Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin says his country and the African leaders attending a summit in St Petersburg have agreed to promote a multipolar world order and fight “neocolonialism” as he offered debt write-offs and grain to woo allies. “Russia’s attention to Africa is steadily growing,” Putin said on Friday at the end of the two-day summit. The meeting was seen as a test of Moscow’s support in Africa, where Russia retains backing despite international isolation sparked by its war in Ukraine. n Thursday, the Russian leader promised free grain to six African nations and assured them that Moscow was trying...

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

Retired Navy Cmdr. David Fravor was commander of an F/A-18F Super Hornet squadron aboard the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz on Nov. 14, 2004, when he piloted one of two Super Hornets that came across a Tic Tac-shaped aircraft. At the time, the Nimitz was about 100 miles southwest of San Diego. The crew of the two Super Hornets was told that unidentified objects had been observed for over two weeks, during which they had rapidly descended from 80,000 feet to 20,000 feet, loitered for several hours, and then returned to extremely high altitudes, Fravor told a House Oversight subcommittee on...

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...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemLuke 24 Jesus Appears to the Disciples 36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. 38 He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? 39 Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.” 40 When he had said this, he showed them his...

Why has Tafari Campbell become an unperson since his death? Barack Obama was “heartbroken” over the drowning of his chef Tafari Campbell, but has said nary a word about him since he drowned on Sunday. Sasha and Malia Obama flew off to California on Tuesday and Michelle, appropriately dressed in black, played tennis on Wednesday “but only for an hour.” Surely the Obamas would want a fine funeral for their employee of many years. But apparently, the issue is closed. The post-mortem was finished on Monday and the toxicology reports will take several weeks. So where is Tafari now? There...

If you logged onto Twitter following Barbie’s opening-weekend success, you might have been one of the well over one hundred thousand users who noticed a curious image. It depicted President Joe Biden wearing a blush-colored suit, accompanied by former President Barack Obama dressed in his own rosy ensemble. Stamped in magenta script on the picture of the leader of the free world: Barbie.The image was manipulated—the Democratic fundraiser who posted it, Jon Cooper, said it was photoshopped or AI-generated; a Twitter content note labeled it the latter. But it isn’t a surprise that some users were fooled. Barbiecore has been...

The PJM fuel mix is balanced and diversified between different fuel types and we have adequate generation resources to serve the anticipated needs of our system today. However, as we look further out, maintaining an adequate level of generation resources will be essential for PJM’s ability to reliably serve electrical demand through the energy transition. Our recent analysis observed four trends that increase the risk that we may have difficulty maintaining such an adequate level of generation resources with the necessary attributes over time.1| The rate of electricity demand is likely to continue to increase from electrification and increasing deployment...

U.S. Senator Tim Scott, the highest-profile Black candidate in the 2024 Republican presidential race, has blasted his rival Ron DeSantis, Florida's governor, over the state's newly adopted Black history curriculum, saying "there's no silver lining" in slavery...Scott joined a growing chorus of critics of Florida's new standards that require public school students to be taught that some slaves developed skills that "could be applied for their personal benefit."

Beirut (AFP) – The leader of Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement on Saturday stepped up his attacks against the region's long-marginalised LGBTQ community. "We are not making up battles, nor are we making up dangers. This is a real danger that is imminent and has begun," Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech. Last week, Nasrallah had said gay people, "even if they do it once... are to be killed". In his latest comments Nasrallah said that, "In Lebanon, this danger started with some educational institutions, and NGOs," which he accused of "promoting" same-sex relations to children. He called on the...

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One of the nation’s most notoriously woke pastors, Rich Villodas, recently spewed his hatred for Christianity and God while blaspheming God and accusing him of being behind the LGBTQ movement. His fundamental question—how do we free ourselves from the culture wars—begs another question in response: Should we seek to extricate ourselves from these struggles, or rather, should we seek to navigate them through the lens of God’s truth? Here’s the clip: (video on link) Villodas suggests that believing “God is with us, but not with them” is a dangerous presumption. Here, we need to clarify what we mean when we...

De-transitioner: ‘Warning’ on gender surgery On Thursday, her 19th birthday, Chloe Cole testified to Congress with a “final warning” that medical treatments to change the gender of confused children is horrific. Cole, who was given surgery as a teenager to become male and soon regretted it, said what she needed most was therapy, not a scalpel. Here is what she told lawmakers:My name is Chloe Cole and I am a de-transitioner. Another way to put that would be: I used to believe that I was born in the wrong body and the adults in my life, whom I trusted, affirmed...

A new poll conducted by Pew Research found that 81% of Democrats and Independents who lean Democrat favor censorship by government and tech companies of speech that they construe as unacceptable. The corresponding figure for Republicans and Independents who lean Republican is 48%. This means that a solid 60% of Americans favor censorship. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called these findings "disturbing. America's status as the land of the free depends on freedom of speech. Without it, mistaken government policies will escape the inspection and criticism necessary for changing them. Tyrannies benefit from suppressing freedom of speech. This...

Russian missiles hit a residential complex and a nearby building of Ukraine's security service in the central city of Dnipro on Thursday, officials said, injuring nine people and causing widespread damage. Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said it was the third time the SBU security service building had been targeted. Both buildings were largely empty - the residential building because it had just been completed and units were being put up for sale. "There were two hits in Dnipro at about 8.30 p.m. (1730 GMT), Iskander missiles, according to preliminary information," Lysak said on national television. "Part of the apartment building...

“The intimidation to remain silent is insidious and growing…what American Christians are facing is the 21st century version of the question, ‘Am I ashamed of the Gospel?”If anything, some heterodox evolutionary theologians and their gullible Christian flocks, both evolutionary theist and progressive creationist, are at least as hostile if not more so toward orthodox defenders of the Genesis origin account than are their evolutionary atheist and occult pantheist counterparts: evolutionary materialists, Darwinists, Teilhardians, Luciferians, god-men, goddesses, shaman, Satanists, witches, necromancers, and astrologers.

think the New Age is more of a problem for the church than atheism, because it is spiritually driven. It’s harder to introduce atheism into the church, but New Age practices and language are everywhere. Heiser

BART’s board of directors voted Thursday to formally oppose a bill in the California Legislature that would decriminalize fare evasion in the state’s public transit systems. The board’s 5-3 vote came after a heated debate among members. Under state law, those who are caught evading a fare three or more times may face a misdemeanor charge, which could result in a fine of up to $400 and a sentence of up to 90 days in jail. If Assembly Bill 819 — introduced by Assembly Majority Leader Isaac Bryan — were to pass, the third violation would no longer be classified...

It’s no secret that the woke social justice movement isn’t actually about racial reconciliation, but a progressive agenda designed to overturn civilized society, wreak havoc, and institute an economic and political system that has exchanged Constitutional freedoms built upon a theistic worldview for a godless system built on the combined secular ideologies of revolutionaries like Stalin, Lenin, and Marx. The movement is so well-organized that it has, in fact, co-opted the Evangelical Church and used it as a platform to launch its crusade against Western civilization among conservative Christians. Through progressive Evangelical outlets like The Gospel Coalition and the Southern...

You may remember several years ago when a highly popular pastor, Josh Harris, surprised the Christian world with his sudden apostasy as he divorced his wife and became an open activist for the LGBTQ community. Oh, you weren’t surprised? Well, neither was I, and neither were most people who are aware of what the celebrity pastor industry does to you. It happens to almost all of them—Carl Lentz, Brian Houston, Josh Harris, Mark Driscoll, Perry Noble, Andy Stanley…the list goes on. The celebrity snare catches you in its intense grips and doesn’t let go. Very few have been able to...