Free Republic

---snip-- During the eight year Iran-Iraq war, Tehran very quickly learned its army was no match for Iraq’s. When Iraqi minefields began claiming Iranian soldiers, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini concocted a scheme to reduce these losses. He encouraged Iranian children to volunteer for a special force known as the Basiji. Lightly armed but more often unarmed to avoid the loss of weapons, the Basiji were trained to form human waves to march through Iraqi minefields towards the enemy.

Shantika Briley was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly beating a man with a pipe when he reportedly sexually assaulted her 9-year-old daughter. The 35-year-old Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, mom said she caught the presently unnamed 39-year-old man “licking her daughter’s lips and trying to kiss her.” Briley allegedly responded with a pipe, beating the man in the head and face until he fled out the front door with Briley still in pursuit. [SNIP] Briley has been charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, and harassment but was released after posting a $25,000 bond. As of the time of this writing, she has yet...

The length, scope, and operational duration of the attack suggests it is a targeted towards regime stability and an internal audience. Whether it leads to further escalation is a political call. Last night, around the time Iranian missiles were dropping on U.S. bases, a friend from the Pentagon texted me saying, “Oh, well, it appears they will do something dumb, and we may go to war.” Any crisis leads to paranoia, hysteria, and essentially all other basest instincts in a human being. What differentiates a realist or a strategist from an ideologue or a cultist is how one thinks in...

MSNBC pushed the unverified report from Iranian state media that claimed to have killed 30 U.S. service members in their ballistic missile attack on Tuesday evening. The Iranian claim of U.S. causalities in Iraq also circulated on social media despite the Department of Defense quashing the rumors. "They launched the first wave of attacks in revenge for Soleimani’s killing. We're getting reports as you've just mentioned They have launched a second wave of attacks in the same vicinity. We're also getting unconfirmed reports from state media saying that they have leveled Al-Assad base in Iraq and they have killed 30...

This is what the bears don’t get about oil stocks: These are no longer the reckless, wasteful, binge years of the shale boom. The smart companies have adapted to a new reality. close [x] Pause Unmute Remaining Time -1:33 Fullscreen Now, it’s about dramatic new offshore discoveries that are being brought online in record speed. It’s about brilliant new well-completion designs that enhance productivity. It’s about integrated giants who win, either way. It’s about extremely ambitious small-caps that slip into new venues and scoop up massive basins when no one’s looking. It’s about ingenuity on multiple levels that translates into...

Former Veep Joe Biden made another campaign stop in Iowa and took questions from the audience. A young flannel-dressed man stood up and asked Biden about Obamacare, his administration’s signature health care law. The young presumably Iowan, possibly an operative for another campaign, read from a card to tell the former veep what happened to his father. “During the run-up to the passage of Obamacare, President Obama promised my father that if he liked his plan he could keep his plan, and that his insurance would be cheaper. After passage, his plan was no longer allowed and his insurance cost...

Tuesday during an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) argued the flare-up of hostilities between the United States and Iran could be traced to Barack Obama’s presidency and the failed Iran nuclear deal. Gaetz said what he believed we were witnessing with regards to the United States’ handling of Iran was the Trump doctrine. “If the president wanted war with Iran, he’s had plenty of opportunities,” Gaetz said. “He’s chosen to exercise restraint, and I think we’re seeing the Trump doctrine. It’s one where we strike and then move. We don’t invade and then...

That's an excellent question, one that many people may be asking right about now.Word on the tweet is that the Ayatollah Khameini is going all LBJ and picking targets at U.S. positions in Iraq in 2020 with his missiles. We're told the Supreme Leader is commanding the targeting of the missiles. This photo allegedly shows Iran Leader personally overseeing IRGC missile launch against US bases in Iraq pic.twitter.com/kmcSo7gASo— Reza Khaasteh (@Khaaasteh) January 8, 2020 But it turns out that photo is from 2014. This photo was taken during 2014 IRGC Aerospace Force exhibition not today.— MxPerception (@mxperception) January 8,...

One person is dead and multiple others injuries after an early morning shooting in the Canadian capital city of Ottawa. Globalnews.ca reports the shooting occurred in “downtown Ottawa” around 7:30 a.m. resulting in one dead and three taken to hospital. There was no information on the type of firearm used, but the UK Independent reports the gunman eluded capture and is on the run. Ottawa Police released a statement on the incident, saying, “This is not considered an active shooter situation, but the suspect remains at large and is not in custody.” Ottawa Police label the incident a “multiple shooting.”...

