Free Republic

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In the two weeks since the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, President Donald Trump increasingly has been knocked on his political heels. He’s grown more agitated with news coverage and has failed to find a way to explain why he started the war — or how he will end it — that resonates with a public concerned by American deaths in the conflict, surging oil prices and dropping financial markets. Even some of his supporters are questioning his plan and his overall poll numbers are declining. Meanwhile, Moscow is getting a boost...

President Donald Trump and some of his closest advisers were caught off guard by the scope of Iran’s military response to U.S. strikes, while key Gulf allies have privately expressed anger at the White House’s decision to escalate the conflict, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The publication reported Friday that “the president and some aides were surprised at the breadth and scope of Iran’s retaliation,” which included missile and drone launches targeting regional countries from Azerbaijan to Oman, according to people familiar with the matter.” Gulf allies have reacted sharply behind closed doors. “Allies in the Gulf are...

America should not play global judge, jury, and executioner. This role is bad for us. It harms our economy and rots our national character. Moreover, foreign wars distract from much more important goals here at home. Trump’s decision to pursue the Iran war, for instance, distracts from his much more important domestic policy goals on immigration, inflation, and dismantling leftist-controlled institutions. The political capital required to wage this war of choice is simply too high. The downside risks of being sucked into a months- or even years-long war are too great. The threat to the global economy from a sustained...

Florsheim, the shoe brand President Donald Trump has been widely reported to favor and gift to allies, is owned by a parent company that is suing his administration over tariffs imposed during his second term. Weyco Group Inc., which owns Florsheim Shoe Company, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade in December challenging the legality of those tariffs and seeking refunds for duties it says were unlawfully collected.

The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since ​the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now, according to sources familiar with the matter. The ‌Navy's assessments spell continued disruption to Middle East oil exports. The U.S. Navy has held regular ⁠briefings with shipping and oil industry counterparts and has said during those briefings it is unable to provide escorts for the time being, three shipping industry sources familiar with ​the matter said. The sources, who declined to be identified...

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the war with Iran had already been decided in America's favor. He told supporters in Hebron, Kentucky, that the conflict was effectively over almost as soon as it began. Trump said U.S. forces knocked out 58 Iranian naval vessels and eliminated the country’s air force. “Let me say we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won, in the first hour it was over, but we won,” the president said. He added, “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job."

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, reversed himself on the Senate filibuster Wednesday after years of unflinching support for the 60-vote threshold to pass most bills. Now, locked in a competitive Republican runoff for his Senate seat and eyeing President Donald Trump's endorsement, Cornyn says he'll support "whatever changes to Senate rules that may prove necessary" to pass the SAVE America Act, a sweeping election overhaul bill that Trump has called his No. 1 priority. Cornyn's comments are part of an op-ed he wrote in the New York Post published Wednesday, titled: "Why the SAVE Act matters more than the filibuster." The...

President Donald Trump announced Monday that the war in Iran would be over “very soon,” and that oil tankers would be given special U.S. Navy escorts to navigate between the Persian Gulf and global oceans. With gasoline prices and energy inflation already ticking up around the world, the speedy resumption of global petroleum trade has become a matter of urgency for the global economy, according to the world’s largest oil and gas company.The widening conflict in the Middle East has all but immobilized the fossil fuel trade stemming from the region over the past 10 days. Attacks targeting vessels and...

President Trump on Tuesday quipped about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney becoming the “future Governor of Canada,” reviving an insult previously hurled at his predecessor Justin Trudeau over the president’s push for America’s northern neighbor to become the 51st state. “I’m working with Governor Gretchen Whitmer [D-Mich.] on trying to save The Great Lakes from the rather violent and destructive Asian Carp, which is rapidly taking over Lake Michigan, and all of the beautiful surrounds,” Trump wrote in his Tuesday Truth Social post.

As the United States continues to strike Iran roughly 10 days since ordered by President Donald Trump, questions about how long the war may last have been coupled with the prospect of a military draft that administration officials admit remains "on the table.”Six U.S. soldiers have been killed in the war that Trump has continually defended on the backdrop of what he and other senior officials have attributed to “an imminent threat” posed by Iran towards the U.S., Israel and other Middle East nations. The potential length of this conflict has drawn many assumptions, as Trump has floated a “4-5...

Some of the first polling of the general election race for U.S. Senate in Texas showed that the Democratic candidate has the lead over both Republicans vying for the seat. Texas state Rep. James Talarico won the Democratic Party’s nomination during last week’s primary. However, the Republicans running for the office – incumbent Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton – are preparing for a May runoff after neither of them cracked the 50% threshold during the primary. The poll was conducted by Public Policy Polling between March 4 and 5 and asked respondents questions ranging from the...

