Free Republic

Kristen Welker: "I want to start with President Trump because President Trump's threats to take over Cuba come as the United States has removed President Maduro from power, has invaded Iran and killed its Supreme Leader. Do you fear you could be killed or arrested by the United States?" Miguel Díaz-Canel: "That is a very interesting question. Those of us who have leadership positions in the revolution have a strong commitment to our revolution and to our heroic people. In this connection, our responsibility entails the conviction and the commitment that we are willing to give our lives for the...

U.S. Central Command announced the blockade would involve all Iranian ports, beginning on Monday at 10 a.m. EDT, or 5:30 p.m. in Iran, to be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations.” Inside Iran, there was new exhaustion and anger after months of unrest that began with nationwide protests against economic issues and then political ones, followed by weeks of sheltering from U.S. and Israeli bombardment.“We have never sought war. But if they try to win what they failed to win on the battlefield through talks, that’s absolutely unacceptable,” Mohammad Bagher Karami said in Tehran.els of all nations.”

... Vance's popularity has dropped by 21% since the start of the term in 2025. Compared to other Vice Presidents in recent history, he holds the worst rating at this stage of a term, with a score of -18.

Like the paper he works for, Thomas Friedman is a longstanding institution. People read the New York Times so they can repeat his slick glib nonsense at parties to people just as clueless, but slightly too busy to read his verbose ramblings in the paper for themselves. But give Tom some credit, he was just a little too honest in this CNN interview.

MS NOW’s Stephanie Ruhle and Richard Stengel compared the Iranian regime’s “deep belief” and even its use of human shields at power plants and other vulnerable targets favorably to President Donald Trump’s worldview on Wednesday evening. Ruhle and Stengel’s comment came after The Financial Times’ Gillian Tett submitted that “President Trump comes from a background where he assumes that money can buy everything, and money drives everything, and he wants to cut a deal with everyone using money, and he assumes other people will basically fall in line on the back of that.” “So the fact that the Iranian regime...

Hide the sharp objects—at least if you take Nicolle Wallace seriously. On Friday’s edition of Deadline White House, Wallace began by painting an apocalyptic picture of the situation in Iran. Grim enough to have Trump supporters reaching for the Lexapro—if they believed her. After laying out her bleak scenario, Wallace went a step further, warning of: “A full-scale global economic crisis that might actually be even worse than those headlines, and worse than we think.”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

What better way for Morning Joe to mark the Iran ceasefire than by once again tying President Trump to the “monsters of history”? On consecutive days, co-host Jonathan Lemire reached for the same loaded line. He first used it yesterday, reacting to Trump’s bellicose Truth Social post warning Iran of severe consequences. He rolled it out again today—clearly deciding it was too good not to reuse. This time, he escalated further, suggesting Trump’s rhetoric would leave a lasting “stain” not just on his presidency, but on the United States itself. On Tuesday’s show, Lemire cited Trump’s threat-laden language—of the sort...

MAZE@mazemooreCNN right before we hit Iran's nuclear facilities last year: There is no need for this. Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon.CNN immediately after last year's strike: The mission failed, Iran is closer than ever to having a nuclear weapon.CNN right before we hit Iran this year: There is no need for this. Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon.Spoiler alert. This is how Democrats/MSM will be, with everything, for the next three years. It's exactly how they were on everything Trump did during his first five years. April 7, 2026

The dust of conflict has settled. The fever of the moment has yielded to the cooler discipline of strategic reflection. It is time to ask, with unflinching clarity, what the United States and its partners should do with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran’s propaganda organs were quick to claim victory. That claim, however theatrical, must be taken seriously -- not because it reflects battlefield reality, but because it reveals an uncomfortable truth: the regime cannot, or will not, abandon the terrorist and extremist doctrines that have defined it for more than four decades. No amount of quiet concessions extracted...

US intelligence indicates China is preparing to deliver new air defense systems to Iran within the next few weeks, CNN reported late on Friday, citing three people familiar with recent intelligence assessments. According to intelligence outlined in the CNN report, Beijing is preparing to transfer shoulder-fired anti-air missile systems known as MANPADs. These systems pose an asymmetric threat to low-flying US military aircraft, as demonstrated during the five-week war, and they could continue to do so if the ceasefire breaks down. Two sources informed CNN that there are signs Beijing is attempting to route shipments of the weaponry through third...

