Free Republic

US President Donald Trump’s administration is likely to extend as soon as Friday (Apr 10) a waiver allowing countries to buy some sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The US Treasury Department has allowed purchases of Russian oil and products at sea since mid-March with a 30-day waiver that expires on Apr 11, part of efforts to control global energy prices during the US-Israeli war with Iran. Russia’s presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev had said that the original waiver would free 100 million barrels of Russian crude, equal to almost a day’s worth...

As Blue Origin prepares for the next launch of its New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, the company appears to have experienced unexpected damage at its rocket manufacturing facility in Merritt Island, Florida.Photos posted to social media show a damaged roof to what is know as the 2CAT facility, a vertical building used for tank cleaning and testing on the rocket's second stages. It's a smaller building more toward the rear of the campus than the towering, 224-foot-tall building used to test the first stages, that can be seen for miles around the site...It's one the many buildings at the...

Approximately 1,350 union workers at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri, are escalating their strike against Olin Winchester as they demand better wages and stronger contracts. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 778 have been on strike since April 4 after overwhelmingly rejecting a contract offer from company management. ... The IAM Local 778 negotiating committee met with company representatives earlier in the week. The company indicated it would provide future dates to continue discussions. The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is a critical facility in the U.S. defense industrial base. Workers...

Richard Schenk heads the Democracy Interference Observatory (DIO) at MCC Brussels, a project dedicated to tracking the ways in which European institutions, Brussels-funded networks and certain political actors intervene in national campaigns across the European Union. In recent months, the observatory has focused much of its work on Hungary. Two days before this weekend’s parliamentary elections, Schenk argues that Budapest has become the main laboratory for a new form of European political pressure: less visible than in previous years, more sophisticated and, above all, built on regulatory, financial, and media instruments. For him, Hungary is no longer simply a conflict...

Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger claimed she helped bring thousands of jobs to her state — even though the companies she listed all invested in Virginia when her Republican predecessor was still in office. The governor took a victory lap Monday for a package of four bipartisan bills she signed that day, with both an X post from her government account and a news release from her office claiming the legislation brought about 3,250 new jobs and $7.1 billion in investment to her state. Reporter Nick Minock of Washington-based ABC affiliate WJLA, however, noted in a Wednesday morning X post...

Trump’s “outrageous” rhetoric unnerved critics, but it masked a blunt strategy: overwhelm Iran militarily, force leverage at the table, and leave opponents scrambling to keep up.Pearl clutchers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your credibility. A week ago, on Easter Sunday—Easter Sunday, forsooth!—President Trump horrified delicate souls by issuing this minatory post on Truth Social:Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F–kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah....

This is a youtube video. 8 minutes.

nti-liberty/gun cracktivists find themselves stuck on recycling old, failed narratives because there is really nothing new in the distortions and lies they tell in trying to obliterate the Second Amendment. Among those failed narratives is microstamping, a nonsensical measure about which I last wrote in Microstamping And Zombies, 2024 in June of 2024 at my home blog. Microstamping is laser engraving a unique, identifying code on the tips of firing pins which will “stamp” that code—letters, numbers, etc—on the primers of fired cases. Some microstamping schemes also demand a second stamp elsewhere on a fired case. California has always been...

And this is why beloved… The Iranian leadership’s suicidal and destructive apocalyptic ideology is not only demon-driven but is hell-bent on total destruction and death at any cost, in light of their demonic, full-blown defiance. When a fully controlled demonic mind is more than zealous and willing to make all expendable to outwork their demonic vision and beliefs, you will see there is absolutely no talking with them. Even after the near total obliteration of all of their leadership, national defense, and structure, they still are huge middle fingers to all and desire the destruction of all. One might ask,...

