Free Republic

Jared Polis is running for president. He'll deny it. He has denied it. ... Polis has done little to nothing to ruffle the feathers of the teachers' unions... ... standing aside and letting municipalities do your dirty work for you. Polis let Denver Mayor Michael Hancock lead on coronavirus lockdowns and masks before imposing a statewide lockdown himself. Polis also signed a bill allowing cities and counties to enact stricter (but not looser) gun regulations than the state imposes. And there's nothing particularly libertarian about opening the door to public employees' unions in a traditionally non-union state like Colorado. ......

A Russian lawmaker called for Lithuania's independence to be repealed, submitting a draft bill claiming the Baltic republic illegally left the Soviet Union more than three decades ago. The proposed legislation was submitted to the Russian lower house, the Duma, on Wednesday by Yevgeny Fyodorov, a member of the ruling United Russia party. In March 1990, Lithuania became the first republic to announce it intended to restore its independence from the disintegrating USSR, under whose control it had been for five decades after the Soviet army occupied it in 1940.

Kyiv has said its missiles struck a Russian vessel which was heading to Snake Island, the strategic Black Sea location that has been bitterly fought over since the start of the Ukraine war.Ukraine's defense forces tweeted on Friday that the Russian tugboat Spasatel Vasily Bekh had been "successfully demilitarized" by the Ukrainian Navy."The ship was transporting personnel, weapons and ammunition to the occupied Snake Island," the tweet said next to an image of the vessel with a red cross apparently drawn on it.Military analyst Rob Lee shared video ... "Given the slow speed of the munitions, these were likely MAM-L...

Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov has raised and dismissed a rumor about Russian President Vladimir Putin's health. In an audio recording posted Wednesday to his Telegram social media channel, Kadyrov said that he had "read that our president had fallen into a coma" and that "they are looking for a replacement right now." Since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, there has been much speculation about whether the Russian president is ill. Scenes of him gripping the edge of a table on April 21 during a meeting with his defense minister Sergei Shoigu added to the rumor...

A request for Russian military assistance from the head of a Moscow-backed rebel in Ukraine's Donbas region has been batted away by the Kremlin. Facing fierce shelling from Ukrainian forces, Denis Pushilin, head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DNR), requested additional assistance from the Russian government in a video published on his Telegram channel on Monday. Pushilin accused Kyiv of using "prohibited methods of warfare," and that the central districts of Donetsk were being shelled while other settlements in the republic were under fire. "In this regard, an understanding was reached that all the necessary additional forces of the...

A superior court in Anchorage, Alaska, heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the civil case of a state politician being sued by a constituent who was banned from the lawmaker's Facebook page. Bobbie McDow of Eagle River—a community in the municipality of Anchorage—filed the lawsuit against state Senator Lora Reinbold after the Republican legislator blocked McDow online for critical comments. McDow's suit argues that such a social media ban violates her constitutional rights. "Alaska State Senator Lora Reinbold is suppressing free speech," the suit filed by the plaintiff, who is represented by the Northern Justice Project, stated. The filing added...

ssian President Vladimir Putin's annual "direct line" call-in with Russia's citizens has been delayed and will not now take place in June as expected, a Kremlin spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday. Putin's press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters in Moscow that the event will not occur earlier than July this year, according to Russian state-owned news agency TASS. The Russian president has held the annual call-in show for all but three years since it began in 2001. It has frequently taken place in June, including last year when Putin fielded Russians' questions on June 30. Peskov was asked if Putin would...

Blinken Says 20M Tons of Grain Stalled in Odessa U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said pre-existing conditions, like COVID-19 and climate, in addition to the conflict in Ukraine, have created a "perfect storm" for a global food insecurity crisis. Blinken said there were already about 160 million people facing food insecurity around the world. An additional 40 million people has joined that group as a result of Russia's invasion into Ukraine. As Russia continues to attack one of the world's "breadbaskets," its ships are forming a blockade in the ports around Odessa. There are between 20 and 25 million...

Russian troops are being forced to eat dogs because of food shortages, Ukraine's security service has claimed. The SBU, Kyiv's security and intelligence agency, released a text message exchange purportedly between two Russian soldiers, in which a serviceman stationed in the occupied parts of the Kherson region, close to Crimea, told his friend that he and other troops had eaten a Yorkshire terrier. "It's all f*****. [Ukrainians] are f****** beating us like kids. We eat dogs, there's no food. Today we ate a Yorkie. A Yorkshire terrier," the soldier was quoted as saying by the SBU. Responding to this message,...

