Free Republic

Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said the hard-line opponents to House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) becoming the next Speaker “are enemies now.” Crenshaw told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday ahead of the Speakership vote that those dug in against McCarthy will “obviously” not get the committee assignments they want over their defiance, but “it’s going to be so much worse than that.” “They are enemies now,” he said. “They have made it clear that they prefer a Democrat agenda than a Republican one.” Crenshaw earlier on Tuesday dismissed the idea that opponents to McCarthy had a viable alternative who could...

Former national security adviser John Bolton said he will “seriously consider” challenging former President Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination in 2024 if other GOP candidates don’t step in and stop him from winning again. Bolton said: “We’ve got perhaps a dozen or more potential presidential candidates looking to 2024. I think every one of them, before they declare their candidacy, should say, ‘Donald Trump was wrong. We repudiate him. He doesn’t belong in the Republican Party.’ “And, honestly, if they don’t, there’s one thing that would get me to get into the presidential race, which I looked at in...

Hey, Lyin’ Ted and Sleepy Joe: Meet Toxic Trump. You know, if the former president had any self-knowledge or even the slightest ability to be self-deprecating, he might consider giving himself this alliterative nickname.After three straight national tallies in which either he or his party or both were hammered by the national electorate, it’s time for even his stans to accept the truth: Toxic Trump is the political equivalent of a can of Raid......

The rise of a ‘woke’ activist-driven, social justice-oriented politics—particularly among the members of academia, media, and the professional managerial class—has provided the latest ideological justification for interventionism, and it has become readily adopted by the U.S. foreign policy establishment. These groups now have an even greater level of symbiotic relationship with state actors. Professional selection and advancement under these conditions require elite signaling of loyalty to ‘progressive’ universalism as the trending state-sanctioned ideology, which further fuels the push towards interventionism. This combination of factors encourages a new institutional and elite consensus around trending shibboleths.

Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) on Tuesday said her work on the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol is “probably the most important thing I’ve done professionally.” “I’m very proud of the work that we’ve done and of my fellow members of that committee. I think it’s probably the most important thing I’ve ever done professionally, and absolutely crucial for the functioning of our democracy going forward,” Cheney said during a speaking event at Harvard University.

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming has hit out at House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's suggestion that a Republican-led House might block military aid to Ukraine, describing the idea as "disgraceful." Cheney, the vice chair of the January 6 select committee, made the remark on Tuesday while taking questions at an event at the Harvard Institute of Politics. The Republican congresswoman was asked by a student whether the U.S. could "credibly promote and support democracy" around the world when it's "falling apart" in this country. In response, Cheney, one of the most vocal Donald Trump critics in the GOP, said first...

rkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) said withdrawing funding from Ukraine would be a mistake following comments from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that appeared to suggest a GOP House majority would restrict funding to the country. Hutchinson said on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday that he believes McCarthy was reflecting conversations he’s had with Republican members of Congress.

Western officials are engaged in “prudent planning” behind the scenes to prevent chaos and panic in their home countries in the event Russia was to detonate a nuclear bomb in or near Ukraine. Although a nuclear crisis is considered highly unlikely, the insider said officials internationally were re-examining plans to provide emergency support and reassurance to populations fearful of nuclear escalation. Hints of the thinking emerged in a briefing by an official on Friday, who was asked if there would be measures in place to prevent panic buying or people fleeing cities en masse in fear of escalation after a...

NATO will closely monitor Russia's upcoming nuclear exercise but not be cowed into dropping support for Ukraine by Moscow's veiled nuclear threats, the alliance's chief said on Thursday. "We will not be intimidated," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters after a two-day meeting of the alliance's defense ministers. "Russia's nuclear rhetoric is dangerous, reckless, and they know that if they use (a) nuclear weapon against Ukraine, it will have severe consequences." The meeting was the first large NATO gathering since Moscow announced it would annex several Ukrainian territories, began a partial mobilization and issued veiled nuclear threats, moves NATO has...

The Russian authorities have resorted to raiding hostels and hotels in search of men who may be eligible for military service as part of the country's "partial" mobilization, according to multiple media reports. Two Moscow locations of the Travel Inn hostel chain were visited by the police last week, according to a report by broadcaster RTVi, which cited a hostel representative. At one of the hostels, all guests eligible for military conscription were rounded up and sent to an enlistment center where men with prior military experience had their passports confiscated and were ordered to report back with their belongings...

