Free Republic

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin has become increasingly frustrated and paranoid, according to reports — and fearing he will be poisoned or assassinated soon, Putin has reportedly purged his entire personal staff. Just a day after a public address where Putin denounced those Russians against his bloody invasion as “traitors” and “scum” and threatened to “spit out” domestic enemies, it was reported that an estimated 1,000 people have been fired and replaced around Putin in just the last month. The purge of personnel is because Putin has become paranoid that he’ll be poisoned, Inside Edition reported. Craig Copetas, an editor for...

NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. Deborah Birx has a memoir coming out this spring that will focus on her contentious time as White House coronavirus task force coordinator in the administration of President Donald Trump. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Monday that Birx’s “Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of The Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late,” will be published April 26. “I wrote ‘Silent Invasion’ to document the full extent of what I witnessed as I tried to save lives during this devastating time,” Birx said in a statement. “In the book,...

Parents have been denied the right to know the rate of adverse reactions to the Covid-19 vaccination in children.A High Court judge in the UK has sided with government policy to keep secret the number of children who have suffered adverse reactions—including any who have died—as a result of having the vaccine.A mother, identified only as EF, had asked the UK’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) to release the data so that parents can make an informed decision about having their child vaccinated. After the ONS refused, EF took legal action to force it to reveal the numbers, and she...

The deadly Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol is reportedly poised to get the Hollywood treatment as the subject of a “harrowing and terrifying” feature film. Billy Ray, who directed Showtime’s 2020 miniseries “The Comey Rule,” is spearheading “J6,” Deadline reported Thursday. The screenwriter — who said in a tweet last year that he planned on telling the story of some of the Capitol Police officers who responded to the riot — touched down in Washington days after the attack by a mob of Trump supporters, and interviewed some of the lawmakers and law enforcement officials who lived through it,...

James Joyce’s Ulysses was first published in 1922, just over two weeks after the British handed over the keys of Dublin Castle to Michael Collins and his new Irish government. The other great literary event of that year was TS Eliot’s The Waste Land. Joyce’s novel had much in common with Eliot’s long poem — it dealt with the rawness of urban life using competing narrative forms, including pastiche and myth and different kinds of voices. The Waste Land sounded a sort of death knell for the narrative poem, just as Ulysses set about killing off the single-perspective, the all-knowing...

Author Michael T. Cibenko said he once lived close to the site of an uprising of persecuted Christians in the 17th century. He was inspired by a 16-year-old samurai who helped lead the resistance. “Masaru” is an historical novel that follows the travails of the first Japanese Christians with excellent prose and descriptions. Author Michael T. Cibenko, who lives in Branchville, shares his expert knowledge of Japanese culture and language to create a memorable and authentic epic of early Christian Japan, a very interesting and complex period in history. Cibenko lived in southern Japan from 1996-2000 where he was an...

Two former top Washington DC National Guard officials have slammed the US Army’s internal report on its response to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, claiming the document creates a false narrative about what happened that day. The 20-page report, obtained by Politico, describes multiple conversations between Army officials and then-DC Guard commander Maj. Gen. William Walker as part of its explanation for why the National Guard was unable to respond to the Capitol when their support was initially requested. However, Walker — now the House of Representatives’ Sergeant at Arms — claims some of those communications never happened.

Often, incoming freshmen receive their first university assignment before the school year even begins: the summer reading. Many institutions see the summer reading assignment as an opportunity for new students to develop a sense of camaraderie. By reading the same book, the idea is that students will engage in thought-provoking conversations and have a shared educational experience. Common reading programs are an opportunity to start students’ education on an intellectual high note. Before the semester even begins, students can begin grappling with good reading material that will prepare them for an academically rigorous time in college. Unfortunately, research from the...

President Biden said last week that his house burned down with his wife Jill Biden inside before trying to correct himself, adding to a long list of personal stories he’s embellished over the years. Speaking on a New Hampshire bridge on Tuesday about his bipartisan infrastructure plan, Biden said, "Without this bridge, as I said earlier, it’s a 10-mile detour just to get to the other side. And I know, having had a house burn down with my wife in it — she got out safely, God willing — that having a significant portion of it burn, I can tell:...

