Free Republic

The Russians are losing their war on Ukraine. They just don’t know it yet.Many armchair generals ignore that fact. Putin is stronger than ever, they say. Even if his invasion failed to conquer Ukraine, the crushing burden of war cannot be sustained indefinitely by its defenders, we are told. And even if they do hold out, the Western democracies are already tiring of their role in providing military and financial lifelines to Kyiv while sanctioning Russia.Or so the “realists” say – though such arguments are often indistinguishable from appeasement or defeatism.The Western media has been filled with stories quoting unnamed...

Word on Twitter tonight is that Twitter is dead and is going to shut down anytime now. Pundits are posting links to where you can find them once Twitter’s gone. They’re lamenting what a great conversational space Twitter used to be. But Elon Musk, in his search for workers who were willing to actually come into the office and work a full day, has alienated his employees and they’re all leaving. Check out Twitter’s trending topics: RIP Twitter As CNBC reported, among the first two fired were Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson, whom the reporter caught outside as they were...

Two men from Minnesota have been arrested as of Friday morning by the FBI on charges relating to criminal acts committed at the United States Capitol on Jan. 6. According to the FBI, 29-year-old Daniel Johnson, of Austin, and 42-year-old Brian Mock, of Minneapolis, have charges pending against them. As of Friday morning, three other Minnesotans have been officially charged in relation to the U.S. Capitol riot. Jordan Kenneth Stotts, from Bemidji, was arrested on March 19 and faces multiple charges; Jonah Elijah Westbury, from Lindstrom, was arrested on April 9 and faces multiple charges; and Victoria Charity White, from...

(CALGARY, Alberta) - There were sombre ceremonies across Tucson, Arizona on Sunday, January 8, 2012, in remembrance of Jared Loughner’s shooting spree a year earlier where he seriously wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords, killed six and wounded 12 more. I suggest that the Untied States, is the only country in world, where remembrances could be held virtually every single day of the year for egregious killings of citizens by other citizens—all indirectly supported by the National Rifle Association. The day before the Tucson ceremonies, on January 7, there was a funeral in Brownsville, Texas, for a fifteen-year-old eighth grader who was...

Many Americans I know are dismayed by the British academic boycott of Israel. What, they wonder, lies behind the rise of such attitudes on British campuses? The truth is, however, we do not know the half of it. A case that has just ended at the Old Bailey criminal court in London—a case that has gone largely unreported—throws light on this dark corner of university life. This morning, the BBC’s flagship radio news program, Today, reported on the case. It involves a schoolboy and four Muslim students at Bradford University who have been convicted of “possessing articles for terrorism”—in other...

Gordon Brown yesterday surprised commentators by refusing to rule out military action against Iran. “I firmly believe that the sanctions policy that we are pursuing will work, but I’m not one who’s going forward to say that we rule out any particular form of action,” the new British Prime Minister told a news conference. While Brown had previously seemed to follow his European partners France and Germany by playing down the idea of using force against Tehran, his line on Iran yesterday was compatible with the more hawkish position of President Bush. What are we to make of these maneuvers?...

Writing in Saturday’s Guardian, Karen Armstrong, a popular historian of comparative religion, describes how she was invited by the Malaysian government last month to give two public lectures. On arriving in Kuala Lumpur, however, she was “surprised” to discover that this same government had banned three of her books as “incompatible with peace and social harmony.” She does not mention the fact that the government in question is an Islamist one, which relentlessly persecutes the 40 percent of Malays who are non-Muslims. This is in spite of the fact that the Malaysian constitution, while establishing Islam as Malaysia’s official religion,...