Free Republic

Russia cannot defeat Ukraine or the West - and will likely lose - if the West mobilizes its resources to resist the Kremlin. The West’s existing and latent capability dwarfs that of Russia. The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and our Asian allies is over $63 trillion.[1] The Russian GDP is on the close order of $1.9 trillion.[2] Iran and North Korea add little in terms of materiel support. China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia and is unlikely to do so.[3] If we lean in and...

The White House on Tuesday said it did not assess that Ukraine has reached a stalemate in its defensive war against Russia, as reports from the battlefield detail Kyiv’s struggles to oust Moscow’s forces from dug-in positions on the front lines. National security adviser Jake Sullivan, responding to a reporter’s question, said that Ukraine is taking territory on a “methodical, systematic basis.” “We do not assess that the conflict is a stalemate,” he said in a briefing with reporters. Ukraine’s second, major counteroffensive that was launched in June has proceeded much slower than its first major push in September 2022,...

Representative James Clyburn (D-SC) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “José Díaz-Balart Reports” that President Joe Biden can invoke the 14th Amendment to end the debt ceiling stalemate if necessary. Clyburn said, “I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I think that we all recognize that Janet Yellen made it very clear to us that something needs to be done by June 1st. I think it will get done.” He continued, “What I am saying is I think we ought to stop playing chicken and recognize the realities. 51-49, Republicans in the House, 51-49, Democrats in the Senate. Whatever we...

Going with the NBC forecast of a Republican 10-seat majority in the House, when the new Congress is seated on January 3, 2023, the cold hard facts on the ground will include the following: 1. The new Congress will be gridlocked. Neither the Ds nor the Rs will be able to enact legislation, the Ds because they lack a majority in the House, and the Rs because they lack the supermajority required to override a presidential veto. 2. Although the Democrats cannot enact any legislation without Republican support, their most important engine of law creation, the administrative agencies, can continue...

Ukrainian forces attacked drilling platforms in the Black Sea owned by a Crimean oil and gas company, the pro-Russian head of the annexed peninsula said on Monday, giving no details of what weapons were used. Three people were wounded and a search was under way for seven workers from the Chernomorneftegaz energy company, Sergei Askyonov, the Russian-installed head of Crimea, said in a post on Telegram. Crimean officials said work on three drilling platforms had been suspended after the hit, with fires reported. Reuters was unable to immediately verify the reports. Ukraine's military declined to comment. Russian-backed officials seized Chernomorneftegaz...

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Ukraine intensified artillery and missile strikes against the Russian-controlled parts of the Donbas region, targeting weapons depots and military bases in an effort to stall a Russian offensive, while Moscow unleashed new salvoes of long-range missiles—some of them shot down by air defenses—on cities across Ukraine. ... That Russian offensive is likely to have been further stalled by a successful Ukrainian missile strike on an ammunition storage facility used by Russia and its proxy forces in the town of Krasny Luch, deep in the rear of Russian-controlled Luhansk. While the strike, using the Tochka-U ballistic missile, took place on Thursday,...

NATO estimates that Russia has lost 7,000 to 15,000 troops during the six-week war — a startling number — while Ukraine puts the toll at 18,600. Those figures rival, if not exceed, the 14,453 lost during the Soviet Union’s roughly 10-year war in Afghanistan and the 11,000 Russian service members who died in the two Chechen wars. Russia puts the official military death toll of the Ukrainian campaign at 1,351. [Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry] Peskov vaguely discussed the possibility of ending the war in Ukraine.... “Our military are doing their best to bring an end to that operation,” he told the...

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now approaching its fourth week, President Vladimir Putin’s forces have exerted brutal force and destruction on the eastern European nation, forcing people to flee and making millions homeless. Russia’s economy is now creaking under the immense weight of international sanctions and the costs of war, having largely failed to achieve major military victories in Ukraine. Close watchers of Moscow, and Putin, say there are increasing signs of desperation in Russia’s military campaign and siege tactics. “I don’t think Russia can win,” Kurt Volker, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO, told CNBC.

Taiwan's defence ministry warned China of strong countermeasures on Wednesday if its forces got too close to the island, as Beijing defended its incursions into Taiwan's air defence zone as "just" moves to protect peace and stability. Military tensions with China, which claims Taiwan as its own territory, are at their worst in more than 40 years, Taiwan's defence minister said last week, adding China will be capable of mounting a "full scale" invasion by 2025. He was speaking after China mounted four straight days of mass air force incursions into Taiwan's air defence identification zone that began Oct. 1,...

