Free Republic

President Donald Trump said he may travel to Turkey for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, as he doesn’t believe President Vladimir Putin would show if he isn’t there. "I don’t know if he’s showing up," Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. "I know he would like me to be there. And that's a possibility." -snip- The president noted that he has a "full day" scheduled in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Thursday, and he’d planned on sending Secretary of State and interim national security advisor Marco Rubio. But, he added, "I don't know that [Putin] would be there...

Vladimir Putin will not show up for peace talks because his 25-year stranglehold on Russia ends if he yields, experts say. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has agreed to an offer of direct talks aimed at achieving peace, but Moscow said it would refuse to honour a ceasefire before and during any meeting. The showdown was tentatively set for Istanbul with US President Donald Trump saying he would show up, but the meeting has yet to be confirmed. The apparent foot-dragging by the Kremlin was seen as a deliberate ploy to continue a bloody war with its neighbour that has rumbled...

A religion of externals is attractive to the unrenewed heart. The pomp and ceremony of the Catholic worship has a seductive, bewitching power, by which many are deceived; and they come to look upon the Roman Church as the very gate of heaven. None but those who have planted their feet firmly upon the foundation of truth, and whose hearts are renewed by the Spirit of God, are proof against her influence. Thousands who have not an experimental knowledge of Christ will be led to accept the forms of godliness without the power. Such a religion is just what the...

The key to understandmg the mark of the beast is to examine its imagery, based in the language of OT sign commandments, the Decalogue, and the Sabbath in the light of the thematic, theological, and structural features of the vision it is embedded with. When all is taken together, a consistent pattern emerges. The first table of the Decalogue and the Sabbath are the objects of the dragon's attack. The mark of the beast functions like a sign commandment and a direct parody of the Sabbath. The last rebellion of the dragon is an attempt to simultaneously draw the whole...

On Election Night, with characteristic modesty, Donald Trump claimed an “unprecedented and powerful mandate.” He certainly won the contest legitimately, if more narrowly than many observers initially thought. His popular-vote margin over Kamala Harris has dropped from around 3 percent on the evening of November 5 (or about two-thirds of Joe Biden’s margin in 2020) to 1.62 percent today. That’s about a half-percent smaller than Hillary Clinton’s national popular-vote margin over Trump in 2016. To make some other comparisons: Barack Obama won the popular vote by 3.9 percent in 2012 and 7.2 percent in 2016, and George W. Bush won...

Two of former president Donald Trump’s most prominent backers in the right wing influencer sphere fretted Wednesday after early voting numbers showed massive early turnout among women that could imperil their candidate’s path to victory. “Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster,” tweeted Mike Cernovich on Wednesday. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” Cernovich is a longtime far right gadfly and commentator with a massive online following. He’s been around long enough to have played a role in the anti-feminist Gamergate harassment campaign and to have helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, though...

With the end of their convention, the Republican Party and Donald Trump have reached what in military theory is called the “culminating point.” “The culminating point of victory,” according to the Modern War Institute at West Point, “is the threshold when military advantages peak and then rapidly turn into disadvantages.” As an infantryman, I was taught that the culminating point is a paradox; it’s a moment of maximum vulnerability at a time when you believe you are at maximum strength. Let’s say your platoon has just taken a hill. Exhausted and jubilant, you’ve achieved your objective. Your troops have sent...

I don't see why there seems to be so much disruption and confusion over natural communication problems due to aging related cognitive decline. This is not an occasion for shock and dismay. Father time is doing his natural work. Bright smiles and positive loving messages for the family are in order. Our finest educators and scientists continued in their roles as anchors of their institutions and bright stars in in the faculty of premier universities for many years after their years of productivity. Give Joe Biden a party, a good-sounding title (One is mentioned in the title) and let's move...

Contrary to what many political pundits, including this one, thought would happen as soon as Donald Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, the former president has maintained a slim but steady polling lead over President Joe Biden. As of today, the RCP Average has Trump with a 1.1% overall advantage, with Quinnipiac being the only May poll showing Biden leading, albeit by a mere 1%. By contrast, Biden enjoyed a 5.6% advantage this time in 2020, an election in which Trump never actually took the average polling lead.Still, are there signs that Trump's lead might be softer than we think?...

@JohnStossel President Trump said he would “drain the swamp.” Economist @edstringham says by the end of Trump’s term, the swamp was “a lot bigger and a lot murkier.” Here why Trump failed ...

