Free Republic

Trump raised the idea of providing US aid to Ukraine via loan so that it might get paid back. But Republicans on Capitol Hill are skeptical that will happen. "I just think a loan ends up being a grant," said one House Republican. There's a relatively new idea floating around the political world, and it's being pushed by former President Donald Trump: What if Ukraine aid came in the form of a loan?

Russian forces suffered an average of 983 casualties per day in Ukraine in February, the highest since the war began, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in an intelligence update on Sunday. The UK department said the increase in casualties, which included both killed and wounded soldiers, was likely due to "Russia's commitment to mass and attritional warfare." In February, Russia finally captured the embattled Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, which sits just north of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. War analysts have noted that Russia's tactics to take Avdiivka often involved "human wave" assaults, attempting to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with...

Alexey Navalny, the dissident and political nemesis of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spent the last few years of his life behind bars but still managed to stay connected to the outside world. Letters from the final months of his life, obtained by The New York Times, showed Navalny, who had been imprisoned since January 2021, managed to stay on top of current events — including in the US. In a letter sent to a friend, photographer Evgeny Feldman, Navalny called former President Donald Trump's agenda for a second term "really scary," according to the Times. If President Joe Biden has...

As the second anniversary of Russia's unprovoked invasion approaches, the situation is beginning to look bleak for Ukraine.Last year's counteroffensive brought hopes that Ukraine could capitalize on its successes in 2022 and drive back Russian forces from occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine.But the offensive failed to achieve a breakthrough, and Ukraine is now seeing crucial support from its allies bleed away. Meanwhile, its troops are experiencing shortages of personnel and ammunition.There are problems at the top, too. Its senior command has been engulfed in chaos, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replacing Valery Zaluzhny, a senior commander, amid reported...

The two Navy SEALs who went missing off the coast of Somalia last week were helping seize Iranian weapons bound for the Houthis, the US said in a statement on Tuesday. The Navy SEALs carried out a "complex boarding" of a dhow, operating out of the USS Lewis B. Puller and assisted by helicopters and unmanned aerial drones, CENTCOM said. (excerpt) Among what was seized were propulsion, guidance, and warheads for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as air-defense-associated components, it said. (excerpt) The Associated Press earlier reported, citing unnamed US officials, that the pair were climbing...

There seems to be no end in sight for the media gaslighting on President Joe Biden’s abysmal economy. One economist has had it. Business Insider had the audacity to publish an asinine piece of economic propaganda Dec. 3 that reeked of a public relations stunt by Biden’s press team: “After 3 years of pain, America has finally achieved economic nirvana.” The author, Renaissance Macro Research Head of Economics Neil Dutta, celebrated how supposedly “[t]he signs of a well-balanced economy are everywhere.” He continued: “Current economic data is consistent with a soft landing for the economy — a situation in which...

Is this crazy thinking or America's political reality? As Democrats run four parallel prosecutions at Donald Trump, the former president has grown only stronger. He now leads in several polls and is up big in battleground states. These facts have provoked panic in the Democratic Party, and the Left is responding with words that shake the seismic needle. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Joe Scarborough, formerly a conservative congressman, and now a paid shill for the Left (at $8 million per), begins his anti-Trump rant in the clip to the left with an insane rant -- “He will do; he will get...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country's population crisis. Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm. "Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children," Putin said. "Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all of Russia's people. The family is...

A McDonald's meal from a viral TikTok has become the poster child for a key issue leading up to the 2024 presidential election. "I get there is a labor shortage," user @topheroliver, who is based in Idaho, said in the video originally posted in December 2022. "I get there's wage increases and a number of other things. But $16? Sixteen dollars for a burger, large fries, and a drink. It's just crazy." The video gained traction recently after McDonald's released its earnings report revealing that revenues were up 8.1% in the past year. McDonald's attributed part of the revenue increase...

Barstool Sports president Dave Portnoy can't stand politics. People are surprised to hear that, what with the regular appearances on Fox News and his mutual admiration society with Tucker Carlson. But he hates politics almost as much as he does Business Insider. This is why it was surprising to many for him to use his massive platform to heap praise on GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley.

Several days after Business Insider admitted they had published inaccurate numbers of state residents that moved to Florida during the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin cited them and used them in an attack piece about Gov. Ron DeSantis’, R-Fla., leadership of the state. Rubin published the column Friday in which she claimed, "DeSantis likes to brag that more people are moving to Florida than ever. Not so fast. ‘An estimated 674,740 people reported that their permanent address changed from Florida to another state in 2021.’" Those numbers are wrong and the Post, in a correction on Saturday, admitting...

