Free Republic

Until it decided to confront Moscow with an existential military threat in Ukraine, Washington confined the use of American military power to conflicts that Americans could afford to lose, wars with weak opponents in the developing world from Saigon to Baghdad that did not present an existential threat to U.S. forces or American territory. This time—a proxy war with Russia—is different. Contrary to early Beltway hopes and expectations, Russia neither collapsed internally nor capitulated to the collective West’s demands for regime change in Moscow. Washington underestimated Russia’s societal cohesion, its latent military potential, and its relative immunity to Western economic...

Federal law enforcement officials reportedly searched President Joe Biden’s private office at the Penn Biden Center months ago after Biden’s legal team reported finding classified material there. CBS News reported that the search was conducted with the cooperation of Biden’s team and that a search warrant was not needed. The White House, Biden’s lawyers, and Biden’s Justice Department have not previously disclosed the fact that the FBI was at the building searching the office. This is a breaking news story; refresh the page for updates.

London (AFP) – British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak defended Brexit as a "huge opportunity" on Tuesday, as the UK marked three years since leaving the EU amid economic crisis and a growing public sense of "Bregret". On January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom ended 47 years of belonging to the European Union and its predecessor, the EEC, soon after Boris Johnson won a resounding election victory for the Conservatives with his promise to "get Brexit done". An Ipsos poll last week found 45 percent of people in Britain think Brexit is going worse than they expected. "In the three years...

Megachurch Pastor Andy Stanley, who has been the center of controversy following public comments he made regarding gay individuals in the Church having more faith in God, is scheduled to host a conference at his church for Christian parents of LGBT-identified children later this year. The Unconditional Conference is scheduled to be held Sept. 28–29 at Stanley’s North Point Community Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. Stanley is listed as one of the conference speakers on the event page of the Embracing the Journey website. With a stated goal of helping “parents demonstrate the unconditional love of Jesus,” the Unconditional Conference includes...

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Former U.S. Senator David Durenberger, a Minnesota Republican who espoused a progressive brand of politics and criticized the GOP after his political career, died Tuesday at age 88. Durenberger’s health had declined in recent months, his longtime spokesperson Tom Horner said. Horner told The Associated Press that Durenberger died Tuesday morning of natural causes. He was at his St. Paul home surrounded by family. Durenberger — a former executive secretary to GOP Gov. Harold LeVander, former corporate attorney and former captain in the U.S. Army Reserve — won a U.S. Senate seat in 1978. He served...

A pandemic watchdog group identified nearly 70,000 “questionable” Social Security numbers that were used to obtain $5.4 billion in pandemic-related federal loans. The group, The Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, issued the report on Monday that analyzed information from more than 33 million applications from the COVID-19 Emergency Injury Disaster Loans and the Paycheck Protection Program. The committee found that more than 221,000 Social Security numbers used on applications were “not issued” by the federal government, or did not match the applicants name or date of birth. Despite the risk for identity fraud, the federal government awarded nearly 70,000 of the...

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appeared on Breitbart News Saturday and blasted both former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, who allegedly attempted to oust former Vice President Mike Pence and take his role during the Trump administration, and former Senior National Security Advisor John Bolton for releasing sensitive policy details, in his tell-all book after leaving the administration.In his book, Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love, Pompeo wrote that he learned from then-White House chief of staff Gen. John Kelly that Haley had attempted to angle her way into the vice presidency, which would have...

While inflation, the economy and a historic wave of illegal immigrants flowing into the country rank as high concerns for Americans, these troubling factors were not the top concern. A new Gallup poll shows a lack of leadership from President Joe Biden and Congress is the country’s biggest problem, which is appropriate considering they are largely responsible for the problems noted above. “The government ranks as the top problem for both Republicans and Republican-leaning independents (24%) and Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (18%),” Gallup reported.

Priscilla Presley is challenging the validity of her late daughter Lisa Marie Presley's will. In a legal filing in Los Angeles Superior Court last week, Priscilla Presley disputed the validity of a 2016 amendment to Lisa Marie Presley's living trust that removed her and a former business manager as trustees and replaced them with Lisa Marie Presley's two oldest children, Riley Keough and Benjamin Keough, if Lisa Marie died or became incapacitated. Benjamin Keough died in 2020. Lisa Marie Presley, a singer and the only child of Elvis Presley, died at a California hospital at age 54 on Jan. 12...

