Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country's population crisis. Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm. "Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children," Putin said. "Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all of Russia's people. The family is...

The term “Islamophobia” gets used pejoratively against conservatives. I think appropriate fear of Islam is different than some glib term of accusation. In 2005 Dr. Althea Horner and I had extensive discussions and collaboration about the psychology of terrorists, the role of women in Islam, and the mothering process of Muslim Arab boys. We observed that strict Islam gives fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons the right to punish, even kill, a woman if she in essence wounds their narcissism, especially if defying male religious authority in a public way -- the so-called “honor killings.” The Koran and Islam seem to...

An Iranian drone flew over the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) in an unsafe manner, Central Command said in a Wednesday statement. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group was conducting routine flight operations in the Central Arabian Gulf Tuesday when it spotted a drone later identified as Iranian. At one point, the drone got within 1,500 yards of Dwight D. Eisenhower, according to a Central Command release.

STILLWATER, Okla. — Members of the FarmHouse fraternity at Oklahoma State University woke up to a shocking sight Friday morning. Outside the fraternity on Monroe Street laid a dead longhorn. The animal's stomach is cut up the middle, with a vulgar branding or marking aimed at the fraternity. The incident could be a prank between fraternities, or it could be in reference to the Big 12 Championship game between the University of Texas and OSU on Saturday. 2 News spoke with Stillwater police as they investigate the crime. A spokesman with SPD said a caller reported the dead cow around...

Cats have always been known for their mysterious and independent nature. They can be a source of unconditional love and comfort for their humans, but they also possess a streak of cunning and aloofness. In a recent incident, a homeowner found himself locked out of his house, with the keys safely inside. Little did he know, his feline companions held the power to either let him in or leave him stranded outside.

After all the hoopla touting the BRICS organization of China-led nations as the next big thing, Argentina has thrown a middle finger to China's big idea.They won't join.According to Politico:Argentina will not join the BRICS grouping of developing nations, the country’s incoming foreign minister said Thursday.“We will not join the BRICS,” said Diana Mondino, who will serve as top diplomat in the government of President-elect Javier Milei when he is sworn into office next week.Argentina was one of the six countries invited to become new members of the bloc, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, at its...

Ever since October 7, people have been struggling to understand how Israel—a nation that’s been on the front lines since its creation (whether in the Bronze Age or 1948), that has a famed intelligence service, and that’s supposed to be bristling like a porcupine against all comers—could have been so vulnerable. Theories have ranged from sexism to a global conspiracy of the elites to Netanyahu being betrayed by leftists within his government to complacency. It turns out that the last two theories probably hit the mark.Caroline Glick, a political analyst in Israel, has posted an important video explaining what happened....

An appeals court upheld the disorderly conduct convictions Friday of actor Jussie Smollett, who was accused of staging a racist, homophobic attack against himself in 2019 and then lying about it to Chicago police. Smollett, who appeared in the TV show “Empire,” challenged the role of a special prosecutor, jury selection, evidence and many other aspects of the case. But all were turned aside in a 2-1 opinion from the Illinois Appellate Court. Smollett had reported to police that he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack by two men wearing ski masks. The manhunt for the attackers...

VIDEOCassidy Hutchinson was the STAR WITNESS of the bogus J6 Committee during the summer of 2022. Her upcoming performance was hyped over and over again by the Democrats and the media. So what happened? It turned out that the testimony of the STAR WITNESS was only laughable second hand hearsay that was immediately contradicted by the first hand sources she cited. After that, the STATE WITNESS faded away until recently when she returned to the public eye to shamelessly grift for her book. Unfortunately for her, it has now come to light, as revealed by Congressman Barry Loudermilk, that the...

House Speaker Mike Johnson is releasing 40,000 of the 44,000 hours of video from Capitol Hill taken on January 6. Tens of thousands of private individuals will be devoting a good part of their time analyzing these videos. There are several problems confronted by analysts. The Department of Justice has had almost three years to edit these videos. The faces of private citizens will be blurred “to protect them from retaliation.” How does the DOJ distinguish private citizens from DOJ planted agitators? The answer is they do not. Private analysts will not be able to make that distinction due to...

The US middle class has the Down Payment Blues! Or a case of housing being simply unaffordable. Median home prices are up a whopping 20% under Biden and his signature Bidenomics, growing the economy from the inside-out (?) instead of top-down. Excuse me Joe, Bidenomics is pure top-down Soviet-style economic planning. Markets be damned! The end result? Housing is far more expensive under Biden as are down payments. If we look at year-over-year (YoY), we can see the burst of Covid-related spending and M2 Money growth (green line) that surged in 2020/2021. And rising home prices followed shortly thereafter. But...

