Free Republic

In the lead-up to the July 15 Helsinki Summit between Putin and Trump, three countries in the Eurasian landmass were expecting the meeting with particular fear and concern. The first is Ukraine, which struggles with pro-Russian forces in the east of the country. However, the summit was hailed by many Russian analysts as well as politicians as not really bringing about any changes. In fact, the strongest expression of the unchangeable US stance on Ukraine after the summit was the “Crimea Declaration,” released by the Department of State on July 25, where Russian moves against Ukraine were once again ostracized....

"Enemy of the people" is an incendiary phrase. It's been uttered by some of history's most vicious thugs — Robespierre, Goebbels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao — to vilify their opponents ... who were often murdered. President Trump must know that history by now when he calls the press "the enemy of the people." As he must also know the anti-Semitic and racist history of the America First slogan, by which the president describes many of his policies. But Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, pointedly declined the chance this week to say, as Ivanka Tump did, "I do not feel...

PHOENIX — An Arizona artist created a kickstarter campaign to raise money for a giant mural of Ariz. Sen. John McCain. If the artist can get the funding, he would create the 30-foot-tall by 120-foot-long mural in Old Town Scottsdale. Total, the artwork would be about 4,000 square feet. Aaron Bass began working with Chen + Suchart Studio and Eric Marvin to create a piece of art that would serve “not only a commemoration but a reminder that discourse and discussion are pivotal,” the website said. The concept, tweeted by @mural_the, depicts John McCain’s face with an Arizona flag on...

While Pyongyang is cut off from the international financial system, it is able to make up to $2.3 billion in hard currency a year by sending some 100,000 or more workers abroad, according to estimates. Up to 80 per cent of them go to China and Russia, where they are employed in what the UN has called “slave-like conditions” and give up to 90 per cent of their wages to Kim Jong-un's regime. Contractors have said North Koreans helped build the World Cup stadium in St Petersburg, where at least one died on site. Previously many of them worked in...

Much of the heat that’s gripped California and hastened the spread of deadly wildfires recently is due to a strange but familiar shift in the jet stream — one that’s haunted the West with threatening fire conditions in the past and could cause more hot, dry spells in the future, especially with a changing climate. The jet stream, the river of wind high above the Northern Hemisphere, has been weaker and wavier in the past few weeks, scientists say. Instead of pushing weather systems along as it usually does, it’s allowing the patterns to stagnate. “We’re seeing this mix of...

The nine-banded armadillo is quietly expanding its range out of the southeastern United States, invading regions once too cold for the small mammal to survive. Scientists monitoring the armadillo's progress say the migration is a consequence of rising global temperatures. And it's a sign of more to come. "Armadillos are a pretty good climate change indicator species," said John MacGregor, a herpetologist at the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife. "When things that don't tolerate cold climates are suddenly appearing in a cold area, it tells me that area is getting warmer." Areas that once experienced bitterly cold winters, like...

The New York Times Magazine has done something unprecedented. On Wednesday, it released an entire issue containing just one article on the subject of global warming. “Losing Earth,” by Nathaniel Rich, chronicles the ten-year period from 1979 to 1989 in which scientists reached consensus about human-caused climate change, and politicians nearly came to a global-scale solution. Informed by more than 100 interviews and 18 months of reporting, the piece twists and turns around a zany cast of characters who bravely risked their careers to solve the climate crisis. There’s no spoiler alert needed for the ending: They failed. But it’s...

If Trump is disciplined enough to make the economy his headline, there's not much Democrats can do to counteract his message. Sure, his 2016 election win was about a lot of things that aren’t always prominent, like immigration and cultural change. But according to the massive national exit poll, the economy was still the foremost issue in voters’ minds. Fully 52 percent named the economy as the “most important issue facing the country,” compared to only 18 percent who said terrorism, 13 percent who went with immigration and another 13 percent who chose foreign policy. The thing you still need...

We all know about cross-border crime on the Mexico border.  What we don't know, according to the liberal media, is that the crime is all one-way: Mexico does not export crime to America, but America causes crime in Mexico.  A lot of it!  Who knew? The genesis of the article was a remark by President Trump that Mexico's murder rate increased by 27% to 31,000 murders in 2017, in justification for Trump's request for a border wall. The liberal media could not let that stand! So they cited reports claiming that Mexico does not cause crime in America.  Those stories you hear about...