Using the electrically conductive single-cell organism known as "slime mold," the researchers created a watch that only works when the organism is healthy, requiring the user to provide it with food and care. They then tested how this living device affected its wearer's attitude toward technology, changing the usual one-way service into a mutually beneficial partnership. The watches were designed and built by Lu to tell time and measure the wearer's heart rate. However, the second function is dependent upon the health and unique characteristics of Physarum polycephalum, a species of slime mold sometimes called "the blob," for its rapid...

The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday will hold its first hearing on wasteful pandemic-era spending. Rep. James Comer (R-KY), committee chairman, announced the hearing last week in an effort to investigate the “rampant waste” of taxpayer dollars on pandemic relief programs. Those set to testify are Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, Gene Dodaro, Comptroller General, U.S. Government Accountability Office, and David M. Smith, Assistant Director, Office of Investigations, U.S. Secret Service.

The Left runs Oceania, and we work for their various bureaus.The 1960s revolution was both anarchic and nihilist. But it was waged against—not from—the establishment. Hippies and the Left either attacked institutions or, in Timothy Leary fashion, chose to “turn on, tune in, drop out” from them.The current revolution is much different—and far more dangerous—for at least three reasons.The Establishment Is the RevolutionThe current Left has no intention of “dropping out.” Why would it? It now controls the very institutions of America that it once mocked and attacked—corporate boardrooms, Wall Street, state and local prosecuting attorneys, most big-city governments, the...

On Saturday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox signed Senate Bill 16 into law. Under SB0016, sex change operations or “gender-affirming” surgery for minors is banned in the Beehive State. The bill also places limitations on the use of hormone treatments and puberty blockers. Along with banning sex change surgery for minors, the key takeaways from the bill are that the state Department of Health and Human Services will “conduct a systematic review of the medical evidence regarding hormonal transgender treatments and provide recommendations to the Legislature.” The bill also directs the Department of Professional Licensing to create a certification for providing...

President Trump took a shot at Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a Sunday statement posted to Truth Social, touting his superiority in the polls and railing on DeSantis for his policies during the Covid pandemic.“The revelations about Ron DeSanctimonious doing FAR WORSE than many other Republican governors, including that he unapologetically shut down Florida and its beaches, was interesting, indeed,” Trump wrote. “DJT leading BIG!!!”The president also shared a picture from another Truth user on Monday that included screenshots of headlines written in 2020, comparing his Covid pandemic policy against Gov. DeSantis’s. “Remember this?” Trump commented. “Some Republican states...

New York City required all of its employees to undergo a radical "mandatory" critical race theory training that promoted an "equity lens," "antiracism," and "safe spaces," Fox News Digital reported. According to a city email obtained by Fox News Digital, "The training provides all NYC employees with a framework to understand … the importance of racial equity … in the workplace." The training materials stated that while race has "no genetic or scientific basis," it has a "real impact on people's lives." It argued that race is a social construct invented to "justify systems of power, privilege, exclusion and oppression."...

The Russian military blogger Igor Girkin has issued his latest broadside against how Russian President Vladimir Putin is conducting his invasion of Ukraine. Also known as Igor Strelkov, Girkin is a former Russian intelligence officer who played a major role in Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the conflict in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. He has given perceptive but unflattering assessments of Russia's military failures in Ukraine and his views on the military shortcomings of Putin and his commanders. In a video posted on his Telegram social media channel on Monday, Girkin told an audience in St. Petersburg how...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

They’re icing out rats in Battery Park City. Local maintenance crews are dumping dry ice in the pesky rodents’ burrows in the trendy Lower Manhattan neighborhood so that when it melts, it leaves behind carbon dioxide, which suffocates them. “Here in Battery Park City, we’re no stranger to having rodents, and so we wanted to make sure that we were able to manage them while keeping everything chemical-free,” Ryan Torres, vice president of parks operations at the Battery Park City Authority, recently told The Post. In addition to effectively killing rats, dry ice is hailed as an environmentally sound way...

It’s always good to start the week off with a little zing, and what better way to do that than by writing a column that contains some heartfelt and valid criticism of former President Donald Trump? At least my hate mail will be buzzing for a few days. As I am going to have to do every time I write one of these things in the coming months, I will remind everyone that people are allowed to be supportive of Trump AND critique him from time to time. This is a political movement, not a cult.

According to a source familiar with the situation, embattled New York Republican Rep. George Santos informed House Republicans on Tuesday that he will resign from his committee positions. Santos reportedly told House Republicans in a closed-door meeting that will step down from his positions on the House Small Business Committee and the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee because “he’s a distraction” after it was revealed after his election that several aspects of his resume are fabrications. Santos has faced numerous calls for his resignation, even from within the Republican Party despite the Republicans’ extremely slim majority in the House....