted in the loss of approximately 2,900 megawatts of electricity.

Thousands are gathering in Washington, D.C., and other cities around the country to protest the possible elimination of abortion rights, amid fears the Supreme Court is set to overturn the Roe v. Wade decision this summer. The protests are taking place less than two weeks after a draft Supreme Court ruling leaked. The ruling signaled five conservative Supreme Court justices are set to overturn Roe v. Wade, which could lead to a number of states eliminating access to abortion. “We are here because a handful of people have weaponized the very structures of our democracy,” Kelley Robinson, the executive director...

Unsatisfied with massive GOP support for $40 billion in aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md) slammed the few dozen Republicans who voted against the measure, insisting that “it is improper for anyone to be opposing our president when we are at war.” “Since when have we been at war with Russia,” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wanted to know. “Congress has not declared war. Congress hasn’t even authorized the use of military force.” The senator recently blocked Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer’s push for a “unanimous consent” for the $40 billion aid, calling...

“From the Now to the New” (John 16:12-22; Revelation 21:1-7) Our readings today take us “From the Now to the New.” What I mean is, they take us from the “now” we are experiencing in the present to the “new” that awaits us in the future. And that knowledge of the “new” gives us the hope and strength we need to carry on in the “now.” Let’s start with the “now” of the disciples. Their “now,” as we read about it in John 16, was a time of sorrow and sadness and grief. It’s Thursday evening, and Jesus has been...

Special Counsel John Durham appears to have methodically built a case of historic consequence. It’s just not the case he has brought against bigshot Democratic Party lawyer Michael Sussmann. Jury selection begins in Sussmann’s trial on Monday, in Washington, DC. It will be the first trial to arise out of the Russiagate probe, which began over three years ago. That’s when former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr assigned Durham, a longtime Justice Department prosecutor from Connecticut, to investigate how, in the middle of a heated presidential campaign and based upon scant evidence, the FBI came to suspect one of the...

(AFP) — Finland on Saturday sought to allay Moscow’s fears about its bid to join NATO, as fierce fighting raged in Ukraine’s east, slowing down a hoped-for Russian advance. Wives and parents of Ukrainian fighters trapped in the bowels of a besieged steel plant in the country’s south meanwhile made a desperate appeal to China to help secure their release.

The bureaucrats at the United Nations desertification agency are blaming us for droughts, as the Associated Press reports: Climate change to make droughts longer, more common, says UN The frequency and duration of droughts will continue to increase due to human-caused climate change, with water scarcity already affecting billions of people across the world, the United Nations warned in a report Wednesday. The U.N. desertification agency, which is currently hosting a conference of parties in Abidjan in Ivory Coast, estimates that roughly one third of the world’s population — 2.3 billion people — is already facing water scarcity, with that...

Keith Richards has made a career from speaking out of line in what is an unfiltered approach to saying what is on his mind. Even those who have been kind to him over the years, like Bruce Springsteen, are not immune to criticism. Springsteen is incredibly thankful for the powerful impact The Rolling Stones had on his life, and he holds the group in demigod status. ‘The Boss’ has even openly spoken about his recurring childhood dream about being plucked from the crowd and joining them on stage. Years later, Springsteen successfully made that unthinkable childhood ambition become a reality....

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Dan Clark says his future changed in an instant as his life savings of more than $700,000 vanished. “My phone said, ‘No service, SIM card.’ And I didn’t even know what a SIM card was,” Clark said. By the time he found out, it was too late. His phone number had been transferred to a crook’s device, and Clark’s accounts, including his proceeds in investments in cryptocurrency, were wiped out. “I lost everything in a matter of a few hours,” he said. “Life’s work, a few hours.” Clark quickly learned he was a victim of a...

f you want to know how the war is going in Ukraine, you only needed to take note of one piece of “news” today–Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called his Russian counterpart:US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin spoke with his Russian counterpart for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Pentagon announced on Friday.The call lasted approximately an hour and was at the request of Austin, who used the first call between the two in 84 days to urge Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to implement an “immediate ceasefire,” according to a brief readout of the call. The...