Free Republic

Vladimir Putin declared in 2005 that “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century” was not World War I, or World War II, or Mao Zedong’s takeover of China, or the Cold War — all cataclysmic global events that, collectively, killed hundreds of millions of people and enslaved more than a billion. No, in Putin’s worldview, the historic tragedy was the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which liberated a score of European countries and almost 300 million of their captive populations from Soviet tyranny.

Russia cut its gas supply to top Dutch trader GasTerra on Tuesday, escalating the economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and pushing up European gas prices. The move comes a day after Denmark flagged a potential end to its Russian gas supply and the European Union's toughest measure yet against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, an agreement to halt sea-borne imports of its oil. GasTerra, which buys and trades gas on behalf of the Dutch government, said it had contracted elsewhere for the 2 billion cubic metres of gas it had expected to receive from Gazprom through October. "This...

Russian troops were battling into a major Donbas city today as a confidential UK report revealed the Kremlin’s army could collapse amid massive losses. A secretive analysis of the invasion says Russian President Vladimir Putin believes losses of 30,350 troops so far are a “price worth paying” for a small victory in Ukraine. But the new report - seen by senior UK government officials and written by a top UK analyst on Russia warns Putin’s blood sacrifice may be a step too far for his troops. Today Moscow’s troops entered the city of Sievierodonetsk sparking fierce fighting in the ruins...

Despite the Constitution's affirmation of a right to a speedy trial, persons suspected of crimes committed during the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol building continue to languish in jail. Part of this pre-trial and conviction punishment includes isolation from outside visitors. Living conditions are degraded by unsanitary conditions. Brandon Fellows has been in the DC jail for almost a year. His alleged crime was smoking marijuana in the Capitol on Jan 6. A video of him in prison was smuggled out. In it he conducts a tour of his cell revealing frayed electric wires, mold, and an overflowing...

.... So the claim that NATO officers were also captured is false. If any NATO officer was captured, again – you can be sure that the Russians would have paraded them on TV. ...

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy met Tuesday in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at his presidential offices. Mr. Ruddy expressed his admiration for the courage and tenacity of the Ukrainian people in their fight for freedom and sovereignty. President Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the Newsmax audience for its strong support and for the strong support of the American people in Ukraine’s struggle to defend their country from Russian aggression. “Mr. Putin, in several speeches since the advent of the war on Feb. 24, has stated repeatedly that he really is at war with the United States and NATO, and...

Jury Finds Michael Sussmann NOT guilty

The US Military is rationing food on at least one huge aircraft carrier. Why is this happening? Doesn’t the military receive hundreds of billions of dollars each year? Where is the money going? This Memorial week we received information that the men and women on US aircraft carrier, the USS Harry Truman, are receiving food rations. This makes no sense. The USS Harry Truman is not at war. It is not in harm’s way. It is in the Mediterranean Sea near the conflict in Ukraine but not in the Black Sea. Around 5,000 personnel are on board this huge carrier....

The first time I saw my father cry was in 1963. I was nine years old. We had gotten word the day before that my mother’s oldest sister had been murdered while working in her husband’s law office. A stranger came in off the street and killed her in a deeply brutal manner. It became news across the state for nearly a year. I remember stepping into my parent’s bedroom. My father was lying on the bed, face down, and sobbing into his pillow like a child. I stepped back in awe. The funeral was beyond somber. On the day...

Syracuse University, a private institution in New York, is raising student tuition nearly 5 percent as it kicks off a new diversity and inclusion plan estimated to cost more than $50 million. The university will raise its full-time undergraduate tuition 4.5 percent to $58,440 for the 2022-23 academic year, according to an April 19 news release. However, the tuition hike also coincides with the launch of Syracuse’s new Diversity Equity and Inclusion plan, slated for 2021 through 2026. The plan, under its “Faculty Diversity and DEIA Curriculum Innovation” section, allocates a $50 million investment for faculty retention and diversification in...

