Free Republic

The Estonian government wants to ban the memory of the Soviet past from public life. Riots and Russian cyber attacks cannot be ruled out. At the center of the controversy is an old tank. Lenin got it: his statue still stands in Estonia’s third-largest city, Narva, but it was moved to a secluded, walled-in corner in the courtyard in the 1990s. In the summer, the Russian revolutionary leader was surrounded by an ugly construction site fence. If the Estonian government under Prime Minister Kaja Kallas has its way, all Soviet monuments in the small Baltic state should disappear from public...

With most con artists, you need to count your fingers after shaking hands. With the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, you have to make sure you still have your arm. He wears the same clothes to project he is at war raising some to hope he at least takes it off to wash. Both Germany and Japan as well as the Swiss all apologized for war crimes – but never Ukraine. Never in all my career of dealing with governments have I ever witnessed such a bold-faced liar as Zelensky. He addressed the students and professors of Yale University, and...

Last week on October 19 the US Navy announced that “General Michael ‘Erik’ Kurilla [lead image, lower right] , commander of CENTCOM, conducted a visit aboard the USS West Virginia [top], a U.S. Navy Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine at an undisclosed location at sea in international waters in the Arabian Sea. Kurilla was joined on the USS West Virginia by Vice Admiral Brad Cooper [lower left], commander of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet and NAVCENT.” The Fifth Fleet and the Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) are headquartered at Bahrain on the Persian Gulf. From Bahrain down the Gulf to...

“When we’re modifying the genome of an organism we can put our signature, our name, into the genome.” – “What is God? God creates. Well, we can create now.” – “We deserve to be credited for our work. We have lobbyists in politics and the courts to make sure the patenting and owning of parts of the human genome continues.” Not word for word but, these are recollections by Dr. Carrie Madej of remarks made by Dr. Craig Venter of the Human Genome Project during a speech in 2014. Dr. Venter also talked about how vaccines could be useful to...

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is begging Israel for military aid in the form of sophisticated air defense systems in order to prolong their conflict against Russia.“Today, Ukraine will send an official note to the government of Israel with a request to urgently provide Ukraine with anti-aircraft systems and to start high-quality cooperation on obtaining appropriate technologies for Ukraine,” Kuleba said, adding that he does “not see any objective reasons why” Israel shouldn’t bail his country out like so many others are doing.“Iran is a red line for Israel, and after Iran has directly, in fact, become complicit in the...

The United States has a history of putting rivals on the world stage in a corner economically, obligating them to make the first moves to war.One of the most famous examples of this strategy came on July 26, 1941.On that date, President Franklin Roosevelt introduced sweeping economic sanctions and asset seizures against Japan.Advertisement - story continues belowAs a result of those sanctions, “Japan lost access to three-fourths of its overseas trade and 88 percent of its imported oil,” according to History.Needing oil to maintain its military might, Japan had little choice but to declare war on the West and mobilize...

So, why does Elon Musk want Twitter so badly? Is it because he is such a big free speech advocate, that he wants to “save the world, ” save us all from BIG TECH? Why does Elon Musk care so much about the number of bot accounts? Is it because he truly wants to ferret out foreign influences? Why does Elon Musk want to reverse the bans on people’s accounts? Is it because he really cares about scientists, and conservatives ability to interact on the social media app? The answer of course, is no to all these questions. “We” are...

The sitting US Secretary of State very recently declared in an official press conference that the NS1 and NS2 pipeline sabotage will have “no impact on European energy resilience”… We should assume that Secretary Antony Blinken was referring to the timely supply of US LNG substitute equivalent to pipeline nat-gas now theoretically available (not) which would save the European day. With a clear smile, Blinken considered it to be a “tremendous opportunity” for the US to help Europe wean off of Russian energy… with the USA ready to be “the leading supplier (of dirty fracked seaborne LNG) to Europe”. And...

Retired Admiral Mike Mullen is advising the Biden administration to negotiate peace between Russia and Ukraine as World War 3 becomes a real possibility. Mullen, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, is saying that Biden should back off on the reckless talk and get to working on diplomacy.

