Free Republic

The “Life in Venice” housing development, a multibillion-dollar replica of the Italian city on the Chinese coast, stands silent. But in recent years the remote, partially abandoned complex has drawn unlikely new residents like Sasa Chen, a burned-out young Chinese woman who until recently worked a high-earning finance job in Shanghai, China’s bustling commerce hub. The appeal? Chen pays just 1200 RMB, or $168, a month for her apartment in faux Venice in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu. It’s so cheap that it's allowed Chen to retire at the tender age of 28. Experts say Chen is part of...

***Marco Rubio insisted Tuesday that he was misunderstood one day prior when he said the US attacked Iran on Saturday because “we knew that there was going to be an Israeli action” that would “precipitate an attack against American forces.” Rubio walked back his prior statements after President Trump flatly denied that Israel chose the timing of the attack — maintaining in an Oval Office pool spray hours earlier, as he had in interviews, that he chose to attack after unsuccessful US-Iran talks Thursday in Geneva. “This was a question of timing, of why this had to happen as a...

esident Trump is pushing back on arguments from former Fox News hosts Megyn Kelly and Tucker Carlson the president's so-called MAGA base does not support his recent air strikes on Iran, saying "MAGA is Trump." “I have to do what’s right, number one – and you can’t have Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That’s predominant to me,” Trump told independent journalist Rachel Bade on Monday. “I think that MAGA is Trump – MAGA’s not the other two,” Trump said of Carlson and Kelly. “MAGA wants to see our country thrive and be safe. And MAGA loves what I’m doing —...

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump denies that Israel dragged the US into war with Iran, insisting that if anything, the opposite could be true and that he felt Iran was going to attack first. Trump was asked by a reporter in the Oval Office, “Did Israel force your hand to launch these strikes against Iran? Did Netanyahu pull the United States into this war?” “No, I might have forced their hands. You see, we were having negotiations with these lunatics, and it was my opinion that they [the Iranians] were going to attack first,” Trump claims in response, during...

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Sunday said President Trump could attempt to use a national emergency declaration to cancel midterm elections. Greene said she could “see it” happening in a post on the social platform X made in response to a post from radio host Shannon Joy.

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) cited U.S. air operations in Serbia and Kosovo in the 1990s to argue that changing the regime in Iran would be difficult to pull off just through air operations without putting American soldiers on the ground and said that he doesn’t support putting troops on the ground and stated that doing so would require authorization by Congress.Davidson said, “[Y]ou already see that vision for a democratic future for Iran. And Prime Minister Netanyahu somehow thinks that that can magically happen with some air power. We couldn’t even make regime...

President Trump announced the US is going to “cut off all trade with Spain” over Madrid’s lack of support for the attack on Iran. “We were going to cut off all trade with Spain. We don’t want anything to do with Spain,” he said during an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump spent several minutes complaining about the NATO allies’ refusal to allow the US to use their military bases to attack Iran and argued that they don’t spend enough on defense. “Spain has been terrible,” he said. “Spain actually said that we can’t use their bases.”...

The United States Department of Education announced on February 17 that it was opening an investigation into Portland Public Schools (PPS) over a complaint that the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) violates the federal Civil Rights Act. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint filed in December, alleging the CBSE violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. According to Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey: “Civil rights law—and basic fairness—demand that...

Republicans are surging after President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address and might be in position to defy history in the midterm elections, polling shows. The Harvard Harris poll found Republicans are in a much better position heading into midterm elections than previously assessed. The poll asked respondents if the congressional election were held today would they be more likely to vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress, finding likely midterm voters split down the middle. The results mark an eight-point swing towards Republicans in the Harvard Harris poll since January when 54 percent of respondents replied...

Israel’s determination to attack Iran and the certainty that US troops would be targeted in response forced the Trump administration to take pre-emptive strikes, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said, in a new explanation for Washington’s surprise entry into the conflict. The rationale drew divided reviews from top members of Congress who on Monday evening received the first briefing by the Trump administration since it ordered the air campaign to begin over the weekend. Rubio; the CIA director, John Ratcliffe; and joint chiefs of staff, chair Dan Caine; spoke to the lawmakers behind closed doors in the Capitol ahead...

