Free Republic

While much attention has been paid to Donald Trump’s continuing fixation on denying the results of the 2020 presidential election and the possibility of a repeat in 2024, a more immediate threat to democracy is looming: an alarming number of Republicans across the country are now gearing up to cast doubt on the outcome of the midterm elections this November. The New York Times reports that “six Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in key midterm states … would not commit to accepting the November outcome.” Five others refused to answer the question. The Washington Post found a similar...

Russian state-owned television is urging the country’s residents to stock their bunkers with water and basic foodstuffs because Moscow could go to war with Washington. Warning that the potential conflict between the two superpowers would be “catastrophic,” an anchor for Russia’s Vesti 24 showed off shelves of food, recommending that people buy salt, oatmeal and other products that can last a long time on the shelves. Powdered milk lasts five years while sugar and rice can last up to eight years, the newscaster explained before showing videos of pasta cooking in a bomb shelter. The channel's newscasters also displayed charts...

George Soros and his fellow liberal mega-donors are currently readying the post-Hillary Clinton Democratic party to oppose President-Elect Donald Trump. According to Politico, Soros and other key members of the so-called “Democracy Alliance” met in Washington, DC at the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Sunday for the first day of the group’s three-day investment conference. The Democracy Alliance has funneled upwards of $500 million toward liberal activist groups and candidates since Soros co-founded the group in 2005. DA requires all members — which in 2016 includes more than 100 “finance titans” — to donate at least $200,000 a year to approved activist groups.  ...

France is preparing to launch airstrikes against Islamic State in Syria, French President François Hollande said on Monday, expanding his nation’s involvement in the Syrian conflict. Mr. Hollande has previously ordered strikes against Islamic State in Iraq but steered clear of striking the group in Syria for fear the attacks would bolster Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, the jihadists’ main foe in the civil war. “Nothing should be done to consolidate or keep Assad in power in Syria,” Mr. Hollande said at a news conference where he laid out his policy priorities for the next six months. The decision to bomb...

Egypt reportedly is preparing a large-scale ground and air assault along the Libyan border to oust the Islamic State group from eastern Libya. DebkaFile, quoting military and intelligence sources, said naval and marine forces are assembling at Egypt's Mediterranean ports for a possible assault on Derna, the militants' provincial capital. DebkaFile noted the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, represents an unacceptable threat to Egypt, and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has been warned extremists already have penetrated some Egyptian towns and military units. ISIS fighters are being smuggled through the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt from Syria and Iraq by...

According to the Times of Israel, Israel's Channel 2 has revealed that Israeli air defenses have been boosted, and approaching civilian aircraft will be asked to identify themselves far earlier. Though the flight was presumed at first to have crashed, whole or in pieces, into the ocean, passive satellite transmissions from the aircraft suggest that it made a deliberate course change and may have headed north into central Asia. Pakistan has already said that the flight never registered on its radar, but at least one expert has suggested the flight could have landed in Bangladesh, whose air defenses presumably would...

DAMASCUS, Syria—The Assad regime prepared for a U.S. attack on the capital despite a likely delay in any military action, urging civilian evacuations, moving soldiers into vacant apartments and issuing new threats of retaliation. A senior Syrian official on Monday said that both the Syrian army and its ally Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group, would strike back in the event of a U.S.-led offensive by first hitting American warships now in the Mediterranean Sea. Referring to Hezbollah as the resistance, Khaled Abboud, a parliament member and confidant of President Bashar al-Assad, told The Wall Street Journal: "The resistance and the...

<p>Russia has announced it is readying two warships to sail to Syria to protect Russian citizens, in a sign that it is taking precautions against a worsening of the security situation there.</p> <p>A spokesman for Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Vyacheslav Trukhachev, told Russia’s Interfax news agency the mission would be undertaken “in case of necessity”. His comments appeared designed to clarify speculation that warships had already set sail for Syria. Interfax had earlier quoted an anonymous official as saying that was the case on Monday morning.</p>

Wanda Bridgeforth was hit hardest on the home front as a child, when her parents couldn't afford to keep her with them. At one point she lived with 19 people—in a six room house. It was in these situations that she learned to conserve what she had, and reuse what she found.

JULIA Gillard has arrived in Canberra and will meet Governor-General Quentin Bryce at 10.30am to set a date for a federal election. The PM's office has confirmed that the Prime Minister will hold a press conference at noon. August 21 or 28 are the anticipated dates for the election. Ms Gillard is then expected to travel to Brisbane, where Labor has to make up ground following the dumping of Kevin Rudd. Ms Gillard smiled, but said nothing to reporters outside her western Melbourne home, as she was driven away just after 7am (AEST). The media is already camped outside Government...

A five-day civil defense exercise, simulating an attack on the country, started on Sunday. Named Turning Point 3, the drills will be the most extensive ever held and practice new measures to safeguard civilians. On Tuesday the exercise will spread nationwide and include emergency sirens and air-raid shelters. The cabinet held a special session Sunday on moves during an attack; the ministries will then open their emergency headquarters to rehearse various scenarios. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told cabinet ministers during the briefing that the drill was a "routine" procedure and not directed against any regional entity in particular. ...

