Free Republic

Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner mercenary group who rebelled against Russia’s military leadership in June, has been confirmed dead by Russian authorities in a plane crash 100 miles northwest of Moscow. But can those authorities be trusted to tell the truth? Rebekah Koffler, a strategic military intelligence analyst and former senior official at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), says there may be a number of reasons the Kremlin would want us to think Prigozhin was dead. “At this time, we lack independent confirmation whether the Russian media or the Federal Air Transport Agency reporting about Prigozhin’s...

President Barack Obama is like a novice flier thrust into the cockpit of a 747. He’s pushing buttons, flipping switches and radioing air traffic control, but nothing’s happening. The plane is just slowly descending on its own, and while it may or may not crash, it at least doesn’t appear to be headed to any particularly useful destination. Obama’s ineffectiveness, always a hallmark of his presidency, has reached a new cruising altitude this year. Not even a year into his second term, he looks like a lame duck and quacks like a lame duck. You guessed it — he’s a...