California Governor Gavin Newsom shared the strange origin story behind the infamous “Newscum” nickname, a moniker coined by President Donald Trump. In a late-night phone call, Newsom claims the president called him to test out the nickname, which he later adopted in his public tirades against. In a candid interview on “The Rest Is Politics” podcast, Newsom recounted the unusual exchange, which took place late one night in 2025.

~I was out of it for most of last week, due to a car accident and another heart attack within seconds of each other, both pretty serious. So I was hoping to emerge to a reasonably relaxed environment with plenty of time to get myself up to speed on what I've missed. Alas, the news cycle had other plans. One worries in such circumstances that one is projecting outward one's own intimations of mortality. As I have maintained for God knows how many sodding decades, in a certain sense the Iranian revolution is where our present era began, and not...

The official story is real — but incomplete. Operation Epic Fury’s stated goals — eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missile arsenal, degrading its proxy networks, and annihilating its navy — are all legitimate grievances rooted in 47 years of Iranian hostility toward the United States. But they are the surface layer of a much deeper strategic play.

WASHINGTON, March 1 (Reuters) - Only one in four Americans approves of the U.S. strikes that killed Iran’s leader, while about half — including one in four Republicans — believe President Donald Trump is too willing to use military force, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded on Sunday. Some 27% of respondents said they approved of the strikes, while 43% disapproved and 29% were not sure. About nine in 10 respondents said they had heard at least a little about the strikes, which began early on Saturday. The poll was conducted during the strikes on Iran by the U.S....

While Beijing publicly advocates restraint, sustained tensions between the U.S. and Iran serve its strategic interests.Recent heightened tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s repression of nationwide protests and its advancing nuclear program have raised concerns about maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered key military assets to move into the region, and he may decide on whether to use force within the next few days. At the same time, Washington and Tehran have met indirectly in Oman and agreed that diplomacy on the nuclear issue should continue. Diplomacy is the...

‘Fifteen years ago if somebody was up here and said that, they’d say ‘What’s wrong with him?’ ” President Trump said Tuesday in his State of the Union address. Said what? “Surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents’ arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents’ will.” When Democratic lawmakers declined to stand in assent to that statement, the president declared: “These people are crazy.” Mr. Trump had introduced Sage Blair, 19, and her adopted mother (and biological paternal grandmother), Michele. Their story is unbelievable—and part of a...

Conservative podcasting titan Tucker Carlson torched Donald Trump for his 'evil' attack on Iran as the president's MAGA base fractures over the Middle East war. Carlson has levied a rare criticism against the president following the US military's joint attack with Israel on the Iranian regime on Saturday morning. 'Absolutely disgusting and evil,' Carlson said to journalist Jon Karl.

~I'm just emerging from a rather grisly week and was hoping to catch up leisurely with relatively inconsequential things such as the State of the Union, only to wake and find that we have a brand new war: OPERATION EPIC FURY 🇺🇸 — Department of War 🇺🇸 (@DeptofWar) February 28, 2026 I'm not sure, after the last quarter-century, that the over-butch monikers impress anyone anymore. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the next one were designated "Operation Somewhat Irked" or "Operation Mildly Peeved". Be that as it may, Lindsey Graham is already at the if-erection-lasts-for-over-six-hours-consult-your-doctor phase: God bless @POTUS for planning...

Donald Trump's immigration crackdown is fracturing his own party, with Republican governors openly defying the White House over detention expansion as political fallout from the carnage in Minneapolis threatens to cost him at the midterms. Kristi Noem was rebuffed this week when she tried to build a new illegal migrant camp in New Hampshire by the state's Republican Governor Kelly Ayotte. Merrimack residents were outraged when it emerged that the Homeland Security Secretary planned to use their town to expand Trump's mass deportation effort. Ayotte, a moderate Republican governing a blue state, informed Noem that she would not assist in...

My dad is Ken Paxton, and as you may know, he’s running for the United States Senate. I’m not a political strategist or a pundit. I’m his daughter, and I know him better than almost anyone. So when his opponent, unable to compete on record, on results, or on values, resorts to attacking my father’s character and personal life, I feel compelled to speak up. Not as a campaign surrogate. As his daughter. Let me start with what everyone already knows: my dad’s record as Texas Attorney General is extraordinary. He sued the Biden administration over 100 times, fighting back...