Free Republic

Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated his opposition to Taiwanese independence during a meeting with Cheng Li-wun, leader of Taiwan's pro-Beijing opposition Kuomintang (KMT) party. Her official trip to Beijing, the first such visit in a decade, sparked controversy in the self-ruled island that China claims as its territory. Cheng's trip comes a month before US President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit Beijing for a summit with Xi. The United States has been piling pressure on Taiwanese opposition lawmakers to back a proposal for defence purchases, including US weapons, to deter a potential Chinese attack. Cheng has railed against the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared a 32-hour ceasefire in Ukraine over the Orthodox Easter weekend, following an earlier call from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a pause in some of the hostilities to observe the holiday. Putin's decree, released by the Kremlin, orders Russian forces to observe a ceasefire starting at 4 p.m. Saturday and lasting until the end of Sunday. Zelenskyy proposed earlier in the week that each side stop targeting each other's energy infrastructure over the holiday, saying he made the offer through the United States, which has been mediating talks between delegations from Moscow and...

BOSTON, April 8 (Reuters) - A federal judge on Wednesday halted a move by U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to end legal protections granted to over 5,000 Ethiopians that have allowed them to live and work in the United States. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston marked the latest legal setback for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's efforts to terminate the Temporary Protected Status designation for 13 countries in furtherance of Trump's hardline immigration agenda. TPS under federal law is available to people whose home countries have experienced natural disasters, armed conflicts or other extraordinary...

President Trump lashed out at Iran’s handling of the Strait of Hormuz since the two-week cease-fire came into force – claiming “That is not the agreement we have!” “Iran is doing a very poor job, dishonorable some would say, of allowing oil to go through the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday. The vital waterway, through which 20% of the world’s oil passes daily, has effectively been closed since the US and Israel launched their first attacks on Iran as part of “Operation Epic Fury” on Feb. 28. One of the tankers was hauling one million barrels...

The shooting of Carlos Ivan Mendoza Hernandez by federal immigration agents on Tuesday is a sickening reminder. It is a sign of what’s to come if California doesn’t do more to protect its communities from government agents behaving like a lawless occupying force

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith had written to Australian Federal Police and the Office of the Special Investigator multiple times offering to hand himself in before his high-profile arrest in front of his teenage daughters at Sydney Airport this week. Veterans have reacted ­furiously to what they see as an orchestrated and deliberate attempt to humiliate Australia’s most decorated soldier to justify only the second arrest after the Office of the Special Investigator’s (OSI) six-year, $300m investigation into ­alleged war crimes. Roberts-Smith was arrested in front of media cameras on Tuesday as he arrived at Sydney Airport on a Qantas...

As we cross the one month mark of the Israeli-American war on Iran, a sufficient corpus of data is emerging to contemplate the kinetic dynamics of the conflict. This is a very strange war. It is not merely the fact that the roster of combatants and associated parties - Netanyahu, President Trump, Lindsay “Holden Bloodfeast” Graham - comprise the most polarizing figures in world politics today. As if to punctuate this fact, I fully anticipate angry comments berating me for using a sanitized and emotionally titrated word like “polarizing.” But we digress. Far more interesting than endless apoplexy over Israel...

A fragile ceasefire agreement in the war began with bombs continuing to explode in Lebanon and contradictory statements about whether Iran will continue to control the critical Strait of Hormuz energy choke point.But the most likely scenarios moving forward involve either Iran exerting more control over global energy markets than it did before the fighting started in March, or the current tenuous agreement merely delaying another military escalation by days or weeks, geopolitical and energy experts said.

Following the US-Iran Ceasefire, Iran announced a closing of the international traffic separation scheme by mining the area and re-routing ships through a new traffic pattern within the territorial waters of Iran and under jurisdiction and control.

On Thursday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough eagerly enlisted conservative voices—from Fox to Megyn Kelly to even Tucker Carlson—to do his anti-Trump dirty work. File it under: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. [snip] Brzezinski then introduced a lengthy clip of Megyn Kelly delivering a bleep-filled tirade against Trump’s social media posts on Iran. Amid widespread criticism of Trump’s use of an f-bomb in his Truth Social post on Iran, Kelly—ironically—delivered a profanity-laced rant of her own.Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

President Donald J. Trump laid out clear objectives in Operation Epic Fury — and in just 38 days, the greatest fighting force the world has ever known has met those objectives with overwhelming strength and lethal precision. Iran has now agreed to a ceasefire and reopening the Strait of Hormuz as the Trump Administration negotiates a broader peace agreement — once more proving Peace Through Strength victorious.Secretary of War Pete Hegseth: “From the strike that took out Qasem Soleimani to tearing up the disastrous Obama Iran deal, to the precision campaign that obliterated Iran’s nuclear sites in Operation Midnight Hammer...

Americans have increasingly negative views of Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. * 60% of U.S. adults have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 53% last year. * 59% have little or no confidence in Netanyahu to do the right thing regarding world affairs – up from 52% last year. * In both political parties, majorities of adults under the age of 50 now rate Israel and Netanyahu negatively. The survey was conducted March 23-29 among 3,507 U.S. adults. It was fielded about a month into the U.S.- and Israeli-led...

All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with. If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the “Shootin’ Starts,” bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. It was agreed, a long time ago, and despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary - NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS and, the...

Megyn Kelly on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" discussed the damage sustained by the Trump political coalition, the global economy, and U.S. allies, after 40 days at war with Iran. “The question is now not, who has Trump lost. The question is who remains," she said about the MAGA coalition. "He’s underwater with men, including young men and young people. The young person coalition that Charlie Kirk delivered to the president is gone. They’ve abandoned Donald Trump." "These battles in the Middle East have been fought now for 20-plus years, and we continue to learn the same lesson over and over. It’s...

Iran’s nuclear chief said on Thursday that demands by adversaries to limit the country’s uranium enrichment program would fail. Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said such calls were “wishful thinking” and could not stop Iran’s nuclear activities. “No law or individual can stop us,” Mohammad Eslami said, adding that past actions by adversaries, including the current war, had failed.

Like General Patton, President Trump also understands how to express himself in a way that serves the dual purpose of communicating with America’s enemies and, at the same time, with the American people. General George S. Patton knew how to get a point across: “When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember.” On April 5, 2026, President Trump directed a profane Truth Social...

Hey, I’m as happy as everyone else, but I can’t help but notice those missiles raining down on Israel. Well, it’s another glorious day, or something. President Donald Trump’s threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran have apparently worked, a “ceasefire” has been concluded, and as he did when he forced Israel to stop fighting Hamas when it had a chance to destroy the jihad terror group once and for all, Trump is once again hailing the dawn of peace in the Middle East: A big day for World Peace! Iran wants it to happen, they’ve had enough! Likewise, so...

“And they breaking of My people easily, saying, “Peace, peace,” but there is no peace,” Jeremiah 6:14 Everyone who is anyone is calling for peace. The calls for peace, Pope Leo’s ‘Vigil for Peace’ and the protests of peace might have been of more use when Iran had been conducting a Jihad against us for 47 years, killing over 1,000 Americans, kidnapping, torturing and holding others hostages, firing rockets, plotting assassinations and doing other rather ‘un-peaceful’ things. Peace is not the absence of war. It’s the absence of evil. As long as evil exists, there is war. Not wars that...

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump All U.S. Ships, Aircraft, and Military Personnel, with additional Ammunition, Weaponry, and anything else that is appropriate and necessary for the lethal prosecution and destruction of an already substantially degraded Enemy, will remain in place in, and around, Iran, until such time as the REAL AGREEMENT reached is fully complied with. If for any reason it is not, which is highly unlikely, then the “Shootin’ Starts,” bigger, and better, and stronger than anyone has ever seen before. It was agreed, a long time ago, and despite all of the fake rhetoric to the contrary - NO...

The Left and some on the Right went crazy over a recent Trump tweet. He warned that if the Iranian regime did not cease blocking the international Strait of Hormuz, he would hit its dual military-civilian infrastructure. He promised that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” His wording may have been sloppy, but Trump obviously meant that the murderous civilization/culture of radical Iranian theocratic Islam would cease to exist and wouldn’t come back once power plants and transportation systems crucial to the regime’s survival were cut off. Why do we know that? Because, unlike...