Free Republic

So-called heretics from history had some major predictions for 2023, and most of them revolve around the apocalypse. Let’s start with Nostradamus, a French astrologer who forecast the arrival of the Antichrist, World War III, mass depopulation, a drying ocean, and the burning down of the British monarchy — all in 2023. In his writings, Nostradamus predicted “seven months Great War [and] people dead through evil” as our apocalypse appetizer, according to the New York Post. As for Buckingham Palace, apparently it’s going to see a “celestial fire on the royal edifice,” the outlet noted. Some might argue that this...

Slavyangrad STANDS WITH #SERBIA, [12/27/2022 11:12 PM] Authorities in Kharkov have confirmed a series of explosions in the region. According to local resources, an infrastructure facility has been hit. Slavyangrad STANDS WITH #SERBIA, [12/27/2022 11:18 PM] ❗️ An air-raid alert has been declared in Kiev Slavyangrad STANDS WITH #SERBIA, [12/27/2022 11:50 PM] So far, massive strikes have been noted not on the energy structure, but on purely military rear facilities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions. There are a lot of hits. https://t.me/yurasumy/6721 Slavyangrad STANDS WITH #SERBIA, [12/27/2022 11:58 PM] ❗️Ukrainian media report a...

State and military police were sent Tuesday to keep people off Buffalo’s snow-choked roads, and officials kept counting fatalities three days after western New York’s deadliest storm in at least two generations. Even as suburban roads and most major highways in the area reopened, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned that police would be stationed at entrances to Buffalo and at major intersections because some drivers were flouting a ban on driving within New York’s second-most populous city. More than 30 people are reported to have died in the region, officials said, including seven storm-related deaths announced Tuesday by Buffalo...

https://t.me/CyberspecNews [ Album ] (Pics at site) ⚡️Pics of Engels airbase CLAIMED to have been taken after the drone attack It's from a popular TG channel which posts interesting info but also a lot of sensationalist stuff as well, so take it with a pinch of salt. The author claims his source at the airbase says the drone crashed in the area marked with a red spot and then slid into some containers further away where it exploded. Assuming these pics are legit, as far as I can see there doesn't seem to be any sign of a crash on...

A few days ago I posted the following excerpt from a Scott Ritter interview: Q: What is your assessment of the situation right now on the ground in Bahkmut and going forward as we enter this winter phase of this proxy war going on in Ukraine? Scott Ritter: Well first let's understand that the battle for Bahkmut has been going on for many, many months now. Bahkmut is the "Gordian knot" of the Ukrainian defensive belt that exists in Donestk. A defensive belt that has been constructed on a continuous basis since 2014. It is one of the most extensive,...

As a response to a federal order by the Department of Defense, West Point is starting to remove all Confederate statues and portraits from its campus. West Point Superintendent Lieutenant General Steve Gilland broke the news and stated “During the holiday break, we will begin a multi-phased process, in accordance with Department of Defense directives, to remove, rename or modify assets and real property at the United States Military Academy and West Point installation that commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy or those who voluntarily served with the Confederacy”. One of the most notable Confederate portraits that will be removed is...

Cpl. Ray Hamilton (Image courtesy of Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office) A sheriff’s deputy in Florida was shot and killed while responding to a domestic violence call on Christmas Eve, according to authorities. Cpl. Ray Hamilton, a five-year veteran and member of the Okaloosa County Sherriff’s Office (OCSO) Special Response Team, succumbed to his injury at a hospital Saturday afternoon following a standoff at a home in Fort Walton Beach, per news releases from OCSO. The suspect in the fatal shooting, 43-year-old Timothy Price-Williams, was detained and faces a charge of premeditated murder. OCSO had obtained a warrant for Price-Williams on...

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Please. Yulia Bubnova: Good afternoon. TASS Agency, Yulia Bubnova. To be honest, I would like to start with some summing up. Clearly, it was not the easiest year, and not the most ordinary, but what are its main results for you? What have we achieved, perhaps, what did we fail to achieve, and how do you see our future, where are we going and where should we arrive? Thank you. Vladimir Putin: There are no ideal situations. Ideal situations only happen in plans, on paper, and you always want something more. But in general, I...

"Danny Haiphong: For the last several weeks there has been this intense battle in the city of Bahkmut and the western mainstream media has been kind of sounding the alarm a bit. You've had places like the Guardian, the New York Times talk about how Ukraine has been using artillery and all kinds of weapons at alarming rates to the point where it seems like they are admitting that Ukraine is outgunned here. What is your assessment of the situation right now on the ground in Bahkmut and going forward as we enter this winter phase of this proxy war...

A soldier with broken time as a result of his love of bourbon whiskey could soon become the third man to hold the rank of General of the Armies. The proposed fiscal 2023 James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act would let President Joe Biden posthumously promote Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, who retired with the rank of General of the Army, to General of the Armies -- a rank only held by Gen. George Washington, posthumously, and Gen. John "Black Jack" Pershing of World War I fame. Grant became the country's first four-star general in 1866. For the past year,...

