Free Republic

When gun control activists with Everytown for Gun Safety and Students Demand Action held a rally at the Kentucky state capitol in February to push for new restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms, one of the speakers captivated the small crowd of anti-gunners with his moving story about surviving a mass shooting at his Pennsylvania high school. As it turns out, however, what Calvin Polachek told the crowd was an outright lie. He invented the school shooting and his self-proclaimed trauma, and now Everytown is scrambling to distance themselves from the man they put in front of...

Leading health experts have warned that the US is staring down the barrel of another pandemic as bird flu spirals out of control on US farms. So far, the H5N1 outbreak has affected nearly 1,000 dairy cow herds and resulted in more than 70 human cases, including the first confirmed death. The US poultry industry is at significant risk, say experts from the Global Virus Network (GVN), particularly in areas with high-density farming and where personal protective practices may be lacking. Since 2022, more than 168 million poultry in the US has been lost or culled due to the bird...

Ukraine may cease to exist if there are no serious negotiations before the summer — Head GUR Budanov in Parliament Budanov told the deputies about the threat to Ukraine's existence if peace talks do not begin before the summer, Ukrainskaya Pravda writes. Recently, a closed meeting was held in the Rada, where the leaders of the parliament and the factions were informed by the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine about the real state of military affairs. "At first, it was a lot confusing, but the representatives of the General Staff told us very interestingly. Then there were various...

The H5N1 bird flu virus spreading among cows is infecting more farm workers than experts realized. The CDC tested 115 workers at farms suffering outbreaks and found eight of them tested positive for the virus - an infection rate of seven percent. Many of them had no symptoms, which officials fear indicates H5N1 is spreading much more widely than the official numbers show. Forty-six farm workers have been officially diagnosed with the virus but hundreds of cattle farms in dozens of states are experiencing outbreaks. The CDC is now recommending anyone exposed to infected animals get tested, not just those...

Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign now claims she “does not support” Electric Vehicle (EV) mandates after years of supporting such mandates as a Senator and in her role in President Joe Biden’s administration. According to The Spectator‘s Amber Duke, Harris’s campaign sent an email to supporters on Tuesday claiming “Vice President Harris does not support an electric vehicle mandate.” The statement comes after years of Harris campaigning, championing, and supporting EV mandates that require automakers to produce and sell a certain percentage of EVs to American consumers.

In 2016, Donald Trump told us “We are going to win so much you may even get tired of winning”. Needless to say, he was somewhat optimistic. The writer Curtis Yarvin has explained that the future is almost always more leftwing than the past. Take any individual from 150 years ago, they were probably imperialistic, anti-democratic, ‘racist’, patriarchal, religious authoritarians. If they were around today they would be considered ‘far-right’. In fact, if any left-wing politicians kept the same views over the last 20 years, they would be considered fringe right today. Obama and Clinton could oppose gay marriage in...

The mysterious ailment known as “Havana syndrome” did not result from the actions of a foreign adversary, according to an intelligence report that shatters a long-disputed theory that hundreds of U.S. personnel were targeted and sickened by a clandestine enemy wielding energy waves as a weapon.The mysterious ailment known as “Havana syndrome” did not result from the actions of a foreign adversary, according to an intelligence report that shatters a long-disputed theory that hundreds of U.S. personnel were targeted and sickened by a clandestine enemy wielding energy waves as a weapon.###Seven intelligence agencies participated in the review of approximately 1,000...

As I walk around Borovsk, two things strike me about this town 60 miles (100km) from Moscow. First, there is almost no sign of the presidential election coming up this weekend. I see few election banners or billboards and no political flyers being handed out. Not surprising, really. The absence of election preparations mirrors the absence of drama surrounding a stage-managed event that will hand Vladimir Putin a fifth term in the Kremlin. The other thing you can't help noticing in Borovsk is the street art. It's everywhere. Much of it has been created by street artist Vladimir Ovchinnikov. All...

The goals of the Ukrainian army’s offensive in the summer of 2023 and the size of combat groups formed to carry it out are to a certain extent comparable with what the German military fielded for its Operation Citadel in 1943. This gives us the grounds for calling Kiev’s offensive in the summer of 2023 Operation Citadel 2.0. Considering its military-political consequences, the collapse of Citadel 2.0 meant not simply the Ukrainian army’s military-strategic defeat but also the collapse of the consolidated West’s hybrid blitzkrieg. We can state boldly that the so-called counteroffensive attempted by the Ukrainian military in the...

