Free Republic

“We need your voice,” Abdul El-Sayed told a sex offender who had been sentenced to prison for sexually soliciting what he thought was a 14-year-old girl online and then for “distributing child sexually abusive material and multiple counts of accosting children for immoral purposes.” The sex offender had reinvented himself as an activist against incarceration and claimed that he had suffered, “I was only allowed to have the type of phone without a browser, and several times had my phone confiscated” and argued that the answer “is to address the root causes of crime… address the real problems… like education,...

In one of his Truth Social bombs, President Donald Trump insisted we should rename Lake Ontario to Lake America after Canada refused to accept his trade negotiation terms. It obviously echoes his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It's easy to find these whole geographic kerfuffles unnecessary. But the media hated the first one so much that the Associated Press found itself restricted from the White House press pool for refusing to accept the new Gulf terminology. What they hate is anything Trump does to add a patriotic pro-America tinge to something that they associate...

One thousand days is a long time in politics...When I wrote about Javier Milei’s first 100 days in office, Argentina was embarking on yet another attempt to break free from a cycle that had become painfully familiar: fiscal excess, monetary financing, inflation, capital controls and, eventually, crisis. Markets were optimistic, but they had been optimistic before. Argentina has a habit of disappointing even its most enthusiastic supporters.At the time, Milei inherited an economy in severe distress alongside a reform agenda that many viewed as politically impossible to implement. Today, as Argentina approaches the 1,000-day mark of his presidency, investors can...

If you've looked at gas prices lately you already know the conflict with Iran is still having a big impact on prices at the pump. However, there's a genuine disagreement over how much oil is currently making it through the Strait of Hormuz. This week the Trump administration has claimed that the total amount of oil passing through the strait is approaching pre-war levels. Here's a CNN report from yesterday.The US military escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, marking a wartime high as Iran and the US exchanged a new round...

New York City's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has spent much of his brief political career being treated by the national media as some kind of irresistible force, a fresh-faced wunderkind whose progressive appeal stretches far beyond the activist left and into mainstream America. He's the future, they tell us. [Insert needle scratch noise.]There's just one not-so-tiny problem with that narrative: Americans don't actually like him very much. A new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll lays it all out in black and white. As RedState's Nick Arama reported Wednesday, there was some good news in that poll Republicans heading into the midterm elections....

The US recognises Britain's administration of the Falkland Islands but remains neutral over the competing sovereignty claims. US President Donald Trump has suggested Washington may not support the United Kingdom in the event of a future conflict with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Speaking to GB News, as reported by the BBC, Trump criticised Britain over its response to the US war with Iran, saying the country had "not been there to help me". He later acknowledged that the US military had not required British assistance. Trump's comments come as Argentine President Javier Milei renews his country's longstanding claim to...

Hungary has blocked Ukraine’s EU accession process for a third time, with the government saying it will only lift its objection if Kyiv makes progress on the rights of the country’s Hungarian minority. The latest dispute emerged at the European Council’s Working Party on Enlargement and Countries Negotiating Accession (COELA), which held its first meeting after the summer recess on Tuesday, 1 September. According to Ukrainska Pravda citing European Pravda’s sources in Brussels, Hungary refused to approve the screening results for Ukraine’s second and third negotiating clusters. Without unanimous support from all 27 EU member states, the Council cannot move...

A federal judge on Wednesday blocked President Trump’s executive order ending birth tourism. The other order bans birthright tourism, the practice by which people travel to the United States solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child on our soil. President Trump, earlier this month, signed two executive orders on birthright citizenship and birth tourism, following the Supreme Court’s ruling against the Trump Administration’s executive order ending birthright citizenship. During the Oval Office signing, Trump decried the “very, very unfortunate” Supreme Court decision, adding, “So we’re making adjustments because it’s very unfair.” “This was done right after the...

Trump's unpredictability has been previously cited as a key reason as to why the Netherlands should remove their gold from the US. The director of Goudwisselkantoor – a Dutch auction house that specialises in auctioning gold, jewellery, diamonds, silverware, coins and banknotes – said in January that Trump could 'refuse to extradite [the gold reserves], impose additional tariffs, or delay the repayment for decades'.

Russia has been secretly supporting Iranian missile development since 2023, according to a report in the Financial Times on Tuesday.The goal of the program, codenamed C430L, was to help Iran develop missiles capable of taking out US Navy aircraft carriers in the Middle East.In particular, they aimed to develop a ramjet propulsion system that would allow Iranian missiles to fly at several times the speed of sound. Fast, low-flying missiles would give Western air defences less time to react increasing the impact of such an attack. The transfer of advanced missile technology would have required approval from the highest political...

