Free Republic

22 June 2025 The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ Solemnity St Albans Cathedral, St Albans, EnglandReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: C(I).First readingGenesis 14:18-20Melchizedek brought bread and wineMelchizedek king of Salem brought bread and wine; he was a priest of God Most High. He pronounced this blessing:‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, creator of heaven and earth,and blessed be God Most High for handing over your enemies to you.’And Abram gave him a tithe of everything.How to listenResponsorial PsalmPsalm 109(110):1-4You are a priest for ever, a priest like Melchizedek of old.The Lord’s revelation to my Master:...

The Progress Action Fund, a political action organization founded by Joe Jacobson, is creating a series of fictional ads focusing on the issues it believes will win back the young male voters who helped elect Trump in 2024. These ads feature a white-haired Republican Congressman who supports policies against casual sex, abortion, and illegal aliens. The latest ad features a young couple--a blonde man and a brunette woman--after a day out together. The man says "I had a really good time today." The woman replies "I did to." Masked ICE agents appear and drag the woman away. At this point...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan "Razin" Caine held a press conference from the Pentagon early Sunday morning to relay details on the U.S. military's successful strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. ... Caine addressed the media and explained the strikes, dubbed "Operation Midnight Hammer," included the use of submarines, dozens of Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles, and the "longest B-2 spirit bomber mission since 2001." "At approximately 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time last night and just prior to the strike package entering Iran, a U.S. submarine in the Central Command area...

Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. This means no spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers. And because we are not a 501C, we have preserved our God-given, constitutionally protected right to free speech without government intervention. If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today: Click here: to donate by Credit CardOr here: to donate by PayPalOr by mail to: Free Republic, LLC...

A senior Iranian source claimed to Reuters that before the U.S. attack on the Fordow nuclear facility last night (Sunday), all of the stock of enriched uranium at the site was transferred to another location. At the same time, satellite images captured a large convoy moving near the underground nuclear facility two days before the attack. It is believed that this may be documentation of the transfer of the enriched material. Last night, U.S. President Donald Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, that the U.S. military had completed strikes on Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. .....

Iranian parliament has approved the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in a move which could see the world thrown into disaster. The decision to close the Strait, through which around 20 per cent of global oil and gas demand flows, is not yet final. Iran's Supreme National Security Council must still make the final call on the matter, Iran's Press TV said today. But lawmaker and Revolutionary Guards Commander Esmail Kosari told the Young Journalist Club that doing so is on the agenda and 'will be done whenever necessary'. Last weekend, Kowsari told local media that closing the Strait...

On Saturday night the United States military under the direction of President Donald J. Trump bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer. The US dropped 14 bunker busting bombs on Iran’s largest nuclear site in Fordow. It was the largest ever attack by B-2 stealth bombers by the United States. It was also the longest flight the bombers have made since 2001. The US strike involved more than 125 US aircraft. Following the historic attack on Iranian nuclear sites former Russian President wrote a long thread on X condemning the US military strike. Medvedev says there are...

Carsulae is a well-preserved Roman site in Umbria that the Via Flaminia cuts through. It's an exciting time at the archaeological park, as there are ongoing archaeological digs that Ancient Rome Live was allowed to film. Get to know the site and the new, ongoing investigations. Carsulae: an important Roman site in Umbria, along the Via Flaminia! New Excavations at Carsulae on the Via Flaminia | 9:57 Ancient Rome Live | 77K subscribers | 4,196 views | June 21, 2025

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in a Sunday morning interview pushed back on claims that President Trump acted outside his Constitutional authority by ordering strikes on Iran. “No, he was within his Article II authority,” Graham said in an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” when asked if Trump violated the U.S. Constitution by “acting unilaterally.” “Congress can declare war or cut off funding,” Graham continued. “We can’t be the commander in chief. You can’t have 535 commander in chiefs.” “If you don’t like what the president does, in terms of war, you can cut off the funding. But declaring...

Trump’s Iran policy confounds critics because it’s not about war or appeasement—it’s about weakening Iran without revealing the playbook. Note: I wrote this column a few hours before the United States bombed and (according to President Trump) “completely and totally obliterated” the hardened Iranian nuclear sites of Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan. Were those bombings, as some think, destabilizing actions? Or were they, as others believe, righteous and effective steps towards peace? Righteous they certainly were. Whether they were also effective in luring Iran back into the community of nations is a matter that only time will tell. In order for...

