Free Republic

A day after he questioned President Obama’s decision to unwind a major tenet of the health-care law and said the nation’s capital might not go along, D.C. insurance commissioner William P. White was fired. White was called into a meeting Friday afternoon with one of Mayor Vincent C. Gray’s (D) top deputies and told that the mayor “wants to go in a different direction,” White told The Washington Post on Saturday. White said the mayoral deputy never said that he was being asked to leave because of his Thursday statement on health care. But he said the timing was hard...

Seventy-five years ago, on August 5, 1937, one of the most horrific — and most ignored — episodes in human history began. “Operation Kulak” ("kulak" meaning rich peasants) was the Soviet Union’s effort to repress those farmers who had a little more than other farmers (according, at least, to the definitions of the Communist Party), and who resisted collectivization. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin (pictured) had begun the development of “Operation Kulak” the previous month, when he contacted all the regional Party leaders as well as the NKVD (roughly the Soviet equivalent of the Gestapo and SS in Nazi Germany), asking...

Egyptian authorities arrested on Thursday former Interior Minister Habib el-Adly and two other ex-ministers who are under investigation for corruption, security officials said. Authorities also arrested steel tycoon Ahmed Ezz, once a prominent member of the ouster leader Hosni Mubarak's ruling National Democratic Party. El-Adly, whose job gave him control over the 500,000-strong security forces, has been widely blamed for the deadly brutality used by riot police against demonstrators in massive protests that began Jan. 25 and forced Mubarak to step down Feb. 11. El-Adly served in his former post for 12 years. News of el-Adly's arrest followed the detention...

TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tightened his grip on Iran’s powerful intelligence services, ousting four senior officials in a widening purge against authorities who challenged the harsh crackdowns after June’s disputed elections, lawmakers and media said Monday. The shake-up at the Intelligence Ministry — the nation’s main spy agency — deepened the rifts straining Iran’s conservative ranks over Ahmadinejad’s strong-arm political tactics and the crushing response to the pro-reform opposition since the June 12 election. It also sought to bolster Ahmadinejad allies in the Revolutionary Guard, which led the assaults and arrests against protesters who claimed the election was...

I've been hearing that some groups of people are not welcome at Free Republic anymore, but I didn't believe what I was hearing because that seems like the complete opposite of "Free". I've heard that supporters of Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and more are no longer welcome to post at this site. This site is about uniting people together against the liberal onslaught that is ruining our country and we could use all the help we can get right? Please correct me so I can correct others who have told me that this is...

This is absolutely scary and must be watched by every American before they allow the 60’s Communist Radicals to take over our nation!!! William Ayers and the Weather Underground supported a Stalin-Like Purge in order to kill 25 Million Americans that refused to be indoctrinated. They also support handing our nation over to the Russians, Chinese, and Cubans!!!!!!!! Barack Obama is associated with these people!!!

MOSCOW — President Vladimir Putin said Thursday no one should try to make Russia feel guilty about the Great Purge of 1937, saying it may have been one of the most notorious episodes of the Stalin era but "in other countries even worse things happened." Speaking at a televised meeting with social studies teachers, Putin noted that this is the 70th anniversary of a year many Russians regard as a synonym for state-sponsored terror. It is an anniversary that has, however, gotten relatively little attention in Russian media. "Yes, we had terrible pages" in Russia's history, Putin said. "Let us...

Speaking in 2004 to a crowd of wealthy democratic supporters during a fund raising event in San Francisco, Hillary Clinton spoke the very words that illustrate the intentions of the government so very well. "We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." While those words were spoken three years ago, they are just as important today. They represent not just the Democrat party's strong commitment to the redistribution of wealth rightfully earned by the American people, it provides insight into the focus that our politicians have in running our nation. It highlights the precise...

When Nikita Khrushchev died in 1971, I was still a girl, but I remember him well. We used to visit him on the weekends on his farm at Petrovo Dalnee, about 30 miles outside of Moscow. I would work with him among the tomatoes or beehives. Although to me he was my kindly old great-grandfather, my family assured me that he was a great man, a world leader, a liberator -- someone I should be proud of.

VIENNA, Austria (AP) - Joerg Haider's once-powerful Freedom Party - long associated with Austria's far right fringe - purged most rightists from senior positions Tuesday in an attempt to stem its descent from success to political oblivion. Haider, who is no longer the party head but remains its most influential figure, also announced that the party would be formally relaunched in an attempt to end a string of disastrous election showings. Ursula Haubner, the party head and Haider's sister, said the move to remove most rightists from positions of influence reflected the party's decision "to orient itself in new directions...

THEY are barely mentioned in Russian history books and are considered an unsuitable subject for polite conversation in the post-Soviet era.Joseph Stalin’s purges left over 30 million people dead, created an enormous slave labour system known as the Gulag, and brought about the forcible deportation of whole nations of peoples. Now Russians are being forced to confront their brutal past by two new television dramas which attempt to convey the full horror of Stalin’s war against the people. The two series, one of which began broadcasting last week, aim to counter the growing perception among Russians that Stalin was a...

MOSCOW - Russia's leading human rights groups released a list Wednesday of more than a million of people who fell victim to Josef Stalin's purges — an attempt to draw public attention to the Soviet dictator's crimes in a society still divided over his legacy. The 1,345,796 names, compiled on a CD-ROM along with brief biographies of the victims, represent only a small portion of those who suffered in the purges, but are all the cases that activists have been able to document so far. Stalin came to power after the death of Soviet founder V.I. Lenin in 1924 and...

Saddam executes 60 Iraqi officers PAUL GALLAGHER SADDAM Hussein has executed 60 army officers and replaced them with some of his most fanatical supporters to dissuade soldiers from deserting in the face of allied attack, according to an exiled Iraqi general. Mohammed Nafee, who was a commander in Saddam’s forces in the Iran-Iraq war, claims the purge of the army higher ranks took place at the weekend. He has contacted Iraqi military sources in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, who passed on news of the mass executions. Mr Nafee said the commanding officers of army units considered most likely to surrender were...