Free Republic

Europe resents its dependence on American military power while criticizing Washington’s foreign policy, exposing the hypocrisy, insecurity, and economic decline undermining its global influence. Nearly every week, another psychodrama arises between the United States and its NATO partners. Europeans blame the Trump administration for the usual things—a lack of cordiality and bombastic threats. But two truths, rarely spoken, characterize all these spats. One is hypocrisy; the other is insecurity. Take Trump’s recent demand that Ukraine cease attacks on Russian diesel refineries. Given the midterms and the critical issue of fuel prices, it was understandable that Trump might request an energy...

Ukraine has waited "nearly a month" for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on delivering vital air defense missiles to Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said, as Russia continues to hammer the country with drone and missile strikes. Ukrainian officials are attempting to source interceptor missiles fired by the U.S.-made Patriot system from several countries, Zelensky said, adding he had asked Ukrainian officials "to raise this with the American side once again." Analysts say Moscow is hoping to take advantage of Kyiv's desperate shortage of expensive and scarce Patriot missiles to target Ukraine's vital energy infrastructure as the austere...

Beatrice Keul alleges Trump raped her at the Plaza Hotel in New York City in November 1993 House Democrats’ report details the allegations and examines Trump’s alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein The White House denies the allegations, saying they are untrue and Trump has been “fully exonerated” in connection with Epstein SNIP

2006 From Interview with Vitali Tretiakov, Moscow News MOSCOW NEWS: What is your perspective on the situation in Ukraine? In this context, what do you think about the problem of the division of the Russian nation (the largest divided nation in modern Europe)? Should Russia—if not politically, at least intellectually—ponder the possibility of reunification of ethnic Russians and Russian lands if Ukraine joins the EU and especially NATO? SOLZHENITSYN: I am pained by what has been going on in Ukraine—ever since the 1991 referendum. The fanatical suppression and persecution of the Russian language (which, according to previous polls, was used...

Atlantic magazine staff writer Robert F. Worth should be given credit for his in-depth reporting on the scene from the island of the economic devastation in Cuba as the result of decades of Communist oppression and mismanagement as you can see in his Monday story, "The Collapse of Cuba." In fact his reporting appears to be quite truthful to the extent he revealed a very painful truth about himself. Namely that he allows his TDS to take hold of him to the extent as to appear utterly ridiculous.He could have easily ignored (or misreported) the fact that during the entire...

House Democrats are laying the groundwork for a renewed investigation into President Donald Trump's past relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein if they regain control of the House in next month's midterm elections. A 53-page report released Monday by Democrat staff on the House Judiciary Committee calls for the appointment of a special counsel to investigate allegations that Trump participated in Epstein's sexual abuse of young women in the 1990s, Politico reported. The report, titled "The Case Against Donald Trump Emerging in the Epstein Files and DOJ's Desperate Efforts to Cover It Up," alleges that the Justice Department withheld...

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he was deciding whether to “make a deal” with Iran or “finish it off” as investors weigh heightened tensions across the Middle East. “Do I finish it off, which would be very easy to do, or do I make a deal? It’s getting to be decision time,” Trump said in a Fox News interview on Sunday. Mediators from Qatar, which has played a key role in efforts to negotiate an agreement between Washington and Tehran, visited Tehran on Sunday, per Reuters. It comes as attacks by Iran-backed Houthi militants on Saudi Arabia continued over...

On Friday, The New York Times reported military review boards are defying orders from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to discharge transgender service members, with Navy and Marine Corps boards frequently voting to retain them.President Donald Trump's administration created three-person separation boards with narrow instructions mandating dismissal of the estimated 4,250 transgender personnel currently serving in the military.Navy and Marine Corps boards have voted to retain trans members in nine of 12 cases. Marine Staff Sgt. Damien Contreras saw board members cross out instructions regarding "a history of cross sex hormone therapy" and circle "remains qualified."The Army and Air Force have...

PORT HURON, Michigan, Oct 25 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump on Sunday escalated ​his invective against Norway, calling it a "shit house country" and ‌saying Norwegian immigrants were not welcome in the United States because the Nobel committee, based in the capital Oslo, had not awarded him a Peace ​Prize. Trump made the comments at a political rally in Port ​Huron, Michigan, ahead of next week's midterm elections Attributing recent unrest in ⁠France to immigration, Trump said he would welcome immigrants from some ​countries but not from Norway "because I didn't get the Nobel Prize ... ​So I don't...

Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth ordered aides to fetch him a globe associated with legendary World War II General Dwight Eisenhower — and they broke it, The Washington Post reported Thursday. According to the Post, the large orb fell while being carried by untrained staff, resulting in the loss of a large chunk of the world near Antarctica. The Post reported that historic items are typically moved around the Pentagon premises by trained curators. However, Hegseth’s office had dispatched its own team. A Pentagon official told AFP in a statement that “an accident” had occurred. However, the statement referred to the...