Merry Christmas all. I am interested in the make/model of the firearms borne by the 2 Bedouin warriors (the one in the middle and the one on the far right) in this 1876 photograph from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam: High resolution image here: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fd/Three_bedouins_sheikhs%2C_c_1867-1876.jpg I am curious as to the type of firearms in the possession of these Bedouin Sheikhs at that time. Location: Syria, approx. dates - between 1867 and 1876. Any insights appreciated.

Russia Matters Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs AUTHOR Alex Vershinin U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin retired after 20 years of service, including eight years as an armor officer with four combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and 12 years working as a modeling and simulations officer in NATO and U.S. Army concept development and experimentation. This included a tour with the U.S. Army Sustainment Battle Lab, where he led the experimentation scenario team. The Ukrainian Strategy The Ukrainians’ terrain-focused war of maneuver is constrained by two factors: limited artillery ammunition and equipment production, and coalition...

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech before Congress a “photo op” Thursday.“I didn’t go to the speech, because I didn’t want to be part of a photo op asking for more money from the United States government when they have not given us a single piece of accounting on anything they spent,” Hawley said.Zelenskyy spoke before a joint meeting of Congress Wednesday night following a visit to the White House, calling U.S. aid to the county “an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”Some Republicans, including...

Looking back on it all more than 80 years later, Group Captain John 'Paddy' Hemingway starts to chuckle: 'I just wondered what would happen next — and luckily the right thing happened next!' That is one way of recalling an experience so terrifying that most of us would probably have nightmares to our dying day. One moment, on the afternoon of August 26, 1940, Pilot Officer Hemingway, aged 21, was flying his RAF Hawker Hurricane head-on towards a fleet of German Dornier bombers bound for London in broad daylight. The next, he took a bullet in the wing — then...

There was hell-up in a small Cornish village when a group of Santas tried to drive a tank through and got stuck - damaging a car and blocking access to the famously decorated streets. Residents and festive revellers in Angarrack were left fuming when a group of military re-enactors dressed as Santa Claus drove into the village outside Hayle in a vintage armoured personnel carrier but came a cropper when the metal beast, complete with tank tracks, proved too wide for the roads. Several punters have filmed the unusual yet rather comical scene which shows the Santas, some of them...

In the dark hours of June 13, 1942, a German U-boat surfaced off the coast of Long Island. Four saboteurs, under the leadership of one George Dasch, buried explosives beneath the sands of Amagansett as part of an elaborate plan to blow up Astoria’s Hell Gate Bridge, along with chemical plants being used in the American war effort. Naval intelligence Lt. Gen. Charles Radcliffe Haffenden had gotten word that four men had been spotted and sped out to Long Island’s East End. But his investigation didn’t follow standard military protocols. Haffenden stopped at Millie’s Inn by Napeague Beach for dinner...

The Christmas truce of 1914 is a story many of us have heard, but it’s well worth revisiting. It’s almost too good to be true.When the angels appeared to the shepherds outside Bethlehem on that night more than 2,000 years ago, they spoke of the great tidings of the incarnation and sang what has become the universal Christmas prayer of the centuries: “Peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.”Perhaps those same Christmas angels were singing over the Western Front in 1914, when the guns fell silent.The Christmas truce of 1914 is one of those stories many of us have heard,...

On Thursday, Target and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall of 240,000 Pillowfort Weighted Blankets after two sisters, 4 and 6, died of asphyxia after they got trapped inside the blanket and suffocated in April 2022. The blankets include zippers, which the girls had used to seal themselves inside, causing them to become trapped and suffocate. The deaths occurred at the girls’ family home at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina Marine Corps base camp where their father is a staff sergeant. After the two fatalities, Target received two other reports of children who had also gotten...

A book that is expected to hit bookshelves next month will detail one of the issues that reportedly caused President Joe Biden to explode into fits of rage during his first years as president. Author Chris Whipple, in his forthcoming book, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House,” describes how the scenes of illegal aliens flooding the U.S. southern border caused Biden to erupt into states of fury, dropping f-bombs in front of aides. “Meanwhile, illegal immigrants kept arriving. And Biden was furious,” the book says, according to a copy obtained by Fox News. “Aides had rarely...

Cmdr. Robert Ramirez III, commanding officer of SEAL Team 1, was found dead in his San Diego County residence Monday. Naval Special Warfare Command officials said in a statement Wednesday that foul play is not suspected to have played a role in the decorated officer’s death. Navy officials said the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department’s investigation remains ongoing. “Bobby was an outstanding leader, devoted husband and father, and a good friend to us all,” Capt. David Abernathy, commanding officer of Naval Special Warfare Group 1, which manages all San Diego-based SEAL teams, said in a statement. “This is a devastating...