Free Republic

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday sacked Russia's chief of land forces, General Oleg Salyukov, the Kremlin said, in the latest removal of a high-profile military establishment figure amid the war in Ukraine. Salyukov, 70, will become a deputy to ex-Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who was removed last year and made Secretary of the Security Council. The move was announced in a Kremlin decree. Less than a week ago, Salyukov was running the grand Victory Day military parade in Red Square with current Defense Minister Andrei Belousov, marking the 80th anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany. Russian law enforcement has charged...

A South Carolina firing squad tried to shoot a convicted cop killer in the heart and missed in a “botched” execution that left him in “excruciating” pain as he bled out, according to an autopsy and experts. Mikal Mahdi, 42 — who murdered a South Carolina police officer during a crime spree in 2004 — was shot to death by a three-person firing squad on April 11. But an autopsy later revealed that none of the bullets hit his heart directly, and that his chest showed only two bullet wounds instead of three, according to a disturbing report by NPR....

A convicted cop killer who became the second death row inmate in South Carolina to die by firing squad chomped on a ribeye steak, mushroom risotto, broccoli, collard greens and cheesecake before he was executed on Friday night. Mikal Mahdi, 42, had three slugs fired into his heart by trained correctional volunteers at Broad River Correctional Institution in Columbia and was pronounced dead at 6:05 p.m. for the ambush killing of Orangeburg Public Safety Captain James Myers in 2004. Mahdi, who washed down his hearty last meal with a sweet tea, did not make a final statement before his execution,...

Washington -- As President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk work to overhaul the federal government, they are forcing out thousands of workers with insider knowledge and connections who now need a job. For Russia, China and other adversaries, the upheaval in Washington as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency guts government agencies presents an unprecedented opportunity to recruit informants, national security andintelligence experts say. Every former federal worker with knowledge of or access to sensitive information or systems could be a target. When thousands of them leave their jobs at the same time, that creates a lot of targets, as...

The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed President Trump to re-fire Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger pending the disposition of Dellinger's lawsuit for reinstatement. This is a very important decision as it overturns the order by District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson forcing the Trump administration to reinstate Dellinger (DC Circuit Court Judge Orders OMB, Treasury to Reinstate Legally Protected Official Who Trump Fired – RedState).The backstory is that Dellinger, according to statute, can only be removed from office “for inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.” Trump fired Dellinger using a recent Supreme Court precedent as the rationale....

Mass firings are set to hit the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) “imminently,” a source with knowledge told The Hill. The person, who asked to speak anonymously due to fear of reprisal, said the agency had not yet been subjected to the steep cuts announced elsewhere due to the then-pending confirmation of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The Commerce Department oversees NOAA and the National Weather Service. Lutnick is set to be sworn in Friday afternoon. Many of the federal cuts thus far have targeted probationary workers, which includes recent hires but also those who have been recently promoted. The...

The Trump administration is preparing to fire hundreds of high-level Department of Homeland Security employees this week as part of a move to rid the country’s third-largest agency of people deemed to be misaligned with the administration’s goals, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The sources said the Trump administration has a “centralized plan” and a list of people in high-level positions across every component of DHS who are to be targeted this week. The firings will come on top of hundreds of more general cuts that began across DHS on Friday night, which targeted the Federal Emergency...

Trump’s Justice Department went scorched earth on Monday and fired more than a dozen officials who worked on former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team. Acting Attorney General James McHenry said Jack Smith’s prosecutors and aides cannot be trusted so he terminated more than a dozen of them. The names of the fired officials were not released. Former US Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to investigate Trump in November 2022 just one day after Trump announced his reelection bid. Jack Smith indicted Trump on more than 37 counts in a Florida court in an Espionage Case...

READ MORE: LA's water chief 'knew about empty reservoir and broken hydrants Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley was fired by Mayor Karen Bass on Friday afternoon, a source close to the chief’s office told DailyMail.com. ‘Kristin was summoned by Bass this afternoon, about 4pm. She came back from that meeting, hugged her staff goodbye and left. She said she was fired,’ the source said. The alleged booting follows Crowley lashing out against the Mayor’s cuts to her department, in an interview with a local Fox TV station around 12pm Friday. ‘My message is the fire department needs to...

Former acting FBI Director-turned-CNN contributor Andrew McCabe ordered a criminal probe into then-President Donald Trump days after he fired FBI Director James Comey, using the discredited source of the Russia “dossier.” That is the claim made by RealClearInvestigations reporter Paul Sperry, based on newly-released documents. The FBI initiated its “Russia collusion” investigation in mid-2016 based on the “dossier” compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, who was working for the opposition research firm Fusion GPS. Steele’s work had first been bankrolled by Trump’s conservative critics, then by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (which hid the...

