Free Republic

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and vocal proponent of the invasion of Ukraine, praised the mercenary Wagner Group on Sunday and said he wants to create his own private military force. Before deploying in Ukraine at the outset of Putin's invasion last year, the Wagner Group was active across the Middle East, Africa, and even Venezuela. "We can say confidently that Wagner has shown its mettle in military terms and drawn a line under discussions about whether or not such private military companies are needed," Kadyrov, who has led Chechnya since 2007, wrote...

Beneath Moldova's soaring parliament building, a parade of its most precarious file slowly past - bussed in by the thousand from across the country, each with their private tale of poverty and frustration. "When we elected this government, they promised to raise salaries and pensions, but so far we haven't seen a penny," she says. Sunday's protests, organised by Moldova's pro-Russian Sor party, are being closely watched by governments across Europe and beyond. Most protesters travelled to the capital city Chisinau by bus, with their costs reportedly covered by the Sor party. Moldova, strategically located on the border with Ukraine,...

C. Kathiravan served as General Manager, Aavin, Salem; Commissioner of Corporation of Madurai; Collector of Krishnagiri and Erode districts and Managing Director of TANMAG, SalemC. Kathiravan, an IAS officer of the 2009 batch, died of cardiac arrest at a private hospital in Chennai on Friday morning. He was 52. He is survived by his wife K. Thenmozhi and two daughters. Kathiravan was serving as the Project Director of Tamil Nadu Road Sector Project II in Chennai. According to a release, the funeral will take place at his native place at Gandhipuram near Senthamangalam in Namakkal district. Kathiravan started his...

For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! ~ Hall of Heroes ~Lt. Cdr. Edward "Butch" O'Hare Info from here. Edward Henry Butch O'Hare (March 13, 1914 – November 26, 1943) was born in St. Louis, Missouri to Edward Joseph O'Hare and Selma O'Hare. Butch had two sisters, Patricia and Marilyn. When their parents divorced in 1927, Butch and his sisters stayed with their mother Selma in St. Louis while their father Edward moved to Chicago. Butch's father...

Update from Ukraine | Wagners are getting closer to Bakhmut | Biden asks for the counterstrike https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UZhs0vSXcg Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: NEW- https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-360-summary/

European Parliament has formally approved a law that will effectively end the sale of gas- and diesel-powered vehicles in the European Union by 2035, calling for a 100% reduction in CO2 emissions for any new cars sold, according to Reuters. The 27-nation union agreed to the changes in October 2022, but has now formalized the deal, which enforces a 55% reduction in emissions for vehicles by 2030. Levels for CO2 for 2021 were set at a target of 37.5%. Vans will get a slight advantage in the market, requiring a a 50% cut by 2030, compared with 2021 levels. Just...

World Bank president David Malpass, former Under Secretary of the Treasury for International Affairs and a Trump appointee, announced Wednesday he would step down. Malpass began a five-year term on April 9, 2019, according to his bio, but is cutting his run short after Axios reported last fall the Biden administration was seeking to oust him for failing to agree with the administration on climate change. He’ll step down at the end of the fiscal year on June 30 after seeing the multilateral development organization through a global pandemic and a war in Europe that has contributed to food and...

Much noise surrounds an impending national debt default, which is being blamed preemptively in the press and among Democrats on Republican “intransigence” and “partisanship.” Of course, an actual default will never happen. We have seen this brinkmanship before, and the Republicans always do the “right thing” under the peculiar notions of right and wrong that prevail in Washington, D.C. For D.C., the right thing is obviously mortgaging our future, avoiding a serious debate, and devaluing our currency to keep the party going a little longer. These discussions are fundamentally dishonest—crude propaganda, at best. They omit that hitting the debt ceiling...

The founder of the Ahvazi Liberal Party – an organization opposed to the Islamic Republic of Iran – claims to have secured a document in which the supreme leader of Iran transferred $4 billion to his son's personal Venezuelan account. According to a translation of the document by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), the transfer request was sent by Mohammadi Golpayegani, Chief of Staff of Khamenei's office, to Dr. Ali Saleh-Abadi, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran. Ali Khamenei is the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The letter read: "In light of the...

Vice Media has secured more than $30 million in debt financing from a large investment group, as the media company looks to sell itself despite being millions of dollars in debt. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, Vice is taking financing from Fortress Investment Group, a firm that does business in credit, private equity, and "permanent capital vehicles." The company often invests in railroads and senior living. According to a source of the Wall Street Journal, Vice owes millions of dollars to advisers and vendors, some of whom haven't been paid in over six months. Some of the companies...