Democrat politicians reached screeching levels of hypocrisy over Donald Trump's decision to act rather than wait for an Iranian nuclear weapon deployment. Chuck Schumer demanded action from Congress, as did Hakeem Jeffries. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez led calls for impeachment. Practically every Democrat on Capitol Hill -- with the notable exception of John Fetterman -- rushed to promote their "authoritarian" narrative about Trump. All of this venting reveals very short memories on the port side of Capitol Hill. Fourteen years ago, they couldn't get enough of presidential strikes on a nation in the very same region. Remember Hillary Clinton's chortling over the...

The timing of Israel’s plan to attack Iran was top-secret. But Washington pizza delivery trackers guessed something was up before the first bombs fell. About an hour before Iranian state TV first reported loud explosions in Tehran, pizza orders around the Pentagon went through the roof, according to a viral X account claiming to offer “hot intel” on “late-night activity spikes” at the US military headquarters. “As of 6:59 pm ET nearly all pizza establishments nearby the Pentagon have experienced a HUGE surge in activity,” the account Pentagon Pizza Report posted on Thursday. Not confining its analysis to pizza, the...

Recent elections in Milwaukee, Arizona, and Texas proved that the simplest form of voter suppression isn’t hacking — it’s just not having a working printer. Conservatives across the country are building momentum to clean up elections. Donald Trump’s proposals call for paper ballots, voter ID, and in-person voting on Election Day only. These reforms would mark a major improvement over the chaotic 2020 election — when Joe Biden somehow received more votes than any presidential candidate in history. But tightening election procedures also risks reviving an old Democratic trick: voter suppression. In an ideal system, voting would happen exclusively on...

One of the great weaknesses of American foreign policy has been our predictability. Our opponents have been able to pinpoint what we would and would not do. While one President Trump’s greatest strengths has been his unpredictability. And on the Iran strikes, he not only kept everyone guessing until the last minute, but used sophisticated means to draw everyone off. Tucker Carlson’s pal Dan Caldwell was booted from the Pentagon over allegations of leaking. So were a number of others. When the strikes were actually launched, there were zero leaks despite claims by some in the media that they were...

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi is heading to Moscow and will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday. “Russia is a friend of Iran,” he said at a press conference in Istanbul and noted that “in self-defense, Iran reserves all options to defend its security, its interests, its people.” “All options are on the table…. I will have a discussion with them on how it should proceed.”

Sir Keir Starmer warned there was a risk of the Middle East crisis spiralling beyond the region after Donald Trump ordered US planes and submarines to attack Iran's nuclear programme. The Prime Minister urged all sides to return to negotiations but said he had taken 'all necessary measures' to protect British interests in the region if the conflict escalates. He spoke out ahead of a Cobra meeting this afternoon, as Tehran vowed to retaliate for the strike on three facilities in the heart of the country. Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds confirmed this morning that the UK was told about the...

At the NRA Annual Meeting in Atlanta in 2025, noted researcher and author John Lott gave several seminars. They included three seminars on “Gun Control Myths”, a seminar on “Hollywood’s Bias Against Guns”, and two seminars on “The FBI Crime Data is Politicized and a Mess”. This correspondent considers John a colleague and a friend and has read and studied John’s academic work for decades.When attending the seminar on The FBI Crime Data is Politicized and a Mess on Sunday, April 27th, much of the material was familiar. Some material was unfamiliar. This correspondent accepted that the FBI had refused...

The Russian president was asked at a press conference why Moscow was not helping Tehran more and replied that 'almost two million Russian-speaking people live in Israel'; The Ukrainian president claimed that 20 of the bodies transferred by the Russians were actually those of their soldiers - including an unnamed Israeli citizen

The top spot on my rankings of Civil War movies alternates between two classics: Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josie Wales, and Glory, which features an all-star cast including Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Carey Elwes and Matthew Broderick. We re-watched both within the past week. Of the two, I think Glory is the more intriguing if only because it portrays the deeds of true Civil War heroes: Col. Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. After watching it this time, I was inspired to dig a little deeper on Shaw to see what made him tick. What made a Boston...

Speaking with Rachel Maddow on Saturday night, MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin repeatedly suggested that Benjamin Netanyahu "dog-walked" President Trump into attacking Iran.Mohyeldin's dehumanizing claim was that Trump might have been unaware of Israel's intent to attack Iran, and that Netanyahu knew: "That at some point the political pressure domestically among Republicans, supporters of Israel and their base [the Joos!], are going to put this pressure on the president to get involved on behalf of Israel. Mohyeldin also suggested that Netanyahu was "running circles" around Trump. Shades of Ilhan Omar accusing Israel of "hypnotizing" the world. Those sly Jews, with their infernal...