Free Republic

As Ukrainian officials plead for more Western arms and a U.S. aid package remains stalled in Congress, Russia is advancing on the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, seizing new territory and intensifying attacks to capture the town of Chasiv Yar and others in the Donetsk region. Away from the front line, Ukraine’s dwindling air defense capabilities are showing vulnerabilities, as more Russian missiles and drones are able to hit targets such as critical infrastructure facilities. Outside Kyiv — considered Ukraine’s best-protected city — the largest power plant serving the capital was destroyed Thursday, stoking concerns that Ukraine might be running out...

Jokes and memes mocking Donald Trump have flooded the internet in anticipation of his arrest over alleged campaign finance violations ahead of the 2016 presidential elections. In a post over the weekend on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump said he will be arrested on Tuesday, March 21. According to media reports, the former president is likely to be indicted as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's investigation into alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. (see 1 min clip) Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before his speech...

Ukraine won't surrender Bakhmut, says Zelensky as Russia advances near…. That promise lasted one month. Limited shelf life. Russia’s long grind to take the strategically vital city of Bakhmut is nearing it ends, with the clean up and capture of abandoned Ukrainian units still inside the city as the priority tasks for the Russian military. Bakhmut is not as economically important as Mariupol, which fell to the Russians last May, but it is geographically significant. That is why Ukraine fought so desperately to hang on to it and expended the lives of tens of thousands of its soldiers in a...

Russia has carried out a wave of missile attacks across Ukrainian cities, killing at least five people and causing new disruptions in power supplies, particularly in Kyiv and Kharkiv regions, officials said. “Unfortunately, there were hits on energy infrastructure,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Saturday. “In this connection, the most difficult situation is in Kharkiv region and Kyiv region.”

Ukraine is losing and will lose its war with Russia. For Moscow not to lose the peace, it is unfortunately the case that a rump Ukraine may no longer provide in Russian eyes the security from the NATO/Ukraine threat it understandably (to some) seeks. Time is running out to avert a larger, truly Ukraine-wide war carried successfully by Moscow into the country’s more anti-Russian western regions and Kiev, putting an end to the Ukrainian state in lieu of NATO military intervention. However, a Russian-occupied Ukraine will simmer with partisan warfare and neofascist terrorism for some time, leaving the risk of...

Zelensky's spokesman said that Ukraine and Russia are consulting on the place and time of the negotiation process after Zelensky requests a ceasefire

Explanation: Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and cauldron bubble .... maybe Macbeth should have consulted the Witch Head Nebula. A frighteningly shaped reflection nebula, this cosmic crone is about 800 light-years away though. Its malevolent visage seems to glare toward nearby bright star Rigel in Orion, just off the right edge of this frame. More formally known as IC 2118, the interstellar cloud of dust and gas is nearly 70 light-years across, its dust grains reflecting Rigel's starlight. In this composite portrait, the nebula's color is caused not only by the star's intense bluish light but because the...

Falling world oil prices will hurt countries across the Middle East unless Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude exporter, takes action to reverse the slump, Iran’s deputy foreign minister told Reuters. Hossein Amir Abdollahian described Saudi Arabia’s inaction in the face of a six-month slide in oil prices as a strategic mistake and said he still hoped the kingdom, Tehran’s main rival in the Gulf, would respond. Oil prices closed on Wednesday at a 5½ year low, registering their second-biggest ever annual decline after OPEC oil exporters, led by Saudi Arabia, chose to maintain oil output despite a global glut...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) — Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is on a five-day trip overseas to increase pressure on Mali's al-Qaida-linked rebels and help Balkan nations end long-simmering ethnic and political disagreements.</p>

BALTIMORE, Maryland (AFP) – President Barack Obama Friday chided Republicans for portraying his health reform plan as a "Bolshevik plot" and for saying he wanted to do "crazy stuff that is going to destroy America." In a highly unusual televised question-and-answer session, Obama told his foes they should not just oppose him for political gain, warning that elected officials should care more about jobs of voters than their own. "I'm not a pundit, I'm just a president. So take it for what it's worth -- but I don't believe that the American people want us to focus on our job...

Speaking at a retreat for House Republicans on Friday, President Obama defended his economic recovery proposals and called on Republicans to work with him to turn around the economy and implement other reforms in areas like health care. The American people are tired of partisanship, Mr. Obama said at the Baltimore retreat, particularly in the current economic climate. "I'm not a pundit, I'm just a president," he said, "but I don't believe the American people want us to focus on our job security, they want us to focus on their job security." He added, "They didn't send us to Washington...

Are you sick of being sick? Suffering way too much Bush-induced nausea? Well, tough -- I know how it is. You've had it up to here. There are only so many stories about blood and death and pain you can take, only so many times you can hear about random shootings and corporate malfeasance and how BushCo's squad of scabrous flying monkeys have, say, supported torture or endorsed wiretapping or gouged the nation for another $200 billion to pay for a failed war. Your nerves are raw and your heart is tired and the media will just not shut the...

The Catholic chaplain of St Andrew's University in Scotland has defended the institution's decision to officially recognise Wiccans. St Andrews University, whose graduates include Prince William, has decided to allocate an area for followers of the alternative religion to hold festivals and rituals after university bosses feared they could be prosecuted under human rights legislation. Now pagan or wiccans as they prefer to be called, will be allowed to use campus buildings and outdoor space for festivals, providing they do not utter incantations or spells that might harm others. Nor may not raise spirits or to call up dark forces,...

Since the news is slow I just wanted to know if anyone watched the Sunday night movie I believe on CBS called Surrender Dorothy. It had all the PC stuff covered, homosexual,lesbian, adultry, drugs, sixties type mother etc. It was just awful and I did not watch it all. Wonder if any of ya'll caught any of it and what you thought.

Mark Kegans for The New York TimesTHEY'RE QUIRKY, AND THEY VOTE A dome in Fairfield, Iowa, where residents meditate. They overwhelmingly support Dennis Kucinich, who leads Democrats there. AIRFIELD, IowaIn this little pocket of Iowa, houses are built to face the rising sun, something called yogic flying is a popular pastime and Dennis J. Kucinich is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.Even as much of the country still struggles to pronounce his name (it's koo-SIN-itch), Mr. Kucinich has become a phenomenon in Fairfield, population 9,500. His proposals to promote world peace, universal health care and environmental sustainability...