Free Republic

It’s hard to think of a time when the United States suffered a total defeat in a conflict, a setback so decisive that the strategic loss could be neither repaired nor ignored...The initial failure in Iraq was mitigated by a shift in strategy... Defeat in the present confrontation with Iran will be of an entirely different character. It can neither be repaired nor ignored...The Strait of Hormuz will not be “open,” as it once was. With control of the strait, Iran emerges as the key player in the region and one of the key players in the world... Far from...

Sources: books, articles, papers, interviews, FOIA requests In the ongoing study of how effective handguns are when used as a defense against bears, this correspondent posted an article on AmmoLand showing the distribution of the number of shots fired vs the number of cases. The most common case was one shot fired, with the least common cases having the most shots fired. On examining the data, there is a significant difference noted among bear species.In cases involving brown bears, grizzly bears, Kodiak bears, (ursus arctos) more shots are fired per case.There are 109 total handgun-only cases involving Ursus arctos, of...

The West needs more mothers—with fathers—simply to sustain itself. The US birth rate is currently below 1.6 children per couple. (2.1 is needed to sustain the population).Women are delaying marriage. Many are not having children and putting their careers first. Almost thirty percent of Gen Z women identify as LGBTQ+. There is also a current trend that sees women deciding to have children without fathers.Over forty percent of births are paid for by Medicaid, which suggests that many are not just poor, but also single. One-quarter of American children are being raised in single-parent households. Divorce has become commonplace, as...

I'm not sure what's more of a clown show: The boy being allowed to take 1st in all these girls' track events, or a Fox News host calling him a "she." Host Brian Kilmeade referred correctly to the transgender high school athlete, AB Hernandez, as a male. But host Ainsley Earhardt then immediately and repeatedly referred to Hernandez as "she." The segment talked about the importance of saving girls' sports ... while accepting the delusion that boys can be called "she." Pick a lane, Fox News!

The rise of artificial intelligence was supposed to change how we work, shop, search and communicate. Few imagined it would also begin reshaping how young people pray, seek wisdom and understand God. Yet that is exactly where society now finds itself. A growing number of young Christians are no longer just using AI to summarize homework assignments or generate social media captions -- they are turning to it for spiritual counsel, moral guidance and even emotional reassurance once sought from pastors, parents or Scripture itself. And the numbers are startling. New research from the Barna Group found that nearly one-third...

CNN’s data guru Harry Enten is warning of a potential gerrymandering “nightmare” for Democrats at November’s midterm elections. Enten appeared on CNN on Sunday to discuss the impact a redistricting battle playing out across the country could have on national election results. Last week, the Virginia Supreme Court struck down a voter-approved Democratic congressional redistricting plan. The court ruled 4-3 that the state’s Democratic-led legislature violated procedural requirements by placing the amendment on the ballot to authorize mid-decade redistricting.

The United States is experiencing a quiet but profound shift in spiritual leadership—one that is reshaping who leads congregations, how they lead, and whether many churches will have leaders at all. Across denominations, the data points in one direction: fewer people are entering pastoral ministry, more are leaving it, and those who remain are carrying heavier emotional, financial, and cultural burdens than ever before. At the same time, the face of leadership is changing, with women now representing an all-time high share of clergy in the United States, which for many conservatives shows a much deeper theological and institutional rupture....

According to prosecutors, Morens, a former senior adviser at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, used personal email accounts to dodge FOIA, deleted records, and sought to circumvent federal records requirements. In one message about communications about Covid research, he allegedly wrote: “I learned from our FOIA lady here how to make emails disappear after I’m FOIA’d but before the search starts. … Plus I deleted most of those earlier emails after sending them to my Gmail.” If true, his actions were egregious and wrong, and accountability should be both proportional and consistent with previous cases of records...

Days before Donald Trump is scheduled to visit mainland China, a group of mostly Democrat senators reportedly is urging the president to move ahead with a long-delayed $14 billion weapons package for Taiwan.The bipartisan group pressed Trump in a Friday letter to formally notify Congress of the major arms sale ahead of his summit this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, warning that U.S. support for Taiwan "is not up for negotiation," The New York Times reported. The senators argued Taiwan has already demonstrated its commitment to self-defense after lawmakers in Taipei approved a massive $25 billion special defense budget...