Richard Stengel, a former high-level U.S. government official, head of the office for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the State Department from 2013 to 2016, former editor of Time Magazine and a regular pundit on MSNBC, said in April of 2018 at a Council on Foreign Relations forum about “fake news,” that he “supports the use of propaganda on American citizens.” He then continued; “Basically, every country creates their own narrative story and, you know, my old job at the State Department was what people used to joke as the ‘chief propagandist’ job.” Keep in mind, that in 2013,...

Donald Trump supporters have been filmed hurling sustained abuse at journalists following one of the US president’s “Make America Great Again” rallies. Footage showed a crowd surround a perimeter fence separating the press from the public after Mr Trump had finished his speech at the Fairgrounds Expo Hall in Tampa, Florida on Tuesday evening. As security looked on, supporters wearing MAGA hats and holding signs peddling popular rightwing conspiracy theories jeered and swore at the assembled press, with many of the mainly white crowd holding up a middle finger.

We are reaching a dead-end. The greatest threat to the future of Europe is neither Russian adventurism nor Muslim immigration. The true Europe is at risk because of the suffocating grip that the false Europe has over our imaginations—an empire of money and regulations, covered with sentiments of pseudo-religious universalism, that is being constructed by the European Union. The true Europe has been marked by Christianity. The universal spiritual empire of the Church brought cultural unity to Europe...This has allowed for particular civic loyalties to flourish within a shared European culture. Our gentle virtues are of an unmistakably Christian heritage:...

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger confirmed a meeting with President Donald Trump, revealing on Sunday that he urged the president to stop calling the media “fake news.” “I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people,’” he explained in a five-paragraph statement about his meeting with the president. Trump revealed the meeting first on Twitter, noting that he had an “interesting” meeting with Sulzberger. “Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media...

Remember that video of an emaciated Baffin Island polar bear that went viral last December? It became the poster bear for climate change. National Geographic made a stunning admission – it was a bit bogus. The Statement: National Geographic went too far in drawing a definitive connection between climate change and a particular starving polar bear in the opening caption of our video about the animal. We said, “This is what climate change looks like.” While science has established that there is a strong connection between melting sea ice and polar bears dying off, there is no way to know...

What’s the difference between fake news and a lie, shouldn’t we just go back to calling untruths what they really are, lies?

In a special preview for Axios readers, here's a new analysis by David Wasserman of Cook Political Report, unpacking the GOP's daunting math: "With 102 days to go, Democrats remain substantial favorites for House control. A big reason: Republicans are defending 42 open or vacant seats, a record since at least 1930." (After the March victory by Democrat Conor Lamb in Pennsylvania, Democrats need to flip 23 seats to take the House). "Of Republicans' 42 incumbent-less seats, eight are in districts that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and an additional 13 are in districts where President Trump received less...

House Democrats shared their new campaign slogan for 2018, per Politico: "For the People." Why it matters: Dems are trying to capture what they stand for by simplifying their economy-focused "A Better Deal" message, but neither slogan will inspire Democratic voters the way Trump's "Make America Great Again" broke through with Republicans. Show less Yes, but: Take it from Rep. Cheri Bustos, who told Politico that no one is "claiming this is poetic ... It’s just a way, in a quick way, to put together the answer to what we stand for.” The message will focus on using infrastructure to...

… “The word and even the signature of the Americans cannot be relied upon, so negotiations with America are of no avail,” Khamenei said in a meeting with Foreign Ministry officials, adding that negotiations with Washington would be an “obvious mistake”, according to his official website. …

Samantha Bee is demanding women take action against a man who could make abortion illegal. Or so she says. On her show Full Frontal July 18, host Samantha Bee ordered women to get “hysterical” over President Trump’s pick for next Supreme Court Justice: federal judge Brett Kavanaugh. She needn’t worry – they already have. But Bee’s fuss over abortion sounds like crying “wolf” after she called pro-lifers “d**kheads” of “toxic bullsh*t” in 2016 – not to mention other abortion outbursts. And there’s also that time she called Ivanka Trump a “feckless c***.” (Talk about looking out for women, as she...

Immigrant parents and children alleged in interviews filed in federal court this week that they faced mistreatment while being held in U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities, saying they were often deprived of food, water and sleep. In the interviews, which included some redactions and were filed as part of a lawsuit against the government's detention of minors, the immigrants described not being allowed to shower for days and being given rotten food and dirty drinking water. One woman described as Lidia, 22, said during her interview that she and her 4-year-old son “went hungry the entire time” they...