Free Republic

Watch her crowing about how she won and how she plans to continue onto New Hampshire standing on her record. In horse racing, the Stewards would have posted the photo sign for two horses that reached the wire together. They would not have tossed a coin. Thoroughbred racing is serious business. Money is on the line. Politics is different, especially the way Democrats play the game. Only our lives are on the line and only Hillary must win. Cheating in racing can get you suspended. Cheating in Democrat Politics can get you elected. So when six counties in Iowa finished...

'Weakest position in years': Russia and Assad may have just delivered a decisive blow to Turkey in Syria Natasha Bertrand 3m 1 Pro-government forces in Syria have reportedly broken a rebel siege of two villages northwest of Aleppo, effectively cutting off Turkey's supply line to opposition groups operating in and around Syria's largest city.

Not many Muslims support Republicans, but those who do support Trump Updated by Zack Beauchamp on February 3, 2016, 8:50 a.m. ET @zackbeauchamp zack@vox.com Donald Trump wants to ban any more Muslims from entering the United States. Yet among Muslim Americans, he's the most popular Republican candidate for president — although that may say more about the rest of the GOP field than about Trump, given that he's polling "first" among Republicans with only 7.5 percent Muslim American support. That's according to a new survey of Muslim Americans from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), conducted among 2,000 Muslims in...

Wed Feb 3, 2016 4:18am EST Lavrov: Russia won't stop Syria strikes until 'terrorists' defeated Russia will not stop its air strikes on Syria until armed groups, such as al Qaeda's wing there, are defeated, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia should stop bombing opposition forces in Syria now that U.N.-led peace talks have started. "Russian strikes will not cease until we really defeat terrorist organisations like Jabhat al-Nusra. And I don't see why these air strikes should be stopped," he said at a news conference in...

February 3, 2016 Russia: Court Rules Against LGBT Activist Repeal the Discriminatory Anti-LGBT Law (Moscow) – A Russian court on January 18, 2016, found a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights activist guilty of violating the country’s notorious “gay propaganda” law and issued a stiff fine. Russian prosecutors should support an appeal, which the activist, Sergei Alekseenko, plans to file in the coming days. Alekseenko was the director of Maximum, a Murmansk LGBT rights group that provided legal and psychosocial support. The Leninsky District Court in Murmansk, in northwestern Russia, found certain items posted on the Maximum’s website violated...

After four months, Russia’s campaign in Syria is proving successful for Moscow By Andrew Roth February 3 at 6:00 AM MOSCOW — Four months after launching airstrikes in Syria, the Kremlin is confidentthat Moscow’s largest overseas campaign since the Soviet Union is paying off. Under the banner of fighting international terrorism, President Vladimir Putin has reversed the fortunes of forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which were rapidly losing ground last year to moderate and Islamist rebel forces in the country’s five-year-old crisis. Government forces are now on the offensive, and on Tuesday, they scored their most significant victory...

MOSCOW, February 2. /TASS/. Russia’s newest Sukhoi Su-35S fighters, redeployed to Syria, will be flight-tested in real combat conditions and make a contribution to destroying terrorist targets on the ground, the former chief of the Lipetsk air pilots training center, Major-General Alexander Kharchevsky, has said. He believes that the Sukhoi Su-35S planes, just as the Sukhoi Su-30SM, dispatched to Syria earlier, "are equally effective in attacking air and surface targets." "In particular, Sukhoi-35 will be able to use its high maneuverability (in fact, unparalleled at the moment) in dog fight and effectively attack targets on the surface," Kharchevsky told TASS....

YEKATERINBURG, February 3. /TASS/. Russia’s Uralvagonzavod company is ready to organize in Iran licensed production of the T-90S gun launcher-armed tanks if restrictions on military-technical cooperation with that country are lifted, the corporation’s deputy director general Alexey Zharich said on Wednesday. Russia’s main battle gun launcher-armed tank T-90S is equipped with an automated fire control system. It is a light tank (46.5 tons) with a low profile, which increases its survivability. "Cooperation with Iran was suspended in accordance with the presidential decree "On measures to implement UN Security Council Resolution 1020 of June 9, 2010". But if restrictions on military-technical...

A crazed Chechen leader, once a Putin favorite, is embarrassing the Kremlin by threatening everyone. Ramzan Kadyrov may well be Vladimir Putin’s most ghoulish creation—a political Golem who remains slavishly loyal to the Russian leader but who also serves as a constant and nagging reminder of how ugly Putin-style autocracy can get when it really goes over the edge. Like the character Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov, Kadryov claims he is only fulfilling the wishes of his master, Putin, with his brutal tactics and threats to political opponents. The Chechen leader considers himself “Putin’s warrior,” and his never-fading mantra is...

On February 1, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched their long awaited offensive in the northern Aleppo countryside... (The Syrian Arab Army) SAA would also be able to cut the last supply routes running from the Turkish Border south towards Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and the country’s former commercial hub. The battle’s scale and importance led observers to name the struggle for Aleppo, The mother of all Battles. Both war parties know the side which captures Aleppo wins more than just a city. This side will win Syria’s north and therefore – most probably – the war.