It looks like Israel will be heading to a third election. It seems both sides, Netanyahu’s right and Gantz’s left-center cannot get the 61 votes needed to get a majority in the Knesset. There is one villain in this, and one victor.The reason Netanyahu could not get a victory is that Avigdor Lieberman refuses to throw his weight behind a Netanyahu coalition, unless the special privileges tendered to the religious right are done away with. For years, the religious right have wrested a lot of concessions from the Israeli state, such as draft exemptions and control of marriage. Secular...

Sub Header: "Expert warns campaign would cripple Washington's ability to do anything" Critics of President Donald Trump say his conflict with China’s trade practices, over that nation’s long history of taking advantage of America financially, his tariffs and his view of the world economy all are combining to pose a threat to the U.S. economy. This is despite stunningly low unemployment and high wage reports. The market itself has been anything but stable in recent weeks, with declines of 600 or more points in a day being followed by advances of 600 points or more in a day. Now a...

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Monday said he feared a messy stalemate in the US presidential election amid Republican candidate Donald Trump’s comments about the election being rigged. […] “(We) hope that it will be an election result which is accepted by everyone and that we do not possibly get a delayed stalemate,” Schäuble said as he arrived for talks with this eurozone counterparts in Brussels. “(Let us) believe in the rationality of democracy,” Schäuble added when asked if he was expecting turmoil in the markets after Tuesday’s election. …

Dive Brief: Passaic County, NJ, has announced its intention to sue the state's Department of Transportation for costs resulting from Gov. Chris Christie's order to shut down all projects funded through the near-empty Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), according to The Record.Citing safety issues, Passaic County officials said they used their own funds to continue with certain state projects after the shutdown, such as a $330,000 repaving project that left raised manhole covers exposed. The county has a multimillion-dollar lineup of infrastructure projects now on hold.Passaic County Counsel William Pascrell, who notified the state DOT of Passaic's intention to sue over...

President Obama's 70-minute White House meeting late Wednesday afternoon with congressional leaders, an effort to break the stalemate over the partial government shutdown, did nothing to help end the impasse. "We had a nice conversation, light conversation," House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said following the meeting, but noted the president repeated that he will not negotiate on dialing back Obamacare. He added that he hopes that Mr. Obama and Democrats will have a serious discussion about resolving their differences with House Republicans. "All we're asking for is a discussion and fairness for the American people under Obamacare," he said. House...

For the second time in as many months, the Federal Aviation Administration may temporarily furlough some 80,000 employees if Congress can't reach a deal to extend the agency's funding by Friday night. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has held up passage of the funding extension bill, which would appropriate additional money for the FAA and federal highway transit projects, citing an objection to one component of the transit side of the legislation. The House unanimously passed that bill Tuesday, and the Senate has until midnight on Friday to also pass it before funding for the FAA runs out. Complicating matters, Majority...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks ended the worst week in a year as time runs out on Washington to reach agreement before the government loses its ability to borrow money. The S&P 500 fell every day this week and was down 3.9 percent for the week as legislators failed to work out an agreement to raise the federal borrowing limit, which expires on Tuesday. Investors also worry about the likelihood of a U.S. credit downgrade. The CBOE Market Volatility Index <.VIX>, a gauge of investor fear, jumped as much as 9 percent to its highest level since mid-March before paring...

Rome, 30 March (AKI) - Arming rebels in Libya would be a bad idea that can potentially cause divisions among the international community, according to an Italian government official. “Arming the rebels would be a controversial measure, an extreme measure that could certainly divide the international community,” foreign ministry spokesman Maurizio Massari said Wednesday in a radio interview with Radioanch’io. Unite States president Barack Obama in a Tuesday interview with the NBC television network said he would consider arming the rebels. "I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in," Obama said. France also did not exclude...

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff, has said the military operation in Libya called for by the UN Security Council is not aimed at regime change - adding that a "stalemate" could well exist, leaving Muammar Gaddafi in power. The 64-year-old admiral also said that no-fly zone had "effectively been established", as Gaddafi's planes had not taken to the skies following Saturday's overnight shelling of dozens of targets in northern Libya. Anti-aircraft fire was also heard in the Libyan capital on Sunday night, indicating a second wave of incoming jets. Tracer rounds and machine-gun fire...

Jeanne Lemire Dahlman, a Montana superdelegate and rancher, has declared her allegiance to Senator Barack Obama. But she said voters in her state, whose primary is June 3, are thrilled by the unresolved Democratic nominating fight, which gives them a potential voice in a nominating process that has usually bypassed them. “A part of me would like to wrap this up,” she acknowledged. “But I think Senator Clinton should continue, unless she tanks in Indiana.” The Pennsylvania primary was supposed to help clarify the picture for the 795 Democratic superdelegates, but Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s strong victory there on Tuesday...