Free Republic

An Israeli peace activist who was kidnapped and held hostage for 53 days in Gaza said the horrifying experience shattered her longstanding belief that there could be peace between Palestinians and Israelis. “I don’t believe in peace, I don’t, sorry. I changed my mind,” Ada Sagi, who was captured by Hamas on Oct. 7, at the start of the Israel-Hamas war, told the BBC. For decades, Sagi, 75, lived in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border and taught Israelis Arabic so that they could speak to their neighbors. Now, she’s urging the Israeli government to agree to a...

Liberals claim to be in favor of democracy–or, at least, Our Democracy™️–but if someone actually runs against them, they take it as a personal offense. Consider this tweet by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom I take as a good exemplar of contemporary liberalism:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez @AOC People everywhere need to understand how disgusting and abnormal it is for special interests to dump nearly $15 million to unseat a member of Congress in a primary.This is corruption. It is a core threat to American democracy. It also fuels Trump.Support Jamaal Bowman.There is nothing shocking about $15 million being spent on a Congressional race. In...

Via its institutional mouthpiece, the New York Times, the American and international far Left has laid out its battle plan for the 2024 presidential election and beyond: "The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started." Written by a hard-core trained cadre of ideological reporter-editorialists, including Trump frenemy Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage, Reid J. Epstein, and Jonathan Swan, it is an open declaration of war on the rest of us. In many ways, this is the prequel to Molly Ball's infamous explainer, "The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election," which appeared early in 2021:There...

It is now little more than a “developing country”. Its stock market is a “junk shop” selling old tat. And its reputation as a place to do business has “never been so bad’. In the middle of the UK’s dismal election campaign, it would be easy to imagine that Britain was the country under discussion. But Theodor Weimer, the head of the once mighty Deutsche Börse, was describing his native Germany. And he was absolutely right. After a series of catastrophic policy mistakes by centrist leaders, there is no way back for Germany – and its decline is only going...

Say what you will about us on the Right, but we are willing to call out or own when they start embarrassing themselves or misrepresenting the rest of us. We keep blowhards like Majorie Taylor-Greene at arm's length. We've long since tired of hearing Hannity turn every other conversation into a banal trumpeting of his martial arts skills. The door hit George Santos on the way out. But aside from a few noble voices, the Left refuses to do any such thing within its own camp. My gut feeling is that your traditional liberal (the sophomoric yard signs and the...

Yo, you over there in the keffiyeh asking about Zionists on this bus. I'm actually a hillbilly from Appalachia, but for the moment, I self-identify as a Jew. Come on over and let's have a chat.This is a rant. R-rated: language, depictions of potential violence, graphic insults that may prove discomforting only to “sensitive” people who don’t read Howlin’ anyway. But NSFW if you are using the transcript reader. Thanks for allowing me to vent my spleen.Yo, you keffiyeh-wearing, anti-Semitic protesters holding hostages in college buildings, defacing monuments and private homes, and threatening people on public buses. Eighty-five years ago,...

On Monday, anti-Israel activists held what they called a “Citywide Day of Rage for Gaza.” The rally began in Union Square, where participants did vile things like unfurling a banner reading "Long Live October 7," evoking Adolf Hitler, and harassing and assaulting a female reporter. From there, the enlightened marchers made their way to The Nova Music Festival Exhibition, a massive memorial installation down on Wall Street that is visiting the city from Israel. The exhibition is "an in-depth remembrance of the brutal October 7th attack," according to its website. "The installation sets out to recreate an event dedicated to...

A world-historical societal transformation is taking place before our very eyes, and yet few have taken notice. Britain, the erstwhile leader of the Western world and the foundation and source of English-speaking civilization, is in its last days as a free society, and will soon become an Islamic state. Yet despite the mountains of evidence that this transformation is taking place, many will still deny that it is happening at all. They may not even admit it when it overtakes them personally. The English actor-turned-political-activist Lawrence Fox recently noted what was happening: "The Mayor of London is a Muslim. The...

Bill Anders has died, apparently piloting his own plane. He was the astronaut who took the iconic photo of the whole Earth from the Moon on his trip around it on Apollo 8, which was the actual moment when we won the space race. And it became the icon for the environmental movement, for good or ill. I consider myself privileged to consider him a friend, and I’ll explain why anon, but for now, farewell, yet another hero of that era, who (unlike many of his Apollo cohorts) understood how important commercial space was. I was at AIAA SciTech Forum...

On July 24, roughly two weeks after Donald Trump's sentencing in Manhattan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is schedule to travel to Washington and address a joint session of Congress. The invitation was set up by House Speaker Mike Johnson and (eventually) Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. He is expected to provide an update on the war in Gaza and thank the United States for it's continuing support of his country. But not everyone is happy about it. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, during an interview with CNN, described the invitation as a "mistake," saying the decision was "wrong" and that...

Anti-Israel virtue signaling is usually reserved for know-nothing college students who may or may not be smart enough to realize how antisemitic their movement is. Sometimes, though, even whole countries find out how virtue signaling can backfire.Ireland, Norway, and Spain all decided to reward Hamas’s massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians and promise to continue to try and kill Israeli civilians by declaring that they would recognize “Palestine” as an independent state. As part of that process, Norway will be turning its diplomatic office in the West Bank into an embassy, and Ireland announced it would create an embassy as well.Spain,...

Covenant School killer Audrey Elizabeth Hale, a biological female who identified as a transgender male at the time of her March 27, 2023 attack, wrote a three-page journal entry titled “My Imaginary Penis” that was included in the writings recovered from her vehicle. The Tennessee Star confirmed on Wednesday it obtained nearly four dozen pages of Hale’s writings from a source familiar with the Covenant investigation, including the March 11, 2023 entry discussing her desire to have a male anatomy. Hale’s diary or journal entry begins with the title “My Imaginary Penis” and includes a crude drawing. “My penis exists...

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has vowed to enact tougher measures to deport criminals, terrorists, and terror supporters after a 25-year-old Afghan man committed a fatal stabbing last week. Currently, Germany does not deport people back to Afghanistan or Syria partly due to the harsh conditions and oppressive leadership in those countries. Afghanistan is run by the Taliban, a brutal Islamist militant organization with which Germany does not have diplomatic relations, while Syria is led by Bashar al-Assad, the Iran-backed leader who has been accused of mass war crimes during his country’s ongoing civil war. But Scholz is looking to restore...

You know the nearer your destinationThe more you're slip slidin' away - Paul SimonPresident Biden "shows signs of slipping," the Wall Street Journal reported this week. Journalists Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes—no conservatives—spoke to 45 people who have met with the president and noticed his mental and physical decline. They recount, in detail, several meetings over the past year where Biden has been forgetful, confused, and out of it. The president, Linskey and Hughes report, "appears slower now, someone who has both good moments and bad ones." No kidding. You don't need the Journal to tell you that Biden is...

The Israeli Defense Forces struck a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in northern Gaza, killing 37 people, according to a Gaza hospital. The school was part of the Nuseirat refugee camp and, like many UN schools, was used by Hamas to harbor terrorists. This particular school compound also sheltered displaced civilians from the refugee camp. The IDF says that from 30-40 Hamas fighters were in three classrooms of the school. The fighters belonged to the notorious and elite Nukhba force who took part in the October 7 massacre in Israel. The army said that...

Wednesday morning. His comments were wrapped in platitudes but cut against the American people’s right to freedom of speech. He could not be more wrong. McRaven claims that those who criticize government institutions “undermine America.” "Undermining America” is a serious charge. And when it comes from a four-star admiral who commanded the entire United States Special Operations Command, you can bet that it carries some clout among those who are wielding power. For these reasons, McRaven’s comments merit close scrutiny. ... McRaven began, not by answering the question, but instead by making sure that his political views got out there....

One of the most popular books in the 1980s was the satire “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche.” It was a tongue-in-cheek homage to what even then was a perceived fading masculinity starting to infect our broader society. One of the chapters listed “Historic dates in Real Man history.” Of June 6, 1944, better known as D-Day, it states: “150,000 Real Men storm Normandy beach.” In a way, I could end this piece right there, as I cannot offer a more fitting tribute to what occurred on those hallowed beaches 80 years ago today. But I will try. Because as the...

If you take the view that art is inherently subversive, it's tragic that October 7 exists.The play, the latest from Phelim McAleer and Ann McElhinney, brings the stories of victims and survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks to life.McAleer is credited as the writer, though the words themselves come from verbatim transcripts of interviews he and McElhinney conducted in Israel in the aftermath of Hamas' murder of 1,200 people, not to mention the rapes, kidnappings, and other horrors that, for at least one father, made death preferable.As one man, Michael (Randy Schein), says of his slain daughter Rachel:"We are crying,...

On Wednesday, the Georgia Court of Appeals made a decisive move in the racketeering case involving former President Donald Trump. With an official order, the court has halted all proceedings. It's because of the pending ruling on the defendants' motion to disqualify Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from the case. The appeals court directed Judge Scott McAfee hit the breaks on the case until this matter is resolved. This decision comes in the wake of concerns surrounding Willis' impartiality. In March, McAfee ruled that despite "a significant appearance of impropriety” due to her romantic involvement with special prosecutor Nathan...

Before getting to that, let me be a Lying Skank Jen Psaki and Circle Back to turmoil at the Washington Post. I've quoted some of this but some of this is new (unless you saw it on other websites, which you probably did).As you know, the Washington Post employees are revolting. But the new news is that they're also rebelling.When Washington Post publisher Will Lewis and new interim executive editor Matt Murray met with staff Monday, the newsroom was still coming to terms with the abrupt exit of Sally Buzbee, who had led the paper since May 2021."Everyone was pretty...