Free Republic

Russia is on the verge of political turmoil as its economy teeters on the brink of collapse and its war in Ukraine stumbles, warns a leading nationalist figure. Russian nationalists have been among the staunchest supporters of the Kremlin's war in Ukraine. Figures like Aleksandr Dugin have even argued that Ukraine's destruction is crucial for Russia's survival. In his 1997 book "The Geopolitical Future of Russia", he expressed his views bluntly, writing: "The existence of Ukraine within its current borders, and with its current status as a 'sovereign state,' is tantamount to delivering a monstrous blow to Russia's geopolitical security."...

It is a curious thing when a superpower begins to run out of the two things it needs most in war: fuel and men. Yet that is precisely what seems to be happening to Russia in Ukraine. After more than two years of fighting, Moscow’s once-vaunted war machine is showing unmistakable signs of exhaustion. When Russia launched its invasion in February 2022, it relied heavily on professional soldiers but the disastrous battles outside Kyiv and Kharkiv shattered that backbone. Thousands of seasoned fighters were lost, and the logistical chaos that followed forced Russia into an embarrassing retreat from northern Ukraine....

Democratic friends, let’s try a thought experiment. Imagine you woke up one morning and all your media sources were produced by Christian nationalists. You sent your kids off to school and the teachers were espousing some version of Christian nationalism. You turned on your sports network and your late-night comedy, and everyone was preaching Christian nationalism.That’s a bit how it feels to be more conservative in the West today — to feel drenched by a constant downpour of progressive sermonizing. What would you do in such circumstances? Well, at least at first, you’d probably grit your teeth and take it...

Summary Abrego ordered released on bail after wrongful deportation Trump administration brought him back to face criminal charges Defense lawyers fear deportation to third country despite release Noem says U.S. will continue to seek his deportation Aug 22 (Reuters) - Kilmar Abrego, the migrant whose wrongful deportation in March to his native El Salvador made him a symbol of President Donald Trump's aggressive immigration policies, was released from criminal custody in Tennessee on Friday, his lawyer said.Abrego, 30, was deported to his native El Salvador in March despite a 2019 immigration court ruling that he not be sent there due...

It turns out many Americans aren’t great at identifying which personal decisions contribute most to climate change. A study recently published found that when asked to rank actions, such as swapping a car that uses gasoline for an electric one, carpooling or reducing food waste, participants weren’t very accurate when assessing how much those actions contributed to climate change. The top three individual actions that help the climate, including avoiding plane flights, choosing not to get a dog and using renewable electricity, were also the three that participants underestimated the most. Meanwhile, the lowest-impact actions were changing to more efficient...

... In 2022, after eight years of intermittent fighting in Ukraine’s east, Russia initiated a full-scale invasion, with the aim of reducing a rump Ukraine to a satrapy. Putin has given no indication of renouncing that ambition or of abandoning his broader goal of restoring Moscow’s sway over much of the former Soviet or tsarist empires, including the Baltic states and other nations to Russia’s west. Any “deal” between Trump and Putin (and the U.S. president, who has more recently referred to a “feel-out” meeting, is clearly downgrading expectations) will, given the Kremlin’s longer-term objectives, never be enough. The best...

Andrew Fox – former British Army officer and an associate fellow at the Henry Jackson Society – returns to _The Brendan O’Neill Show_. Andrew and Brendan discuss the real reasons Gazans are going hungry, why Hamas’s casualty figures can’t be trusted and how the rush to recognise a Palestinian state is only prolonging the war.

Desperate people clamouring around a truck begging for food. An emaciated child on death’s door. Women, girls, children, babies: no innocent is immune from Israel’s psychotically cruel campaign of bloodlust in Gaza. It is unbearable to see. Who can stand by and watch such crimes? This, at any rate, is what most of the world’s media, from the most respectable broadcaster to the grimiest freesheet, is eager for you to think. It is also what Hamas wants you to think. As long-term masters of some of the most cynical propaganda the world has ever seen, Hamas is succeeding in its...

A photographer whose work is routinely picked up by international agencies reportedly stages photographs of hunger in Gaza, emphasizing women and children and avoiding showing Palestinians receiving food, German Bild says. […]The hunger is (almost always) real — but the images are often not quite so. A recently widely circulated photo showed desperate people on a truck in front of a food distribution point. Opposite them: photographer Anas Zayed Fteiha, a freelance “journalist” commissioned by the Turkish news agency Anadolu. Potential problem: The scene, captured by other photographers as well, shows mostly adult men waiting for food — and getting...