As tensions between the United States and Iran rise in the aftermath of the American drone strike that killed the country’s most powerful commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a new Morning Consult/Politico survey finds fewer than 3 in 10 registered voters can identify the Islamic republic on an unlabeled map.

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down state bans on same-sex marriage making it legal in all fifty states. The ruling requires states to honor out-of-state same-sex marriage licenses. With an I-think-you're-an-out-of-touch-old-fart sneer, a millennial relative asked me, “Why do you care if two guys want to sleep together?” My duped millennial relative believed homosexual marriage would not impact anyone's life. Marriage and family advocate Bill Muehlenberg explained how homosexual rights change everything. Muehlenberg says, “Whenever special rights are granted to the homosexual community, especially marriage rights, everybody is impacted.” Our faith, family, freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of...

These days it seems like coincidence abounds in the precincts of leftism. And an unquestioning Deep State Media are only too happy to label anyone who points out the absurdities of the supposed coincidences as “conspiracy theorists,” having long ago abandoned journalistic inquisitiveness for allegiance to a political ideology. A few examples spring to mind: Jeffrey Epstein’s supposed suicide; a “chance” encounter on June 27, 2016 on the tarmac of Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport between then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton, whose wife would be interviewed by FBI agents over her illegal email server five days...

Discard brick and mortar universities! 1) Free or nearly free education exists **NOW**! The missing ingredient is private systems of certified testing. Should it cost a quarter of a million to become a doctor or engineer? The more reasonable cost is a tenth of that. Most of the material needed to be mastered in the STEM fields is**ROTE** and changes little from year to year. It can be learned at home through the Internet and used textbooks. Yes, some fields require laboratory and clinical rotations. These need a brick and mortar setting....BUT... these experiences can be found or created outside...

This is a simple test that quickly will tell you something about a person. It can be quite useful in determining where someone will fit into an organization and how he will relate to others and to the tasks at hand. In fact, I use this all the time when interviewing staff to work in our office. You'd be surprised how accurate it is. Have the person look briefly at these 5 figures and ask him to choose the one he likes best and the one he likes the second best. Don't allow any intellectualization about it, we just need...

Although the nation’s leading nonpartisan family television watchdog group has good reason to be optimistic heading into 2020, there's also cause for concern for families looking to protect their children from seeing explicit content. Over the course of the last few years, there has been a "dramatic change" in Hollywood. According to the Parents Television Council, it’s been a very “dangerous turn.” “Instead of children just being collateral damage in the way of whatever explicit content they want to deliver to adults, Hollywood now seems to be directly marketing some of the most explicit stuff to children,” PTC President Tim...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was reportedly too busy to take a call from Vice President Mike Pence Tuesday that was to inform her Iran was launching a ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces in Iraq. “Tell him I’ll call him back,” Pelosi said, according to a Politico reporter. As Julio reported, Pelosi later tweeted that she was "closely monitoring the situation" but minutes before she was spotted at the grand opening of a restaurant.

Last year, I had the privilege of taking a private tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Americans and the Holocaust exhibit. The purpose of the exhibit is to highlight the role of average Americans and their response to the events of the Holocaust. As I wandered the halls of the Museum, my eyes were drawn to articles from World War II highlighting Kristallnacht and the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. But nothing was more stunning than the row of miniature suitcases lined up – each one representing 5,000 people (mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, grandmothers, grandfathers – the vast majority of them...

In my experience, there are three top stumbling blocks or “turn-off’s” of Christianity that I see surface time after time with both non-Christians and believers who struggle in their faith. Although there are certainly other issues that crop up, here are the ones – from least to most problematic – that I’ve seen over and over again.Unanswered Prayer Near the end of the movie God’s Not Dead, the atheist college professor who has attacked and ridiculed his Christian student’s faith throughout the film admits that it was his mother’s death from an illness and his unanswered prayers for her healing...

The images here are taken from Reuters video. https://imgur.com/a/r1KSHIP If you look at the circled area, these are EXTERNAL damage. This is indicative of anti-aircraft missiles. The missiles explode just before they impact the plane. Shrapnel results from the explosion, which impacts the plane. This looks similar to the hull of the plane downed in the Ukraine/Russia conflict (Malaysian Air Flight 17). Possibliities: 1. It truly was just an accident with very suspicious timing. 2. One overly nervous Iranian anti-aircraft commander got nervous and shot by mistake. 3. The strategic move is to take out citizens of a U.S. ally...

Not much to add to last night’s post, although I continue to be surprised at how willing he is to seemingly conflate the regime with the Iranian people writ large. Normally U.S. officials are careful to distinguish the two, treating the latter as hostages of the former. Trump follows the same playbook — normally: Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by the Obama Administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being...