From advancing same-sex marriage to blocking “bathroom bills” to opposing attempts to legalize discrimination, corporate America has been among the most consistent and vocal supporters of LGBTQ equality over the last several years. But now, as an unprecedented wave of legislation targeting transgender people blankets much of the country, many of the same companies that engaged vigorously in earlier battles are taking a quieter and more restrained approach.

Rep. Lauren Boebert's son called 911 in December to report that his father, Jayson Boebert, had gotten physical with him and was "throwing" him around the house and that he didn't know why. Minutes after the call ended — while Garfield County Sheriff's Office deputies were on their way to their home — the teen called again to take the accusations back, with Lauren Boebert jumping on the phone to say her son "doesn't need help." Jayson Boebert denied to the deputies — and to Insider — that he had gotten physical with the teen. … the congresswoman is suing...

Insider will lay off 10 percent of its team, according to a memo sent out by the company’s president on Thursday. “The economic headwinds that have hurt many of our clients and partners are also affecting us,” wrote Barbara Peng, the president of Insider, Inc. “Unfortunately, to keep our company healthy and competitive, we need to reduce the size of our team. ” Peng said those affected by the layoffs would receive an email on Thursday morning. Each person laid off will receive 13 weeks of base pay plus two weeks for every year they’ve been employed by Insider over...

Business Insider reported that Rove has been in communication with Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale since the GOP's drubbing in the 2018 midterm elections.The outlet's Tom LoBianco noted that Rove will be helping the Trump campaign focus on swing states and GOP voter outreach. LoBianco said Rove's job has been kept under wraps because of Trump's poor relationship with the Bush family.That feud bubbled up again earlier this month when Bush made a statement about putting partisanship aside during the COVID-19 pandemic.Business Insider says the relationship between Trump and Rove is about "political convenience": "While many establishment members of the...

-- Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, said the Kremlin has completely stopped talking to him. -- Prigozhin claims he was cut off after revealing that his troops in Ukraine are running out of ammunition. -- The Wagner boss said he's been desperately trying to get more supplies but has been ignored. The head of Russia's infamous Wagner Group mercenary organization claims that the Kremlin has cut off contact with him. Yevgeny Prigozhin, known for years to be a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a Thursday message on his Telegram channel that all of his...

ANALYSIS:▪ Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed his efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. ▪ Pro-Russia commentators have focused on his saying that a peace deal was "blocked" by the West. ▪ But Bennett has clarified that no such deal existed — and said talks broke down because of apparent Russian war crimes.A former Israeli prime minister is walking back his suggestion that the United States may have "blocked" an agreement last year to end the war in Ukraine, a claim that had been amplified by Russian state media and Kremlin sympathizers in the West.But a reader...

If former President Donald Trump is trying to make it look like he isn't bothered by Ron DeSantis, his Truth Social feed this weekend told a very different story. Over the weekend, Trump's Truth Social profile was filled with post after post about DeSantis, the governor of Florida and Trump's main rival in the GOP. On Saturday, Trump kicked off his DeSantis-posting spree of at least 10 posts, by Insider's count. The first was to insult DeSantis by writing that he thought it was "totally inappropriate to use the word 'meatball' as a moniker for Ron" — in the process...

The heavy casualties suffered by Russian paratroopers in Ukraine has one Russian expert calling for a rethink of Russia's airborne units. Many of the recent criticisms about the performance of Russia's elite parachute force, known as the VDV, have been voiced about lightly armed airborne units since World War II. The problems range from poorly designed vehicles to parachute drops conducted without first suppressing enemy air defenses. -snip- Russia's huge airborne force, composed of 45,000 paratroopers in four divisions, is actually a separate military branch that serves as shock troops and a rapid-intervention force. Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February...

Ukraine is finally getting the Western-made tanks that it wants, but there's still a few big items on its wishlist. Kyiv says the next thing it wants is fighter jets. "We have new tasks ahead: Western-type fighter jets, sanctions, Peace Formula implementation," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said after Germany announced on Wednesday it would send Leopard 2 main battle tanks, a decision that followed weeks of mounting pressure by European countries. Yuriy Sak, an advisor to the Ukrainian defense minister, concurred, telling Reuters that "the next big hurdle will now be the fighter jets." Some others, however, have pointed...