Free Republic

Okean Elzy is one of the top bands in Ukraine. It has a kitschy, stadium rock style, and songs with patriotic themes that for decades have provided the soundtrack to anti-Russia protests. Tickets to its concerts are highly prized. But they suddenly became available after the first of three sold-out concerts in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, on Friday night. The reason? Draft officers and the police had waited outside the concert hall, looking for men trying to dodge military service in the country’s war with Russia. They asked men to see their draft papers and detained those who had not registered....

An activist speaking at Black Lives Matter Plaza asked how long before “people are really ready to get blood on their hands” to make change happen. His call to action came during a “Jail Killer Cops” rally in Washington, DC, on Friday evening. “Voting is not gonna bring us this (change),” Rahim B., a 21-year-old activist, said during a “Jail Killer Cops” rally held Friday night in the nation’s capital. “We voted in the new president, Joe Biden, but I told folks straight up — Joe Biden ain’t gonna do nothing for us because Joe Biden was in office as...

What does "Hijrah" mean? We westerners understand far too little about the Arabic language and Muslims so few understand what Hijrah means. Obama is well educated about the Muslim religion since he was educated at Islamic schools while living in Indonesia. He does not want this email to spread all over the US because he wants us to remain ignorant of what is going on with the ISIL movement. Understanding hijrah explains all the turmoil, and doesn't bode well for us. Hijrah are large scale mass migrations which become invasions. What is happening in parts of Europe right now appears...

By continuing to cast aspersions on police in general even as they're being gunned down, Obama fans the flames of this madness and gets blood on his own hands I do not make this statement lightly. I thought about it a lot. I used to roll my eyes at liberals who blamed Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush for everything under the sun - including things that clearly had nothing to do with them. I don’t want to behave in the same silly way now just because we have a liberal president and my political bias makes me want to...

Daesh Freeze 45 of Their Own To Death For Defection The so-called Islamic State killed 45 of their own in a warning to potential defectors. In an attempt to make the executions even more horrifying as a deterrent, they locked their defectors in a freezer for a day. According Iraqi media agency Al Sumaria News, the 45 defectors attempted to flee the battlefield during recent fights in Iraq. They accused deserters were executed by being locked in morgue freezers in Mosul for 24 hours, left for a slow, presumably agonizing death. Their bodies were reportedly then stretched out along the...

RIGA, Latvia — In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries, American and allied officials say. The proposal, if approved, would represent the first time since the end of the Cold War that the United States has stationed heavy military equipment in the newer NATO member nations in Eastern Europe that had once been part of the Soviet sphere of influence. Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war...

Video footage has emerged which shows the moment seven of President Bashar al-Assad's Syrian soldiers are executed on camera by rebels fighting to overthrow the regime... ...The horrific scene filmed in April 2012 was documented in a video smuggled out of Syria only a few days ago by a former rebel who says he had become horrified by the brutality of the tactics his one-time comrades are using. He gave the footage to The New York Times.... Issa is known as 'the uncle' because two of his deputies are his nephews. His former aide, who had the copy of the...

Naked images of Pharoahs are heresy, says Salafist leader Abdel Moneim El-Shahat uses TV appearance to condemn Egypt's Pharaonic heritage, reiterates criticism of Naguib Mahfouz and Alaa Al-Aswany The newly discovered tomb that belonged to Rudj-ka, a priest who headed the mortuary cult of the pharaoh Khafre, at the site of the Giza Pyramids in Cairo (Photo: AP) Images of naked Pharaohs on Egypt’s temples are tantamount to heresy, prominent Salafist Abdel Moneim El-Shahat said on Wednesday. El-Shahat, who failed to win an independent seat for the Nour Party in recent parliamentary elections, had previously called Egypt’s Pharaonic heritage “rotten.”...

Egyptian prime minister Isam Sharaf told Turkish television the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty wasn't sacred and was subject to change. Egyptian Prime Minister Essam Sharaf on Thursday said the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty is not sacred and is subject to change. "The Camp David agreement depends on what benefits the region," Sharaf said in an interview on Turkish television, adding, "Egypt will make changes to the treaty if necessary." Sharaf's statements follow the popular sentiments of the street in Cairo, but altering the treaty would require the consent of all three signatories - Egypt, Israel, and the United States. Contrary...

Youth & Black Men Hardest Hit Although teen employment rates are "extremely volatile from month to month," say the report's authors, the jump in unemployed Black teens—those between the ages of 16 and 19—is alarming. In June, the number hit a staggering 39.9 percent, up from 38 percent in May, compared with a 23.2 percent and 24.4 percent jobless rate, respectively, for whites. When broken down by gender, Black male teens were hardest hit, with an unemployment rate of 43.2 percent, up 7.8 percentage points from 35.4 percent in May. The Black female teen unemployment rate dropped from a high...

Competitiveness: The president spent Tax Day reassuring Florida voters that money will keep flowing to NASA. But in space as well as on Earth, we'll be an unexceptional nation. In space, no one can hear you scheme. President Obama's speech at the Kennedy Space Center will never be confused with President Kennedy's clarion call in 1961 to send an American to the moon within a decade. Rather it was an admission that we will now boldly go where no one wants to go.