CNN right before we hit Iran's nuclear bfacilities last year: There is no need for this. Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon. CNN immediately after last year's strike: The mission failed, Iran is closer than ever to having a nuclear weapon. CNN right before we hit Iran this year: There is no need for this. Iran isn't close to having a nuclear weapon. Spoiler alert. This is how Democrats/MSM will be, with everything, for the next three years. It's exactly how they were on everything Trump did during his first five years.

Let us be precise about what is happening here. A war is being fought in the Middle East. Another war is being fought in the pages of newspapers, on the panels of cable networks, and in the faculty lounges of institutions that have confused sophistication with a reflex. The second war has a declared winner: Iran. It just has nothing to do with what is actually happening in the first one. The claim, repeated with the solemnity of established fact, is made by smart and credentialed people, who know and want you to know they know. However, they are wrong....

The New York Times escalated its Iran support yesterday, in a treasonous story headlined, “Trump Revels in Threats to Commit War Crimes in Iran.” Exactly what the mullahs have been saying! But … what war crimes? Or are they saying he’s just threatening to? And does the Times even know what “revels” means? One thing is true; it was all pretty surreal. The Times was definitely not reveling after reading a short but provocative Easter post from Trump directed at the Iranians. In three sentences, he dropped an F-bomb, called the mullahs “crazy bastards,” and most controversially, mockingly ended with...

On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish turned to retired Brigadier General Steven M. Anderson to assess President Trump’s potential expansion of military strikes on Iran. Anderson repeatedly warned that targeting infrastructure such as bridges, power plants, and water facilities could amount to “war crimes,” even suggesting U.S. troops could be put in the position of refusing “illegal” orders. Cornish failed to disclose that Anderson sits on the board of VoteVets, a progressive PAC that backs Democrat candidates. Nor did she note his record of sweeping, alarmist claims, including warning in a Washington Post op-ed of a potential military...

t's an upside-down world when Iranian villagers seek to protect U.S. servicemen from Iran's mullah regime, while our purported European allies root for his capture. That really happened with the recent incident regarding a downed U.S. airman whose case for rescue was made that much more dangerous by a leaker on the U.S. side, who alerted the Iranian goons of his presence on Iranian soil and got them hunting for him. But the news was not all bad. Something unexpected happened -- in a spontaneous gesture, the Iranian villagers rushed in to protect him from capture by the Revolutionary...

[snip] MS NOW’s resident “Republican,” Elise Jordan, went on a blistering rant against President Trump—denouncing him as “trashy,” “classless,” and “unhinged” in a tirade that outpaced even her liberal co-hosts. Reacting to Trump’s Easter post about Iran—featuring an F-bomb profanity, a “praise be to Allah” phrase, and a threat to send Iranians to “hell”—Jordan said she wasn't supposed to be surprised by "the lack of decorum and the trashiness and just the utter classlessness of Donald Trump." But she quickly escalated. I cannot believe that this characterless man is the President of the United States and is behaving this way...

There’s nothing really new in the uproar surrounding the loss of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle over Iran this past weekend. Media hysteria over the downing of a single U.S. aircraft has become a commonplace schtick in coverage of American wars over the past three decades. During WW II, the U.S. lost over 23,000 planes in combat. I kid you not, playmates: 23,000+ – and that’s only combat losses. Overall losses, including accidents, amounted to 65,164. The media talking heads would have had to be carried out in straitjackets if they’d been active at the time. Losses dropped sharply following...

Although ICE has celebrated going after “the worst of the worst criminals” in Ohio, the vast majority of people taken into custody had no criminal conviction – less than 7% of arrestees during the heightened enforcement surge in mid-December had a criminal record, according to the Deportation Data Project (DDP) data analyzed by The Dispatch. The DDP collects immigration data from lawsuits and publishes the datasets publicly.

Patrick Colbeck reposted@amuse@amuseDRIVE-BY MEDIA: Obama purged nearly 200 white military officers including dozens of flag officers. The media called it leadership. Trump removes 6 officers & they call it a coup. The drive-by media does not have standards. It has a team.April 3, 2026

With Passover poised to begin Wednesday at sundown, a new poll shows a majority of American Jews oppose the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, even as 90% of them say they oppose the Iranian regime. The poll, commissioned by J Street, the liberal Zionist advocacy and lobby group, found that 60% of U.S. Jews oppose the war and 77% do not believe “President Trump has a clear plan and mission for the war.” Another poll of U.S. Jews, by the Jewish Electorate Institute, released Monday, showed similar results, with 55% of American Jews opposing military action against Iran. The two...