Free Republic

The reflexive identification with Israel, by both US media professionals and politicians, always obscures the fuller picture of what’s happening between Israel and the Palestinians. On 7October, the National SecurityCouncil spokesperson Adrienne Watson stated that the US “unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians”. Every one of us must stand up and denounce the killing of every civilian, Israeli or Palestinian or otherwise. But Watson’s use of the word “unprovoked” is doing a lot of work here.... What exactly counts as a provocation? Not, apparently, the large number of settlers, more than 800 by one media...

At least six Russian regions have scrapped 9 May Victory Day parades that mark the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany amid fears over Ukrainian strikes, with a region 400 miles from the border being the latest to cancel. The governor of Saratov announced the parade there would not go ahead because of “safety concerns”, adding to a string of cancellations that are a glaring admission of the country’s military vulnerability more than 14 months into the war. Earlier, heads of Belgorod, Kursk, Voronezh, Oryol, and Pskov region, as well as the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, similarly cancelled their annual military parades....

With even nationalist pro-war bloggers criticising Putin’s actions in Ukraine, his desperation and paranoia are growing. May is traditionally a month for public celebration in Russia, with massive public processions on 1 May for Labour Day and military parades on 9 May for Victory Day, a holiday commemorating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany. Not so in 2023. Russia’s biggest trade union cancelled its traditional Labour Day demonstrations because of the “heightened risk of terrorist activity”, while regions near the Ukrainian border called off Victory Day parades so as to “not provoke” the Ukrainian army. The Russian government has warned...

Russian missiles have struck warehouses reportedly storing ammunition at a railway depot in the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, in an apparent effort to slow Kyiv’s preparations for its much anticipated counteroffensive expected to start shortly. Video posted on social media showed secondary detonations amid a significant blaze at the site of the strike, which came amid overnight missile launches against a number of Ukrainian cities by Russian strategic bombers. ... The size of the fire in Pavlohrad suggests Russia may have hit an important arms depot and comes after Ukraine’s recent attack on an oil storage facility in Sevastopol, Crimea....

The combination of losing the spies under diplomatic cover and the end of 29155 had led Russia to turn more to its long-term illegals, said Grozev. “They’ve had to activate their sleepers, and when you do that you risk much more disclosure,” he said. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell in The Americans, Others speculate that there could be something more at play. John Sipher, formerly deputy director of the CIA’s Russia operations, said he believed the recent detection of illegals was probably due to someone inside Russia passing information to the US or another western intelligence service. “It’s almost impossible...

“Donald Trump was being very light. It was very joshing and very funny,” she said. “I was flirting the whole time, probably.” But, she said, the mood changed rapidly after they stepped into the dressing room. “He immediately shut the door and shoved me up against the wall. He shoved me so hard my head banged. I was extremely confused,” she said. “I pushed back and he thrust me back against the wall again, banging my head again.” Carroll told the jury the situation “turned absolutely dark”. “He leaned down and pulled down my tights,” she said. “I was pushing...

Tucker Carlson has been accused of promoting “antisemitic tropes” in his documentary Hungary vs Soros: The Fight for Civilization, which attacks the billionaire Democratic donor – and frequent target of antisemitic hate – George Soros. The film, which aired last week, sees Carlson, a Fox News host with a long history of inflammatory rightwing rhetoric, travel to Hungary, where he tees up a selection of politicians and commenters to attack Soros, a wealthy philanthropist who has donated billions of dollars to Democratic causes. Soros, who is Jewish and was born in Hungary, has been subjected to antisemitic attacks from conservatives...

Joe Biden formally launched his re-election campaign on Tuesday, asking Americans to give him another four years to finish what he started. The president, famously nostalgic, chose to launch his campaign on the fourth anniversary of his return to politics in 2019, when he declared his intention to seek the presidential nomination for a third time. Then, like now, Biden relied on a video to formally declare his candidacy before venturing on to the campaign trail.

Ukraine’s military has set up positions on the eastern side of the Dnipro River near Kherson city, the Institute for the Study of War cites Russian military bloggers as saying. Infiltrating the area could be a first step towards trying to dislodge Russian forces from positions they are using to shell and shoot at Kherson. The constant attacks have made it impossible for residents to return to normal life months after Ukrainian troops liberated the city from occupation. Ukrainian military forays across the river could also mark the first tentative steps towards launching a long-awaited spring offensive to reclaim more...

t was not one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s most prominent roles, but is proving to be disproportionately controversial. The Hollywood star and former California governor filmed himself filling in a troublesome pothole near his Los Angeles home, proffering it as an act of civic responsibility by an exasperated resident. But he was then told by the authorities it wasn’t officially a pothole at all. According to city officials, the “giant pothole” Schwarzenegger and a friend packed with quick-drying cement and topped with sand was actually an essential service trench for work being performed by a utility company in the Brentwood neighborhood....