Vanity Fair -- where the TDS level is so high that they actually wrote an overanalytical piece trying to figure out if South Park is sufficiently anti-Trump -- has just sunk what little credibility it had even lower by AGAIN performing over-the-top hype about the former royal couple, Harry & Meghan, that very few normal people have expressed any interest in.The former royal couple lost their "Sussex" title due to an inability to perform one of the easiest jobs on the planet, which consisted primarily of politely greeting people and not acting like complete jerks. The latter part of the...

President Donald Trump announced a U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. Trump made the announcement in a post on his Truth Social account, blaming the failure to reach a deal with Iran during talks in Pakistan this weekend. "So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote. "At some point,...

Magazine Cover Story Snapshot X MARKS THE PEDWALKBY FRITZ LEIBER[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow April 1963 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]This is how it all began—the terrible civil strife that devastates our world!Based in material in Ch. 7--"First Clashes of the Wheeled and Footed Sects"--of Vol. 3 of Burger's monumental History of Traffic, published by the Foundation for Twenty-Second Century Studies.The raggedy little old lady with the big shopping bag was in the exact center of the crosswalk when she became aware of the...

The new film suggests that collectivism works well enough until capitalism gets its hands on it. Viewers reacting to the trailer on social media noticed this immediately, with one post summarizing the film’s apparent message with withering accuracy: “It’s 2025. And Animal Farm is a movie about communism working, and being ruined by capitalism.”

It makes perfect sense that Democrats freaked out when DOGE started following the money. Look at what they’ve been up to all these years. here’s a reason Al Capone spent a few years in Alcatraz for tax evasion: Money is harder to hide than bodies. Any thug can take a few bucks from someone weaker. But when used, money leaves a trail. The key to criminal success is making ill gotten booty look as though it’s not ill gotten. That’s way easier said than done. This brings me to the Democrat party’s current woes. It is a political organization in...

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System numbers for March 2026 are in, and they show the same pattern gun owners and industry watchers have seen before: the raw FBI total and the NSSF-adjusted figure are telling two different stories.According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the March 2026 adjusted NICS figure came in at 1,412,917, up 1.9 percent from March 2025. At the same time, the unadjusted FBI total fell to 2,212,094, down 10.5 percent from 2,470,705 a year earlier.NICS is being used for more and more background checks, which are not directly related to firearm sales. Chief among...

NYT columnist says that while he supports the downfall of the Iranian regime, he would not want to see it politically strengthen the leaders of the US and Israel, who he called 'terrible, terrible people.'

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Vice President JD Vance said the US and Iran failed to strike a peace deal to end the six-week war rocking the Middle East, blaming Tehran’s refusal to give up its nuclear ambitions — leaving uncertainty over whether fighting will resume. Vance delivered the quick-hit update after 21 hours of grueling negotiations in Pakistan, noting meaningful discussions were held with Iran but none that brokered a deal on terms laid out by the US. “The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement,” Vance told reporters in Islamabad. “And I think that’s bad news for...

So you say you want a revolution? Well, take a look at what’s happening in Ireland right now. Tens of thousands of farmers, truckers, and other fed-up “normies” are taking to the streets of Dublin to protest fuel taxes, mass immigration, and poverty-inducing “climate change” policies. For the most part, corporate news propagandists in both Europe and North America are intentionally ignoring the combustible situation. Just when I had begun to think that all the “fighting Irish” had moved to America, the Old Country has started to show signs of life. Perhaps there are still a few irascible pugilists willing...

California is under invasion from a 20-pound rodent once believed to have been eradicated from the state – and officials now fear humans may be to blame. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife said DNA testing of the 2.5-foot-long pest, known as a nutria, shows the current population is linked to animals in Oregon, not to the species that roamed California in the 1970s before being wiped out. “This study supports our long-held belief that the current invasion is the result of reintroduction rather than explosive growth of a remnant, undetected population,” the CDFW ‘s Nutria Eradication Program Manager...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(4/12/26)[Prayer]A New Study For A New Year: PersonalitiesExodus 16:1-7 16 And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. 2 And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: 3 And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord...