Free Republic

Jared Kushner dismissed the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago as just another attempt by Donald Trump's enemies to bring him down. Speaking for the first time since the raid two weeks ago, Kushner told Fox News' Mark Levin on Sunday evening that his father-in-law is a 'fighter' and contradicted Justice Department claims that the search was to find classified documents Trump took from the White House. 'It is giving a lot of people who want to believe in the fairness of the judicial system and our democracy a lot of pause and concern,' Kushner, 41, said. Since the raid on Monday,...

Take credit for what worked. Shift the blame for what didn’t. Run to Daddy-in-law whenever the big, bad chief of staff got in his way. That was Jared Kushner’s modus operandi during the long four years I had to serve alongside the man most responsible for the loss of the Trump White House. Kushner came to the D.C. swamp on the coattails of his wife as nothing more than a young and rich, run-of-the-mill liberal New York Democrat with a worldview totally orthogonal to the president he was supposed to serve. Yet, within the West Wing, Kushner considered himself to...

Russia’s President Putin has used his speech at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum to claim sanctions are more harmful to the countries who impose them. He said the European Union could lose more than $400 billion (£326bn) because of sanctions on Russia. Putin also claimed that the EU has lost its "political sovereignty" in its response to the war in Ukraine.

Theories around the death of Grigori Rasputin still abound 100 years after the event. We examine the scientific credibility of some of the claims. The end of December 2016 marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Rasputin, the “mad monk of Russia”, or “lover of the Russian queen” if you believe the Boney M song, though you probably shouldn’t. While the song is undoubtedly a floor-filler, unsurprisingly it is not exactly a reliable historical account of Rasputin’s life. Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, a mystic and spiritual healer born in Pokrovskoe in Siberia, wielded huge influence over the Russian royal family,...

Nothing special. A YouTube video of Boney-M and one of their popular songs "Rasputin". It is funny in today's social & political context. Check out the Italian presenter with his bouffant hairdo.. if you speak Italian it'd be a bonus.

Virtually every film in modern memory ends with some variation of the same disclaimer: "This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental." The cut-and-paste legal rider must be the most boring thing in every movie that features it. Who knew its origins were so lurid? For that bit of boilerplate, we can indirectly thank none other than Grigori Rasputin, the famously hard-to-assassinate Russian mystic and intimate of the last, doomed Romanovs. It all started when an exiled Russian prince sued MGM in 1933 over the studio's Rasputin biopic,...

This past week, to our astonishment, we learned that the Obama administration is seriously considering further concessions to Iran, and allowing U.S. dollars to be used to facilitate trade with the terrorist-supporting regime. Behind this latest concession – behind every action having to do with Iran, and for that matter most other actions of this so-called “Presidency” – we observe the power of a “consigliere,” in name Valerie Jarrett. Jarrett is the Iranian-born “Senior Advisor” to Barack Hussein Obama, but her true influence is akin to a “consigliere.” Just what is a consigliere (plural: consiglieri)? From the Latin “counselor,” a...

For someone who described himself as ‘a Christ in miniature’ and had inveigled his way into Russia’s imperial court as a much-revered ‘Holy Man’, Grigori Rasputin spent his last day alive indulging in an astonishing amount of debauchery. That snowy morning of December 16, 1916, had seen him staggering into his St Petersburg flat in the early hours, clearly embracing one of his favourite dictums, that wine was ‘God’s own remedy’. This was by no means unusual according to the police bodyguards who watched over his home on the direct orders of Tsar Nicholas II and his wife Tsarina Alexandra,...

Phone Surveillance Cited as Latest Failure by President to Uphold Rights; Others Say Tactic Is Crucial in Fighting Terrorism. The disclosure of a broad government effort to collect phone records of millions of U.S. consumers has rekindled a debate about President Barack Obama's commitment to civil liberties, with some lawmakers and advocacy groups saying he has broken a campaign pledge to combat terrorism in ways that protect basic freedoms. Mr. Obama's record on civil liberties was already drawing renewed scrutiny over reports that his administration has investigated journalists as part of criminal leak cases, his increased use of drones and...

Sidney Reilly, nicknamed the 'Ace of Spies,' planned to kill the whole of the Soviet leadership during a meeting at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1918 An MI6 agent became a serial killer as he used pretty young women to lure Russians to their deaths with the promise of sex, new documents reveal. A Cossack colonel called Mohammed Bek Hadji Lashet, and his gang used the women to attract communists to a lakeside villa where they were tortured and then killed, according to a new history of the intelligence service. The book, Six, by former military intelligence officer Michael Smith, reveals...