BERLIN—Germany accused Russia of being behind a plot to send explosive drones to a German airport last month and pledged to retaliate against Moscow, a rare public attribution of blame in the widening campaign of incursions and sabotage across NATO territory. “We do not consider ourselves at war but we are the daily target of hybrid warfare,” said German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt, announcing the findings Tuesday from an investigation into the incident at Germany’s Leipzig airport last month, for which he said Russia was responsible. The drone incident marked a serious escalation in what European security and military officials...

An entire batch of Russian low Earth orbit satellites, intended to help create Moscow's version of Starlink, has failed to reach or remain at their anticipated altitudes just over a month after launch. The 16 Rassvet-3 satellites, launched on July 19, were originally supposed to orbit the Earth at an altitude of roughly 500 miles, according to the company developing the constellation, Bureau 1440. But publicly available US Space Force data shows that, as of Tuesday, the Rassvet-3 satellites are instead orbiting at altitudes of between 190 miles and 250 miles. Atmospheric drag at that altitude significantly shortens a satellite's...

NATO member Turkey would consider taking its relations with the China and Russia-led security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to a higher level, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. "Turkey's prospect of (full) membership to the organization does not imply a breakaway from any other bloc or from the West," Erdogan said, according to a transcript of remarks he made to journalists on his return flight from Kyrgyzstan. Erdogan attended a summit of the SCO, of which Turkey is a "dialog partner," in Bishkek on Tuesday. Erdogan also said on Wednesday that a mechanism is needed to permanently ensure...

Raúl Castro turned 95 years old in June, so this isn't exactly a big news flash, but if rumors are true, he's not doing too well. Various Miami-based Cuban exile media outlets have reported that a source inside his inner circle says he has had a stroke and is in the hospital in critical condition. Some are even reporting that he's intubated and that machines are keeping him alive. Dr. Andy S. Gomez of Local 10 in Florida has also confirmed that Cuban sources tell him Castro is hospitalized, but he refused to say more or speculate about his condition....

The oil agreement is a foundation, not a finish line but it is a hopeful moment of progress

An unidentified object exploded at a train station in the southern German city of Augsburg early Wednesday morning, with two people sustaining minor injuries due to acoustic trauma, police said. Window panes were also reportedly damaged by the explosion, which occurred in a building passageway. No information is yet available regarding the circumstances surrounding the incident. Parts of the station were closed off as police continued investigating the scene. The State Criminal Police Office (LKA) is on the scene with an explosive-disposal robot, the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper reported. Police first responded to the incident at around 5 a.m. local time....

The elderly grimace, hobbling on crutches, and wide-eyed children stare, cradling chickens carried from homes they were forced to leave behind. "It feels good to be in my own country," 35-year-old Nazia says, just minutes after she crosses from Pakistan, where she was born, into Afghanistan. The Torkham crossing, known as "Zero Point", is where one hard life ends and another begins. "But I've never been to Afghanistan before and many people here don't even have enough bread to eat," Nazia sighs as she heads, two of her children in tow, toward registration counters festooned with white and black Taliban...

US forces have reportedly begun launching military strikes in Iran this evening (Tuesday). According to the initial reports, the attacks were conducted on Qeshm Island and in Chabahar, Iran; explosions were heard in both areas. A senior US official said: “We struck sites in the Bandar Abbas area." All of the targets attacked are in the Strait of Hormuz area. The US Central Command issued a statement saying, "Today at 12:00 PM Eastern Time, US forces began attacking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran. The attacks come after recent attempted attacks by the Revolutionary Guard Corps against commercial ships...

Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged continued support for Iran on Tuesday as the United States launched a new round of strikes against Iranian targets, highlighting the increasingly close relationship between Moscow and Tehran as President Donald Trump intensifies military and economic pressure on the Islamic Republic. *** The Post reported that Pezeshkian thanked Putin for Russia's support and urged the two countries to work together to counter U.S. sanctions. Putin said Russia was providing Iran with assistance and essential goods, according to the Post's account of the meeting. The Kremlin's support for Tehran came as U.S. forces launched a new...

The U.S. military hit targets in Iran on Tuesday after it said Tehran tried to attack commercial ships and American forces in the Middle East, as hostilities flare once again in an intermittent war that has lasted more than six months. The U.S. strikes, and others on Sunday, abruptly ended a month without military action and threatens to fully reprise a conflict that has spiked global oil prices and posed political problems for Republicans in November’s midterm congressional elections. The renewed fighting comes after President Donald Trump had appeared to pivot toward trying to bend Iran to his will through...