Free Republic

Bill Anders has died, apparently piloting his own plane. He was the astronaut who took the iconic photo of the whole Earth from the Moon on his trip around it on Apollo 8, which was the actual moment when we won the space race. And it became the icon for the environmental movement, for good or ill. I consider myself privileged to consider him a friend, and I’ll explain why anon, but for now, farewell, yet another hero of that era, who (unlike many of his Apollo cohorts) understood how important commercial space was. I was at AIAA SciTech Forum...

On July 24, roughly two weeks after Donald Trump's sentencing in Manhattan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is schedule to travel to Washington and address a joint session of Congress. The invitation was set up by House Speaker Mike Johnson and (eventually) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He is expected to provide an update on the war in Gaza and thank the United States for it's continuing support of his country. But not everyone is happy about it. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during an interview with CNN, described the invitation as a "mistake," saying the decision was "wrong" and that...

Anti-Israel virtue signaling is usually reserved for know-nothing college students who may or may not be smart enough to realize how antisemitic their movement is. Sometimes, though, even whole countries find out how virtue signaling can backfire.Ireland, Norway, and Spain all decided to reward Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians and promise to continue to try and kill Israeli civilians by declaring that they would recognize “Palestine” as an independent state. As part of that process, Norway will be turning its diplomatic office in the West Bank into an embassy, and Ireland announced it would create an embassy as well.Spain,...

Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a biological female who identified as a transgender male at the time of her March 27, 2023 attack, wrote a three-page journal entry titled “My Imaginary Penis” that was included in the writings recovered from her vehicle. The Tennessee Star confirmed on Wednesday it obtained nearly four dozen pages of Hale’s writings from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation, including the March 11, 2023 entry discussing her desire to have a male anatomy. Hale’s diary or journal entry begins with the title “My Imaginary Penis” and includes a crude drawing. “My penis exists...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed to enact tougher measures to deport criminals, terrorists, and terror supporters after a 25-year-old Afghan man committed a fatal stabbing last week. Currently, Germany does not deport people back to Afghanistan or Syria partly due to the harsh conditions and oppressive leadership in those countries. Afghanistan is run by the Taliban, a brutal Islamist militant organization with which Germany does not have diplomatic relations, while Syria is led by Bashar al-Assad, the Iran-backed leader who has been accused of mass war crimes during his country’s ongoing civil war. But Scholz is looking to restore...

You know the nearer your destinationThe more you're slip slidin' away - Paul SimonPresident Biden "shows signs of slipping," the Wall Street Journal reported this week. Journalists Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes—no conservatives—spoke to 45 people who have met with the president and noticed his mental and physical decline. They recount, in detail, several meetings over the past year where Biden has been forgetful, confused, and out of it. The president, Linskey and Hughes report, "appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones." No kidding. You don't need the Journal to tell you that Biden is...

The Israeli Defense Forces struck a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in northern Gaza, killing 37 people, according to a Gaza hospital. The school was part of the Nuseirat refugee camp and, like many UN schools, was used by Hamas to harbor terrorists. This particular school compound also sheltered displaced civilians from the refugee camp. The IDF says that from 30-40 Hamas fighters were in three classrooms of the school. The fighters belonged to the notorious and elite Nukhba force who took part in the October 7 massacre in Israel. The army said that...

Wednesday morning. His comments were wrapped in platitudes but cut against the American people’s right to freedom of speech. He could not be more wrong. McRaven claims that those who criticize government institutions “undermine America.” "Undermining America” is a serious charge. And when it comes from a four-star admiral who commanded the entire United States Special Operations Command, you can bet that it carries some clout among those who are wielding power. For these reasons, McRaven’s comments merit close scrutiny. ... McRaven began, not by answering the question, but instead by making sure that his political views got out there....

One of the most popular books in the 1980s was the satire “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” It was a tongue-in-cheek homage to what even then was a perceived fading masculinity starting to infect our broader society. One of the chapters listed “Historic dates in Real Man history.” Of June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day, it states: “150,000 Real Men storm Normandy beach.” In a way, I could end this piece right there, as I cannot offer a more fitting tribute to what occurred on those hallowed beaches 80 years ago today. But I will try. Because as the...

If you take the view that art is inherently subversive, it's tragic that October 7 exists.The play, the latest from Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, brings the stories of victims and survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks to life.McAleer is credited as the writer, though the words themselves come from verbatim transcripts of interviews he and McElhinney conducted in Israel in the aftermath of Hamas' murder of 1,200 people, not to mention the rapes, kidnappings, and other horrors that, for at least one father, made death preferable.As one man, Michael (Randy Schein), says of his slain daughter Rachel:"We are crying,...

On Wednesday, the Georgia Court of Appeals made a decisive move in the racketeering case involving former President Donald Trump. With an official order, the court has halted all proceedings. It's because of the pending ruling on the defendants' motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. The appeals court directed Judge Scott McAfee hit the breaks on the case until this matter is resolved. This decision comes in the wake of concerns surrounding Willis' impartiality. In March, McAfee ruled that despite "a significant appearance of impropriety” due to her romantic involvement with special prosecutor Nathan...

Before getting to that, let me be a Lying Skank Jen Psaki and Circle Back to turmoil at the Washington Post. I've quoted some of this but some of this is new (unless you saw it on other websites, which you probably did).As you know, the Washington Post employees are revolting. But the new news is that they're also rebelling.When Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and new interim executive editor Matt Murray met with staff Monday, the newsroom was still coming to terms with the abrupt exit of Sally Buzbee, who had led the paper since May 2021."Everyone was pretty...

Sometimes unexpected but dramatic events tear off the thin veneer of respectability and convention. What follows is the exposure and repudiation of long-existing but previously covered-up pathologies. Events like the destruction of the southern border over the last three years, the Oct. 7 massacre and ensuing Gaza war, the campus protests, the COVID-19 panpidemic and lockdown, and the systematic efforts to weaponize our bureaucracies and courts have all led to radical reappraisals of American culture and civilization. Since the 1960s, universities have always been hotbeds of left-wing protests, sometimes violently so. But the post-Oct. 7 campus eruptions marked a watershed...

Of all the phony baloney things I've heard about Joe Biden, this one ranks extremely high up there as one of the most insane takes possible. During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Andrew Weissmann, who was an attorney for the Mueller investigation and former general counsel to the FBI, literally gushed over Joe Biden, essentially calling him the embodiment of the rule of law. "What is before us is a president who is living, the rule of law he is living in ...the most personal way," he claimed. "He is not telling DOJ to stand down, which is his power...

On April 8, 2017, a few months before Louis CK’s career went off a cliff, he hosted Saturday Night Live for the fourth and probably final time. He did a pretty good monologue, starting each chunk of jokes with an edgy take but then winning over the crowd. It was good. It was Louis CK. (I think I remember The Chainsmokers? I don’t think I remember The Chainsmokers.) Early 2017 was a really good time to be that guy. His critically acclaimed FX series Louie had brought his comedy to a wider audience. He’d won several Emmys, a few Grammys,...

The WNBA is finally getting eyeballs, and what we see is a bunch of nasty women brutalizing Caitlin Clark because this is what predictably happens concerning women in the workforce. Whether it be on the court or in corporate America, it’s women bullying other women that breeds actual toxicity. Clark was the first overall pick. She’s starting to play better on a very bad and rebuilding Indiana Fever team. She’s doing her job, but the rest of the league seems to have a bounty on her. Clark won’t break and probably will soak up the intense scrutiny surrounding her impact...

What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.If you wonder why I—a woman of color, an African, a former Muslim, a former asylum seeker, and an immigrant—look at the antics of today’s anti-Israel, anti-American protesters with such fear and trembling, allow me to explain.I was born in Somalia in 1969. The country had achieved independence nine years before. But less than a month before I was born—on October 21, 1969—a junior member of the brand-new Somali armed forces seized power with the help of the Soviet...

Most of the people around me have, not surprisingly, been feeling a little off since the kangaroo court verdict last Thursday. There's going to be a lot of that for the next few months, years, or, well, ever. On Sunday afternoon, a friend reminded me that it is now the secular holy month of Pride, which I had managed to not think of until that point. Yeah, I hadn't gone anywhere near the news or social media for a couple of days. I immediately thought, "Hey, let's kick off the week with some annual Pride Month lamentation!" Even the slightest...

A fight broke out late one Saturday night, or, more accurately, early Sunday morning, at a bar on Chicago’s South Side. Someone called the police just after 4:30 AM. But the police didn’t come. The fight soon moved outside; one man issued a threat, got into his car, and then plowed it into the crowd, just before five o’clock. Three people were killed. Still no police. An officer wasn’t dispatched until 5:20 and didn’t arrive until more than an hour after the original call. Chicago faces a dire police shortage. (See “Can We Get Back to Tougher Policing?,”) Over half...

The verdict in the show trial of Donald Trump should surprise no one. It was a foregone conclusion from the start, and the antics of the “prosecution” and “judge” were farcical to the point of making Chinese, Soviet, and Nazi show-trail judges shake their heads. There was absolutely nothing fair, proper, or even legal about the proceeding. Those telling you to respect the jury system, the rule of law, etc. are telling you exactly who and what they are, and who they serve on Earth and beyond. This is especially true for non-Democrats doing such. Make note of them and...