Free Republic

Sergey Karaganov breaks into a broad smile when asked why his two-decades-old ideas about Moscow “protecting” Russian speakers abroad are suddenly the centre of his country’s foreign policy. “Because almost everything I have said, happened,” Mr. Karaganov said in an interview in his high-ceilinged office in the historic Kitai-Gorod district of Moscow, a short walk from Red Square. It’s Vladimir Putin who has made defending the rights of Russian-speakers wherever they live into a foreign-policy principle for the Kremlin. But in setting this interventionist new course, the Russian President borrowed heavily from the ideas of Mr. Karaganov, whom Mr. Putin...

The outcome of dueling versions of the National Defense Authorization Act could determine how much the U.S. lines Russia's pockets before what some lawmakers hope is a speedy transition to a domestically produced rocket engine. The RD-180 engine is built by NPO Energomash, a manufacturer mostly owned by the Russian Federation. It's used in the Atlas V rocket, built by Lockheed Martin and Boeing's United Launch Alliance. The House version of the NDAA approves all of the 18 requested engines. In the Senate, where there has been a lengthy battle over buying from Russia, the NDAA authorizes nine engines. Either...

In significant news that has thus far either gone under or outright unreported by the media, U.S. military advisors have “boots on the ground” in Yemen, according to a recent report in the Washington Post by Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Missy Ryan: “The Pentagon has placed a small number of U.S. advisors on the ground in Yemen to support Arab forces battling al-Qaeda, military officials said on Friday, signaling a new American role in that country’s multi-sided civil war. Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said U.S. personnel had been in the country for about two weeks, supporting Yemeni and...

Russian President Vladimir Putin during a visit to the Church of the Dormition of the Theotokos on mount Athos sat in the chair, which previously could only occupy the Byzantine emperors. Putin said about the need to “strengthen the spiritual power of all the Orthodox” and declared the Greek mountain “a source of well-being and grace” for the Russian Orthodox world. Putin visited Athos, having participated in events in honor of the 1000th anniversary of the appearance of Russian monks on the Holy mountain. On the website of the Kremlin promptly a photo gallery, and Greek TV covered the...

Saudi authorities have arrested a man for shooting a male doctor who had helped his wife's delivery, after arguing that a female doctor should have overseen the birth. The doctor, Muhannad Al Zabn, delivered the baby in April at the King Fahad Medical City in Riyadh, Gulf News reported. The father offered his thanks to the doctor and asked to meet him at the hospital to show him his appreciation in person for the delivery. The pair proceeded to meet in the hospital garden to talk about the delivery when the father unveiled a firearm and shot at the doctor,...

Securing pilot Nadiya Savchenko's release from Russian captivity was a PR coup for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko but the outspoken woman feted as the nation's "Joan of Arc" may ultimately prove a thorn in his side. While in jail, Savchenko was named a lawmaker in what is now the main opposition party at a time of growing disillusion with the slow pace of reforms and tackling corruption. She has also condemned a key plank of Poroshenko's ceasefire deal with pro-Russian separatists granting them autonomy in eastern Ukraine. "She may just ask all those who are now in power - what...

(ANTIMEDIA) The Unites States has the world’s most powerful military — and a huge budget to match it. In fact, the U.S. spends more on defense than the next seven countries’ military budgets combined. America’s navy has been branded a “Global Force for Good,” and U.S. military operations around the world are sold to the public as freedom-by-force operations (see: Operation Iraqi Freedom). But what is the truth about America’s foreign policy? Is America truly a benevolent empire hell-bent on raining democracy-by-drone strikes around the world? To answer this question, we looked at America’s arms global deals and came to...

Russian warplanes hit a key rebel supply route to Aleppo on Sunday in Moscow's first strikes on Syria's battleground second city since a February ceasefire, a monitoring group said. "The Russian and Syrian warplanes together carried out at least 40 air strikes on the Castello road," Syrian Observatory for Human Rights chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. "They are the heaviest air strikes there since February, and they are also the first confirmed Russian strikes since the truce began," Abdel Rahman said.(Snip)The Castello road is a key supply route for rebels leading north out of Aleppo.

Wednesday, I participated in Facebook’s meeting with conservatives at the company’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. Even though I did the round trip in a little more than 24 hours, the West Coast feels a long way away from New York City. Geographically and culturally.

Tucker Carlson said Friday he expected Glenn Beck to "cry [and] rend his garments while quoting James Madison" during a meeting this week between conservatives and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, not "suck up" to him. "He began the most extended assiduous suck-up I think I've ever seen a grown man commit," Carlson, editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller and a Fox News contributor, said in an interview, reports Politico. "He acted like he was auditioning to be Mark Zuckerberg's manservant — it was awe-inspiring."

