Free Republic

This video provides one of the most erudite and informative looks at Covid-19 and the consequences of lockdowns. As AIER notes, it was remarkable this week to watch as it appeared on YouTube and was forcibly taken down only 2 hours after posting. The copy below is hosted on LBRY, a blockchain video application. In a year of fantastic educational content, this is one of the best we’ve seen. Dr. Michael Yeadon is an Allergy & Respiratory Therapeutic Area expert with 23 years in the pharmaceutical industry. He trained as a biochemist and pharmacologist, obtaining his PhD from the University...

by Joe Callen An intense moment unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives between Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) and Jerry Nadler (D-NY) on Wednesday, as Nadler made a wild accusation against Gohmert, and the Republican angrily demanded his comments be "taken down." “But let’s be honest, the president turning his back on Ukraine, that happened in 2009 because in 2008 Ukraine invaded Georgia, what happened? Bush put sanctions on Russia to teach him a lesson,” Gohmert continued. “What happened after that? Well, in March of 2009 Hillary Clinton was sent over to Russia with a reset button...

he White House said Wednesday that President Trump would consider whether to allow Russian prosecutors to interview onetime U.S. ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul and other Americans in connection with criminal claims against Bill Browder, a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin. On Wednesday, Sanders said there "was some conversation" between Trump and Putin at their Monday summit about Russia's request, "but there wasn’t a commitment made on behalf of the United States and the president will work with his team and we’ll let you know if there’s an announcement on that front." "Work with his team to do...

What Six Years of ‘Reset’ with Russia Have Wrought by CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER August 27, 2015 On September 5, 2014, Russian agents crossed into Estonia and kidnapped an Estonian security official. Last week, after a closed trial, Russia sentenced him to 15 years. The reaction? The State Department issued a statement. The NATO secretary-general issued a tweet. Neither did anything. The European Union (reports the Wall Street Journal) said it was too early to discuss any possible action. The timing of this brazen violation of NATO territory — two days after President Obama visited Estonia to symbolize America’s commitment to its...

The ten arrested Russian spies have arrived in Vienna, and shortly will be back in Moscow. Sentenced last night in New York, they gave their real Russian names, pleaded guilty, and were sentenced to time served — a few short days. Never has a spy swap been orchestrated so quickly. In the era of the Cold War, there were plenty of swaps. The most famous was that of KGB Colonel Rudolf Abel for the U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in 1962. Abel was the name he adopted, when he lived in Greenwich Village and Brooklyn, and posed as an artist....

"Here, press this piece of plastic!"

The Russian military is considering the possibility of regaining its Soviet-era bases on Cuba and in Vietnam, the Defense Ministry said Friday, a statement that comes amid growing U.S.-Russia tensions over Syria. Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov told lawmakers Friday that the ministry is considering the possibility of establishing footholds far away from Russia’s borders. Responding to a lawmaker’s question if the military could return to Cuba and Vietnam, Pankov said the military is “reviewing” a decision to withdraw from them, but didn’t offer any specifics. “As for our presence on faraway outposts, we are doing this work,” he said....

Somebody handed the keys of a luxury car over to a woman who barely knows how to drive and clearly knows nothing about parallel parking. What could go wrong?Whoops! I guess we need one of those “Reset” buttons.A woman runs over the hood of a $300,000 Ferrari while trying to park her Mercedes in a space the size of semi-truck. It’s  unclear at this point if the car’s computer system had been hacked into, the driver had some type of medical “short circuit,” or if it was just a case of an incompetent driver behind the wheel of an expensive...

Russia is ready to restore economic cooperation and other ties with Turkey, President Vladimir Putin has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in St. Petersburg. It is Mr. Erdogan’s first foreign visit since an attempted coup last month. Mr. Erdogan thanked Mr. Putin, saying “your call straight after the coup attempt was very welcome”. Russian-Turkish relations soured last November when Turkey shot down a Russian bomber on the Syrian border. The visit comes as Turkey’s ties with the West have cooled over criticism of Mr. Erdogan’s purge of alleged coup-plotters. …

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton basked in a diplomatic “Moscow Spring,” seizing on Vladimir Putin’s break from the presidency to help seal a nuclear arms-control treaty and secure Russia’s acquiescence to a NATO-led military intervention in Libya. But when Putin returned to the top job, things changed. Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, has vowed to stand up to Putin if elected, drawing on her four years of ups and downs as the public face of President Barack Obama’s first-term “reset” with Russia. By comparison, her Republican opponent, Donald Trump, has rung alarm bells in Washington and Europe with his...