German deindustrialization, transitioning to service based economy The Duran: Episode 1399

This was a live stream so the link takes you to the last couple mins. You need to pull the minute mark line back to the beginning of the stream. Ritter is on immediately and his participation ends at the 48min. mark

Today's military leaders fail to see what will have the worst impact on military recruiting for years to come. During my last few years in the military before I retired in 2020, it was common to hear that "the military-civilian divide is a problem that is getting worse." Whenever I heard this, it was always in the context that this divide was America's problem. "The American public doesn't understand the military," or "their kids aren't fit to properly support the military." There never seemed to be any reflection from the military. But the military has a serious problem with recruiting...

I have been attempting for several days to collect my thoughts on the Russo-Ukrainian War and condense them into another analysis piece, but my efforts were consistently frustrated by the war’s stubborn refusal to sit still. After a slow, attritional grind for much of the summer, events have begun to accelerate, calling to mind a famous quip from Vladimir Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”This has been one of those weeks. It began with the commencement of referenda in four former Ukrainian oblasts to determine whether or not to join the Russian...

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is at it again, this time kicking the warmongering up to 11 and demanding that President Joe Biden designate the Russian Federation as a “state sponsor of terror,” a move that would only heighten tensions further and worsen relations between the US and Russian Federation. That comment came when Sen. Graham appeared on Fox News Channel’s “The Story” and was asked by the host, Trace Gallagher, about his thoughts on what’s going on in Russia.

For eight years, NATO has supported puppet rulers in Ukraine, funded attacks in the Donbass, repeatedly violated the Minsk agreements, supported the ban on speaking Russian in the Luhansk and Donetsk republics, and helped to destroy the democratic opposition and free media in Ukraine. The result was a one-party government, essentially owned and funded by the United States, and run by American operatives. And no halftones and subtleties. Yet, somehow, the United States managed to convince the population of its country and other Western countries that Russia is a “bad boy”, that it is out of control and must be...

As some of you know, I’m an aficionado of ancient history. I thought it might be worthwhile to discuss what happened to Rome and based on that, what’s likely to happen to the U.S. Spoiler alert: There are some similarities between the U.S. and Rome.But before continuing, please seat yourself comfortably. This article will necessarily cover exactly those things you’re never supposed to talk about—religion and politics—and do what you’re never supposed to do, namely, bad-mouth the military.There are good reasons for looking to Rome rather than any other civilization when trying to see where the U.S. is headed. Everyone...

The war exposed Ukraine to two of her most critical vulnerabilities – questionable legitimacy and extreme nationalism. Legitimacy derives from acceptance and recognition. However, Ukraine’s neighbors Russia, Poland, and Romania do not accept their current borders with Ukraine.###After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Ukraine got its borders within which she achieved independence and millions of Russians, Poles, Hungarians and Romanians were trapped in a newly created country.The Ukrainian problem is greatly exacerbated by the fact that unlike pluralistic societies such as the USA, Canada, Switzerland, and Russia, which are tolerant of different cultures, religions, and languages, Ukraine is not....

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has thrust himself more directly into strategic planning for the war in Ukraine in recent weeks, American officials said, including rejecting requests from his commanders on the ground that they be allowed to retreat from the vital southern city of Kherson. A withdrawal from Kherson would allow the Russian military to pull back across the Dnipro River in an orderly way, preserving its equipment and saving the lives of soldiers. But such a retreat would be another humiliating public acknowledgment of Mr. Putin’s failure in the war, and would hand a second major victory...

Armed police are going door-to-door while gun-toting mercenaries are guarding polling stations as Russian stages sham referendums in occupied Ukraine. 'Voting' is now underway in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions on whether or not to become provinces of Russia - with the results fixed by Moscow. But, just to make extra sure, Kremlin officials, military police and hired guns are keeping a careful eye over the process - with Ukrainian politicians reporting that they are kicking front doors in to force people to cast their ballots. Serhiy Haidai, governor of occupied Luhansk, said some towns under Russian occupation have...

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov emphasized on Friday at a conference that it is not in Moscow's interest to have an open conflict with the United States or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).Ryabkov expressed concerns over Russia's current relations with the two, stating that they are "near-zero levels." He shared that "America is incapable of negotiating in principle and, together with a number of NATO capitals, is directly pushing Kiev to transfer military operations to our territory, intending to fight to the last Ukrainian" so as to impose "a strategic defeat" on Russia.He further underscored that Moscow is...