Free Republic

Some series I have enjoyed. Croatian,russkies,chinese,lord-knows-who or what.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on Friday that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should force members of his caucus to call off hearings and business meetings scheduled next week as part of GOP investigations tied to the Obama administration. Schumer, in a letter sent to Senate Democrats, said Republicans have become the "conspiracy caucus." "The Republican-led Judiciary and Homeland Security Committees — two powerful committees with broad jurisdiction over issues related to the coronavirus — have instead used their majority to chase wild conspiracy theories to appease President Trump," Schumer wrote. "They have failed the American people by...

America faces a contagious infection: partisanship. Consider the responses to a poll question about treating the COVID-19 virus with the long-approved and widely used drug hydroxychloroquine. A Morning Consult poll shows 52% of Republicans supporting the drug and 16% against. At the same time and in the same country, 56% of Democrats opposed it, and 13% were in favor. You can be reasonably sure that 99% of these respondents had never heard of COVID-19 and/or hydroxychloroquine on New Year's Day 2020. Their opinions are obviously responses to President Donald Trump's statements that the drug might be useful in treating the...

Europe’s extensive social welfare net was showing signs of fraying under economic strain from the coronavirus, as protests erupted Friday for a second day in Spain against layoffs by French carmaker Renault, while Italy’s chief central banker warned that “uncertainty is rife.” Elsewhere, New Zealand has all but eradicated the coronavirus with just one person in the nation of 5 million known to be infected. But developments were grim in other nations, with India reporting a record increase in cases, and Pakistan and Russia a record number of deaths. As cases steadily rose across Africa, officials who are losing the...

The sustained plunge in global oil prices has brought deep, unexpected shifts on the geopolitical landscape, with impacts felt in the Arctic and the Middle East, and in the fortunes of the American heartland and the future of the Russian-Chinese strategic alliance. A U.S.-engineered market truce has helped energy prices rebound slightly this month after flatlining in April, but analysts say reverberations will likely be felt for years to come as they chip away at the foundational international partnerships in the post-World War II era and create new alliances and rivalries. Analysts say there is no way the U.S. and...

On the morning of 30 June 1908, a large explosion occurred near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in Yeniseysk Governorate (now Krasnoyarsk Krai), Russia. That event is known as the Tunguska event that leveled trees across more than 2,000 square kilometers. It is classified as an impact event, even though no impact crater has been found. Due to the remoteness of the site and the limited instrumentation available at the time of the event, modern scientific interpretations of its cause and magnitude have relied chiefly on damage assessments, and geological studies conducted many years after the fact. The most likely cause...

Explanation: Yes, but can your meteor do this? The most powerful natural explosion in recent Earth history occurred on 1908 June 30 when a meteor exploded above the Tunguska River in Siberia, Russia. Detonating with an estimated power 1,000 times greater than the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima, the Tunguska event leveled trees over 40 kilometers away and shook the ground in a tremendous earthquake. Eyewitness reports are astounding. The above picture was taken by a Russian expedition to the Tunguska site almost 20 years after the event, finding trees littering the ground like toothpicks. Estimates of the meteor's size...

Israel's Annexation Plan of the Jordan Valley European thinking, Abdullah’s reaction, and Israel’s rights. Thu May 28, 2020 Joseph Puder The new Israeli government is considering extending Israeli law and sovereignty to the Jordan Valley, which is within area C of the Oslo Accords. The Accords, which gave Israel both military and administrative control in the area, also contains a large bloc of Jewish-Israeli communities. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on a short visit to Israel (April 22, 2020) told reporters: “As for annexation of the (Jordan Valley) West Bank, the Israelis will ultimately make those decisions.” He added,...

The Spanish health watchdog has said it sees no reason to stop the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the potentially dangerous medicine touted as a Covid-19 treatment by the US president. Several European nations, including France, Italy and Belgium, have decided to suspend prescription of the anti-malaria drug, which came to international prominence after US President Donald Trump said the medicine could be used to tackle Covid-19 and that he himself was taking it. The Spanish health watchdog, AEMPS, said the paper published by the magazine Lancet, which warned about health risks associated with HCQ, was not conclusive enough to stop...

Russia’s Health Ministry announced it will not ban hydroxychloroquine, seen by some as potentially dangerous. The drug, touted by US President Trump, has been suspended for use in treating Covid-19 in France, Italy, and Belgium. On Thursday, the Russian Health Ministry stated on its website that hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness and safety in the treatment of coronavirus is continually being monitored, but the ministry is not taking any steps towards outlawing it. This decision is in sharp contrast to moves made by some European countries which, due to safety concerns, have completely stopped the prescription of the drug to fight the coronavirus....

