Free Republic

In the fall of 1998, I traveled to Denmark to take up my duties as the American Ambassador in Copenhagen. Often referred to as the “Fairytale Kingdom,” courtesy of its native son, Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark is a remarkable country that has been an exceptional ally of the United States for well over 200 years. The Danes have built a nation that combines Viking valor with a deep sense of duty to be one’s brother’s keeper. The admirable character of the Danish people was perhaps best exemplified when it became the only country in Europe to rescue virtually its entire...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday spoke for more than an hour at the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. While his meandering remarks touched on multiple familiar topics, including windmills—a longtime personal pet peeve—the state of the U.S. economy, and his long-running 2020 U.S. presidential election denialism, Trump spoke at length about his desire to acquire Greenland from Denmark. He also strongly criticized NATO and said other members of the Western military alliance have taken advantage of U.S. generosity over the years. The following is an excerpt from his remarks focusing on Greenland, Denmark, NATO, and U.S. military...

President Trump is correct to want to exercise control over Greenland, but his methodology is problematic. The present situation is unworkable since we are forced to spend money and risk our personnel with little benefit to us during the immediate period. Ownership is not the only solution to this conundrum. There are several possible methods to fulfill the requirements that Trump seeks. One proposal would be modeled after the arrangement Great Britain had with China for Hong Kong, in which the former had a 99-year lease for the territory. There are many variations on this theme. Mineral resources secured could...

2 WCSO deputies were shot by an armed suspect during an investigation in the Maple Falls area. Both deputies were injured and partially incapacitated as a result. Without hesitation, Cody Deeter, an armed citizen and good Samaritan, put himself in harm’s way, placing himself between the suspect and the injured Deputies while engaging the armed suspect. Deeter’s selfless and decisive actions allowed Deputies to move to a position of cover and begin receiving medical aid. Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo added that “Deeter disregarded his own safety and provided the cover fire from his own weapon that was needed to...

WICHITA, Kan. — The Wichita Police Department is investigating a shooting that occurred Thursday night in east Wichita during a reported home invasion robbery. On Jan. 15, 2026, at about 7:30 p.m., officers assigned to Patrol East heard several gunshots and then received a Gunshot Detection System (GSD) alert in the 5300 block of E. Funston. Officers arrived before 911 calls came in. When officers arrived, they found a 22-year-old man with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers began life-saving measures until Sedgwick County EMS arrived. EMS transported the man to a local hospital, where he remains in serious but stable condition....

Two people have been charged in connection with a shooting that occurred at Ballenger Fieldhouse on the campus of Mott Community College in Flint. The incident took place Saturday, Jan. 10. Malik Zamir Henderson, 23, of Flint, faces three felony charges: gang membership, which carries up to 20 years in prison; assault with intent to rob while unarmed, a 15-year felony; and assault with intent to do great bodily harm, less than murder or by strangulation, a 10-year felony. Christopher Gill, 23, also from Flint, is charged with carrying a concealed handgun in a sports arena. This is a civil...

D’IBERVILLE, Miss. (WXXV)- One man is dead and another man is behind bars after attempting to rob another person in D’Iberville on Monday night. The Harrison County coroner has identified the deceased as 25-year-old Tristan Young of Hattiesburg. Twenty-five-year-old Ahmad Hawthorne is charged with armed robbery and accessory after the fact in a drive by shooting. The incident happened in the parking lot of the Cypress Lanes Bowling Alley around 7:30 Monday night. D’Iberville police say there was an arranged meeting between two parties to purchase electronics. A third person, Young, showed up, attempting to rob the purchaser at gunpoint....

President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he “will not permit” defense companies to issue dividends or stock buybacks until those firms speed up their production of military equipment and address his other complaints about the industry. Trump, in a lengthy Truth Social post, also took aim at defense contractors’ executive pay packages, calling them “exorbitant and unjustifiable.” “Defense Companies are not producing our Great Military Equipment rapidly enough and, once produced, not maintaining it properly or quickly,” he wrote. Until those companies build new production plants, “no Executive should be allowed to make in excess of $5 Million Dollars,” Trump...

What do you think: is it manifest destiny that the United States acquire or at least exercise control over Greenland? That’s pretty much how we got Texas, California, New Mexico, Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa. Then there was the Louisiana purchase. In 1803, Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the United States, paying France $15 million or a bit less than three cents per acre for a land mass that is about 26 percent of the contiguous United States. And let’s not forget about Alaska. A few facts about Greenland. It is big: 836,000 square miles....

ANDERSON —One suspect is in the hospital, and three others are in custody after police say a home invasion led to a shooting in Anderson on Sunday. According to the Anderson Police Department, officers responded to 712 Lonsvale Drive around 12:44 p.m. on January 4 for a reported shooting. According to investigators, four suspects kicked in the rear door of the residence and forced their way inside. During the break-in, one of the occupants inside the home shot and wounded one of the intruders. The suspects fled the scene immediately after the shooting. Anderson Police later located and arrested three...

