Free Republic

As we cross the one month mark of the Israeli-American war on Iran, a sufficient corpus of data is emerging to contemplate the kinetic dynamics of the conflict. This is a very strange war. It is not merely the fact that the roster of combatants and associated parties - Netanyahu, President Trump, Lindsay “Holden Bloodfeast” Graham - comprise the most polarizing figures in world politics today. As if to punctuate this fact, I fully anticipate angry comments berating me for using a sanitized and emotionally titrated word like “polarizing.” But we digress. Far more interesting than endless apoplexy over Israel...

On a bright but cloudy morning on 9 August 1945, a B-29 bomber, named “Bocks Car”, of the US Army Air Force, flew over the Japanese port city of Nagasaki and dropped a highly radioactive Plutonium implosion bomb onto the city, 300 yards from the second largest Roman Catholic cathedral in the Far East, Urakami Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary... This was the nuclear bomb that went on giving for years after it was dropped – giving to the people of Nagasaki the horrible after-effects of nuclear radiation that slowly kill victims for years... Children...

(The Center Square) – In the last year of the Biden administration, millions of dollars flowed from the city of Atlanta to nonprofits so they could aid migrants pouring through U.S. borders. A quarter-million dollars went to a Chicago-based Islamic activist organization that was raising money for Gaza at the time. The Center Square wanted to know what, specifically, that group and others spent their grant money on. But for months, requests to the office of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, filed under the Georgia Open Records Act, have been answered with hefty price quotes ranging from hundreds to more than...

In a significant development, thousands of Lebanese citizens have reached out to Israeli security forces to provide critical information on Hezbollah's senior leadership and hidden infrastructure. The Israeli security establishment has revealed that a massive wave of cooperation from Lebanese civilians has directly led to some of the most significant military achievements in the current war. Following a psychological operations campaign by Unit 504, which involved dropping thousands of flyers across Lebanon, over a thousand local residents have come forward with actionable intelligence. This influx of data has provided the Intelligence Directorate with the precise locations of high ranking officials...

An Ohio doctor is reportedly suing a surgery center alleging that his patient died of a fatal overdose after a “tummy tuck” procedure. Dr. Shahryar Tork, a plastic surgeon based in Cincinnati, filed a civil lawsuit against JourneyLite Surgery and its anesthesia partner Associated Anesthesiologists of Springfield, Inc., claiming negligence and underqualified personnel led to the death of patient Rachel Tussey, according to WLWT. Tussey had a “tummy tuck” at the surgery center and was reportedly later found to be unresponsive during her recovery. [snip] Tork said the surgery went well and Tussey needed “very low doses of pain medication...

An Alameda County judge sentenced three men involved in the fatal shooting of Kevin Nishita, a retired San Jose police officer, who was working as a private security guard for a TV news crew in Oakland. "There are no winners today. There are no winners here. Kevin will never come home," says Kevin's widow, Virginia. "And I miss Kevin." Nishita was shot the day before Thanksgiving in 2021. He died in the hospital three days later. Tuesday's sentencing ends a 4-year-long case. "And today justice did prevail. Again, it did. These three men received what the law was able to...

The Bronx judge who sent an ex-NYPD sergeant to prison Thursday for fatally flinging a picnic cooler at a fleeing drug suspect claimed the punishment would serve as a “general deterrent” for other police officers. Judge Guy Mitchell justified the sentence of 3-to-9 years behind bars for former Sgt. Erik Duran, 38, by arguing, in part, that the decision would send a message — even as police and legal experts ripped it as “extreme and damaging” for law enforcement. The judge also rejected Duran’s testimony that throwing the cooler at scooter-riding Eric Duprey, 30, during the August 2023 undercover drug...

One way to squeeze Iran would be to seize Kharg Island. Pipelines from Iran's major oil fields—Ahvaz, Marun, and Gachsaran—feed into the island's long jetties, which sit in waters deep enough to accommodate supertankers. The facilities on Kharg process 90 percent of Iran's crude exports. These exports fund the regime's military operations, proxy networks, and nuclear program. If the United States can seize and control Kharg Island, it could effectively cut off the Iranian economy and force the regime to the negotiating table—or fuel the internal unrest needed for the regime to collapse.The Pentagon appears to be giving the President...

A deputy with the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office was shot and killed while in the line of duty on Thursday. The deputy, who has not yet been identified, was among those serving an eviction notice around 10:20 a.m. when he was shot in the area of North Newcomb Street and West Grand Avenue in Porterville. The suspected shooter, 60-year-old David Morales, has continued to fire shots at deputies, according to the sheriff’s office. People in the area are being urged to shelter in place and schools are on lockdown. The detective who was struck was taken to Sierra View Medical...