Republican election denier expelled from Arizona house Liz Harris exits following 46-13 vote, after she invited to hearing conspiracy theorist who accused election officials of bribery The fight for democracy is supported by guardian.org About this content Rachel Leingang Wed 12 Apr 2023 15.53 EDT Liz Harris, an election-denying Republican lawmaker in the Arizona house of representatives, was expelled by her colleagues on Wednesday after she invited to a committee hearing a conspiracy theorist who accused elected officials of unproven corruption and bribery. Republican and Democratic representatives joined together to expel Harris with a 46-13 vote. An expulsion requires a...

Belarus’s authoritarian president has signed a bill introducing capital punishment for state officials and military personnel convicted of high treason. The amendments to the country’s criminal code endorsed by President Alexander Lukashenko envisage death sentences for officials and service personnel who cause “irreparable damage” to Belarus’s national security through acts of treason. Belarus is the only country in Europe that has not banned capital punishment, which has been applied to those convicted of murder or terrorism. Executions are carried out with a shot to the back of the head. Lukashenko has ruled Belarus with an iron fist for nearly three...

Ukrainian soldiers are being pummelled on three sides by Russian forces who are trying to capture Bakhmut, a city in the eastern Donetsk region that has become the focus of the longest and one of the bloodiest battles since the war began. Ukraine’s authorities insist they will continue to try to hold the city despite them suffering an estimated 100-200 casualties a day – with some saying the reason is more political and symbolic than practical. Retreating from the city now, after so many soldiers died fighting to keep it, would be a hard reality to face. The Russian push...

Ukrainian forces have reportedly blown up a bridge near the eastern city of Bakhmut, in a sign they may be planning to retreat from the area, which would give Russia a significant, symbolic boost ahead of the first anniversary of the war. Troops blew up the bridge on Monday, according to a local Donetsk region news site. Ukraine denies it intends to leave Bakhmut, despite six months of heavy fighting and reportedly dwindling stockpiles. It appears the Kremlin is concentrating maximum force on capturing Bakhmut before the one-year anniversary of the invasion on 24 February. Ukraine and its western allies...

...consciously or unconsciously, Zelenskiy has already learned much of what this history has to offer, whereas Vladimir Putin has demonstrably not. 1. leave strategy to your most talented generals. This is a warning Joseph Stalin did not heed. At the start of 1942, and despite having no military training, he ordered a major offensive against the German army around Kharkiv in Ukraine. More than 250,000 Red Army soldiers were lost as a result of the disastrous Kharkov operation. It was a defeat that was all the more humiliating because the Red Army had outnumbered the Germans on the battlefield. Putin,...

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev, meanwhile, gleefully predicted that Europeans would be “freezing in their homes” because they hadn’t thought through the consequences of throwing their support behind Ukraine. “The cold is coming soon,” he said, menacingly, in June last year. But as the European Union enters the last month of the meteorological winter in 2023, signs are becoming clearer that its members have weathered an historic crisis – and not just because “General Frost” has proved a milder adversary than Medvedev predicted. Within eight months of Russian troops setting foot on Ukrainian soil, the bloc of 27 European states...

While Germany’s Olaf Scholz was dragging his feet over tanks for Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland gained moral ground ...reports from Berlin indicate that, far from being apologetic about his dithering, Scholz believes that he has acquitted himself well. He kept his Social Democratic party united on a profoundly controversial question. He also persuaded the Americans to supply their tanks alongside Germany’s. Sadly, much of this positive narrative is wishful thinking, for it ignores both the abrupt collapse of Germany’s influence in Europe and the continent’s profound strategic transformation because of the Ukraine war. The decision to supply Ukraine...

There’s a direct association between machismo and the refusal to recognize and respond appropriately to the climate catastrophe. It’s a result of versions of masculinity in which selfishness and indifference – individualism taken to its extremes – are defining characteristics, and therefore caring and acting for the collective good is their antithesis. Thunberg’s takedown clearly stung Tate, who 10 hours later tweeted out a pompous video in which he tried to reassert his masculinity and status by blathering on in a dressing gown, with a cigar and a pizza box as props. Not long after that, he and his brother...

Out on the frontline, near the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman, on 8 November at 15.10, a Russian serviceman called Andrey decided to ignore the orders of his superiors and call his mother with an unauthorised mobile phone. “No one feeds us anything, mum,” he complained. “Our supply is s**t, to be honest. We draw water from puddles, then we strain it and drink it.” Russian forces had been on the back foot in the Donetsk oblast for weeks. Lyman, taken by the Russians in May, was liberated by Ukrainian forces in October. Two days before Andrey made his afternoon...

Moscow has said no “Christmas ceasefire” was on the cards after nearly 10 months of war in Ukraine, with fighting looking set to drag on through the winter. ...Zelenskiy had called on Russia this week to start withdrawing its troops by Christmas as the first step towards a peace deal, but Peskov said on Tuesday there would be no peace with Kyiv until Zelenskiy accepted the “realities” on the ground – referring to Russian control over parts of four Ukrainian regions it annexed in September following coercive and illegal “referendums”. After a series of lightning Ukrainian counteroffensives, Kyiv has regained...