Financed by JPMorgan, Jointly Owned by US DoD Under the plan, the U.S. Department of Defense will hold a 40% stake in the JPM Financed smelter joint-venture. GFN – WASHINGTON: Korea Zinc plans a $7.4 billion investment to construct a large-scale non-ferrous metals smelter in Clarksville, Tennessee, a project U.S. officials say will materially expand domestic critical minerals processing capacity and strengthen supply chain security.1 The project, known as the “U.S. Smelter,” is expected to require approximately $6.6 billion in capital expenditures, with total investment reaching $7.4 billion including financing costs. It is being developed in coordination with the U.S....

Pete Hegseth’s Saturday begins with personal training. The Secretary of War, @SecWar on your socials, is very fond of working out with the troops – something most defense secretaries have done without someone dutifully filming the experience for Instagram. Then he heads off to the Reagan National Defense Forum, the annual gathering of war hawks, policy nerds and defense contractors in Simi Valley, California. Hegseth, the veteran of the Global War on Terror, is there to fulfill his mission of denouncing the neocons. “Out with idealistic utopianism, in with hard-nosed realism,” he declares, insisting the United States will no longer...

No matter how much I try to ignore the Democrats' latest "The Walls Are Closing In" spectacle, it has come to my attention that liberals are hopping mad about our military killing two Venezuelan drug traffickers. Cocaine has killed 100,000 Americans in the last 20 years. Venezuela is a major player in the supply chain that brings it here. But Democrats are concerned with the safety and well-being of the narco-terrorists. Of course, Democrats also root for cop-killers, serial rapists, wife-beaters, drug kingpins, cold-blooded killers and Ana Navarro. Liberals are OK with killing people unless it's good for America. They...

A homeowner in the Italian province of Rovigo used a firearm to defend himself from armed intruders in 2025. The precise date has not been published. The Italian Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni defended the reform of Italian defense law, which has protected the homeowner from having his name made public. The law protected the homeowner from an intense investigation as someone suspected of using lethal force in an illegitimate manner.During the Fascist regime of Mussolini, the Italian laws about self defense were made very restrictive. Controls on the ownership of firearms were tightened. Italy reformed its law on self defense...

The New York Times sued Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday over the Pentagon's new policy that requires media outlets to pledge not to gather information unless defense officials formally authorize its release. That policy, unveiled in September, includes a ban on credentialed journalists reporting even unclassified material that isn't expressly approved for public consumption by Defense Department brass. The Times said the Pentagon policy represents an attempt to force reporters to rely solely upon officials for news involving the military and would unlawfully permit their punishment for failing to do so. The Times — and NPR — are among...

For nearly a century, America’s military strength has come largely through self-reliance. We not only made the ships, airplanes and tanks, our country supplied the parts and materials for these complex systems. But a lot has changed in recent times.Unfortunately, our military has increasingly relied on sourcing parts globally -- including from possibly unreliable places like China. It’s a disastrous side effect of globalization.For example, while modern jet engines may typically include between 30,000 and 50,000 parts, ensuring they are “China-free” has proven to be incredibly difficult. We’ve already seen deliveries of F-35s delayed over this issue, revealing that supply...

Administration allies say they are fed up with the Defense Department’s third-most senior leader and his foreign policy surprises. More than a half dozen diplomats interviewed in Washington and Europe also complain that the Pentagon’s once steady consultations have slowed as Colby’s office crafts that strategy, along with a review of troop locations worldwide.That uncertainty deepened after the Pentagon quietly decided not to replace a rotational Army brigade in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia — a move the Romanian government learned of only two days before it was announced, according to a U.S. defense official and a Romanian official.One NATO diplomat...

The U.S. Army is not in “terminal decline” but at a “classical crisis”—a decisive turning point. Critics see an “obsolete” force, but the author points to historical parallels (post-WWI, post-WWII, and the post-Vietnam “Hollow Army”) where the Army successfully renewed itself. Signs of this “metamorphosis,” like the SkyFoundry drone initiative (aiming for 10,000/month by 2026), show the Army is adapting, not collapsing, and will emerge smaller but more lethal.

The department, which has met its 8-percent overall reduction goal, is now going after “low performers.” The Defense Department is making another push to slim its civilian workforce, this time by directing managers to fire employees for “unacceptable performance” while continuing to encourage civilians to leave voluntarily. A 20-page memo signed by the Pentagon’s personnel boss late last month lays out several mechanisms for civilian employees to resign or be removed for cause, beyond the 60,000-plus employees who have already voluntarily bowed out this year through either the Deferred Resignation Program or Voluntary Early Retirement Authority. It also gives employees,...

One of the significant advantages of using handguns to defend against bear attacks is that defense with a handgun is far more likely to result in a dead bear. This is a highly desirable result. Bears that attack humans should be killed. Killing aggressive bears is a way to condition the bear population to avoid humans.The false premise implicit in the argument for non-lethal defenses against bears is that there are such small numbers of bears that killing a bear removes a valuable resource from the bear genetic pool. This view had some legitimacy about 1975-1980, when the population of...