A millionaire New York Democrat running for Congress dropped his bid Thursday as he faced a firestorm of criticism for resurfaced social media posts about kiddie porn and sex with a 17-year-old — but he claimed he made his decision for altruistic reasons. Peter Chatzky was running in a crowded Democratic Party primary for the 17th House District in the northern suburbs to challenge Republican Rep. Mike Lawler. “Today, I am suspending my campaign,” said Chatzky, a software executive and deputy mayor in the Westchester County village of Briarcliff Manor. He dropped out just hours before he was expected to...

A queer club in Atlanta is raising eyebrows after hosting a drag show with the theme of… VeggieTales? On April 1st, Lore Atlanta, a recently opened queer bar and nightclub venue that regularly hosts drag performances, put on a “VeggieTales Drag Cabaret.” The show featured drag queens such as “Jacey Rockett” and “Koochie Koochie Ku” dressed up as Larry the Cucumber, Bob the Tomato, Mr Nezzer and Mr. Lunt The queens danced and lip-synced to the show’s biggest hits and Silly Songs with Larry, including “His Cheeseburger,” “The Hairbrush Song,” “The Rumor Weed,” and “The Bunny Song,” while onlookers threw...

The U.S. birth rate hit a record low in 2025, according to a new report released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Last year, there were 3,606,400 births — a one percent decline from 2024. The general fertility rate also fell by one percent from 2024, to 53.1 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, the CDC found. “The [general fertility] rate has generally declined since 2007, decreasing by 23 percent,” the CDC report states. At the same time, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute estimated that more than 1.1 million unborn babies were...

Hunter Biden has quietly pulled up stakes and left the country amid claims he is $17 million in debt and living overseas, the Daily Mail can reveal. The disclosure came in a new legal filing submitted by his attorney Barry Coburn on April 6, in Washington DC, where the first son is being sued by his former attorneys at Winston & Strawn. The court filing bluntly states 'Mr Biden lives abroad', and argues that the former First Son 'cannot afford' to pay off his outstanding legal fees

Most Americans still don’t fully understand what happened under Biden… 8% of Nicaragua entered the US in 4 years. 8% of the entire country. 7% of Cuba. 6% of Haiti. 5% of Honduras.

News recently came out of Chapel Hill that the flagship campus of the University of North Carolina had adopted a new policy that allowed administrators to record class proceedings at will and without giving notice to professors. Predictably, faculty expressed serious reservations about what they perceived as a new climate of surveillance and aggressive oversight regarding the content of their courses. Perhaps also unsurprisingly, the pressure from faculty was enough to force the administration to scuttle the new policy. That’s unfortunate. Even before the policy was nixed, it wasn’t very intrusive: UNC stipulated that the practice would occur only in...

It used to be understood, before we started rewarding lawbreakers with goodies like birthplace citizenship, that punishing bad guys was the most effective way to stop bad actions. The best way to drop the murder rate, for example, is to swiftly and justly execute murderers. For the same reason, the best way to end the political weaponization of the bureaucracy is to punish the weaponizers. As long as the architects of the most infamous abuses — from the Russia collusion hoax to the Biden DOJ effort to throw its political opposition in prison — escape accountability, new partisans will be...

RAINELLE, W.Va. (AP) — Every month, Rebecca Michalski takes a deep breath before opening her electric bill. She lives on a fixed income, and heating her small house this winter has been staggering: Her February charge was $940.08 — more than her check. It makes no sense. She turns the lights off during the day and only burns one lamp with an energy-efficient bulb in the living room at night, but she keeps falling further behind on payments. In desperation, she took out a loan after getting a cut-off notice during an extended arctic blast that kept the state’s heaters...

Consternation as Pope Leo meets with former Obama advisor David AxelrodIt is being speculated that the Axelrod meeting could have been preparation for Pope Leo to eventually meet Obama himself.Pope Leo XIV met with David Axelrod, a former advisor to President Barack Obama, in a private audience on Thursday.The Vatican confirmed the meeting with Axelrod and his “entourage,” but details about what was discussed have not been made public. Pope Leo was allegedly 30 minutes late to another meeting because his audience with Axelrod overran.The meeting came in the wake of reports that back in January, the Trump administration demanded...

A government filing shows that men of a certain age could be automatically registered for a military draft before this year ends. While the U.S. has long utilized an all-volunteer force and a draft has not been in effect since the tail end of the Vietnam War in the 1970s, the option of conscription has been considered an option since the SSS registration was reinstated in 1980 by then-President Jimmy Carter.White House Previously Said Draft 'On Table'The proposed rule change was submitted a little over 30 days after the United States and Israel attacked Iran, as part of a conflict...

I know why Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, Candace Owens, and Alex Jones have all been fighting me for years, especially by the fact that they think it is wonderful for Iran, the Number One State Sponsor of Terror, to have a Nuclear Weapon — Because they have one thing in common, Low IQs. They’re stupid people, they know it, their families know it, and everyone else knows it, too! Look at their past, look at their record. They don’t have what it takes, and they never did! They’ve all been thrown off Television, lost their Shows, and aren’t even invited...