A TGP reader sent this to us this morning– The program may also include the following information in the future: ** Your health records ** Your financial reports ** Credit scores ** Travel records ** Vehicle registration ** Spending ** Voting ** Sex offender status ** Licenses and Permits you have ** Parking Fines ** Social Credit Scoring This will be the end of individual rights as we know it. Don’t count on the fickle Supreme Court to help you. If the totalitarians are able to implement this you will no longer have any rights in America. It is the...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced she's coming out with a new book, one she says isn't like her previous written work. "State of Terror" is described as a political thriller that seems to resemble a bit of Clinton's resume. The plot follows the appointment of a woman chosen as the secretary of state by a new president, who's a "political enemy" of hers, and how a series of terrorist attacks prompt an "international chess game" involving countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran and even "the Russian mob."

Martha Jones: It's like in those films: if you step on a butterfly, you change the future of the human race. The Doctor: Then don't step on any butterflies. What have butterflies ever done to you? Science fiction writers can't seem to agree on the rules of time travel. Sometimes, as in Doctor Who (above), characters can travel in time and affect small events without appearing to alter the grand course of history. In other stories, such as Back To The Future, even the tiniest of the time travellers' actions in the past produce major ripples that unpredictably change...

For the millions of us around the world who have looked forward to Daniel Silva’s books each summer for the last twenty-one years, this new one he's written, The Cellist, represents an ending, and a sad one at that. The writer that for all those years taught his readers about the art of art restoration interwoven with the storied career of his main character, Gabriel Allon, a member of Israel’s Mossad, has become so addled by his hatred of President Trump that this book reads like a tired screed from Media Matters, a group committed to destroying all things even...

Some things are always a joy: beautiful sunrises and sunsets, the laughter of grandchildren, walks on the beach, my wife's cooking — and until now, the Gabriel Allon novels by Daniel Silva. Year after year, I have impatiently awaited summer and the release of his next book. But this year's offering, The Cellist, has put an end to my craving for Silva's writing. Sadly, in this book, the author has abandoned what is likely more than half his readership and penned a viciously anti-Trump tome. I knew there was trouble ahead when Silva dedicated his book to the Capitol Police...

Six minute clip of an American television series and the original British one it was based on about mad scientist types who unleash a pandemic on the world so as to be able to unleash a vaccine that sterilizes people because they believe the Earth should only have about 500 million people.

Albert Mohler: Professor Morson, you have made the argument that the knowledge of Russian literature is really incredibly important for even modern Americans in 2018. Why is that so, and why is it particularly so related to Russian literature? Gary Morson: Well, there are a number of reasons for this. Partly, they grow out of the facts of Russian history. Russian history tends to the extremes, and in the 20th century, that produced an entirely new form of society, to which we gave the name Totalitarian. That was the product of the thought and actions of a particular group of...

The latest article published by the American journalist Laurie Roth could be the key to everything. Basically, it could be the key to understanding what has been happening in the last six months within the United States. Roth claims she had a phone conversation with a high-level military source who leaked a stunning revelation to her. A few days before leaving the White House, on January 14, Donald Trump would sign the act known in the United States as “Insurrection Act”, which confers special emergency powers to the President of the United States in order to quell rebellions and acts...

THE SCREEN SCENE (WRBL): It’s easy to forget that Tom Clancy was a major brand in the 1980s and 90s. His novels topped the bestseller lists. The literary Mount Rushmore of the era was Stephen King, John Grisham and Clancy. Even President Ronald Reagan gave a blurb review for the paperback of the submarine warfare thriller, The Hunt for Red October. In the 1990s the Jack Ryan films, starring Alec Baldwin and then Harrison Ford as the family man turned spy, blew up the box office. But following Clancy’s death in 2013, his brand began to fade. The Clancy estate...

Welcome to Upstream Reviews! Posted on April 1, 2021 | by robkroese For a while now, I’ve been frustrated with what you might call the mainstream institutions of publishing–particularly science fiction and fantasy publishing. The Hugo Awards have been a joke for years, WorldCon and most other science fiction conventions have been taken over by the pronoun people, and now Amazon is starting to ban books that don’t fit within their approved spectrum of political thought. Many of the more conservative-leaning (or simply open-minded) people in this industry have been trying for some time to shine a spotlight on the...

Cougar Encounter in Utah | Mountain Lion Stalks Me For 6 Minutes! I found what I thought were bobcats on the trail during a run. Turns out they were cougar cubs and their mother was not happy to see me. She escorted me for over six minutes to get me away from her cubs. Although she was acting very aggressive, the cougar had no intent on hurting me. The mother cougar was most likely caught off guard and did what she had to do to protect her cubs. Mama, cubs, and I are safe.