Fulton County, Georgia — the epicenter of so many lingering questions about the 2020 presidential election — has a new problem on its hands. On May 4, 2026, the Fulton County Board of Registration and Elections filed a 27-page motion to quash in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia asking a federal judge to quash a grand jury subpoena demanding the personal identifying information of thousands of county election workers and volunteers who helped administer the November 2020 General Election. The original subpoena was issued under seal on April 17, 2026, by the U.S. Attorney’s Office...

Guests onboard Disney Cruise Line’s all-new Disney Adventure learned their four-night sailing embarking from Singapore was canceled — mere hours after they already boarded the ship. On Thursday, May 7, after guests boarded, settled in and started their vacation, the captain of the ship announced that there were technical issues and guests were to wait for further information. A Reddit user who was on the cruise said that they were told they “will set sail soon.” “Midnight now. We’ve been waiting here since 2 p.m., and they have no update for us,” they wrote in an update in the comments....

Palestinian Chuck Schumer is hiring Eric Holder, famous for handing guns to Mexican cartels under the Barack Hussein Obama administration, as part of a Democrat-led "Election Integrity Group" that will no doubt try to suppress Republican voters, and interfere in our Elections. Furthermore, Marc Elias, a terrible lawyer with a horrible track record, is also involved. This is the same disgusting individual who was responsible for the fake Russia dossier from a foreign nation to meddle in the 2016 Election, which I won in historic fashion. The Democrats are totally unhinged and we will not allow them to threaten the...

Washington — President Trump said in a phone interview with CBS News Monday morning that he aims to suspend the federal gas tax "for a period of time." "I think it's a great idea," the president said. "Yup, we're going to take off the gas tax for a period of time, and when gas goes down, we'll let it phase back in." Gas prices have soared over 50% since the start of the Iran war on Feb. 28, hitting a high of over $4.52 on Sunday, according to AAA. Analysts say the prices are likely to remain high with Iran...

Starship Probably Isn't Launching May 15th... Here's Why | 6:39Ellie in Space | 224K subscribers | 40,749 views | May 10, 2026

It starts with the lamentation of their women: Things are going badly on redistricting, and Democrats are losing it. But it’s more than that. They’ve got themselves into a position — which began with Barack Obama’s hollowing out of the party over a decade ago — in which they can’t afford to lose the next couple of elections, even as their position erodes. Due to an “accidental error” in the 2020 census, blue states got more seats in the House — and more electoral votes — than they were entitled to. When that “error” is fixed, the situation will be...

Virginia Democrats' motion urging the state supreme court to temporarily halt its order against the 2026 gerrymandering referendum appears to include two major typos. Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones, alongside Virginia House Speaker Don Scott and State Sen. Louise Lucas, petitioned the Supreme Court of Virginia to delay its order which struck down the gerrymandering referendum, WTKR reported. The joint motion's first page misspells "Virginia" in the section identifying the plantiff and, just below it, misspells "senator" when identifying the defendants. "DON SCOTT, in his official capacity as Speaker of the Virgnia House of Delegates, et al.," the motion submitted...

A California judge has barred a Jewish district attorney from prosecuting a group of vandals who occupied the office of the president of Stanford University and spray-painted "death to Israel" on a wall at the university in 2024, the Jewish News of Northern California reported. On June 4, 2024, anti-Israel protesters occupied the president's office and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage. Twelve protesters faced federal charges following the incident. In his ruling, Judge Kelley Paul claimed that DA Jeff Rosen overstepped in calling the incident antisemitic when it was not charged as a hate crime. “This case...

(...) Then, during a routine trip to her dentist, everything changed. Amber’s dentist realised she was suffering from a poorly aligned jaw that was putting strain on the muscles and joints around her face. Using specialist mapping technology, her teeth and bite were precisely analysed before she went through a near three-hour procedure involving tiny adjustments to the surfaces of her teeth to reduce the pressure. The results, she says, were almost immediate. ‘Straight after the first treatment, the whooshing sound – like a washing machine – had gone,’ says Amber. ‘There’s still a faint sound now, but it’s more...

WTF. Can't make it up.

Labour’s political opponents are un-British, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said as he made a final Hail Mary speech to save his job on Monday, while attempting to use boogeyman scare tactics over the so-called “far-right” to justify his continued presence in Number 10. The answer to the country rejecting his Labour party at the ballot box with its worst election results in a century is simply to be more Labour than ever, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said at yet another ‘reset’ speech on Monday morning. Even as coup plotters break into the open to challenge his position, Starmer...