Free Republic

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,...

We had 550,000 troops and over 4,000 combat aircraft based right in South Vietnam in 1968. Ten minutes from takeoff to mission. 2 million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died. AND WE LOST THE WAR.So anybody who even suggests that invading Iran can work, is retarded. Especially when all of our potential force assembly locations are in proven missile and drone range. (This ain't Desert Storm. Examples: The US Navy has completely fled the region. Our critical aircraft are destroyed on the ground from Kuwait to Saudi Arabia.)Iran is 10X bigger than South Vietnam, with 6X its 1970 population. Its bigger...

If the United States is the world’s largest oil producer—in fact, if we are energy independent—then why are we still at the mercy of global events? And how can prices spike instantly when the gasoline in the tank was made from cheaper oil weeks ago? People like easy answers, such as “corporate greed.” That is emotionally satisfying, but it doesn’t tell the full story. What’s happening is a function of global markets, supply chain realities, and predictable patterns in consumer behavior. In fact, much of what we’re seeing is exactly how the system is designed to work. The U.S. leads...

Throughout Operation Roaring Lion, the Israeli Air Force had continuously targeted the firepower arrays of the Iranian terror regime, and particularly the ballistic missile array across Iran. The Israeli Air Force, acting on IDF intelligence, conducted five strikes within seconds on several infrastructure sites located within a large-scale ballistic missiles array site in western Iran. During the strikes, the IDF eliminated numerous operatives of the ballistic missiles array as they operated within the site to advance and carry out terror attacks against the State of Israel and additional countries in the Middle East. The IDF will continue to deepen...

POLITICSJUST IN: Pentagon ‘Making Heavy Preparations’ For Potential Ground Operation, Report SaysPublished 7 hours ago on March 20, 2026By jake SHARETWEET Pentagon brass are quietly prepping for a potential U.S. ground invasion of Iran, even as President Donald Trump insists he’s not sending troops, according to multiple sources cited by CBS News. Senior military leaders have already submitted detailed requests outlining what it would take to put American boots on the ground as Trump weighs his next move in the escalating U.S.-Israel showdown with Tehran, the sources told CBS.

CBS News chief Washington correspondent Major Garrett sat down with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Friday to discuss the war with Iran, potential American casualties, and what an Iranian surrender could look like. CBS aired an edited version of this full interview on TV on Sunday. "We're very much on track, on plan," Hegseth said. "We're not flying a mission accomplished banner-- like George W. Bush on-- on an aircraft carrier. We're not doing that and we haven't done that. But we can be clear with the American people that this is not a fair fight." "Our capabilities are overwhelming...

President Trump said Sunday that increasing prices of oil are “a very small price to pay” for “safety and peace” amid the U.S. conflict with Iran. “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump said in a Sunday evening Truth Social post. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!” he added. The U.S. conflict in Iran caused a recent surge in domestic oil and gas prices, with the U.S. national average for a gallon of regular gasoline...

On the eve of the 2016 Presidential election, Issue #464 of Revolution announced in its headline, “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America. . .Rise Up. . .Get Into The Streets. . .Unite With People Everywhere to Build Up Resistance in Every Way You Can. . .Don’t Stop: Don’t Conciliate. . .Don’t Accommodate. . .Don’t Collaborate”.Revolution is an online newspaper published by the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), a Maoist group descended from splinters of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). In 1969, RCP founder Bob Avakian and fellow Maoist H. Bruce Franklin had cofounded the...

The evolution of technology is unrelentingly swift. Generations have witnessed state-of-the-art inventions become obsolete in the blink of an eye. The fax machine, the pager, and the landline, all once revolutionary, have earned their place in the annals of history. Yet email — born in 1971 when engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the very first “ping” — has remarkably endured. This persistent form of communication continues to redefine itself for the digital age, but one enigmatic email feature hasn’t changed for over 50 years: the “cc.” The “cc” field is a familiar sight perched within the recipient line of an email....

ransomnote: I posted Matt Taibbi's introduction to the article below. Follow the link for the core of the article.Susan Schmidt, Andrew Lowenthal, Tom Wyatt and 5 others provide a well organized overview to their extensive research. They describe 30 main players in the Censorship-Industrial Complex (CIC), and another 20 in the 'honorable mentions' catagory. I will put a hyperlinked table of contents in post #1. Illustration by mrmooremedia.comIntroduction by Matt TaibbiOn January 17, 1961, outgoing President and former Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower gave one of the most consequential speeches in American history. Eisenhower for eight years had been...

Credit card delinquencies are on the rise, as research from the New York Federal Reserve shows nearly a fifth of borrowers are “maxed-out.” According the new report, issued by the bank’s Center for Microeconomic Data, household debt rose by 1.1 percent, or $184 billion, in the first quarter of the year, bringing the total to $17.69 trillion. “In the first quarter of 2024, credit card and auto loan transition rates into serious delinquency continued to rise across all age groups,” Joelle Scally, regional economic principal within the household and public policy research division at the bank, said in a statement....

A North Carolina cafe customer is out $2,000 as her go-to diner posted her entire credit card information online for the world to see. Rhonda Deaver paid her weekly visit to Smith’s Cafe in Kinston following her doctor’s appointment on April 30 and dined at the restaurant, approximately 80 miles southeast of Raleigh. During her drive home, Deaver received a call from her bank telling her she left her credit card at the cafe. When she returned to the diner, cafe staff told Deaver they had taken a picture of the front and back of the card and posted it...

"...While the banks might be fine, some cash-strapped and credit-abusing consumers clearly are not. The idea that JPM is building reserves to cushion themselves against bad loans amid rapidly increasing charge-offs tells you all you need to know. Similar story at Bank of America (BAC), who also increased reserves. Across the nation’s four biggest banks, consumer loan charge-offs increased 73% in Q1, as they wrote off $3.4 billion in bad debt during the first three months of the year. "

A new Spanish version of the Roman Catholic Bible is ditching the word "man" for "person." The Jerusalem Bible from publishing house Desclée de Brouwer updated the word used for "man" ("hombre") to "person" ("persona") in its latest Spanish edition. The move changes the iconic call of Jesus to His disciples to become "fishers of men" in Matthew 4:19 to the more gender-neutral "fishers of persons." In Greek, the word for "man" is "anthropos," which is used more than 500 times in the New Testament, including multiple instances where Jesus refers to Himself as the "Son of Man." Published in...

Gov. Tom Wolf (D) vetoed legislation Thursday that would have removed the state’s requirement that law-abiding Pennsylvanians get a permit before carrying a gun for self-defense. On November 17, 2021, Breitbart News reported that legislation to make Pennsylvania the 22nd constitutional carry state was headed to Wolf’s desk. Wolf’s opposition to the legislation was well known, and NBC Philadelphia noted that he vetoed constitutional carry on Thursday. He called the bill “dangerous,” adding, “This legislation, which eliminates the requirement for individuals to obtain a license before carrying a concealed firearm, will only exacerbate gun violence and jeopardize the safety of...

The Supreme Court's questioning during oral arguments in a New York gun rights case showed that several justices have strong reservations about the state’s highly restrictive regulations for getting concealed carry permits. The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, is potentially the biggest gun rights case to go before the high court in more than a decade. New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood noted that, under current rules, the state has the discretion to evaluate a person’s reason for applying for a permit, as an applicant has to show "proper cause" for needing one. Underwood...

The former head of the CIA Counterterrorism Center has suggested that counterinsurgency tactics used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan should be applied to ‘domestic extremists’ inside the US. NPR reports that Robert Grenier, who directed the CIA’s Counterterrorism program from 2004 to 2006, declared “We may be witnessing the dawn of a sustained wave of violent insurgency within our own country, perpetrated by our own countrymen.” In an op-ed for The New York Times last week, Grenier suggested that “extremists who seek a social apocalypse … are capable of producing endemic political violence of a sort not seen...

  Kristen Clarke of the NAACP LDF has no idea what she is talking about. In a CBS interview she states: "Kristen Clarke, Co-Director of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund Political Participation Group, said in an interview with Hotsheet that 'there doesn't seem to be a color blind approach to many of these so called ballot integrity efforts and poll watching initiatives that are underway.  The reports that we are hearing about are very troubling,' she said, suggesting that poll watchers are being 'largely assigned to monitor African American and Latino voters.'" This is false.  And she should no better.  Sadly,...

U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- At about 1:45 p.m. on Thursday, 6 August, at the intersection of Meridian Street and I-65, a group of agitators associated with Black Lives Matters were illegally blocking Meridian Street. A blue GM Sierra pick-up approaches.  There is plenty of room for the agitators to be off of the street. There are not many of them, somewhat less than a hundred by estimation. Instead of getting out of the lane to allow people to freely travel on the public right of way, they are spread out to block the street.Two agitators deliberately block the blue Sierra, pulling...

I'm seriously looking at this little five shot revolver and would appreciate any insight into its reputation. Thank you. Pic at link.