Pro-Trump Republicans took aim at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, after news broke Sunday that her husband, Paul Pelosi, was arrested over the weekend for driving under the influence of alcohol in Napa County, California. TMZ first reported on Sunday afternoon that Paul Pelosi was arrested late Saturday night. Fox News later confirmed the report, citing Napa County records. The news network reported that the arrest took place at 11:44 p.m. and Paul Pelosi was later booked in jail at 4:13 a.m. before being released at 7:26 a.m. Bail for the top House Democrat's husband was set at...

llinois Republican Representative Adam Kinzinger has made a prediction about the people he claims are desiring another civil war in the United States. On Monday morning, Kinzinger took to social media to call out "civil war" advocates, saying that a scan of their Twitter feeds could provide an indication on how long they would potentially last in an actual battle. "If you find a 'civil war' chickenhawk, look at their feed. It Will be filled with anger over gas prices, masks, and vaccines. If that makes them uncomfortable, there is no way they would last a war. So don't let...

Vladimir Putin's enemies are keeping a close eye on a bird in pointe shoes, because a broadcast of "Swan Lake" may reveal his demise. -snip- First, a bit of history about why so many historians and Eastern Europeans took to Twitter to pray for Swan Lake's swift appearance. To see dancing swans is, to use @asiktspolitruk's words, "the equivalent of white smoke from the Sistine Chapel's chimney in Rome announcing a new Pope." The broadcast would indicate that the end of Vladimir Putin was near. When Leonid Brezhnev died in 1982, state-run television broadcast a full-length Swan Lake in lieu...

A Russian senator attempted to justify what he described as the Russian military's "difficulty" in Ukraine by saying that his country is fighting against one of the "strongest and best-trained armies." Frants Klintsevich, who made the remarks recently during an appearance on Russian state TV, said Ukraine has an elite military made up of "Russian soldiers and officers with exactly the same mentality as ours," according to a translation provided by a journalist with the BBC. Recent reports from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) and remarks from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have indicated that Russia is losing...

The leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, has told a Moscow audience that his country's forces are "finding it difficult" and are fighting a war "against NATO" in Ukraine. A fierce loyalist of Vladimir Putin, the leader of the Caucasus republic, announced his forces had been deployed to the battlefield in Ukraine soon after the Russian president invaded on February 24. -snip- At a filmed educational forum in Moscow, Kadyrov addressed Russia's faltering invasion of Ukraine, in which his militias have suffered heavy casualties. "We're fighting not against Ukraine, against Banderites—we're fighting against NATO," Kadyrov told the...

A Russian columnist recently appeared on television and gave a damning assessment of the situation in Ukraine from Russia's perspective. Mikhail Kodaryonok was on a Russian-state-owned television channel Monday as part of a panel where he discussed the situation in Ukraine and the rather dire circumstances in which Russia finds itself. -snip- Khodaryonok continued on and painted an even grimmer situation for Russia. He talked about the vast supply of arms that are soon likely to be available to the Ukrainians. "But the situation from the overall strategic position is that the Ukrainian armed forces are able to arm a...

The Kremlin has denied that it has any information about a reported Ukrainian strike on a Russian warship in the Black Sea. Speculation has been growing on Friday over the fate of the Admiral Makarov which Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Goncharenko said on his Telegram account had been hit in a missile strike and burst into flames. Russian forces sent helicopters to rescue the crew of the ship, according to Ukrainian news site Dumskaya. The vessel was said to have been sailing close to Snake Island in the Black Sea. However, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters "we do not have...

Progressive Democrat Nina Turner teased a 2024 presidential bid during a concession speech on Tuesday after she was defeated in her bid to challenge Democratic Representative Shontel Brown. Brown defeated Turner with 66.3 percent of the vote to 33.7 percent in Ohio's 11th congressional district. Turner had read most of her concession speech from her phone but toward the end of her remarks, she said she would speak "extemporaneously" and stopped reading. "Sister Turner ain't going nowhere," Turner said and the crowed applauded and cheered. Turner made reference to the late former Representative Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman ever...

As we get closer and closer to November's midterm elections, doomsday predictions about a bloodbath for Democrats have come to dominate the news. It seems like you can't turn on your TV or scroll through Twitter for five minutes without being informed by some pundit or other—on both sides of the political spectrum—about the dire situation the Democrats face in races across the country. These naysayers are missing the robust record that the Democrats have to run on—one that includes the not insignificant line item of being the only side standing up for Democracy itself. Republicans have shown their laissez...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson has resumed tweeting only hours after tech billionaire Elon Musk's Twitter takeover became official. The @TuckerCarlson account tweeted, "We're back," shortly after it was announced on Monday that Musk had completed his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform. Carlson had not tweeted since his account was temporarily suspended last month for violating platform rules by insisting that tweets referring to Assistant Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine—who is a transgender woman—as a "man" were "true." Tucker Carlson @TuckerCarlson We’re back. During the Monday night edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host celebrated...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has canceled plans for his forces to storm the Azovstal plant in the besieged city of Mariupol, saying he instead wants them to continue blockading it. Putin told his defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, it was "inadvisable" to storm the sprawling industrial plant, where more than 2,000 Ukrainian servicemen are said to remain. "We must always think...about preserving the life and health of our soldiers and officers," Putin said, according to a transcript on the Kremlin's website.