Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday that unless his nation wins a drawn-out battle in a key eastern city, Russia could begin building international support for a deal that could require Ukraine to make unacceptable compromises. He also invited the leader of China, long aligned with Russia, to visit. If Bakhmut fell to Russian forces, their president, Vladimir Putin, would "sell this victory to the West, to his society, to China, to Iran," Zelenskyy said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

The press secretary for Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs resigned Wednesday, two days after posting a tweet that appeared to support gunning down “transphobes” in the wake of the deadly shooting at a Nashville Christian school. “The Governor does not condone violence in any form,” Hobbs’ office said in an unsigned statement after Josselyn Berry stepped down. “This administration holds mutual respect at the forefront of how we engage with one another. The post by the Press Secretary is not reflective of the values of the administration. The Governor has received and accepted the resignation of the Press Secretary.” Berry...

The Los Angeles Police Protective League (LAPPL) filed a complaint against LAPD Chief Michel Moore for giving photos, names and other personal information on the City's police officers to an "abolish the police" group called the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, which posted this data on their web site along with the boast that "we have now #published over 9000 names and head-shots of numerous regular and undercover LAPD officers. Let the games begin!!" Robert Rico, general counsel for the LAPPL said "this site puts a bounty on our officers--including those working undercover. The egregious stupidity of Chief Moore defies belief....

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said Tuesday that he does not use the Secure Fence Act’s definition when answering whether the Biden administration has operational control of the southern border, because it defines operations control as “preventing all unlawful entries to the United States.” The secretary also said that the decision to designate drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations is up to the State Department. […] … “With respect to the definition of operational control, I do not use the definition that appears in the Secure Fence Act, and the Secure Fence Act provides statutorily that operational control is defined as...

TULSA, Okla. (KTUL) — A Bixby man wants justice for his miniature donkeys he says were shot to death at his Creek County property last week. Dave Willhite spoke with NewsChannel 8 Monday, just days after he said he had to bury his donkeys of two decades, Pete and Patsy. "I've raised them as my pets," said Willhite. "I know some people understand. Some people don't understand." Willhite said he visited the property frequently, often taking time to sit and visit with his animals he described as being no more different for him than a dog or cat. He said...

North Carolina Republicans scrapped the state's long-lived pistol permit requirement Wednesday, aided by the absence of several Democrats, which gave Republicans the numbers they needed to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper's veto for the first time since Republicans lost their veto-proof super majorities in the 2018 elections. North Carolina Republicans scrapped the state’s long-lived pistol permit requirement Wednesday, aided by the absence of several key Democrats, which gave Republicans the numbers they needed to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto for the first time since the GOP lost their veto-proof super majorities in the 2018 elections. No longer will North Carolinians buying...

If you have followed the construct of the Fourth Branch of Government, you will note the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) and current Democrat Chairman Mark Warner play(ed) a key role in the political weaponization of the intelligence apparatus. In 2015 and 2016 it was the SSCI who were at the tip of the spear in the legislative branch at supporting what Chuck Schumer called the “seven ways to Sunday” approach, used by the U.S. intelligence community to target anyone viewed as a threat against their interests. The larger Intelligence Community (IC) is a close alliance of the SSCI...

Here is the letter I send to papers annually, which of course is never published.Vietnam Veteran’s Day, March 29, recognizes a precious sacrifice. North Vietnam agrees we won all the battles, but asserts it made no difference. During Tet, the US and ARVN shattered VC main force units, causing an irreparable loss of face. In March 1972, the ARVN destroyed an invading NVA army.The Democrat Party secured defeat. Responding to Tet, those that got the United States into war cut and ran. In 1972 a Democratic Congress refused funding to restore South Vietnamese forces, which had defeated the invading NVA...

To lift a line from the immortal Dean Wormer: “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life…” here amended to fat and stupid. Case in point, Alvin Bragg, now the Manhattan district attorney, and a guy who never met a calzone he didn’t eat. Calzones deserve a better fate. Bragg -- who badly wants to carve up Donald J. Trump, but won’t -- was boosted into office in November 2021 in yet another spasm of virtue signaling by the Rotted Apple’s smart set, and whose campaign was lubed by dollars from George Soros to the aptly named...

Saying men can get pregnant is ridiculous. Pumping kids full of hormones is wicked.When I tell nonacademic friends some of the things about race and sex that are commonly taught in universities today, many respond with either disbelief or giggles. You can’t be serious. Nobody can possibly believe that men can get pregnant or that Lincoln was in favor of slavery! Since I agree these are crackpot ideas, perhaps I shouldn’t carp. But when people in politics, scholarship, punditry and everyday life treat “culture wars” as unserious—or at least as less serious than other issues, like economics and foreign...

