Free Republic

Establishment Republican strategist Karl Rove attacked highly popular Vice President-elect JD Vance this week for his successful Senate bid in 2022, claiming he was a poor candidate. Rove’s odd and unprompted insult came in a comment to the New York Times in an article published Thursday about Steven Law stepping down as head of the Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)-aligned Senate Leadership Fund super PAC: “There was a candidate running in Ohio who was a terrible fund-raiser and was not a particularly effective candidate and the rest of the Republican ticket is winning by — from 18 to 24 points,” Mr....

[Video] Ira “Ike” Schab Jr. of Portland is one of the few remaining survivors of that day, and the only one left from the USS Dobbin. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) -- A 104-year-old respected war veteran and Pearl Harbor survivor is back in Hawaii. Ira “Ike” Schab Jr. of Portland touched down in Honolulu Tuesday ahead of the 83rd commemoration the attack on Pearl Harbor. He’s one of the few remaining survivors of that day, and the only one left from the USS Dobbin. His flight was met with a water cannon salute, and at the gate, sounds of the Navy’s U.S....

The CEO of UnitedHealth was fatally shot in the chest Wednesday morning outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown in what police say was a targeted attack. Brian Thompson, 50, was at the hotel at around 6:46 a.m. when a masked man fired at the CEO and fled eastbound off of 6th Avenue, police sources told The Post. Thomas was rushed to the hospital in critical condition, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

Iran reportedly halted an attack on Israel following President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in November. A recent report from The New York Times highlighted Iran has struck a more “conciliatory tone” since the November election, which included halting a retaliatory attack on the Jewish state. In mid-November, Iran dispatched a top official to Beirut to urge Hezbollah to accept a cease-fire with Israel. Around the same time, Iran’s U.N. ambassador met with Elon Musk, an overture to President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inner circle. And on Friday, it will hold talks in Geneva with European countries...

President Biden reiterated the United States’s support for Ukraine as it deals with the recent “horrific” Russian attack. “Overnight, Russia carried out a horrific aerial attack against Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities report that Russia launched nearly 200 missiles and drones against Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure, depriving Ukrainian civilians of access to electricity,” Biden said in a statement. Biden said the recent attack, which occurred as the United States prepared for its Thanksgiving holiday, was outrageous and is another reminder of the importance of supporting Ukraine. Biden said his administration has “for months” been working to help Ukraine increase its resilience...

A new video was released recently depicting the seven men and Trump supporters who were shot in the head without warning by Capitol Police on January 6, 2021. According to earlier reports, Capitol Police Inspector Thomas Loyd Jr. ordered police to fire on the unsuspecting Trump supporters. There is now video that shows the Trump supporters were not acting violently and had no idea they police were about to start firing rubber bullets at their heads.

Yemen’s Houthi rebel forces launched two missile attacks on the Panama-flagged Turkish cargo vessel Anadolu S within 24 hours in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The ship’s crew survived both attacks unscathed.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – NATO and Ukraine will hold emergency talks Tuesday after Russia attacked a central city with an experimental, hypersonic ballistic missile that escalated the nearly 33-month-old war. The conflict is “entering a decisive phase,” Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Friday, and “taking on very dramatic dimensions.” Ukraine’s parliament canceled a session as security was tightened following Thursday’s Russian strike on a military facility in the city of Dnipro.

The man who got kicked in the face in a shocking moment of pickleball violence just wants to be done with it and has no plans on pressing charges. Footage of the fiery on-court altercation at a tournament in Mexico has gone viral, surprising many given pickleball’s reputation as a friendly sport. In what appeared to be a match point, the eventual kicker, who was wearing pink shorts, received a serve before approaching the net, where he illegally stepped over the non-volley line. That mistake gave away a foot fault, and ultimately the match.

The U.S. embassy in Ukraine cited “specific information of a potential significant air attack” on Wednesday morning, ordering its citizens in the country to shelter in place, as tensions between America and the Russian Federation rise ever higher. The American embassy compound in western Kyiv was closed on Wednesday morning, with a convoy of diplomatic vehicles apparently evacuating the buildings. A message posted by the embassy staff stated it had received “specific information of a potential significant air attack” that was thought to be planned for Wednesday. The closure was out of an “abundance of caution”, they said, but nevertheless...

The elitist attacks on Donald Trump’s defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth show exactly why Democrats lost the election in a landslide. Intelligent, articulate, patriotic, a graduate of Princeton and Harvard, a combat veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, with two Bronze Stars, Hegseth, 44, is an inspired choice to lead the Pentagon and rid it of the woke poison that has sent recruitment levels down the toilet. Not only that, but he has a tattoo of “We the People” on his arm, a visible sign of his America First commitment to the Constitution, whose first words remind us that...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly confirmed Sunday that Israel was behind the “pager attacks” that killed or wounded thousands of Hezbollah terrorists in September and disrupted the group’s communications. The pager event has been called the most successful targeted attack on terrorists in the history of anti-terror warfare. It caused a minimum of injury to civilians while causing major damage to Hezbollah’s infrastructure and personnel. The Times of Israel reported: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted for the first time during Sunday’s weekly cabinet meeting that Israel was behind the pager and walkie-talkie attacks on Hezbollah in September, according to...

Leader of Dutch Party for Freedom disputes Amsterdam police claim: All arrests were made before and during the soccer match and NOT during the pogrom.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar met with Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof at his residence, as he concluded his visit to the Netherlands undertaken following the violent attacks on Israeli soccer fans on Thursday. In their meeting, Prime Minister Schoof described the recent attacks on Israelis in Amsterdam as a "turning point,” and expressed his commitment to bringing the perpetrators to justice. The two agreed on the importance and urgency of combatting rising antisemitism, and spoke about ways to advance cooperation on the issue. Prime Minister Schoof noted that he had cancelled his participation in the COP Climate Summit in...

Violent attacks against Maccabi Tel Aviv fans continue to take place in Amsterdam following a soccer match between Maccabi and Ajax on Thursday evening. Local authorities and Israel's Foreign Ministry have reported that ten Israelis have been injured so far in the pogrom, with consul members currently searching hospitals. Three people have been reported missing. Among those missing is 33 year old Israeli-Bulgarian Guy Avidor, who traveled from London for the game. The last contact his family had with him was a post on social media before the match, and he has since been missing for 10 hours, according to...

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman told reporters on Monday that Tehran is planning to “definitely respond” to an Israeli counterattack in late October that reportedly neutralized key missile manufacturing sites. Spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei was not alone among Iranian officials hinting at an imminent attack against Israel on the eve of the American presidential election, in which the two top candidates on the ballot are offering significantly different policies on the Middle East. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, has promised to return to his policies of heavy human rights sanctions on Iran and isolating the rogue regime in the...

San Francisco 49ers player Jonathan Feliciano, who is of Puerto Rican heritage, is blasting the left and the media for attacking a comedian who appeared at Donald Trump’s huge rally at Madison Square Garden last weekend. Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe — whose schtick is as an insult comic — quickly came under fire for joking that Puerto Rico is an “island of garbage” at the October 27 rally in New York. But NFL player Feliciano was not at all offended. The 49ers guard took to his X account to scold people for getting mad at a comedian. “The only Puerto Ricans...

Israel’s retaliatory attack on Iran’s missile facilities and air defenses on Saturday is a major win for the West — and a major setback for the Iranian regime, as well as for Russia and China, which back it. Though Iran officially minimized the impact of the attack, it severely damaged Iran’s ability to threaten its neighbors, and left it virtually defenseless in future. It also boosted a pro-Western alliance against the “Axis of Resistance” propped up by Moscow and Beijing.

So says Al-Hurra, which is interesting of itself, but we'll get to that in a moment. According to Open Source Intelligence Monitor, Arab countries have sent back-channel approval for an Israeli strike on Iran in response to the ballistic-missile attack earlier this month. They understandably want the attack to remain focused and disciplined to prevent a wider war, and they want a heads-up before the attack to prepare a common defense. In fact, OSINT notes that this appears to be a case of getting the Nasrallah-hit band back together again: Al-Hurra is reporting that several Arab Counties have recently sent...

The Afghan national who was arrested Monday for allegedly plotting an Election Day terrorist attack worked as a security guard for the CIA in Afghanistan, NBC News reported citing sources familiar with the matter. Twenty-seven-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi was allegedly planning a “violent attack in the United States in the name of and on behalf of ISIS, which was planned for Election Day,” according to the criminal complaint filed against him. While the CIA has not publicly commented on the revelation, “sources familiar with [Tawhedi’s] work in Afghanistan say he would have had minimal interaction with Americans and he was...