Free Republic

Alexey Navalny, a Russian opposition leader and anti-corruption activist, warned that dictators will use Twitter’s decision to permanently ban President Donald Trump from its platform as a pretext to silence their political opponents. Navalny would know. When the Russian government prosecuted him for embezzlement, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the cases violated Navalny’s right to a fair trial, but Russia prevented him from running for president of Russia in 2018 due to these convictions, anyway. Navalny claims his name cannot be mentioned on Russian television. Russian President Vladimir Putin refuses to refer to Navalny by name and...

Data dump from yesterday, based on looking at when it appears on the Wayback Machine. 284 pages of scanned documents. Hit the source link.

It’s often fascinating when a seemingly forgotten film showing Soviet-era military technology is uncovered, not least because the weapons systems involved are frequently of a seriously impressive scale, or otherwise represent a remarkable approach to the various challenges of the era. Fitting both those descriptions is a 1959-vintage film about the Burya strategic cruise missile. The movie, which Dmitry Stefanovich, who tweets as @KomissarWhipla, brought to our attention, has been uploaded to YouTube in two parts. It was filmed in color and stretches to an impressive 74 minutes’ running time. While the quality of the footage may leave something to...

Russian President Vladimir Putin congratulated President-elect Joe Biden on winning the US presidential election — after weeks of holding out until the vote was officially confirmed. “For my part, I am ready for interaction and contact with you,” Putin’s message for the former vice president said, according to a statement released by the Kremlin on Tuesday. The message came a day after the Electoral College affirmed Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election on Nov. 3. The Russian president previously said he would not recognize Biden as the president-elect until the results were “confirmed in a legitimate, legal way.” In...

Berlin — Six former European diplomats are calling on European governments to coordinate efforts to urge an incoming Biden administration to rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, from which President Trump withdrew in 2018, and to agree with the regime in Tehran on steps for mutual compliance. The call comes amid fears that Friday’s assassination of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh could complicate attempts to restore the deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). “In response to reimposed U.S. sanction [sic] since 2018, Iran has increased its nuclear activities and continues to step away from its commitments under the...

"God damn America!"—nuanced, yeah: like a punch in the nose! When it comes to attempting to explain away the unexplainable, nothing's more hackneyed than claiming the offensive statement was "taken out of context." To be sure, Jason Johnson trotted out that cliché while guest-hosting MSNBC's AM Joy Sunday morning in excusing Rev. Jeremiah Wright's infamous screaming "not God Bless America! God Damn America!" But give Eddie Glaude credit. The Princeton prof and frequent MSNBC guest came up with a somewhat more original excuse: critics of Wright's damnation of America fail to understand the reverend's "theological nuance." Right. There's "nuance" in...

In 1941, German soldiers murdered more than 30,000 Jews from Kiev within one and a half days. What took place at the Babi Yar gorge was one of the most horrific massacres of all time. Berlin, September 29th, 2020 (The Berlin Spectator) — Eight decades ago, the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany’s army, was busy attacking and conquering the better part of Europe while murdering millions of Jews and members of other minorities in its death camps, forced labor camps and in massacres on streets, in woods and at other locations. Can it get any worse than shooting people on the street,...

America under the sway of the Black Lives Matter movement is reminding me of life in the Soviet Union: One's entire existence is premised on something believed to be untrue. The worst thing about socialism is not empty grocery stores or even the Gulags. The worst thing is harder to represent visually or to pinpoint, but it’s inescapable, and its damage extends for generations. The worst thing about socialism is what being forced to live a lie does to one’s psyche. Save for the few true believers whose numbers dwindle as time passes, virtually everyone experiences this mental toll.By “living...

The documentary film was released and posted on August 20 on the YouTube channel of Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation in connection with the celebration of 75 years of nuclear industry. The film, edited in classic Soviet-style propaganda, shows all preparation procedures. First the transportation of the giant bomb by rail to the Olenya airbase near Olenegorsk on the Kola Peninsula. The Tu-95 aircraft take-off and flight across the Barents Sea to the detonation site near the Matochkin Strait at Novaya Zemlya. Then the release of the bomb attached to a parachute to slow the fall so the plane could...

A century ago a citizen army stopped a Soviet takeover of Europe. Communism arose in a time of pandemic and war. In 1918, the Bolshevik party led by V. I. Lenin seized control of Russia amid a world numbed by the slaughter of a world war and the seemingly unstoppable spread of influenza. Promising a utopia of equality, the communist message proved seductive to many in Europe and America. In the summer of 1920, having defeated his most serious internal foes, Lenin decided to launch a full-scale invasion of Europe to spread communism all across the continent. Soviet communism proved...

