Free Republic

Since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin has given orders to increase the alert level of Russia’s nuclear forces and has made veiled nuclear threats. The blatant aggression against Ukraine has shocked Europe and the world. The war is a tragedy for Ukraine. It also exposes the limits of the West’s reliance on nuclear deterrence. Deterrence refers to the idea that possessing nuclear weapons protects a nation from attack, through the threat of overwhelming retaliation. This concept is widely credited for helping prevent war between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War....

What is a "quid pro quo"? It literally means "something for something", in other words it is simply a transaction in which something is exchanged for something else, presumably of value. In diplomacy, there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WRONG with a "quid pro quo", it is the standard way of leveraging our foreign aid. For instance, "US aid will be withheld unless you stop harboring terrorists". This is an entirely reasonable approach, and by far the biggest justification for the seemingly endless billions we spend on foreign aid. Where things get dicey, is when an elected official uses a quid pro...

As the longest government shutdown in American history lurches toward its fifth week, a grim but growing consensus has begun to emerge on Capitol Hill: There may be no way out of this mess until something disastrous happens. This is, of course, not a sentiment lawmakers are eager to share on the record. But in interviews this week with congressional staffers on both sides of the aisle (whom I granted anonymity in exchange for candor), I heard the same morbid idea expressed again and again. The basic theory—explained to me between weary sighs and defeated shrugs—goes like this: Washington is...

In April, on the 69th anniversary of the founding of China’s navy, the country’s first domestically built aircraft carrier stirred from its berth in the port city of Dalian on the Bohai Sea, tethered to tugboats for a test of its seaworthiness. “China’s first homegrown aircraft carrier just moved a bit, and the United States, Japan and India squirmed,” a military news website crowed, referring to the three nations China views as its main rivals. Not long ago, such boasts would have been dismissed as the bravado of a second-string military. No longer. A modernization program focused on naval and...

China is currently testing the world's most powerful naval gun and people with direct knowledge of a U.S. intelligence report say it will be ready for war by 2025. Railguns use electromagnetic energy instead of gunpowder to propel rounds, and China's is capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second, according to the report. For perspective, a shot fired from Washington, D.C., could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds. Railguns have long appeared on Russian, Iranian and U.S. military wish lists as cost-effective weapons that give navies the might of a...

Lockheed Martin's three F-35 Lightning II strike fighter variants have completed what the company called the most comprehensive flight test program in aviation history. On April 11 at US Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, Navy test aircraft CF-2 carrying external 2,000-lb (907-kg) GBU-31 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) and AIM-9X Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles completed the final developmental test flight of the System Development and Demonstration (SDD) phase of the program. According to Lockheed, a team of over a thousand SDD flight test engineers, maintainers, pilots, and support personnel completed full flight-envelope tests on all three variants of the F-35,...

UVALDE, Tex. — On a ranch at the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country, a hunting guide spotted her cooling off in the shade: an African reticulated giraffe. Such is the curious state of modern Texas ranching, that a giraffe among the oak and the mesquite is an everyday sort of thing. “That’s Buttercup,” said the guide, Buck Watson, 54. In a place of rare creatures, Buttercup is among the rarest; she is off limits to hunters at the Ox Ranch. Not so the African bongo antelope, one of the world’s heaviest and most striking spiral-horned antelopes, which roams...

Venice (AFP) - Nobody is ever going to call Paul Schrader's "First Reformed" a feel-good movie, and the legendary screenwriter and director is fine with that. "If you are hopeful about humanity and the planet you are not paying attention," Schrader said Thursday as he presented his latest writing and directing project at the Venice film festival. The film turns around the uncheery theme of impending environmental apocalypse and the question of whether Christians could or should have done more to prevent it. "I don't see humanity outliving the century," Schrader told reporters after the drama, which stars Ethan Hawke,...

Ten people were arrested in Berkeley, California on Saturday following an anti-Trump protest that sought to counter a march in support of President Trump. “A total of 10 people were arrested, including five for battery, four for assault with a deadly weapon and one for resisting arrest,” reported The Marin Independent Journal on Saturday. “Police reported items confiscated among the combatants were: ‘metal pipes, bats, 2x4s and pieces of wood. A group with bricks was detained, and their bricks confiscated.'” ...snip... UFC veteran and professional MMA fighter Jake Shields was even forced to rescue a man who was being assaulted...