As you're already aware, Texas Democrats have fled democracy because they know they will lose a vote on redrawing U.S. congressional districts in the Lone Star State. Calling it 'gerrymandering,' they hypocritically hopped a plane to Illinois, which is one of the worst states for Democrat Party gerrymandering. Hating billionaires, they rushed to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who put them all up in one of his luxury hotels. Meanwhile, Texas Governor Greg Abbott says the vacationing Dems are facing arrest. That's got Jasmine Crockett being dumber than ever and promising to throw fists. (WATCH) VIDEO AT LINK............. They’re not putting...

‘How many people do you employ this month?” might sound like the kind of question an employer can easily answer, but it’s not. Especially for large businesses, the exact number of employees in a given month is hard to pin down. The media report layoffs and hires in round numbers, but for calculating total employment in the country, it really matters whether “500” means 478 or 523, because those discrepancies multiplied across millions of businesses make a huge difference. Within government, Donald Trump’s appointee as BLS commissioner, William Beach, has been a leader in calling for modernizing the surveys that...

The David family was reacting after Hamas's armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak. Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza have led to severe shortages of food and other essentials. The family of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza for almost 22 months accused Hamas on Saturday (Aug 2) of tormenting him with hunger as part of a propaganda campaign. The David family was reacting after Hamas's armed wing released a video of 24-year-old Evyatar David, looking emaciated and weak in a narrow concrete tunnel, for the second night...

Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) President and CEO Patricia Harrison informed its 100 employees of the termination of their employment following Congress' termination of federal subsidies, saying "most of you will be off the payroll by the start of the new fiscal year (October 1, 2025) the rest will stay until the end of the calendar year to oversee an orderly shut down of operations." The termination of subsidies followed testimony to Congress from Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) CEO Paula Kerger and National Public Radio (NPR) President and CEO Katherine Maher. Kerger attempted to refute allegations of political bias by...

A social media account affiliated with Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency published a pointed critique Friday of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, accusing him of being unfit to govern due to alleged substance abuse and detachment from public needs. “How can a leader lead when they sleep half the day and spend the other half high on substances?” read the post in Farsi from the @MossadSpokesman account on X, formerly Twitter. It ended with a charged refrain: “Water, electricity, life!” The post, which was automatically translated from its original Farsi, did not name Khamenei directly but was widely interpreted as...

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko arrived in Saint Petersburg on Friday, where he is expected to meet with his Russian colleague Vladimir Putin later today, as per Tass, citing a Telegram channel close to the Belarusian presidency's press service. The two leaders are expected to have an informal discussion about bilateral relations between their two nations and the security situation in the region, which presumably includes the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

A group of Senate Democrats asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to hand over files related to Jeffrey Epstein to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee by Aug. 15...The request is the latest salvo in an effort by Democrats and some Republicans in Congress to press the Trump administration to release the so-called Epstein files after reneging on promises to do so.

The term "pallyweid" can be used to describe a specific type of rhetoric or narrative about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is both misleading and one-sided, often found in discussions that accuse Israel erroneously of “apartheid” and “genocide.” Here's how the key elements can be incorporated into the term: Pallyweid and the Apartheid SlurThe term pallyweid draws from the "apartheid" false accusation leveled at Israel, which critics claim is based on systemic racial segregation akin to the policies of South Africa during apartheid. In reality, Israel’s legal and political framework is far different from the brutal racial segregation of the South...

Preface. This is my book review of Chris Mooney’s 2012 “The Republican Brain. The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality”. This has grown from a review of this book (far below) to more recent science and writing on the conservative mind. People who want certainty and do not like change or changing their mind have been with us since humans evolved. That is discussed in another post: Garcia, H. 2019. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide. Lately with all the division and even talk of civil war, there have been many broadcasts...

MIAMI (AP) — Trawling near Antarctica for krill — a crustacean central to the diet of whales and a critical buffer to global warming — has surged to a record and is fast approaching a never before reached seasonal catch limit that would trigger the unprecedented early closure of the remote fishery, The Associated Press has learned.The fishing boom follows the failure last year of the U.S., Russia, China and two dozen other governments to approve a new management plan that would have mandated spreading out the area in which krill can be caught and creating a California-sized reserve along...

...The Russia collusion hoax wasn’t just a political scandal. It was a masterclass in obedience psychology. Americans didn’t believe it because it made sense. They believed it because someone in authority told them to. . ...Fast forward to COVID. A doctor appeared on your television and told you to stay inside. Wear a mask. Take the jab. If you hesitated, you were selfish. A threat. An enemy of the people. The same experiment was being run again, but this time, at scale. And just like Milgram’s results, most people obeyed. Not because they understood the science. Not because they evaluated...