Russia’s will deploy its new RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missiles to units in Siberia and the southern Urals when the enormous new weapon becomes operational in 2018. The massive liquid-fueled missiles will replace the existing Cold War-era R-36M2 Voyevoda (SS-18 Satan) ICBM—which is the largest such weapon ever built. “The development of the Sarmat silo-based missile system with a heavy missile is nearing completion,” Col. Gen. Sergei Karakayev, commander of Russia’s Strategic Missile Forces told the Moscow-based TASS News agency. “It will replace the Voyevoda missile system in the Uzhur missile division and the Dombarovsky position area.”

NATO’s secretary-general says the NATO-Russia Council will meet for the first time since 2014 within the next two weeks. The announcement Friday from Jens Stoltenberg was a sign both sides might be seeking an improvement in relations, which have been in the deep freeze since Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. NATO accuses Moscow of violating its international obligations by annexing Crimea, and of backing a pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine. …

NBC is calling it for Clinton.

1) Polls show that, by a large margin, Americans feel we're on the wrong track, both economically and as to foreign policy. Yet none of you offers any criticism of President Barack Obama, who has been in charge for the last seven years. Why, then, should Americans believe that four more years, under your leadership, would be any different from the last seven? 2) Sen. Sanders, you've called for a $15-per-hour minimum wage. But even Vice President Joe Biden's economist, Jared Bernstein, considers a $15 hourly rate so high that it would cause an unacceptable loss of jobs. Is he...

Lithuania said Friday it would buy 88 German-made armored fighting vehicles in its biggest-ever military purchase amid concerns over neighboring Russia. "We have come to the unequivocal opinion to choose and acquire the Boxer infantry fighting vehicles," said Lithuania's defense chief Jonas Vytautas Zukas. [...] The three Baltic states and Poland have also called for a permanent NATO presence in the region to deter Russia, but the allies have so far stuck to back-to-back troop rotations. ...

EXCERPT "There will be an intensification of the strategy that we put forward but the strategy they we put forward is the strategy that ultimately is going to work," Obama told reporters at a news conference at the close of a Group of 20 summit.

Russia warned on Wednesday that it will rebuild its nuclear presence in Europe if the US carries out plans to extend its nuclear arsenal in Germany. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman warned that Russia would be forced to re-establish “strategic balance” if the US carries out plans recently reported in the German media to strengthen its nuclear arsenal in Germany, reports Spiegel. According to a report by broadcaster ZDF published on Monday, preparations are currently underway at the Büchel military base in Rhineland-Palatinate to station 20 new nuclear bombs there. The broadcaster claims to have seen copies of the American...

President Vladimir Putin signed a bill into law Saturday giving prosecutors the power to declare foreign and international organizations “undesirable” in Russia and shut them down. […] The law is part of a Kremlin campaign to stifle dissent that intensified after Putin began his third term in 2012. His return to the presidency had been accompanied by mass street protests that Putin accused the United States of fomenting. Russian suspicions of Western intentions have been further heightened because of tensions over Russia’s role in the conflict in Ukraine. The new Russian law allows prosecutors to declare an organization undesirable if...

Is another shoe about to drop on the Clinton Foundation, and on Hillary Clinton’s problematic rollout? Newsweek’s Rory Ross reported this morning that the largest individual donor to the Clinton family business has conducted trade with Iran, perhaps in breach of US sanctions. Ukrainian energy mogul Victor Pinchuk has connections to the Clintons that go back almost a decade, and financial connections to the regime in Tehran that go much farther: The fourth richest man in Ukraine, Pinchuk owns Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors.Newsweek has seen declarations and documents from...

Russian hackers last year were able to breach a White House computer system after a successful cyber-attack on the State Department, a news report said Tuesday. The report by CNN says the hackers were able to get sensitive information, including non-public details about President Obama’s schedule. White House officials responded by saying the attack last year was made public and that no classified information was compromised. And they declined to comment on CNN’s assertion that Russia was the culprit. …