Free Republic

Allegations that civil rights icon Cesar Chavez raped and sexually abused underage girls landed like a bombshell Wednesday in New Mexico, where he has enjoyed reverential status for decades. Adding to the heartbreak was a statement released Wednesday by New Mexico native Dolores Huerta revealing that she too experienced coerced and forced sexual encounters with Chavez that resulted in pregnancies in the 1960s. Huerta, 95, who was born in Colfax County and went on to co-found the National Farm Workers Association with Chavez, revealed that her two children with Chavez were "raised by other families that could give them stable...

It’s a tale of two Iran armies. One, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is stacked with fierce loyalists and designed to guard the theocratic regime, with a force estimated to be 150,000 strong. They have been targeted in US and Israel attacks. The other is the conventional Islamic Republic of Iran Army, called the Artesh, which numbers 350,000 and is designed to protect the nation’s borders and secure the Iranian homeland. And when the bombing stops, they might serve US interests as a force for change. Now all they have to do is survive. President Trump has alluded to the...

A meeting of senior Iranian officials that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on February 28 may have been linked to the Islamic Republic’s final deliberations over building a nuclear weapon. On the last day of February, as reports emerged that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed in an Israeli bombardment, it was also announced that a meeting of the Defense Council had been struck. Several senior figures were killed in the strike, the Israeli military confirmed on March 16. Among those killed were Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Khamenei and secretary of the Defense Council; Abdolrahim...

Senior Israeli sources told i24NEWS that Ali Larijani had been designated “target number one” after Iran’s Supreme Leader, with intensive intelligence efforts focused on tracking his movements ahead of his assassination. According to the sources, Larijani operated like a “high-value fugitive,” frequently moving between safe houses and never remaining in one location for long. Real-time intelligence updates eventually enabled Israeli decision-makers to act, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Israel Katz, and IDF Chief of Staff Zamir reportedly giving immediate approval for the strike once the opportunity emerged. A senior Israeli diplomatic official told i24NEWS that assessments in both...

Yet another member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, General Ali Mohammad Naeini, was reportedly killed in an airstrike overnight. He's just the latest high-ranking Iranian official to be dispatched to the afterlife thanks to the U.S.-Israel airstrikes that have decimated Iran for the past three weeks. Naeini was one of several Iranian leaders who were reportedly killed in the most recent airstrikes. Intelligence has played a vital role in this war, with information often leading to strikes so precise they target individual apartments in Iran. Shortly before his demise, Naeini insisted Iran was still building missiles and that the...

Soldiers and members of the Basij militia stationed in several districts of Tehran have moved to mosques. Additionally, Iranian special forces and police moved – according to witnesses – to the mortuary in the city of Karaj, located near Tehran. Witnesses also reported that members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and border guards in the western part of Iran, neighboring Iraq and Turkey are sheltering in mosques. In such border towns as Paveh, Mariwan, Bane and Sardasht, Muslim temples were turned into outposts, among others. The Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that on the Turkish-Iranian border, members of...

Three weeks into a military engagement in Iran, a war Republicans will not call a war, the American and Israeli militaries have all but wiped out Iran's capacity to make war. We have killed their leadership, the replacement leaders, and militia members on the ground. We have destroyed their missile launchers and the factories in which they made the missiles. But Iran still has one of the most powerful weapons in the world on its side, and it is ruthlessly deploying it – the American press corps. "Families mourn as dead are laid to rest in Tehran," blared the front...

"The British Isles are declared to be in a state of blockade,” announced Napoleon Bonaparte, and elaborated: “All commerce and all correspondence with the British Isles are forbidden.” It was 1806, and what would be known as the Berlin Decree aimed to strangle the British economy. The bold scheme seemed economically logical and militarily practical, but it ended up a grand flop. Britain’s economy, coastline, and navy all proved too big for the plan, which also underestimated the kingdom’s link to America and access to the high seas. In fact, Napoleon’s blockade backfired. Europe, it turned out, needed British exports...

Nearly half a century after the Islamic revolution that overthrew Iran’s monarchy, a quiet shift has taken place among some of its former supporters. They were once the young revolutionaries of 1979 – leftists, activists, and political prisoners – shaped by the ideological certainties of their time. They spoke in the language of social justice and anti-imperial struggle, convinced they were dismantling a system that could not be reformed. For many, the Shah’s Iran was deeply flawed, and even the idea of monarchy went against their fundamental beliefs. Some paid for those beliefs with years in prison. Others would later...

Signs of discontent, low morale, financial strain and desertion are spreading among parts of Iran’s security and military forces, Iran International has learned. Members of the Special Units Command received a notice on Friday saying salary payments for some units had run into problems, according to people familiar with the matter. The delay marked the third time this year that wages for those forces had been paid late. Following the delays, some personnel refused to attend pro-government gatherings, the sources said, causing disruptions in deployment in some major cities. Retirees and some army personnel have also not been paid for...

