Free Republic

There has been a lot of speculation about the health of Vladimir Putin since he ordered the invasion of Ukraine. Reports and speculation have ranged from Parkinson’s to cancer. My colleague Bob Hoge noted that Putin pulled out of a hockey game that he has historically always played in. He sent a video message, despite being at the same resort where the game was being played. He’s previously claimed that hockey has helped his longevity, and he’s used his participation in the game to shut down rumors about his health. In the video, he was seen with dark blotches on...

Thursday, US intelligence officials leaked a classified assessment about the performance of Russian precision-guided munitions in the Ukraine invasion. The United States assesses that Russia is suffering failure rates as high as 60% for some of the precision-guided missiles it is using to attack Ukraine, three U.S. officials with knowledge of the intelligence told Reuters. The disclosure could help explain why Russia has failed to achieve what most could consider basic objectives since its invasion a month ago, such as neutralizing Ukraine’s air force, despite the apparent strength of its military against Ukraine’s much smaller armed forces. The U.S. officials,...

video of Russian trucks running on flat tires. https://twitter.com/TrentTelenko/status/1505370317228843008Telenko concludes that the lack of professional maintenance and wear, unprofessional use by undertrained troops and soldier exhaustion has already and will continue to cause high levels of “operational attrition” in their truck fleets. The “details” that are being ignored will lead to massive issues. He predicts in six to eight weeks, the entire Russian Army military truck fleet will be “deadlined.” “Between the end of April and Mid-May 2022, the Ukrainian Army will be able to counter-attack EVERYWHERE. Because there will be NOWHERE more than 20 miles/30 km inside Ukraine where...

Clinton Foundation is Robin Hood in Reverse-Charles Ortel By Greg Hunter On July 24, 2016 In Political Analysis 6 Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com (Early Sunday Release) Financial expert Charles Ortel says “The Clinton Foundation is the biggest charity frauds in history.” Ortel, who does high powered research for top Wall Street investment firms, applied his skills to analyzing the Clinton Foundation and contends, “I feel one of the things that makes this country exceptional is the charitable spirit. . . . Charity is a noble thing, particularly when you do it for no recompense. The Clintons are out there holding themselves...

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is holding a terrorism-related press conference tonight at 7:30 pm. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly and District Attorney Cy Vance will also be in attendance. This is a late breaking addition to Bloomberg's schedule — and the presence of Vance indicates there may have been some sort of arrest. Neither the Mayor's Office nor the NYPD are releasing any information prior to the press conference. UPDATE 6:24: NBC's Jesse Rodriguez tweets: WNBC: Terror suspect taken into custody yesterday; lone-wolf suspect was preparing a pipe bomb. UPDATE 6:28: The New York Times is reporting that the...

It's typically treated as pretty newsworthy when a majority of a president's own party votes against a signature presidential initiative. Double that when over two-thirds do so. Triple the newsworthiness when it's the first time that magnitude of opposition has occured in a president's tenure. These political shifts are likely to have major consequences in the upcoming elections. Many Democrats have - like the movement on the streets - declared their political independence. Will it be enough to make up for being down-ticket from a president who flip-flopped on his own campaign pledges to overhaul U.S. trade policy? The world...

I wanted to start a discussion to compare and contrast the differences and similarities between these public displays and assembles. I say similarities because when you listen to their individual complaints, they are very similar. Government is not responsive. While the Occupiers/99%ers (I dont know what to call them yet) direct their frustration at Wall Streeters and bankers, Tea Partiers direct their frustration at the government. The spontanteous Tea Party demonstrations seem to have developed into a more organized political movement. Also I wonder if there was a Republican in the White House, would the 99%ers direct their demonstrations there?...

If you want to find out what happened with Solyndra you have to follow the money. I did. The half billion dollars of taxpayer dough that is probably lost in Sol came from the Federal Financing Bank (“FFB”). It’s worth a look at this bank to see what else is going on. FFB is a bank that is owned and controlled by the US Treasury. The chairman of the Board is the TSec. (Tim Geithner). With the (big) exception of the Post Office all of the loans at FFB are guaranteed by government agencies. Technically speaking, FFB has no risks...

A new book offering an insider's account of the White House's response to the financial crisis says that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ignored an order from President Barack Obama calling for reconstruction of major banks. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, the incident is just one of several in which Obama struggled with a divided group of advisers, some of whom he didn't initially consider for their high-profile roles. Suskind states that Obama accepts the blame for mismanagement in his administration while noting that restructuring the financial system was complicated and could have resulted in deeper financial harm....

Normally congested stretches of road leading up to the freeway had extremely light traffic late Friday evening and Saturday morning. Local news stations have reporters and cameras seemingly everywhere, giving Carmageddon live reports, round-the-clock coverage.

During his epic interview with Chris Wallace on Sunday Jon Stewart trotted out the last year's much-blogged about study that stated FOX Viewers were the most misinformed in the country. During the interview Wallace didn't counter Stewart's claim (other than to show a Comedy Central clip from 2005) however, Politifact, the non-partisan fact-checking organization has done some digging. Conclusion? Not so much. But wait, it's a bit more complicated than that.

BUSTED | Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial Federal Audits Accuse Firms Of Defrauding Taxpayers By 4closureFraud Created 05/16/2011 - 17:36 [1] "The Justice Department is now contemplating whether to use the HUD audits as a basis for civil and criminal enforcement actions, the sources said. The False Claims Act allows the government to recover damages worth three times the actual harm plus additional penalties." It's about damn time! Let's see where this takes us... Maybe, just maybe, they actually have been doing their jobs... Confidential Federal Audits Accuse Five Biggest Mortgage Firms Of Defrauding...

12:30--PA—NEWSWIRE--ZeroOnions--12:30---FU –U2 Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, in an attempt to soothe global markets in the midst of a breakdown of uncivil society in Egypt, where strongman Hosni Mubarak is struggling to extend decades of control through iron-fisted use of security forces, scheduled a hasty Washington D.C. press conference at eight thirty EST Friday morning. “Markets remain attractive, inexpensive, and the only way out,” he said to the assembled reporters. “You can bet the baby oil in my beard that we’ll just acquire that Middle Eastern dry spot if it threatens to take the Dow down more than...

A shocking report prepared for Prime Minister Putin by the Foreign Military Intelligence Directorate (GRU) states that one of the United States top experts in biological and chemical weapons was brutally murdered after he threatened to expose a US Military test of poison gas that killed hundreds of thousands of animals in Arkansas this past week. According to this report, John P. Wheeler III, Special Assistant to the Secretary of the Air Force, Washington, D.C. from 2005-2008, when he became the Special Assistant to the Acting Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Logistics and Environment, was found brutally...

The short problem is that banks are foreclosing without showing clear ownership of the property. In addition, “foreclosure mills” are processing 100,000s of foreclosures a month without doing any of the actual due diligence or legal legwork required for the state to justify the taking of property and putting people on the street. Even worse, many are faking documentation and committing other fraud in the process. The government is allowing this to happen both by not having courts block it from going forward, but also through purchasing the services of these mills. As Barney Frank noted: “Why is Fannie Mae...