Free Republic

With Hezbollah’s Iranian patron on the ropes, Jerusalem gets another shot at completing the job it was forced to pause two years ago. It took barely 48 hours after the United States and Israel began their joint operation against the Iranian regime for Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel. As it became clear that regime decapitation was part of the operation’s objectives, the group’s involvement was all but inevitable. Israel retaliated immediately with a wave of targeted strikes and has now begun limited ground operations in south Lebanon, even as its air force maintains an unprecedented tempo of sorties over...

Attention DePaul University donors! Do you want to check out how your funding is being put to use? The institution just initiated an obnoxious, new anti-ICE journalism institute in partnership with radical ex-Mayor of Chicago Lori Lightfoot and another Chicago-based left-wing group financed by some of the most notorious leftists in American politics. The supposedly Catholic DePaul — which sits comfortably on a roughly $1.15 billion endowment — announced that it was launching the cringely-named Institute for Journalism and Racial Justice (IJRJ) during a February 25 campus event, according to student newspaper The DePaulia. The announcement came following a “community...

Kristi Noem has been fired... Moved to a do nothing position.

🚨 MAJOR BREAKING: President Trump has named Sen. Markwayne Mullin as the next U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is out.https://x.com/nicksortor/status/2029629285720314087

Prediction: This war will end with Iran’s mullahs still in control. (At least, the ones that haven’t been killed yet.) Because it has to: We’re hoping the Iranian civilians will rise up and overthrow the government, but they can’t do that until the bombing stops.Which means that immediately after America and Israel conclude their air strikes, Iran will claim victory because it’s still standing.Whatever happens next will determine the long-term PR fallout of the Iran War — both in America and worldwide. If the Iranian people rebel, seize control of Tehran, and turn it into a Western democracy, President Donald...

John Daniel Davidson at The Federalist accuses Benjamin Netanyahu of forcing President Trump to invade Iran. But as in so many situations, the accusation of “force” is not that straightforward. And Davidson doesn’t make a successful argumentAdvertisementDavidson opines on a statement made by Secretary of State Marco Rubio:‘It was abundantly clear that if Iran came under attack by anyone, the U.S. or Israel or anyone, they were going to respond against the United States,’ Rubio said. But later he added this: ‘We knew there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that would precipitate an attack against American...

Editors say the decision raises serious questions about press freedom and readers’ access to primary sources. J. D. Vance delivering his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2025 THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP. A Belgian online news outlet has been reprimanded by the country’s press ethics body after publishing the full text of a speech by U.S. vice president J.D. Vance, sparking debate about censorship and media freedom. The controversy stems from a speech delivered on February 14th, 2025, at the Munich Security Conference, a major annual gathering of Western political and military leaders. Speaking the day after a deadly...

In May 2025, a 15-year-old migrant gunned down a 52-year-old father in Sweden, after being paid almost twenty thousand euros in a murder-for-hire plot; the killer is currently in prison, sentenced to a brief three years and six months, meaning he should be out some time in 2029. Upon his release, prosecutors were asking that the “boy” be repatriated back to his country of origin, but the judges with the power to decide rejected the request, “ruling that expulsion would be disproportionate given the boy’s personal circumstances.” (The “boy” had come to Sweden as a child.) Mind you, the “boy”...

The secretary of Miami-Dade County’s Republican Party started a group chat primarily for conservative students last fall — and within three weeks it was filled with racist slurs, someone wrote dozens of ways of violently killing Black people and the chat was renamed after what one member described as “Nazi heaven.” In WhatsApp conversations leaked to the Miami Herald, participants used variations of the n-word more than 400 times, regularly described women as “whores,” used slurs to talk about Jewish and gay people and mused about Hitler’s politics. Interspersed throughout were discussions about events promoting the Republican Party at Florida...

With so much going on in the world, it's easy to forget that it's only been a little over a year since Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was killed. He was allegedly gunned down by Luigi Mangione, who is awaiting trial on both state and federal charges in conjunction with Thompson's murder. In his alleged manifesto, Mangione wrote "these parasites had it coming" and "I do apologize for any strife and trauma, but it had to be done." Several prominent Democrats, including Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, defended Mangione's actions, essentially saying violence is wrong, but UnitedHealthcare...

According to a Politico report citing an internal Pentagon notification, United States Central Command (CENTCOM) has requested additional military intelligence officers to support operations against Iran for at least 100 days and possibly through September. When the United States and Israel launched coordinated strikes on Iran last Saturday, the operation was framed as a swift military campaign. Donald Trump later described it as a limited effort expected to last roughly four to five weeks. ...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) told CBS News’ Alan He on Thursday that President Donald Trump called him after his grilling of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem the day before, and suggested that Noem’s under oath testimony had not been accurate. Noem and Kennedy tussled during a Senate hearing on Wednesday over the hundreds of millions of dollars she spent on a pro-ICE ad campaign she starred in. “The president approved ahead of time you spending $220 million running TV ads across the country in which you are featured prominently?” Kennedy asked Noem during the hearing. “Yes sir, we went through...

After Republican Montana Sen. Steve Daines decided to end his reelection bid Wednesday evening, observers noticed similarities between him and a Democratic lawmaker who made a similar move months ago. As Montana’s candidate filing deadline approached at 5 p.m. MST Wednesday, Daines — who had been seeking a third term — suddenly withdrew his bid, later announcing in a video statement that his decision came after “much careful thought.” The retiring senator quickly threw his support behind Republican Kurt Alme, a U.S. attorney in the Trump administration who entered the race just eight minutes before the filing deadline, according to...

A social media post from James Talarico about his “white skin” giving him “immunity” from the “virus of racism” has left the Democratic US Senate nominee from Texas wide open to attacks from Republicans and other pundits, who attacked his message as “peak woke” and openly racist. GOP Gov. Greg Abbott said the pro-Black Lives Matter post is proof that Talarico “is toast” in the Nov. 3 contest, in which Democrats are seeking to win one of Texas’ two US Senate seats for the first time since 1988. Talarico, a state legislator who triumphed over US Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas)...

President Trump’s political advisers expect him to endorse Senator John Cornyn in Texas’s May 26 Republican-primary runoff election following the incumbent’s better-than-expected finish against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the first round of voting yesterday, three people briefed on the deliberations told us. Trump declined to get involved in the race before the first round of voting, and Republican Senate strategists had been worried that he wouldn’t endorse Cornyn, who has been critical of the president in the past. Strategists have also warned that Paxton, a scandal-scarred favorite of Trump’s MAGA base, would need more money from top GOP...

@KenPaxtonTX The Save America Act is the most important bill the U.S. Senate could ever pass, and I'm committed to helping President Trump get it done. I would consider dropping out of this race if Senate Leadership agrees to lift the filibuster and passes the SAVE America Act. John Cornyn is a coward who has refused to support abolishing the filibuster to pass this bill. Now, Fake News reporters and the establishment are trying to destroy me with misinformation. The truth is clear: No one has been more loyal to Donald Trump than me—fighting the stolen 2020 election, being in...

VENTURA, Calif. (AP) — Britney Spears was arrested Wednesday night in Southern California and booked early the following morning, according to the Ventura County Sheriff’s office, which didn’t say what charge she faces. Messages seeking comment were left with the sheriff’s office; the California Highway Patrol, which was identified as the arresting agency; and Spears’ representative. Spears was arrested around 9:30 p.m. in Ventura County and released on Thursday, sheriff’s office records show. She has a May 4 court date scheduled. Spears, 44, born in Mississippi and raised in Louisiana, was a teen pop phenomenon who became a defining superstar...

It was just confirmed that President Trump has a HIGHER approval rating than both Barack Hussein Obama and George Bush at this point in their 2nd terms — RealClearPolitics

“The government is supposed to be more powerful than private companies,” Altman said during the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media & Telecom Conference. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei criticized Altman’s relationship with the Trump administration in a memo to employees on Friday, according to a report from The Information. Amodei reportedly wrote that Anthropic has not given “dictator-style praise to Trump,” while Altman has. The Department of Defense has clashed with Anthropic in recent weeks over how the agency can use its artificial intelligence models. Negotiations escalated, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared Anthropic a “Supply-Chain Risk to National Security” in a...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican ends probe into priest accused of ‘physical and psychological abuse’ at youth campsThe Vatican closed the canonical case against Fr. Valentino Salvoldi after declining to waive the statute of limitations, mirroring the earlier dismissal of the civil case.The Vatican has closed the canonical case against an Italian missionary priest accused by more than 20 people of sexual and psychological abuse.In 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that it would not lift the statute of limitations in the case of Father Valentino Salvoldi, an 80‑year‑old priest from the Diocese of Bergamo, accused by at...