WORLD WAR 3 could have erupted after the Soviet Union readied itself to deploy nuclear warheads in as little as 15 minutes following a territorial scrap with China over disputed land, CIA files revealed. The world came within touching distance of all-out nuclear war when the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted after Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev agreed to fulfil Fidel Castro’s request to place nuclear missiles in Cuba. But, seven years later there was a concerning development on a small island in the Ussuri River on the border between Primorsky Krai of Russia and Heilongjiang province of the People's Republic of...

Recently I came across photos taken 30 years ago this summer. During that time, I was privileged to greet several planeloads of new immigrants from the former Soviet Union landing in Israel, welcoming them on the tarmac as they began their new lives in their ancient home.  Even though some didn’t know it, they were fulfilling dreams of generations of the Jewish people yearning to come home.  Having worked for years to help free Jews from the USSR, and aspiring to live in Israel myself, each plane of new immigrants evoked a range of emotions from unvarnished joy, to yearning...

America is much more than a country. It is much more than a land or a group of people that came together to form a nation. Ultimately, the United States is a symbol. It is the worldÂ’s fullest and greatest embodiment of capitalism, democracy, and freedom. It is the land of the free, the home of the brave, a source of hope, and a defender of justice.Many may not understand the significance of America as an ideal. Some in the United States and Europe have lived comfortably for decades, never been invaded, never lost their land or property, nor...

After I wrote the article titled "The Soviet Plan for 'Ideological Subversion' Describes Our Current Turmoil," Charles Cole, author of In Russian Wonderland: An American's Odyssey in Soviet Russia, contacted me. His memoir recounts his time in 1972 as a Russian-speaking American "guide" in various Soviet cities where the "Research and Development in the USA" exhibit was on display. He chronicles the lives of average Soviet citizens at that period and describes how people lived under the tyranny of an omnipotent government. He is exhorting Americans to perceive the lessons of the failed communist experience. Like others who have reviewed...

Our state informed OSCE about military potential being accumulated by Russia against Ukraine Ukrainian and American experts, as well as the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, warned that under the pretext of holding strategic exercises Kavkaz 2020, Russia may resort to a large-scale offensive against Ukraine. The other day, the Russian president signed a decree on conscription from the reserve "for military training" - without specific dates for this training. This only increased the likelihood of an offensive – behind the decree may be the attempt of the Russian leadership to conduct a covert mass mobilization for...

Teach About Marxism’s Evils We cannot allow another generation to emerge from our schools so ignorant of communism's horrors that they see no problem in courting, dabbling with, or even passively accepting one of history’s most noxious ideologies.
 My child’s Catholic school sent home a letter to parents this week recommending “conversations about white privilege” to encourage “compassionate hearts and confident minds.” Regurgitating the radical-left bile that fuels the fires of resentment and division will not enrich students emotionally or intellectually. Instead, Catholic schools should teach students about the evils of Marxism.Marxist apostles are orchestrating the chaos and violence plaguing...

Communism identified racial problems of US as the target of their infiltration from at least 1928! Susan Rice is actually right once, Russia and Putin support Black lives matter in order to weaken America. This article is from a leftist think tank and little dated, but pretty applicable to today's situation. It shows that Antifa and BLM are marxist movements supported by foreign interests.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russians opened the door to Vladimir Putin staying in power until 2036 by voting overwhelmingly for constitutional changes that will allow him to run again for president twice, but critics said the outcome was falsified on an industrial scale. Official results published on Thursday, after 100% of ballots had been counted, showed that the former KGB officer who has ruled Russia for more than two decades as president or prime minister had easily won the right to run for two more six-year terms after the current one ends in 2024. That means Putin, 67, could rule until...

“White” does not mean white. “White” in radical parlance means anyone of any race, creed, nationality, color, sex, or sexual preference who embraces capitalism, free markets, limited government, and American traditional culture and values.”This philosophical concept belongs to Noel Ignatiev, a white American of Russian origin, who is the ideological founding father of numerous radical black movements in America. The author of this concept was even lucky enough to see his best students -- Black Lives Matter (BLM) -- in action. Research into the work of this former Harvard professor finally answered the question of why BLM proponents are so...

For centuries now, even millennia, May 1 has been a very big day. Ancient Romans, Etruscans, Greeks and Celts had seasonal festivals as May began, celebrating the coming of summer… modern European countries have May Day carnivals, flower sales, and dances. The Catholic Church considers May the month of Our Lady, a special time of devotion to that greatest of mortal role models… for kids, May is the winding down of the school year, and for adults, it is the long-awaited beginning of planting season (here in the north, at least). And so of course the Left had to go...