Free Republic

Viktor Belenko, the former Soviet Air Defence Forces pilot who defected to the West in 1976 in a MiG-25 high-speed interceptor, has passed away on Sep. 24, 2023 Alert 5 first noted. He died in a nursing home in a small town in Southern Illinois on Sep. 24. However, journalists learned about his death only now. The New York Times quoted Belenko’s son, Paul Schmidt, on Nov. 20 as saying that his father had died after a brief, unspecified illness in a nursing home in Rosebud, Illinois. Viktor Belenko was born into a simple family of Soviet workers on Feb....

A Muslim cleric walks into a food store in Houston owned by another Muslim and threatens the proprietor with harassment and protest demonstrations in front of his store if he does not stop selling pork, alcohol and lottery tickets within 30 days.

When it comes to aircraft carriers, the nation with the most is the United States. The U.S. Navy operates 11 nuclear aircraft carriers of various designs, and more are on the way as the service replaces its aging fleet of Nimitz-class carriers with the new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers. These are massive ships and the largest warships ever constructed in military history. Each Ford-class vessel displaces around 100,000 tons of seawater and measures 1,092 feet in length, with a flight deck width of 256 feet. That's a lot of ship to move around, but despite its mass, a Ford-class carrier...

Members of the European Parliament, a Christian legal agency, and other experts convened to discuss the dangers of the Digital Services Act (DSA), a European Union law nicknamed by some as the “Digital Surveillance Act.” Co-hosted by ADF International and European Parliament members Stephen Bartulica and Virginie Joron, the “The Digital Services Act and Threats to Freedom of Expression” conference was held May 21 in Brussels, Belgium, after the U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor voiced concern about the law’s effect on free speech. The DSA took effect in February 2024. The law mandates that search engines and...

Right-wing influencers have reacted to New York State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani’s apparent win in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary with anti-Islam attacks. “.@ZohranKMamdani hasn’t even been a US citizen for 10 years. He is literally supported by terrorists. NYC is about to see 9/11 2.0,” right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who has a history of anti-Muslim comments, said on the social platform X late Tuesday. Mamdani, a democratic socialist, shocked American political observers Tuesday as he seemed to be on the path to winning the Democratic nomination for the Big Apple’s mayor over former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo....

It could be a while until a winner is declared in Tuesday’s New York City mayoral primary. That’s in large part because of the city’s ranked choice voting system, where voters can select up to five candidates in order of preference on their ballots. Unless one of the 11 candidates on the ballot receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes — an unlikely feat with such a crowded field — the ranked choice system will kick into place. In that scenario, the candidate ranked first by the fewest number of people will have their votes reapportioned to voters’ second...

You just knew this was coming. Nancy Pelosi and Democrats are now attacking President Trump for destroying the Iranian regime’s nuclear sites with bunker-busting bombs. On Saturday night the United States military under the direction of President Donald J. Trump bombed three nuclear facilities in Iran in Operation Midnight Hammer. The US dropped 14 bunker busting bombs on Iran’s largest nuclear site in Fordow. It was the largest ever attack by B-2 stealth bombers by the United States. It was also the longest flight the bombers have made since 2001. The US strike involved more than 125 US aircraft. Following...

NATO members are rushing to show President Donald Trump they’re shoveling money into defense — some with a dose of creative math — as Russia’s battle with Ukraine grinds on and war threatens to consume the Middle East. The group’s summit this week in The Hague, which Trump plans to attend, will attempt to set a deadline for members to spend 5 percent of GDP on defense. Trump has complained about European defense budgets since his first term, claiming the U.S. gets ripped off by countries that rely on Washington for a security blanket. The way allies approach this at...

The Russian president was asked at a press conference why Moscow was not helping Tehran more and replied that 'almost two million Russian-speaking people live in Israel'; The Ukrainian president claimed that 20 of the bodies transferred by the Russians were actually those of their soldiers - including an unnamed Israeli citizen

A federal judge has ordered the city of McKinney to pay almost $60,000 plus interest to 81-year-old Vicki Baker. Why the big payday? Baker’s home was torn apart by a SWAT team during a 2020 police standoff. Baker took the city to court after her house became the battleground for a high-stakes manhunt, reported WFAA. McKinney police unleashed tear gas, explosives, and tactical vehicles on the property while chasing a fugitive who had barricaded himself inside. Insurance plans do not cover “acts of the government” and the city refused to pay for the damage, so Vicki joined forces with the...