As the state sharpens its budget knife, an agency directly under the blade is the California Coastal Commission, the guardian of 1,100 miles of coast line and an entity that has enflamed passions like few other government offices in California. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier proposed a 10 percent budget cut in the bureaucracy. The coastal commission has sent layoff notices to 46 staff members -- notices that are required by law -- and is preparing for the possibility of cuts, although when and just how deep are not clear. A staff-prepared analysis of the agency's finances said there was a...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23, 2007 – To prepare the 18th Airborne Corps for its upcoming lead role at Multinational Corps Iraq, some 600 servicemembers are engaging in an exercise Aug. 13-24 to replicate the “rigor, complexity and realism” of Iraq’s combat environment, a corps spokesman said today. (Video) During a briefing at the Pentagon, Army Maj. Gen. Jason Kamiya, director of joint training and commander of the Joint Warfighting Center in Suffolk, Va., and Army Brig. Gen. Michael Ferriter, deputy commander for operations for 18th Airborne Corps, discussed the training exercise, dubbed “Unified Endeavor.” It aims to ease the transition...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A severe weather system blamed for five deaths plowed eastward out of the Plains on Saturday, leaving snow piled more than a foot deep and rattling the Gulf states with violent thunderstorms. The Northeast prepared for possible coastal flooding. The storm blew across the Plains on Friday, piling snow a foot deep in Kansas and raking Texas with high wind. "I felt my house start shaking like the wind and I ran in here and grabbed my little girl," Amanda Rymer, 21, said in Haltom City, Texas. "As soon as I moved her, the roof fell...

CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo, Nov. 15, 2006 -- National Guard troops deployed here are preparing to respond to any sudden resurgence of violence as a settlement nears regarding this breakaway republic’s political status, their commander told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff yesterday. Army Brig. Gen. Darren Owens, commander of the Kosovo Force’s Multinational Task Force (East) and the Texas National Guard’s 36th Infantry Division, told Marine Gen. Peter Pace that the U.N. Contact Group assisting in the status talks hopes for a negotiated settlement by the year’s end. However, they recognize a settlement is more likely in early 2007...

Sunnis enraged as Iraq prepares to divide itself into regions By Oliver Poole, Iraq Correspondent (Filed: 07/09/2006) The future of Iraq as a sovereign nation was thrown into jeopardy yesterday after a new law was introduced to parliament that would enable the break up of the country into semi-autonomous regions. If passed, a self-ruling Shia state is likely to emerge in the south, based on the autonomous region Kurds have already established in the north. It would not only be able to levy its own taxes and govern itself but, Shia politicians say, would have its own armed guards posted...

Capt. Ann Adcook, assistant officer in charge of Forward Deployed Preventive Medicine Unit 7, conducts training on the Chemical Volitile Organic Compound Unit, which is used to screen soil, water, and air for the detection of toxic materials such as chemical, biological, and radiological agents. U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Steven P. Smith Preventive Medicine Team Prepares for Iraq Deployment Members of Forward Deployable Preventive Medicine Unit East Team 7 trained on the HAPSITE, a man-portable, gas chromatograph/mass spectrometers that can detect chemical and environmental hazards. By U.S. Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Jim Bane Fleet...

WASHINGTON, June 15, 2006 – Now that they have collected the goods, it's time to send them. Checkers/Rally's, the nation's largest double drive-through restaurant, has teamed up with a grassroots troop support group called Operation Gratitude in a drive to collect packages for America's servicemembers overseas. The partnership, called the Patriotic Drive, started on May 8 and ended yesterday with 720 drive-through restaurants across the country offering drop-off points. Packages will be delivered to the troops by July 4th. "Our troops throughout the world will know they are appreciated and supported at home this Fourth of July when they...

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2006 – Military and political officials, foreign nationals and media observed yesterday as Army and Air National Guardsmen from five states and the District of Columbia responded to a mock disaster staged at the D.C. National Guard Armory. Members of the 34th Weapons of Mass Destruction Civil Support Team, from Blackstone, Va., work through the decontamination site after having been in the "hot zone" of a fictitious nuclear incident. "Vital Guardian," held at the D.C. National Guard Armory, was an Army and Air National Guard training exercise to strengthen response to a catastrophic event. Photo by...

U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Daniel M. Knight, 19, from Simpsonville, S.C., looks at names on the Beirut Memorial at Camp Lejeune, N.C., March 30, 2006. Knight is preparing to deploy to Iraq for the first time. His father, Morris, is a Vietnam veteran and said he is extremely proud of his son. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Lucian Friel U.S. Marine Corps Pfc. Daniel Knight Marine Prepares for First Deployment By Lance Cpl. Lucian Friel 2nd Marine Division CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C., April 5, 2006 —“My father, a former Marine, served in Vietnam,” said Pfc. Daniel M. Knight,...