Know, O prince, that between the years after the USSR fell, and the years of the rise of Chaos, there was a global world undreamed of, when shining kingdoms lay spread across the world like blue mantles beneath the stars – Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London and Brussels – connected by a spider-web of container ships, floating cruise palaces, nonstop air transportation, fiber optic cables. But the proudest civilization of the world was Christendom, reigning supreme in the dreaming west. Hither rose a class of sullen-men, with the power of that great civilization in hand, with gigantic pathologies and gigantic visions,...

Politicians are demanding that the U.S. become more self-sufficient in crucial metals and minerals, but then they block domestic mining at every opportunity. Alaska’s Pebble Mine project is the latest to join the casualty list. The Pebble site holds an estimated $300 billion to $500 billion in mineral resources and could be one of the world’s largest suppliers of copper and gold. Electric cars as well as wind and solar power require enormous amounts of copper. Investors have invested nearly $1 billion on exploration, engineering and studies to meet regulatory demands. Yet last week the Biden Environmental Protection Agency issued...

Canada moved to make the sale of handguns illegal under a sweeping new bill introduced in Ottawa Monday in the wake of the Uvalde, Texas school shooting. Flanked by government officials and advocates, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a “national freeze” on firearms in the country as he referenced increasing homicides in Canada and alluded to recent mass shootings south of the border. “It will no longer be possible to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada. In other words, we’re capping the market for handguns,” Trudeau said. “People should be free to go to the supermarket, their...

Looks like more shoes are now dropping in the Paul Pelosi DUI arrest in Napa County, California. As we’ve already reported, Pelosi, 82, the husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), was arrested on Saturday night shortly before midnight, at 11:44 PM, when he had an accident with another car. Fortunately, there were no injuries, but Pelosi was then charged with two misdemeanors: driving under the influence and driving with a blood-alcohol level at or above 0.08. For some reason that hasn’t been fully explained yet, it took law enforcement officers more than four hours to book him after he...

President Joe Biden is reportedly frustrated with his staff in the White House and their efforts to "rush to explain" something the president has said. "The so-called clean-up campaign, he has told advisers, undermines him and smothers the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse, it feeds a Republican talking point that he’s not fully in command," NBC News reported Monday. The White House has walked back several of the president's statements, including when Biden said that Russian President Vladimir Putin "cannot remain in power." The president was angry that his comments were being interpreted as unpredictable, according to the NBC...

Democrats want the pandemic emergency bonus payments to be permanent. A time-honored political trick is to pass a “temporary” subsidy that people get used to and then cry hardship when the emergency program ends. The latest example is the Democratic scramble to make permanent a huge ObamaCare subsidy expansion passed during the pandemic. More than two dozen Democrats wrote their leaders this month asking to include provisions to “permanently lower the cost of health care” in any reconciliation bill, and the signers include some in tough re-election races such as Abigail Spanberger from Virginia. The lawmakers are referring to expanded...

Democrats are preparing a large gun control package to be considered in House Judiciary Committee on Thursday. The package, dubbed, “Protecting Our Kids,” includes eight bills designed to erode citizens’ Second Amendment rights. Reportedly included in the massive gun control package are provisions to ban high-capacity magazines, increase the purchase age of semi-automatics from 18 to 21, ban bump stocks for civilian use while requiring existing bump stocks to be registered with the government, change the definition of “ghost guns” so they fall under background checks at point of sale, increase penalties for gun trafficking, and mandate how Americans store...

His Fraudulency Joe Biden has just launched a month-long campaign to gaslight the American people about the state of the economy he deliberately destroyed. The Biden White House is rolling out a new monthlong economic campaign today to try to “communicate on our accomplishments to date on the economy,” according to a White House official.

MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday touted the bipartisan group of senators, led by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-CT) and John Cornyn (R-TX), working to achieve gun control legislation in the wake of the Uvalde, TX shooting. Scarborough cited polling showing 85% of Americans support universal background checks and red flag laws and said that “maybe, just maybe” now was an “opportunity” to pass such legislation.