Former President Donald Trump lost three major legal challenges in the past week, including his efforts to dismiss a racketeering case on First Amendment grounds. Here is a look at the rulings in three separate cases this week in Georgia, Florida, and New York. New York judge denies Trump’s attempt to delay hush money trialNew York Judge Juan Merchan denied the former president’s attempt to delay his criminal hush money trial on Wednesday, after Trump claimed he was protected under presidential immunity. Merchan said that Trump had plenty of opportunity before March to claim presidential immunity in the case. Trump...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to visit Egypt on Tuesday, 23 January, to join his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi in laying the foundation of El-Dabaa, Egypt's first-ever nuclear power plant (NPP). Both Putin and Sisi will take part in an official ceremony of the final stage of pouring the concrete of the fourth reactor of Dabaa developed by the Russian state atomic energy corporation ROSATOM in Dabaa city, located in the Mediterranean Marsa Matrouh province, about 320 kilometres northwest of the capital Cairo, Egyptian news outlets reported. The long-awaited NPP, which will operate with a 120-megawatt capacity for...

Until now I have not shared my opinion of what I think of the many inherent ways the Catholic Church has misinterpreted Scripture throughout the years. I can no longer be silent on the subject, because it is one that the Catholic Church has used to teach heresy.To begin with, the Catholic Church has been making a mockery of Scripture for many years. There are many beliefs the Catholic Church holds that I have problems with, but for now I will explain why they are wrong in their interpretation that Peter is the rock upon which Christ has built...

Democrats and DeSantis backers alike pounced over the Christmas period, attacking the Trump family over a Christmas picture posted to Instagram (and subsequently X.com). “Where’s Melania?” hundreds of mostly anonymized internet accounts shrieked, many of which contained “#DumpTrump” or “#DeSantis2024” markings in their biographies. The picture, which also omitted Eric and Lara Trump, as well as a number of other family members, served as poor spirited fodder for those with nothing better to do over the Christmas period besides throw shade on Donald and Melania Trump. Now, it has emerged that the former First Lady was, in fact, taking care...

A huge storm in the Black Sea has wrecked Russian defences in Crimea and devastated Sochi, an important port city on Russia’s wester coast. Trenches, coastal barriers and firing position were washed away from Yevpatoriya, on the western coast of Crimea, close to Sevastopol. Local reports said winds gusted up to 80mph, with waves of up to 30ft. Meanwhile in Sochi, Russia’s largest resort city, similar scenes played out. Footage showed huge waves washing ashore, damaging buildings and inundating promenades along the sea front. Crimea’s west coast is an important front in Russia’s war with Ukraine and was vulnerable to...

20,000 Boer Children Died in Concentration Camps, Boer War, 1899-1901. Very many victims of the February 1945 Dresden Firestorm were not German Citizens, They were Women and Children fleeing the Russians. These issues bear on the current conflicts. You can argue about "justification", but not about whether or not this happened. "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts", asserted the late NY Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan.) The first modern instance of targeting civilians as pawns of war, came during the Boer War, when the families of the very tough guerilla fighters from among the Boer...

Israel bombed areas of southern Gaza where it had told Palestinians to flee to ahead of an expected ground invasion, killing dozens of people on Tuesday in attacks it says are targeted at Hamas militants that rule the besieged territory. The Hamas-run Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said at least 500 people were killed in an explosion Tuesday that it said was caused by an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza City Hospital. If confirmed, the attack on the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City would be by far the deadliest Israeli airstrike in five wars fought since 2008.

Drunk recruits. Insubordinate soldiers. Convicts. They're among hundreds of military and civilian offenders who've been pressed into Russian penal units known as "Storm-Z" squads and sent to the frontlines in Ukraine this year, according to 13 people with knowledge of the matter, including five fighters in the units. Few live to tell their tale, the people said. (snip) "Storm fighters, they're just meat," said one regular soldier from army unit no. 40318 who was deployed near the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine in May and June. (snip) Russian state-controlled media has reported that Storm-Z squads exist, that...

Most people say former President Donald Trump should go to trial for his various cases regarding classified documents and attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election prior to the 2024 contest, in which he appears likely to be the Republican nominee. According to a new POLITICO Magazine/Ipsos poll, 62% of people said they believe Trump should stand trial for his storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, for which he was indicted in June, prior to the 2024 presidential election in November. Sixty-one percent also believed he should stand trial for cases regarding alleged attempts to subvert...

New batches of entirely new SU-57 jet fighter aircraft That is, while KKKomodomir Ichabodovich Zelensky, HMFIC of Country 404, begs and pleads with Western powers for F-16's and other Western military aircraft from the 1920s and 1930s... Russian fighter groups are receiving brand new state-of-the-art fighters. This is paid for, of course, by the economic miracle of boomeranging/backfiring Western sanctions. Russia even has money left over for new churches and Cathedrals.