Donald Trump dismissed Keir Starmer's justifications for staying out of Iran strikes in an apparently frosty call. The US president is said to have given short shrift to the PM's arguments that the action was against international law. Sir Keir's attempts to switch the topic to the King's impending state visit also seem to have had limited impact, as the pair had their first conversation since the military campaign was launched. Details have been leaking out of the chat on Sunday amid concerns about long-term damage to the Special Relationship. Sir Keir initially refused to allow the use of UK...

For decades, Iran cultivated a myth of invincibility through terror and proxies—until war exposed the regime as weaker, poorer, and far more fragile than the world had feared. Until last year, for some 46 years, Iran enjoyed a North Korea-like reputation in the heart of the Middle East: always unpredictable, reckless, dangerous, inevitably to be nuclear, self-destructive, and nihilistic. All that said, was it really ever all that formidable? The mullahs came into power after the removal of the Shah and, subsequently, the interim secular socialists. They did so by taking American hostages, murdering opponents, executing former supporters, and transforming...

https://fakti.bg/en/world/1040027-ukraine- The Supreme Court of Ukraine recognized for the first time a de facto marriage between two men, UNIAN reported, quoted by tsn.ua. The men in question are Zoryan Kissa, first secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy in Israel, and Timur Levchuk, a social activist. This was reported by the non-governmental organization Insight LGBTQ (NGO "Insight"). „Opponents of equality tried to interfere in the personal lives of two people and annul their victory. But the country's highest court gave a clear answer – a third-party organization that has no connection with the couple cannot simply come and annul decision concerning their...

Alexander Butterfield, the White House aide who inadvertently hastened Richard Nixon’s resignation over the Watergate scandal when he revealed that the president had bugged the Oval Office and Cabinet Room and routinely recorded his conversations, has died. He was 99. His death was confirmed by his wife, Kim, and John Dean, who served as White House counsel to Nixon during the Watergate scandal and went on to, along with Butterfield, help expose the wrongdoing. As a deputy assistant to the president, Butterfield oversaw the taping system connected to voice-activated listening devices that had been secretly placed in four locations, including...

Scott Pelley sat down with Prince Reza Pahlavi, a leader of the opposition to the Islamic Republic and son of the deposed late shah, who has lived in exile 47 years, to discuss the future of Iran, whether regime change is coming, who would lead a transition, what happens to Iran's nuclear program and more. Editor's note: The video above is an extended version of the interview that was broadcast on 60 Minutes on Sunday, March 1, 2026. This extended version was condensed for clarity. Transcript linked below video summary.

In August of 2025, long before trans-shooters Robert Dorgan and Jesse Van Rootselaar shot and killed 11 in Pawtucket RI and Tumbler Ridge, BC., Phillip Wharton blatantly and quite publicly threatened the life of President Trump and still no one in law enforcement can bring themselves to seriously consider there may be a prescription psychiatric drug problem affecting the trans-identified. Twenty-year-old Wharton is of interest because, like those before him who carried out their murderous rampages he, too, identifies as “trans.” One can only wonder if Wharton had not shown up on law enforcement radar would he actually have attempted...

American intelligence agencies have determined that Iran or potentially another group could retrieve Iran’s primary store of highly enriched uranium even though it was entombed under the country’s nuclear site at Isfahan by U.S. strikes last year, according to multiple officials familiar with the classified reports. Officials familiar with the intelligence said that Iran can now get to the uranium through a very narrow access point. It is unclear how quickly Iran could move the uranium, which is in gas form and stored in canisters. U.S. officials have said that American spy agencies have constant surveillance of the Isfahan site...

~HEADLINES TO PONDER: Greece to Exhume 150 COVID-19 Graves After Bodies Fail to Decompose I think the plan is to raise an Army of the Undead to take Iran. ~WHAT'S DO-ABLE: Matt Walsh: "This is the status quo you're expected to accept: we can terminate the supreme leader of Iran despite all his security but we can't deport Somali fraudsters in Minneapolis... we can't do anything about the clear and obvious threats in this country right now." pic.twitter.com/A8oF1UWz0w — The American Conservative (@amconmag) March 4, 2026 There is always a risk in venturing abroad to slay dragons. As one observer...

long-time U.S. Supreme Court reporter for the New York Times, Linda Greenhouse, recently wrote a surprisingly candid description of how U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts added “gratuitous” language into his opinion on the recent tariff case, personally criticizing the president on record. Greenhouse conveniently frames the justice’s indulgence, however, as a legitimate “warning” to both the president and “the waiting world.” She states that Roberts “is losing patience with Trump.” Apparently, the chief justice is thought to be entitled to act as a shadow president. Greenhouse admits that Roberts’s personal opinion of the president, made by a judge who is...