British spy 'fired the shot that finished off Rasputin'By Karyn Miller Published: 12:01AM BST 19 Sep 2004 Oswald RaynerRasputin, the Russian monk who became the confidant of Alexandra, the Tsarina, and her husband, Tsar Nicholas II, was killed by a British agent, according to a documentary to be broadcast next month. An investigation into his death in 1916 has concluded that he was murdered not as had been supposed by disaffected Russian aristocrats but by Oswald Rayner, a member of the Secret Intelligence Bureau who was working at the Russian court in St Petersburg. --SNIP-- Now it is claimed that...

Putin Rejects Suspension of Aid to Hamas-Run PA 20:21 Feb 08, '06 / 10 Shevat 5766 (IsraelNN.com) In an interview with Spanish media, published today, Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated his objection to suspending aid to the Palestinian Authority, regardless of the Hamas terrorist organization's position there. Putin is beginning a two-day state visit to Spain today. "It would be a big mistake to suspend aid to the Palestinians," the Russian leader said. "If we stop helping simple Palestinian citizens, are we going to eradicate terrorism and criminality? Of course not." Putin added that while Hamas is "considered as terrorist...

MOSCOW, Feb. 6 (Xinhuanet) -- Russia said in a statement on Monday that it firmly opposes "Taiwan independence" in any form and adheres to the one-China policy. "Lately, Taiwanese authorities have made several statements that became a matter of serious concern to Russia. In particular, we were bewildered by the ideas put forth by Chen Shui-bian on January 29, which run counter to his earlier promises and commitments," Itar-Tass reported, citing a statement issued by the Russian Foreign Ministry. "His (Chen Shui-bian's) intention to liquidate the National Reunification Council and give up the program of national reunification indicates that the...

Moscow Moved Weapons to Syria and Lebanon According to a former top Bush administration official, Russian special forces teams moved weapons of mass destruction out of Iraq to Syria. "I am absolutely sure that Russian Spetsnatz units moved WMD out of Iraq before the war," stated John Shaw, the former deputy undersecretary for international technology security. According to Shaw, Russian units hid Saddam's arsenal inside Syria and in Lebanon's Bekka valley. "While in Iraq I uncovered detailed information that Spetsnatz units shredded records and moved all WMD and specified advanced munitions out of Iraq to Syria and Lebanon," stated Shaw...

I miss the Cold War. I know I ought not to, but I just can't help it. So I was naturally delighted by last week's spy story. Admittedly, as one of the papers here cruelly remarked, it was more Johnny English than James Bond. In a television documentary that had Kremlin fingerprints all over it, four British embassy staff were accused of being spooks. Blurred video footage purported to show them fiddling with a rock in a Moscow suburb. Now, the young men and women the Foreign Office traditionally recruits are the type of people who do enjoy fiddling with...

They call him the Godfather of Metal, the Prince of Darkness and the Blizzard of Oz. Until recently, though, few considered Ozzy Osbourne the next Andrew Lloyd Webber. That may be about to change: for the past few years Osbourne, the former frontman of Black Sabbath and reality TV hero, has been writing a musical. It is based on the life of a historical figure who could be considered Osbourne's spiritual ancestor: Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin, the Russian mystic and favourite of Tsar Nicholas II's court. More rock and pop features Osbourne writes musical about Russia's greatest love machine

Last Update: 21/01/2005 13:29 Russia slams U.S. for accusing Syria of terror ties By Aluf Benn, Haaretz Correspondent, and Reuters Russia criticized the United States on Friday for accusing Syria of having ties to terrorism, saying such an approach would harm security in the Middle East. "It's well known that slapping labels on countries and unilaterally describing certain states as part of the 'axis of evil' has not improved anyone's security," Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told Interfax news agency. "Syria is one of the key players in the region and resumption of talks with Israel on the Syrian question...

CIA Excludes Russia from Superpowers of Future January 14, A group of analysts from U.S. intelligence has worked out several scenarios of world development, The Boston Grobe reports. Among them there is an “American World” (The United States will form a new world order), “New Caliphate” (Islamic States exert influence on western democratic communities). “Circle of Fear” (terrorists get mass-destruction arms and the entire world takes such tough measures that the world becomes totalitarian), “Davos World” (India and China become more influential than the United Stated or the European Union at the international political arena). However, none of these scenarios...

Rasputins in the United Nations

Mad monk's member features big in Russian erotica museum Sat Jun 12, 6:30 PM ET SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia (AFP) - In a more innocent age, it was said that Gregory Efimovich Rasputin's legendary power over women was due to his piercing eyes. But a new museum of erotica here suggests that the mad monk's charm may instead have been, ahem, concealed beneath his cassock. Measuring 28.5 centimeters (about 11 inches) -- allowing for shrinkage caused by pickling -- Rasputin's penis displayed in a tall glass bottle is, to put it delicately, a big attraction at the museum. Director Igor Knyazkin...