Free Republic

After telling his friend that Ukrainian forces “tore apart” a column of Russian forces sent along with his own unit, he described complete disarray among the Russian military, with 50 percent of the unit suffering from frostbite on their feet. Two Russian soldiers have been caught venting about Putin’s “bulls***” war against Ukraine in an intercepted phone call as devastating losses reportedly led one soldier to drive over his colonel with a tank. “Basically, it’s a s***show here, I’ll put it that way,” an unnamed soldier near Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine can be heard telling a colleague in a recording...

While running for president in 2016, Donald Trump promised he would be a different kind of Republican, particularly when it came to foreign policy. Running on an “America First” platform, he promised to tear up trade deals championed by both parties, misleadingly bragged that he had always been against the Iraq War and promised to have a “very, very good relationship” with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He also questioned the relevance of the NATO alliance. “We’re taking care of, as an example, the Ukraine. I mean, the countries over there don’t seem to be so interested,” Trump said when discussing...

… If we took this seriously, all news coverage of warfare would include its environmental impacts and the extent to which military activity, cyber warfare and sanctions inhibit nations’ ability to meet climate mitigation targets necessary for human survival. The consequences for human life include millions of people alive today. Polluting events — the burning and demolition of power plants, industrial facilities, mines, water systems, and the ecological impact of bombardments, fires and fuel spills — are all just an introduction. The long-term climatic effects of war include appalling greenhouse gas emissions. There are estimates that 2 to 3 percent...

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' wife, Virginia "Ginni" Thomas, had ties to organizers of a January 6, 2021 rally in support of President Donald Trump as well as to efforts to subvert the 2020 election results, according to a New York Times Magazine report published on Tuesday. The Times revealed details about Thomas' role, which had been previously unreported. Thomas, a longtime conservative activist, played a peacemaking role between rally organizers "so that there wouldn't be any division around January 6," Dustin Stockton, who helped organized the Ellipse rally, told The Times. The Ellipse rally took place shortly before a...

Legendary investor Charlie Munger, speaking with Yahoo Finance Editor-in-Chief Andy Serwer in an exclusive interview, spoke bluntly about vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. “I have been appalled by the fear of vaccination by a big chunk of the nation,” the Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman said when asked about the COVID-19 pandemic. “Speaking for myself, I couldn’t wait to be vaccinated. And I think the risks of being vaccinated are way less than the risk of not being vaccinated." According to the CDC, there’s a minuscule 0.002% chance of the vaccine causing death while approximately 5 people per one million vaccinated...