Glenn Beck’s blog on Medium dishing on his trip to Facebook headquarters declares that the employees he met, while left-wing, were not “progressives,” a term he has used to label Republican politicians such as Newt Gingrich.

Daily Caller editor-in-chief and Fox News contributor Tucker Carlson is not happy with how Glenn Beck acted at the Facebook meeting for conservatives this week. In an interview, Carlson blasted the radio and television host, saying he was sucking up to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "I went to that meeting expecting Beck to cry, rend his garments while quoting James Madison, but that's not at all what happened. He began the most extended assiduous suck-up I think I've ever seen a grown man commit. He acted like he was auditioning to be Mark Zuckerberg's manservant — it was awe-inspiring,' Carlson...

Glenn Beck: Facebook Made Us Feel More Welcome Than the Republican Party Has Kirsten Salyer @kirstensalyer 3:05 PM ET The conservative pundit discusses the details of his meeting with Mark Zuckerberg

Radio host Glenn Beck is criticizing some of the other conservatives who joined him at a meeting with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg over allegations of political bias at the social media giant. Beck accused other conservatives in the room of being overzealous in their efforts to get the company to respond to their concerns. “It was like affirmative action for conservatives,” Beck wrote on his website on Thursday. “I sat there, looking around the room at ‘our side’ wondering, ‘Who are we? Who am I?’ ” He said "a number of [attendees], I believe, felt like I did," but added,...

There’s a lot of pearl clutching on the political right this week, so much so you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate it from the constant pearl clutching on the left. Facebook, it is alleged, “censors” conservative news. But does it really? And does it matter? There are not many people in the United States younger than 50 who don’t have a Facebook account. Exactly none of them were forced to open one. When they did they accepted the fact that they were playing in someone else’s backyard. Facebook owes the government no justification as to how it conducts its business as...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said after a meeting with a group of conservatives Wednesday that he values their point of view and that people on the right are important to the social network. […] Daily Signal Editor-in-Chief Rob Bluey was among the group who met with Zuckerberg and told Fox News Channel’s “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren” that the meeting was a “positive step.” But Matt Schlapp, chairman of American Conservative Union, declined the invitation, saying that Facebook had no interest in talking to him when he asked them how he could best use the platform in conjunction...

Not all conservatives come at the run when thumb-sucking Zuckerberg decided to toot his whistle Facebook’s sham ‘self investigation‘ into the social media giant’s alleged suppression of conservative news scheduled for tomorrow at Silicon Valley, had already come to a conclusion about who the culprits were ahead of the big get together. “Several people close to the company, who also declined to speak on record, argued that if bias was being inserted into the trending section, it came from Facebook’s part-time news curators acting on their own.” (The Guardian, May 16, 2016)

What do Glenn Beck, Carly Fiorina, S.E. Cupp, Dana Perino, Zac Moffett (Romney Campaign), and Arther Brooks have in common? They are all avowed members of the Never Trump coalition.  And according to recent media reports, they are also the names scheduled to meet with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to discuss Facebook’s ideological censorship of political views. […] “I want to have a direct conversation about what Facebook stands for and how we can be sure our platform stays as open as possible,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post last week. “The reason I care so much about this is that it...

On Wednesday, billionaire Mark Zuckerberg will hold a meeting with “leading conservatives,” embattled The Blaze head Glenn Beck, and former George W. Bush Administration official and co-host of Fox News Channel’s The Five Dana Perino, at the website’s Menlo Park headquarters to discuss Facebook’s conservative media suppression and censorship scandal. Last week it was reported that “anonymous sources at Facebook’s news team have confirmed to Gizmodo that, in addition to suppressing conservative news sources, the company suppresses stories about itself while artificially promoting stories about the Black Lives Matter movement.” In spite of this, Zuckerberg denies any wrongdoing, stating “we...

Top Donald Trump advisor Stephen Miller spoke with CNN’s Brooke Baldwin today about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy. stephen miller hillary Stephen Miller pointed out the obvious: “Honestly, I feel bad for Bernie Sanders supporters and I’ll tell you why. Thanks to super delegates, the Democratic party is on the verge of nominating the most pro-war, pro-Wall Street lawmaker in the modern history of the Democratic Party… Hillary Clinton’s platform is, I want to start wars in the Middle East and then import all the refugees into the United States and other countries without knowing who they are. That’s a recipe...