Story highlights Elon Musk said SpaceX restricted Starlink in Ukraine over its alleged use for offensive drone strikes, claiming the loophole had been closed and access restored. He warned that Ukraine’s frontline would “collapse immediately” if Starlink were switched off.

A 12-year legal campaign resulted in Norway’s seizing a Russian research vessel in Svalbard, deep into the Arctic Circle SVALBARD, Norway—This summer, Russia’s Geographical Society leased an ice-strengthened vessel for an expedition to map Russia’s historic presence on Norway’s Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.The sun shone and the waters were calm, the passengers on the Professor Molchanov recalled. What they didn’t know was that Norwegian police would board it at its first stop, the Russian-run mining town of Barentsburg, with a court order to seize the ship and its paperwork.The Russians were in no mood to cooperate.The episode last month in...

Stakeholders concerned more people at risk of food insecurity after One Big Beautiful Act took effect Enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) has decreased significantly over the past year in the US following restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, which has forced more people to seek help from food banks or go hungry, stakeholders say.The number of people who receive food stamps has dropped from 41.6 million in July 2025, before the One Big Beautiful Act took effect, to 36.5 million in June 2026, a 13% decrease, according to the latest data from the US Department of Agriculture,...

Ukraine has received 24 surface-to-air interceptors for its Patriot air defense systems from the US over the past three months, despite requiring approximately 350 missiles per month to defend against Russian ballistic strikes, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. In an interview with ABC News broadcast he outlined munition shortfalls as Russian forces continue standoff strikes targeting municipal infrastructure ahead of winter. Zelensky noted the difference between domestic interceptor stockpiles and incoming aerial strikes, stating that Russian forces launched more than 20 ballistic missiles against Ukrainian territory during strikes on Oct. 22 alone. “Over the last 90 days, I have received 24...

China, Russia, Iran and North Korea, known collectively as CRINK, are seeking to undermine U.S. leadership by weakening the rules-based international order. Human rights violations and trafficking at the Alabuga complex in the Russian town of Yelabuga illustrate the increasingly complex ties among the CRINK regimes. Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 created a demand for drones that Moscow could not initially meet. Its answer was an arrangement to manufacture the Iranian-designed Shahed on Russian soil. This report contends that the burgeoning labor force that powers the Alabuga drone factory has become a site of gross human rights...

Last Friday, hidden in the aftermath of the U.S. government’s decision to waive sanctions on Russia, was language proposing a joint U.S.-Russia project on data centers. As part of wider negotiations with the United States, Special Envoy to the Russian President Kirill Dmitriev suggested that a joint initiative between the two countries could focus on building data center infrastructure. Moreover, his statement suggested that several Russian companies were “actively participating” in the preliminary stages of these discussions. Data centers are a delicate issue. Domestically, the rise in AI use is driving massive economic investment in data center development across the...

Democrats lost control of Washington in 2024 because they were living in a bubble. The rest of America had ventured into alternative media to hear broader perspectives about topics like immigration and DEI, but Democrats remained stuck in the Obama-era information ecosystem, taking cues from network news, the New York Times, and celebrity speeches at the Oscars. Social media made the problem worse. Algorithms fed Democrats a steady diet of elite-approved cultural signals while woke progressives punished nonconformists with mobs and cancellations. Liberals cut off friends and family who strayed from the script, retreating into ever-smaller circles of the like-minded....

Wes Streeting has said Britain must be ready for war in 1,000 days as Russia intensifies its hybrid warfare against Nato. The Defence Secretary warned that Britain’s enemies could be in a position to attack the country by 2030 and it must “be ready with our allies to fight and win”. Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Streeting said: “My defining priority... is to make sure that this country is ready to fight and win a war. “To prevent the worst, we have to prepare for it. In the first instance, that means expanding our capabilities so our adversaries think twice...

Poland has condemned a decision by the Lviv region in Ukraine to declare 2027 a year honouring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which led the massacre of Poles during World War Two, and one of its leaders, Roman Shukhevych. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the decision “suicidal”, saying that it harms Ukraine by making it harder for the country’s friends to support it. Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski announced that the local official responsible for pushing through the commemorations in Lviv has been banned from entering Poland. While the UPA is still remembered positively by some in Ukraine for its...

Using Starlink, a civilian commercial service, for offensive drone strikes to kill people has never been allowed, nor should it be. Starshield, a different system, is controlled by the US government. What they decide to do is up to them. Ukraine military violated Starlink terms of service and used it for offensive drone strikes to kill people. That loophole was closed last week. Starlink remains critical to the defense of Ukraine, as it is the only system that cannot be jammed or blown up, at least for now. Were Starlink to be turned off, the Ukrainian front line would collapse...