Video on YouTube: At a House Armed Services Commitee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) spoke about drag queen story hours on military bases.

On Feb. 8, the Air Force informed two Republican political candidates, also military veterans, that their information had been improperly leaked to a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee contractor. That same day, the Department of Veterans Affairs’ chief technology officer met to discuss cybersecurity with his wife, the chairwoman of the DCCC. "Meet w/Suzan's technology team (account security)" reads the 3:00 p.m. calendar entry on Veterans Affairs assistant secretary Kurt DelBene's official calendar, a reference to his wife, Rep. Suzan DelBene (Wash.), chairwoman of the DCCC. The calendar entry, a copy of which was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, also...

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough declared Wednesday on his show “Morning Joe” that Republicans were “the enemy of the rule of law” when discussing mass shootings and former President Donald Trump. Scarborough said, “The vast majority have been whipped into a frenzy by paranoia that has been fed by the NRA to raise money and for gun manufacturers to make tons of money. Again, this is so important. This is a choice Republicans have made over the past 25 years.” He continued, “That’s where we are as a society, and it is sick. And I swear to God, sometimes, we’re going...

a rendering of pancreatic cancer cells Credit: LASZLO / Adobe Stock A discovery about how pancreatic cancer spreads could lead to better therapies for the hard-to-treat disease, which kills more than 50,000 people in the US every year. Researchers are already testing an existing drug, used for organ transplants, to stop the cancer’s spread. The challenge: Pancreatic cancer is relatively rare, accounting for just 3% of cancers diagnosed in the US, but it’s notoriously hard to beat — 88% of patients die within five years of finding out that they have the disease. A major reason for the low survival...

After multiple delays, Manhattan DA's Office announced 'scheduled hiatus' It is the latest delay after weeks of back-and-forth and political jousting Many say DA Alvin Bragg has no case and that the investigation is malicious The Manhattan grand jury deciding whether or not to indict former President Donald Trump will break for another month, delaying the sluggish case even further. Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg had referred the case to a grand jury earlier this month in the hope of indicting Trump on campaign finance violations. They have been tasked with considering whether Trump broke the law when his attorney Michael...

The hero cops who stopped a transgender school shooter in Nashville are a Marine Corps veteran and an award-winning officer. Michael Collazo, 31, and Rex Engelbert, 27, of the Nashville Metro Police, have been hailed heroes after taking down Audrey Hale, 28, on Monday after she had shot and killed six at The Covenant School. Hale opened fire inside the small, church-run private elementary school on the outskirts of the city shortly before 10.13am. Dramatic bodycam footage showed Englebert and Collazo shooting her dead by 10.27am. Collazo is a Marine Corps veteran who responded to the Christmas 2020 bombing, which...

Josselyn Berry, the press secretary for Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs, has resigned after a tweet advocating gun violence against “transphobes.” The tweet came on the heels of a transgender woman killing six people at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The tweet featured a gif of a woman holding two handguns, ready to fire, with the caption “us when we see transphobes.” In the first tweet in the thread, Berry wrote, “If you work in the progressive community and are transphobic, you’re not progressive. Period. End of story. It’s not hard to understand but you’re bigotry masquerading as feminism absolutely...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday pushed back against a GOP congressman who voiced skepticism about the threat of climate change, suggesting the issue was being used by the Biden administration to secure funding and was not a serious concern. “Can you provide to me, or do you know any research on your own to justify this drastic climate change that we have to do today or the next four or five years this world’s going to come to an end?” Rep Jerry Carl (R-Ala.) asked Yellen at a hearing on the banking system.

A disappointing 10 years of Pope Francis on abuseA widely known and well-respected world figure is once again taking on the Catholic Church over its abuse crisis, speaking more forcefully than ever before.Asking for forgiveness "is not enough," he says. Victims, he says, have to be "at the center" of everything. He insists there must be "concrete actions to repair the horrors they have suffered and to prevent them from happening again." The Catholic Church must set an example in helping to solve the problem and "bring it to light," he says.Strong words, no?Here's the problem, though: the man saying...

Rendering of E.coli bacteria Researchers at George Chuch’s Harvard lab have genetically engineered a bacteria, E. coli, to be totally immune to viruses. In addition to blocking every virus the team has challenged it with thus far, their E. coli has also been designed so that its modified genes cannot escape into the wild, which does indeed sound like the plot of a lost Michael Crichton novel. (In fact, the parallels to Jurassic Park are there, but we’ll get to that.) “We believe we have developed the first technology to design an organism that can’t be infected by any known...