No television program in history drew more eyeballs than the Kansas City Chiefs’ 25-22 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The game wound up with a total audience delivery of 123.4 million average viewers across the platforms of CBS, Paramount+, Nickelodeon, Univision and CBS Sports. According to CBS Sports, 202.4 million viewers watched all or part of the game, which concluded with the Chiefs’ third Super Bowl win in the last five years. That number is the highest unduplicated total audience in history and up 10 percent against last year’s Super Bowl total of 184 million. On CBS, the...

For all its supposed modernization, Moscow's military doctrine has retained the historical Russian focus on artillery. Russian gunners proved more numerous and well-supplied than their Ukrainian enemies in the early stages of the conflict. But as Kyiv's arsenal has been bolstered by NATO systems, Russia's "god of war" has been somewhat muted... Kyiv's claimed tally of Russian equipment losses demonstrates the enthusiasm with which Ukrainian artillery and drone teams have hunted Russian big guns, as well as multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) that perform a similar function at shorter ranges. From September to November 2023, Ukraine claimed to have destroyed...

Unconditional Surrender more or less

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a GOP candidate for president in 2024, on Sunday went after former President Trump for not showing up to the GOP debates, suggesting Trump was “adopting Joe Biden’s basement strategy.” “With all due respect to Donald Trump, we’re not going to beat the Democrats by adopting Joe Biden’s basement strategy,” DeSantis said in an interview on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Joe Biden stated on September 11, 2023 in a 9/11 memorial speech in Alaska: “Ground zero in New York — I remember standing there the next day.” falsefalse By Louis Jacobson • September 12, 2023 Joe Biden stated on August 9, 2023 in an interview with the Weather Channel: “I’ve already” declared a national climate emergency falsefalse By Louis Jacobson • August 17, 2023 Joe Biden stated on June 14, 2023 in a speech: "We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean." falsefalse By Sofia Bliss-Carrascosa • June 22, 2023 Joe...

MOSCOW, April 5. /TASS/. Russia and the United States have "already passed through" the Cold War stage in their relations and are now in the phase of a hot conflict, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said on the Sputnik radio station on Wednesday. "I think we have already passed this period (of the Cold War - TASS). Now we are in the phase of a hot conflict with the United States. We are witnessing the direct involvement of that country in a hybrid war with Russia on various fronts," Ryabkov said in response to a question. He called some...

Russian officials railed against Ukraine’s talk of changing Russia’s official name to Muscovy, after a Ukrainian petition regarding a potential name change garnered 25,000 signatures. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly instructed Ukrainian Prime Minister Denis Shmygal to “carefully” consider renaming Russia to Muscovy, accounting for consequences under international law and whether it was possible in historical and cultural contexts. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said in a statement posted to Telegram on Saturday that Zelensky is trying to create an “anti-Russia Ukraine.”

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

roccoli and raspberries could give you COVID, the Food Standards Agency (FSA) has warned. Health experts revealed the virus that causes Covid-19 can live on some ready-to-eat groceries for days. The tests were carried out for the FSA in a laboratory and found coronavirus lived longer on foods with uneven surfaces, such as broccoli and raspberries. This was in comparison to smooth-skinned produce such as apples. But the scientists have advised the risk to consumers remains very low. Laboratory tests saw the SARS-CoV-2 virus smeared on packaging and food, including fruit and bottled drinks, that people might put in their...

Covid-19 vaccinations could save thousands of lives and billions of dollars this winter. A new analysis suggests that if more people in the United States get their booster by the end of the year, about 90,000 Covid-19 deaths could be prevented this fall and winter. But if booster vaccinations continue at their current pace, the nation could see a peak of more than 1,000 Covid-19 deaths per day this winter, according to the study, published Wednesday by The Commonwealth Fund. There are now more than 400 daily Covid-19 deaths, on average, in the United States. “When you look at the...

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) on Monday said the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol has found evidence on former President Trump that supports “a lot more than incitement.” The comment from Raskin, a member of the Jan. 6 panel, referenced Trump’s second impeachment in January 2021, when the House voted to impeach the then-president for incitement to insurrection.