A team of engineers led by 94-year-old John Goodenough, professor in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin and co-inventor of the lithium-ion battery, has developed the first all-solid-state battery cells that could lead to safer, faster-charging, longer-lasting rechargeable batteries for handheld mobile devices, electric cars and stationary energy storage. Goodenough’s latest breakthrough, completed with Cockrell School senior research fellow Maria Helena Braga, is a low-cost all-solid-state battery that is noncombustible and has a long cycle life (battery life) with a high volumetric energy density and fast rates of charge and discharge. The engineers describe...

Los Angeles — Liberals used to hate secession, the notion that states could leave the Union as they did before the Civil War because they didn’t agree with the policies of the federal government. But with Donald Trump’s election, many California liberals suddenly have warm words for a budding ballot initiative that has just begun collecting signatures in order to place secession, or “Calexit,” on the ballot. At the height of the tea-party movement, Texas governor Rick Perry merely hinted at the thought that Texas might react to President Obama’s executive overreach by reclaiming its one-time status as an independent...

This is my election vanity! TRIUMP WINS! TRUMP WINS! TRUMP WINS! I am done for now - but I'm SO excited for the future! My main issues were the Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment, and I'm feeling very good about the future! GO AMERICA!

Sean Hannity stated the Florida Panhandle might be underperforming. GET OUT THERE AND VOTE!!! Any support efforts would be appreciated!

In what can only be called a colossal Freudian slip, Hillary’s vp nominee admitted on Thursday that Democratic policies are harmful to white Americans. Kaine was speaking to a group of black Baptists in New Orleans when he suggested that in order to have “equity” between the races, white people must submit themselves to a state of repression similar to what black Americans have experienced.

WASHINGTON – FBI Director James Comey says there's no timetable for the FBI to complete its investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server when she was secretary of state. Comey told an Aspen Security Forum audience on Thursday that the FBI does not set timetables on any of its investigations. The comments echo assertions that he and Attorney General Loretta Lynch have made in recent months.

Elon Musk's Tesla recently became the latest big shot company to enter the self-driving car sweepstakes. Mr. Musk recently announced the hiring of software architecture veteran Jim Keller, who previously had played key roles at Apple and AMD, to lead its Autopilot Engineering team. Teslas move follows the recently announced partnership between General Motors and Lyft, in which the automaker is investing $500 million in the ridesharing company as part of a joint venture to develop self-driving cars. And of course Google, Uber, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Apple, Audi, Bosch and Delphi Automotive (the big auto parts manufacturer) all have their own...

Instances of volcanic eruptions are their highest for 300 years and scientists fear a major one that could kill millions and devastate the planet is a real possibility. Experts at the European Science Foundation said volcanoes - especially super-volcanoes like the one at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, which has a caldera measuring 34 by 45 miles (55 by 72 km) - pose more threat to Earth and the survival of humans than asteroids, earthquakes, nuclear war and global warming. There are few real contingency plans in place to deal with the ticking time bomb, which they conclude is likely to...

The rumblings are beginning. Just as the Democratic party considers drafting a 2016 challenger into take on a floundering Hillary Clinton, GOP voices are speaking up about shaking up their primary race as well. Conservative stalwarts Bill Kristol is leaving the door open for an “October surprise,” even suggesting the possibility that a business person, such as a “saner and sounder” version of Donald Trump, could emerge. Now enter a man who knows a thing or two of drumming up attention (and selling papers) - Rupert Murdoch. Just as massive stock drop has many investors eyeing the financial headlines, the...

Is “American Sniper” a hugely divisive American phenomenon? That’s the impression you’d get from reading a lot of pundits’ just-baked hot takes about the wildly popular Clint Eastwood-directed flick. [snip] Mr. Moore tweeted that his uncle was killed by a sniper in World War II and that he’d been raised to believe snipers “cowards.” Mr. Rogen, fresh off the international incident created by his North Korean movie “The Interview,” opined that “American Sniper” reminded him of a fake film that’s showing near the end of the Quentin Tarantino’s World War II movie “Inglourious Basterds.” That film showed a German sniper...

Banks should brace for assault as Arthur Andersen annihilator now controls world’s largest criminal conviction machine Meet Leslie Caldwell. President Obama has installed Ms. Caldwell, known as a “terror of a prosecutor,” as head of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. It has been over a decade since Ms. Caldwell destroyed Arthur Anderson, and with it, 85,000 jobs—only to be reversed by the Supreme Court nine to nothing (well after she went into private practice). Now the president has brought her back—with a big promotion—and the vengeance of DOJ already aimed at Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas and others....