Germany has promised to transfer to Ukraine 100 Soviet-made tanks, which will be delivered from Greece and Slovakia in a “circular scheme”. This was stated by German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, reports CNN. Head of the German Defense Ministry During a visit to the German military stationed in Lithuania, the German military announced additional deliveries of weapons to Ukraine, including the IRIS-T air defense system and 100 tanks from Greece and Slovakia. The website of the German government reports that queues for delivery to Ukraine: 4 IRIS-T anti-aircraft missile systems 2 MARS II multiple launch rocket systems with ammunition; 4...

Rep. Liz Cheney’s (R-Wyo.) comment that she will not be a Republican if former President Trump wins the party’s 2024 presidential nomination is sparking chatter that she might mount an independent White House run. While Cheney lost her House primary to the former president’s endorsed candidate last month, her break with the MAGA wing of the GOP has made her the leader of the anti-Trump movement among Republicans and beyond.

Former head of the Moscow Aviation Institute died after falling down "several flights of stairs," the institute reported. Scientist Anatoly Gerashchenko, 72, "fell from a great height," in the Russian capital as an accident. At the moment, a commission is being formed to investigate this fact, which will include representatives of the Russian Ministry of Education and Science, the State Labor Inspectorate in Moscow and the Moscow Aviation Institute. Gerashchenko had been the rector of the Moscow Aviation Institute, which has links to the Russian defense ministry, from 2007 to 2015. Recent reports in the Russian media said Gerashchenko had...

Representative Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, criticized Fox News Thursday for having retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor, who has made controversial comments about Russia's war in Ukraine, on as a guest. "Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch - Why do you continually put Douglas MacGregor on @FoxNews to spread Putin's propaganda and lies? This is absolutely not in America's interest," Cheney said in a tweet referring to the Murdochs, who control Fox Corporation.

Russian missiles have hit a reservoir dam near the southern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, officials say. Residents in some areas were told to evacuate, city head Oleksandr Vilkul said, but he added the situation was under control. Ukraine said the strike was revenge by Russia for its recent counter-attack. President Volodymyr Zelensky - who was born in the city - described Russia as a "terrorist state" after the attack on the Karachunivske reservoir. "You are weaklings who fight civilians," Mr Zelensky said in his late night address on Wednesday. "Scoundrels who, having escaped from the battlefield, are trying to...

The strategy behind Ukraine’s rapid military gains in recent days began to take shape months ago during a series of intense conversations between Ukrainian and U.S. officials about the way forward in the war against Russia, according to American officials. The counteroffensive — revised this summer from its original form after urgent discussions between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials — has succeeded beyond most predictions. Ukrainian forces have devastated Russian command and control, and appear poised to capitalize on their advances in the northeast of the country and in another campaign in the south.

The strategy behind Ukraine’s rapid military gains in recent days began to take shape months ago during a series of intense conversations between Ukrainian and U.S. officials about the way forward in the war against Russia, according to American officials. The counteroffensive — revised this summer from its original form after urgent discussions between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials — has succeeded beyond most predictions. Ukrainian forces have devastated Russian command and control, and appear poised to capitalize on their advances in the northeast of the country and in another campaign in the south. The work began soon after President...

That said, Why did Cheney even bother running for re-election, in a state that voted more heavily for Trump than any other, twice? What is characterised in the press as a “split” in the Republican Party — between Trump’s supporters on one hand, and conventional Republicans on the other — in fact is not a schism or factional matter at all. It more closely resembles an ice floe upon which the decrepit and useless remnant of the party has been set adrift. The neoconservatives who proudly announced that they would vote for Biden in 2020 because they put “country over...

Former Vice President Dick Cheney calls former President Donald Trump a "coward" and argues that Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming is "fearless," as he stars in the latest ad released by his daughter’s re-election campaign. "In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump. He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him," the elder Cheney says in the ad, which the younger Cheney started running on Thursday, a week and a half before...

When, during the Second World War, Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer who had made it to the U.S., coined the word “genocide,” he intended that it should cover more than the Holocaust, which had consumed 49 members of his own family. Nazi-style annihilation was the ne plus ultra, but Lemkin argued that genocide could also be somewhat subtler. Genocidaires might want to destroy a national group as a distinct entity while being content to see many of those who had been a part of it survive, so long as they accepted the identity imposed upon them by their oppressors.