The story behind Elon Musk firing 80% of Twitter's staff.. FUNNY AS HELL!............. 1:17 VIDEO AT LINK...................

During an interview with NBC News aired on Wednesday’s broadcast of “NBC Nightly News,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin responded to Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth calling for the firing of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. over his support of diversity initiatives by stating that “I think it’s important that young officers, young soldiers, young sergeants, be able to see themselves in our senior leadership.” And stating that Brown is “one of the most competent officers I’ve ever worked with.” NBC News National Security and Pentagon Correspondent Courtney Kube asked, “Your likely successor...

Defense: What the president (Obama) calls "my military" is being cleansed of any officer suspected of disloyalty to or disagreement with the administration on matters of policy or force structure, leaving the compliant and fearful. We recognize President Obama is the commander-in-chief and that throughout history presidents from Lincoln to Truman have seen fit to remove military commanders they view as inadequate or insubordinate.Turnover in the military ranks is normal, and in these times of sequestration and budget cuts the numbers are expected to tick up as force levels shrink and missions change. Yet what has happened to our officer...

Many companies have fired Gen Z workers just months after hiring them and several business owners said they are hesitant to bring on recent college graduates due to concerns about their work ethic, communication skills and readiness to do the job, according to a new survey. Six in 10 employers said they have already let go recent college graduates this year, while one in seven said they are inclined to refrain from hiring new graduates next year, according to a survey conducted by Intelligent.com. Close to 1,000 business leaders participated in the Intelligent.com survey, the results of which were first...

It seems to be the controversial topic of the ages...only it has worsened since post-pandemic. It's the great remote work divide...also dubbed "The Great Return" and "The Great Office Return" by others. Although in theory, remote work has essentially been in existence for decades, it has only become a hot topic of late, and become aggravated even more, with the recent headline-grabbing strides of big-name employers who dared to mandate employees to return to office-based work (affectionately known as RTO)—or risk losing their jobs.

A federal jury has awarded $687,000 to a research scientist who was fired from BlueCross BlueShield in Tennessee for refusing to comply with the company’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.Tanja Benton, who had worked 16 years at the firm when she was fired, was awarded $177,240 in back pay, $10,000 in compensation, and $500,000 in punitive damages, according to a document made public by the federal court in eastern Tennessee on June 30.Company officials told Ms. Benton in August of 2021 that she would need to be “fully vaccinated” to keep her position, according to her lawsuit. Ms. Benton refused, saying aborted...

A Tennessee jury has awarded a former research scientist at BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee $687,000 in back pay and damages after she was fired in 2021 for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine.Following a three-day jury trial in Chattanooga last week, a federal jury decided BlueCross failed to provide reasonable accommodation for Tanja Benton, who did most of her work from home and claimed a religious exemption to the company's vaccine mandate. Chattanooga Attorney Doug S. Hamill, who represents Benton, said the biostatistical research scientist was fired in November 2021 in violation of her religious beliefs after working for the...

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “The Story,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) stated that “there were some issues that should have been addressed” with the Afghanistan withdrawal, but the fact that 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump has been strongly critiqued by his own vice president and secretary of Defense “is far more alarming than what internal policy decisions Joe Biden made to discipline or not discipline folks” over the withdrawal.

It happened in February. It’s a video where a teacher, Warren Smith, is seen engaging in a conversation with a student who alleged that J.K. Rowling was transphobic. It quickly went viral. In less than five minutes, Smith, uncondescending, forces the student to rethink his position. The student admits he feels like an idiot after the pair discussed the phrasing and logical trajectory of the debate about the Harry Potter creator who has become persona non grata for her views on gender despite being an ardent leftist. This is utterly brilliant. A student accuses @jk_rowling of being transphobic. This teacher...

A Catholic school in North Carolina was within its legal rights to dismiss a substitute teacher because he was in a same-sex marriage, a federal appeals court ruled.A three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Wednesday that Charlotte Catholic High School could fire Lonnie Billard for marrying a man.Circuit Judge Pamela Harris, an Obama appointee, authored the majority opinion, concluding that the Catholic school was protected by the "ministerial exception," noting that Billard's employment involved an inherently religious element."We conclude that the school entrusted Billard with 'vital religious duties,' making him a 'messenger' of its...