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) was the guest on Friday’s episode of ABC’s The View, which was live as the news broke that the House of Representatives voted to expel now-former Rep. George Santos (R-NY). It was predictable that the hosts would ask Fetterman about Santos, but he was more interested in seeing someone else expelled: fellow Senate Democrat Bob Menendez of New Jersey. Fetterman sat for three segments on Friday’s show, and he discussed a variety of topics with the hosts, including his health improving since his near-fatal stroke and bout of depression — “Fox News is devastated to know...

In 2014, then-Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) rose to the floor of the U.S. Senate to give a 24-minute speech denouncing Antony Blinken, nominated by President Barack Obama to be Deputy Secretary of State, as “dangerous to America.” The speech is gaining attention again in conservative media circles in the wake of Blinken’s trip to the Middle East, in which he reportedly told Israel that it lacked “credit” to remove Hamas from the Gaza Strip, a goal the U.S. had supported in public. McCain, known (and criticized) as a foreign policy hawk, said that he usually did not oppose presidential nominees,...

Influencer and mother Carla Bellucci made headlines when she told the media that she would be charging family members to serve them dinner and a single glass of champagne at Christmas. Bellucci has previously been dubbed the "Britain's most hated woman" after she admitted on television that she exaggerated her feelings of depression and flirted in order to get a nose job provided by the publicly funded and overburdened British health care system. Since then, she has also gained infamy for other behavior, such as hiring male strippers for her 18-year-old daughter’s birthday and crowdfunding a butt lift procedure. But...

Newsom’s malevolent, self-serving nature came through loud and clear. As any resident of California can tell you, just about every word out of Newsom’s mouth in this debate was a lie. Under his terms of office, the quality of life in California has declined tragically. As the charts showed, crime is up, far worse than Florida. Hundreds of thousands of locals who used to love downtown for music, theater, museums, no longer go there. It’s too dangerous. San Francisco is in worse shape than LA… as everyone knows. He was far, far worse than DeSantis during the Covid nonsense. Our...

A federal appeals court on Friday ruled that Trump does not have immunity from January 6 civil lawsuits. Earlier this year, Joe Biden’s Justice Department said in a court filing in the DC US Court of Appeals that Donald Trump can be sued by police officers over January 6. The DOJ lawyers argued that Trump does not have immunity from civil lawsuits by police officers. US District Judge Amit Mehta, an Obama appointee earlier this year rejected Trump’s immunity claim.

The recent announcement by the USAir Force that it will equip its aircrews with 42,000 sets of anti-laser glasses comes in the wake of a worrying increase in laser attacks against American aviators and others by Chinese military forces. Documented instances of Chinese aggression underscore the urgency of the not-so-insignificant purchase, as recently declassified documents reveal approximately 180 dangerous encounters with Chinese military aircraft over the South and East China Seas in the last two years. These incidents, many involving the use of high-spec military-grade lasers rather than the laser pointers we’re all familiar with, are putting the vision and...

A Washington County priest is facing hundreds of felony charges after being accused of stealing more than $117,000 from his parish. Father George Athanasiou, 37, is an assistant priest at All Saints Greek Orthodox Church in North Strabane Township. Through an investigation, authorities said they discovered that between April 2022 and mid-November 2023, Athanasiou made 219 unauthorized ATM withdrawals from the church account. Last month, church members notified police about missing donation checks to the church. The investigation led authorities to a PNC Bank on Washington Road where church donation checks were deposited into a personal account. Additionally, Athanasiou was...

Lawsuits against Donald Trump brought by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the U.S. Capitol riot, can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to dismiss the civil lawsuits that accuse him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But the court said it’s ruling was not the final word on whether presidential immunity shields the Republican from liability in the case and said the judges express “no view on the ultimate merits of the claims” against the former president. Trump had...

June 12, 2024, will mark 100 years since the birth of the late President George H.W. Bush. The day before, Random House will publish a commemorative volume by Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Jon Meacham, "A Call to Serve." Zoom in: Drawn in part from Meacham's New York Times bestseller, "Destiny and Power: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker Bush," the book features 450+ photos — some never published. Others are classics by David Hume Kennerly, David Valdez and others. The book also draws on decades of scrapbooks kept by the late Barbara Bush, the former first lady. Her scrapbooks are...