Leadership: President Obama staged a political show for a Jewish audience Wednesday, loudly warning of the new atmosphere of anti-Semitism in Europe and the U.S. It's a hollow statement, given his weak record on a rapidly metastasizing problem. "Here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it," the president told his listeners at the Israeli embassy on Wednesday night. Citing the flight of Jews from Western Europe, as well attacks on Jews in India and Kansas, he got his lines right in concluding, "When we see that, we must...

In another acknowledgment that sanctions and diplomacy haven't deterred Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, the Obama administration said Tuesday it wants to quadruple military spending in Europe to reassure NATO allies still anxious over Moscow's intervention in Ukraine. The spending would increase to $3.4 billion under the new plan, which will be introduced next week as part of Mr. Obama's final budget. Having been unable to dislodge Russian President Vladimir Putin's proxy forces from Ukraine through diplomacy, Mr. Obama now wants to spend the extra money on "continuous U.S. armored brigade rotations" through stations in Central and Eastern Europe, beefed-up...

Putin's revenge: Turkish tourist industry collapsing More than 1,300 hotels along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts are up for sale as Russian sanctions bite. A total of 1,318 Turkish hotels along the Aegean and Mediterranean coasts have been put up for sale, due to Russian sanctions on Turkey and security concerns, reported Turkish and Russian media Tuesday. Today's Zaman said that 410 hotels are listed for sale at the Mediterranean resort area of Anatalya, at a total sale price of TL 30 billion (about $10 billion). The remaining 908 hotels are on sale at the provinces of Muğla, İzmir, Aydın,...

A senior defense official, who like others spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the plans, said the advances made by Russia and China do "force a competition that has to be confronted in the next decade." Almost half of the new investments Carter will propose are related to what officials see as a growing threat from Moscow, where President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated his willingness to employ Russian military might from Ukraine to Syria. Despite repeated cease-fire agreements, the conflict in Ukraine continues there between Russian-backed separatists and the government in Kiev. If approved by Congress, the budget plan...

"New State Department Emails Reveal Blumenthal Advised Clinton that former Rep. Eric Cantor Committed a Possible ‘Felony’ by Disclosing Petraeus Classified Information".... ‘Will a grand jury be empaneled by the Justice Department? When will Senator Patrick Leahy, chair of the Judiciary Committee… begin an investigation of this matter?’ – November 13, 2012 Blumenthal advised top Obama debate advisor that Romney would ‘falsify, distort, and mangle facts;’ advised Clinton on Libya turmoil disclosed in ‘internal govt discussions high level’ (Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that on January 7, 2016, it obtained a new batch of documents from the Department...

Nearly 20 per cent of Muslims living in France think there are too many Jews in the country, a survey by the French Judaism Foundation has discovered. In an 18-month long Ipsos survey on “living together”, published in Le Journal de Dimanche, researchers interviewed French people from a variety of backgrounds on their views on race and religion. In results that will likely cause further concern to France’s embattled Jewish community, investigators found that nearly one in five Muslims believe there are “too many Jews” living in the country, while the wider population also seems to be suspicious. The Jewish...

Army Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, the US commander in charge of the coalition fighting Islamic State (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria, said Monday that carpet bombing the terrorists would be "inconsistent with our values." The remark is seen as being aimed at Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX). In December, Cruz pledged to "utterly destroy ISIS," and vowed: "We will carpet-bomb them into oblivion." He even hinted at the use of nuclear weapons, saying: "I don't know if sand can glow in the dark, but we're going to find out." After being asked to explain why carpet bombing would...

I saw a huge waterfall pouring over a beautiful rock formation and the water looked like liquid glass so pure and transparent you could see all the rocks behind it . All around the base of the waterfall were people and they were enjoying the refreshing spray and droplets covering them as a beautiful misty spray and the droplets just seemed to hang in the air effortlessly and the sound of the waterfalls was the roar of His Voice. As I looked over where the water goes over the falls I saw Jesus with his bare feet standing in the...

Don’t underestimate the impact of Middle East politics... The game being played in the global oil market today bears more than a passing resemblance to poker. Nobody wants to quit while they’re losing... Russia, meanwhile, is pumping the most crude ever, hitting a post-Soviet Union peak. But it may have difficulty maintaining today’s pace given a lack of investment in its aging Siberian fields... In other words, Russia is holding weak cards and the Saudis know it... The newest players at the table are U.S. shale producers. They helped the U.S. to increase output by 80% between 2008 and 2014...

Russian warplanes in Syria are targeting civilian oil refineries and trucks while deliberately ignoring ISIS facilities to allow the extremist group to continue its oil trade with the Assad regime, local activists claim. Citizen journalists from the Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently group claimed Russia's airstrikes are aimed at destroying local oil facilities which are mostly owned by the local population 'and have no direct links with ISIS'. Oil trucks that move between the ISIS-held cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, owned by civilians, are also targeted by Russian jets.