Free Republic

Russia continued ramp up its dangerous cat-and-mouse game with the United States as one of its MiG-31 warplanes flew within 50 feet of an American surveillance jet in Northeast Asia, The Washington Free Beacon reports. The nerve-rattling incident occurred just one week after a Russian Su-27 flew within 50 feet of an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft in an "unsafe and unprofessional manner," the Pentagon said. Russia’s latest act of aggression occurred on April 21 as a U.S. Navy P-8 Maritime Patrol reconnaissance aircraft flew on a routine mission in international airspace.

Hillary Clinton‘s stature has been battered after more than a month of controversy over her fundraising and email practices, but support for her among Democrats remains strong and unshaken, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds. In just seven weeks, a period in which Mrs. Clinton formally began her presidential campaign, the share of people with a negative view of her jumped to 42% from 36% in last month’s survey, and only a quarter of registered voters said they viewed her as honest and straightforward, down from 38% last summer. But she remains highly regarded among Democrats, with 76%...

Hillary Clinton has a sneaky plan to become the next president — get a conservative third-party candidate in the race to draw votes away from the Republican nominee. Clinton campaign strategists have concluded Hillary will easily be nominated in 2016, but cannot win the general election in a head-to-head matchup, Richard Turley reports on orbmagazine.com. “They are reaching out to Wall Street allies to do ‘black-ops’ funding for a run by Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum or Herman Cain,” a source told Orb. Hillary’s approval rating is stuck at 43 percent, not enough to win a two-person race for president.

The Russian dictator humanitarian, Vladimir Putin, is sending some much needed food and water to those poor oppressed rebels in Eastern Ukraine. After already having shown his penchant for helping individuals who suffer under the tyranny of democratic freedom in the semi-autonomous Peninsula of Crimea, Putin has decided to lend aid to a “rag-tag” group of Pro-Russian separatists… Because if the 20th Century has taught us anything, it is that nothing says “freedom” like a hammer and sickle. In justifying his “humanitarian aid”, the Bond Villain Putin explained that his humanitarian mission was endorsed by the Red Cross… Surely he...

Editor's Note: This column was coauthored by Bob Morrison. It may have been the most effective political ad in history. President Reagan ‘s 1984 “Prepared for Peace” ad was a 30-second spot featuring a bear. It put the essential question to the American voters and let them decide who was right. They decided then that Reagan was right: It was best to be “as strong as the bear, if there is a bear. President Reagan carried forty-nine states that year. It’s helpful to remember what was happening in the world at that time. Just the previous September, the USSR...

Maybe Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin really did discuss the idea of putting Syrian chemical weapons under international control last week on the sidelines of the G20 conference. Putin sure doesn’t care that Obama’s taking credit for the proposal, or that the administration is posturing like a Mob enforcer. “The only reason why we are seeing this proposal,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney, “is because of the U.S. threat of military action.” Right, Putin is laughing to himself. Whatever. If Obama wants to sell it like a Christmas miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue that’s fine with Putin, because Putin won....