President Donald Trump appeared to confirm that the United States is now a part of Israel’s attack on Iran during a Tuesday morning social media post. Amid growing tensions of an escalating conflict following last week’s attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, questions have arisen over the United States’ involvement. Using the word “We,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning, “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.” While a bitter debate within MAGA rages between a pro-Israel interventionist sect and an isolationist “America First” portion, experts are wondering about the geopolitical instability that has been caused by Israel’s...

As President Donald Trump’s military parade rolled through the nation’s capital on Saturday, millions of Americans across the country took part in the largest coordinated protests against the president since the start of his second administration. While Trump’s parade aimed to show America’s military prowess in its new era — remade under the administration’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion policies — over 2,000 protests planned for major cities and small towns nationwide were expected to outdo the president’s parade in scale. “These are not normal times in America. This is not a normal presidency,” Rep. Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.) told thousands of...

As they pounded the Iranian nuclear facilities yesterday, the Israelis were finally doing what so many Western leaders had expected they would do for years, if not decades. In fact, let us be honest: the rest of the world has not just been expecting this Israeli action. Secretly or openly, many governments have been hoping for it. In one astonishing operation the Israelis crippled the Natanz enrichment reactor and seriously damaged two others. They took out six of the most important Iranian nuclear scientists, as well as an astonishing array of the country’s top brass. They blew up radars and...

Several drag queens protested and booed President Donald Trump as he attended a performance of Les Misérables at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday. The president’s visit marked his first since the inauguration. Video captured the moment several drag queens stood up in the audience as he appeared: The president has always hailed Les Misérables as his favorite musical. As Consequence recently reported, half the play’s cast decided to boycott the performance due to the president’s visit. Several cast members of Les Misérables will not be performing “One Day More” at their Kennedy Center concert next month — instead, they’ll be...

Member of the U.S. military joined an anti-ICE protest in Dallas and said, "We won’t be pawns in stripping away constitutional rights." https://x.com/Breaking911/status/1932648094975299925

"This Is A Slowly Unfolding Fort Sumter Moment" Counterterrorism Expert & Researcher Matt Bracken Compares & Contrasts The Inciting Battle Of The First American Civil War With The New Civil War Unfolding NOW In Los Angeles(10 minute video clip below)https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1932196869729669139 The full interview is below here.https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1932217289652474228

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was spotted Monday night chatting with Steve Bannon, according to Politico Playbook. Fetterman, who has displayed his own dramatic rightward shift, was reportedly dining at a top MAGA hangout near Capitol Hill with Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle, when the conservative news site’s old director wandered up and spoke to the pair for roughly 20 minutes. Bannon took over Breitbart in 2012, and directed the site to publish patently pugnacious rhetoric and conspiracy theories cooked up by far-right activists and white supremacists. In 2016, Bannon stepped down to join Trump’s presidential campaign as its CEO, and went on...

We spent decades kicking that rusted can, telling ourselves the road would hold if we just bought more time. But now the can is gone. It rusted through, crumbled into dust. The road behind is littered with the ruins of old promises, and ahead lies a choice.No easy paths. No shortcuts.One direction follows the same broken trail, it feels familiar, but hollow. The other, a quieter road through unknowns, dappled with light but demanding more of us.This isn't just a political moment. It's a human one.Some will see this image as the common man. Others might see the last leader...

Ukraine’s extraordinary attack deep inside Russia has, at a stroke, rewritten the rules of modern war. On Sunday a swarm of small drones, each costing under $500, rose over four Russian airfields deep inside Siberia and the Arctic and destroyed over forty strategic bombers reportedly worth over $7 billion. Thanks to meticulous planning, sophisticated military imagination and an underdog’s boldness of vision, Kyiv’s forces have landed a stunning blow on their far stronger opponent, opening a new chapter in the history of human conflict. The question that will be haunting Putin is – what’s next? Ukraine’s famously stone-faced chief of...

Vice president JD Vance's photo with Indian-origin venture capitalist Asha Jadeja Motwani became a flashpoint amid the H-1B row as social media users questioned what was the purpose of the visit at a time when MAGA activists are opposing the US's quota for H-1B programs.