A respected medical scientist whose accurate analysis on COVID-19 was improperly censored during the early days of the pandemic says the federal government and Big Tech played a "malign role" and placed public health at risk by colluding to create a false picture that all Americans faced the same risk from the virus and needed to follow identical mitigation strategies. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a Stanford University medical professor, says he is now working with other scientists who were silenced during the early COVID-19 debate to build momentum for a "truth commission" on the failures of public health officials and identify...

Since 2015, the Washington Post has been carefully tracking fatal police shootings in the United States. Their database includes over 8,000 cases. If you ignore those where the race and/or sex of the victim are unknown, the demographic breakdown is as follows: • White males = 3,106 • Black males = 1,707 • Asian males = 121 • Native American males = 99 • White females = 192 • Black females = 58 • Asian females = 8 • Native American females = 6 There’s obviously a huge disparity between the sexes, which is evident in all four racial groups....

Mexico’s top diplomats are openly fighting and calling each other liars over who flinched before their U.S. counterparts during the Trump era. The issue centers around “secret” meetings that led to the Remain in Mexico policy which effectively forced the country to stem the flow of migrants. The diplomatic fight exploded this week when Mexico’s Foreign Relations Minister and Presidential hopeful Marcelo Ebrard said during a news conference that his former ambassador to the U.S., Martha Barcena (2018-2021), was out to tarnish his reputation. Ebrard charges that she was the one who accepted Remain in Mexico and a safe third...

Former Biden Department of Energy official Sam Brinton claimed to have been beaten by their father, who allegedly also held a gun to their head and forced them into conversion therapy. However, their family has spoken out, denying the accusations and using police records to show that no abuse ever occurred. "I’m in this constant state of fear," Brinton previously claimed. "My dad has held a gun up to my head multiple times." Brinton claimed they were continuously punched and sent to the emergency room at least seven times after coming out to their family when they were just 11-years-old....

Amid woes of inflation and high food costs, the Wall Street Journal has suggested that perhaps Americans should skip breakfast to save money. Breakfast staples, they write, are showing massive price increases for a variety of reasons, so maybe just don't eat it. Juices, eggs, coffee, wheat products are all at record high levels, the report states, so maybe just skip the whole thing, the Wall Street Journal suggested, perhaps taking a page from The Babylon Bee's book. Pushback to the concept on Twitter was fierce and swift—which could have been part of the point of the WSJ's intent. Senator...

The majority of likely general election voters say they say they would prefer to do business with companies that do not engage in politics and tolerate viewpoints of employees and customers across the board, a poll found. When 1,092 respondents were asked their opinion for a Convention of States Action/Trafalgar Group poll, 78.8 percent said they were more likely to do business with a company that stayed politically neutral and tolerated viewpoints of employees and customers across the board. Just under 59 percent said they were “much more likely.” That is compared to 10.1 percent of the respondent who said...

An 18-inch pipe bomb was found on train tracks behind St. Dominic’s Catholic Church in Philadelphia on Sunday afternoon. FOX29 reported: Philadelphia police are investigating after a pipe bomb was reportedly discovered behind a church in Holmesburg. Philadelphia police sources tell FOX 29 an 18-inch pipe bomb was found Sunday, just after 1:30 p.m., behind St. Dominic’s Catholic Church, on the 8500 block of Frankford Avenue, in Philadelphia’s Holmesburg section. Officials say a passerby found the pipe bomb, and noted it was a PVC pipe with capped ends and black powder on it.

Johannes Fromholt is currently near the frontline in Donetsk Oblast and has been describing the support the UN is providing. “I am currently in Kurakhove, which is close to the frontline. We see heavy fighting, which has intensified even in the past week. We came here as part of a UN interagency humanitarian convoy, to provide communities with humanitarian assistance. Of course, there is extensive damage; some towns in this area are 80 to 90 per cent damaged, some even more. So actually, you could say they don't even exist anymore. Even on the way to Kurakhove a missile strike...

The Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday the national debt will reach 118% of GDP by 2033 – the highest level ever recorded – and continue to rise "if current laws generally remained unchanged." The projections were part of the nonpartisan office's "Budget and Economic Outlook: 2023 to 2033." According to the report, the national debt is projected to increase by $22 trillion over the next 10 years, reaching $46 trillion by 2033. An analysis of the report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found the nation's deficit will total $1.4 trillion for fiscal 2023 and "more than double...

The history of film is long and complex, dating back as early as the year 1888 with Louis Le Prince's first-ever motion picture. Since then, film has grown and evolved with more complex stories, better audio and visuals, and enhanced cinematography. Yet what has perhaps improved the most are film preservation techniques that ensure a film can be viewed and studied for decades to come. However, some films are considered forever lost; whether they were destroyed in a horrible accidental fire or simply corroded away due to the passage of time, lost films are mesmerizing for their mystery and serve...