Whitaker describes this as the “obstruction of justice trap.” Essentially, this approach confirms the second-prong purpose of the Mueller investigation itself. First, use the special counsel in 2017, 2018 and into the beginning of 2019, as a shield (hide information); and secondly a weapon (threats) against any entity who would reveal the background intelligence that undercut the Trump-Russia collusion narrative. We know President Trump was threatened by Rod Rosenstein not to declassify any information in September of 2018 or the Mueller investigation would use that act as evidence of obstruction. Whitaker confirms that same approach was applied toward any executive...

On this date in 1987, a once-promising American intelligence asset was executed with a single gunshot to the head in Moscow — his treachery exposed by two of the most infamous Soviet moles in U.S. intelligence history. A Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB posted to the Soviets’ official Washington, D.C. offices in 1980, Martynov had turned in 1982 and begun funneling intelligence to the CIA and FBI under the cryptonym “Gentile”. Truth be told, he was a mediocre source, but he was a younger officer with the chance to grow into a more important asset in the years ahead. Fate...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced on Wednesday that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will testify next week as part of the Judiciary Committee's probe into the FBI's Russia investigation. The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday, June 3, marks the first public hearing Graham will hold as part of his deep dive into "Crossfire Hurricane," the name for the investigation into Russia's 2016 election interference and the Trump campaign. Rosenstein, in a statement, confirmed that he would testify.

In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower proposed to the Kremlin that the U.S. and the USSR each be permitted to conduct aerial reconnaissance of the other’s territory and collect data on each other’s military forces and activities to enhance confidence that neither was planning a surprise attack. Moscow refused, calling it a license for American spying. Intensification of the Cold War made the issue dormant until President George H.W. Bush revived it in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The “Open Skies Treaty” was signed and ratified in 2002 and now has 34 members. According to the Arms...

Emmet SullivanÂ’s order welcoming amicus curiae briefs in a criminal case would cause a reasonable person to question Judge SullivanÂ’s impartiality. Judge Emmet Sullivan must recuse from the Michael Flynn criminal case because he no longer maintains any semblance of impartiality.On December 1, 2017, Flynn appeared before federal Judge Randolph Contreras and pleaded guilty to one count of making a false statement to FBI agents. Less than a week later, and without explanation, the case was reassigned to Sullivan, who has served as the presiding judge in the Flynn case since then.Circumstances have long suggested that Judge Sullivan holds an...

U.S. Africa Command assesses that Moscow recently deployed military fighter aircraft to Libya in order to support Russian state-sponsored private military contractors (PMCs) operating on the ground there. Russian military aircraft are likely to provide close air support and offensive fires for the Wagner Group PMC that is supporting the Libyan National Army's (LNA) fight against the internationally recognized Government of National Accord. The Russian fighter aircraft arrived in Libya, from an airbase in Russia, after transiting Syria where it is assessed they were repainted to camouflage their Russian origin. "Russia is clearly trying to tip the scales in its...

The Russian Federation has sent MIG-29 and Su-35 fighters to Libya, as well as Su-24 bombers, from its Air Force (ICCCC) - US Air Force Command told the US Air Force. The planes were originally transferred from Russia to The Russian Federation has sent MIG-29 and Su-35 fighters to Libya, as well as Su-24 bombers, from its Air Force (ICCCC) - US Air Force Command told the US Air Force. The planes were originally transferred from Russia to Syria, where they were repainted to cover up their belonging to the Russian Air Force. According to US intelligence, planes will be...

Hundreds of Russian military contractors in Libya were evacuated on Monday after retreating from fighting on the capital's front lines, forces backing the unity government said. The claim comes after a series of setbacks for eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar's year-long offensive to seize Tripoli from the UN-supported Government of National Accord (GNA). "An Antonov 32 military cargo plane landed at Bani Walid airport to resume the evacuation of Wagner [Group] mercenaries who had fled southern Tripoli to an as-yet unconfirmed destination," pro-GNA forces wrote on Twitter. Pro-GNA forces said Monday some "1,500 to 1,600 mercenaries" had fled from the...

The nineteenth century has often been characterized as an "age of revolution." Indeed, it was an age brimming over with revolutionary ideas of all sorts, as well as with political and social movements seeking to implement those ideas. The cast of revolutionary characters includes Marx and Engels, Darwin, Comte, and Freud; among major events -the French Revolutions, to name but a few. The nineteenth century was also an age of scientific revolution -- not The Scientific Revolution, a designation traditionally reserved for the period of radical and innovative discoveries which occurred in the interval between Copernicus and Newton -- even...

The first of five Iranian tankers carrying much-needed gasoline and oil derivatives docked in Venezuela on Monday, Caracas announced amid concern in Washington over the burgeoning relationship between countries it sees as international pariahs. In a statement delivered on state television, Oil Minister Tareck El Aissami said the convoy was an expression of the Venezuelan people's "self-determination" and praised Tehran's friendship at a time of need.