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi said the Islamic Republic’s weakening grip on internal repression is bringing closer the moment when Iranians could once again take control of the streets. He said in an interview with Iran International aired on Monday that a final call for nationwide demonstrations to end the Islamic Republic would come once the authorities’ coercive apparatus had been sufficiently weakened. “I think all of us, after 47 years of dealing with this criminal government, are counting the days until this system finally disappears,” Pahlavi said in the interview with Morad Vaisi. “We want to reach the day after...

Around 300 Basij commanders and field officials were killed in a wave of overnight strikes on key command and operational centers of Iran’s Basij forces, Iran International has learned. Around 300 Basij commanders and field officials were killed in a wave of overnight strikes on key command and operational centers of Iran’s Basij forces, Iran International has learned. The strikes appeared to hit the logistics and command structure of a force long used to suppress dissent and confront anti-government protests. In one of the most critical attacks, a Basij support unit’s repair and maintenance center was hit. The site housed...

The IDF confirms it eliminated Esmail Ahmadi, Head of the Intelligence Division of the Basij Force, in an Israeli Air Force strike in Tehran earlier this week that also killed senior commanders, including the unit’s commander Gholamreza Soleimani. According to the IDF, Ahmadi played a central role in advancing terror activity and enforcing the regime’s control, including leading violent crackdowns during recent protests, as part of a broader series of strikes targeting senior Iranian regime figures.

Iranian state television announced Friday that Ali Mohammad Naini, spokesman for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in a joint U.S.-Israeli strike, along with his deputy. An Israeli security official later confirmed Naini’s death. The strike followed a string of increasingly aggressive public statements from Naini, who had positioned himself as a central figure in Iran’s messaging throughout the conflict. On February 28—the day the war erupted—Naini struck a tone of defiance, declaring, “We are prepared for all scenarios,” while insisting that previous clashes had proven “the military option against Iran is a failure.” He doubled down days...

The United States has intensified operations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, launching low-altitude airstrikes against Iranian vessels and deploying Apache helicopters to intercept incoming drones. At the center of the campaign is a new addition: the A-10 Thunderbolt II. America’s top general, Dan Caine, confirmed that the heavily armed A-10s—better known as the “Warthog”—have officially entered the conflict and are now flying combat missions along Iran’s southern flank. Built for close combat and designed to destroy ground targets with brutal efficiency, the aircraft are now being used to hunt Iranian fast-attack boats in the narrow, strategically vital waterway. “The...

Anew survey of more than 10,000 current federal workers documents the drastic downturn in employees’ engagement and morale in 2025, Each year, the Partnership for Public Service publishes its Best Places to Work in the Federal Government rankings, based upon the results of the annual Federal Employees Viewpoint Survey. But last year, the Office of Personnel Management announced it would not conduct the statutorily mandated survey, citing the need to make changes to comply with President Trump’s anti-diversity executive orders. So last fall the Partnership developed and deployed its own survey, closely modeled after FEVS, called the Public Service Viewpoint...

While standing in front of a screen with the phrase, “A break in MAGA?” Enten remarked, “Sometimes you look at the polling data, and there are numbers that just jump off the screen.” “MAGA GOP … approve 100%. 100%. If you are a member of MAGA in the GOP, you approve of Donald John Trump,” he said. “0% say that they disapprove.”“You don’t have to be a mathematical genius to know you can’t go higher that 100%. He is the 1972 Miami Dolphins,” he added, referencing the only NFL team to have a perfect season.

Americans hated President Joe Biden’s loose borders, Pennsylvania’s Sen. John Fetterman said on Wednesday as he suggested he would confirm Sen. Markwayne Mullin to the homeland security post. “Americans don’t like chaos,” Fetterman said to Mullin, adding: America definitely didn’t like the kinds of chaos during the Biden administration at the border. As a Democrat, I was alarmed that there were up to 300,000 encounters at our border once a month… That’s not sustainable, and that’s not manageable, and it’s making it impossible for us to assimilate [migrants]. “My experience with you has been consistent kindness and professionalism,” Fetterman told...

Iranian state-aligned media and senior regime figures have again invoked supernatural and conspiratorial language in describing the conflict with Israel, with recent and past material referring to a “war of occult sciences”, “Zionist sorcery,” jinn, and Jewish talismans. The theme has also surfaced in Iranian claims that Israel used “occult and supernatural spirits” during the 12-day war. The clearest recent example appeared in a Mehr News Agency report published this week, which said the confrontation with Israel extends beyond military, cyber, diplomatic, and cognitive fronts to what it called a “war of occult sciences.” The rhetoric echoes earlier material preserved...

There is something extraordinary about how a young woman, born and raised in the United States, can become a voice for people she has never met in a country she has never seen, thousands of miles away. But for Iran’s Princess Noor Pahlavi, daughter of the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi and granddaughter of the former shah, Mohammad Reza, that is the situation she finds herself in. As the Islamic Republic regime of Iran faces daily strikes and military pressure from the US and Israel, and with its leadership decimated, many are looking to the day the regime falls. And...