Free Republic

US intelligence purportedly believes country may not survive the economic, political and social tensions dividing its societyThe green light had been given; the mission was ready to go.At an Israeli base deep inside Gaza, the soldiers of the Givati Infantry Brigade’s Rotem Battalion were preparing to embark on a combat patrol.Yet upon opening the door of their Namer armoured personnel carrier, they refused to enter.Despite the increasingly frustrated entreaties of their commander, the operation was ultimately scrapped.Why? Because, according to multiple reports on the August incident, there was a female paramedic inside the armoured vehicle, and for the troops...

Western governments have put themselves in mortal danger. They are actively doing things that are destroying their countries: (1) replacing their native citizens with unassimilable foreigners; (2) centralizing government power in unelected and unaccountable bureaucracies; (3) censoring and criminalizing public dissent; (4) offshoring industrial and manufacturing jobs; (5) exacerbating energy costs and general inflation by demonizing hydrocarbons and pushing “global warming” delusions; (6) increasing taxes, government spending, and public welfare in unsustainable ways; (7) demolishing their nations’ historical identities, traditions, beliefs, and common cultures; (8) providing foreigners with “free” homes, food, and educations, while accusing native citizens of being “racists,”...

Talks postponed to November — "30 nights of nightmare" for Kyiv 1:07 — 😱 The massive night strike on Kyiv begins 2:30 — 💀 Dozens of ballistic missiles — Ukraine can't intercept any 3:23 — 📊 Up to 22 missiles: 11 Iskander-M, 8 S-400 ballistic, 3 hypersonic 4:18 — 📈 210 drones, 181 intercepted — but silence on missile stats 4:49 — 🏭 Antonov plant, warehouses, storage facilities targeted 5:19 — 🌉 SOUTHERN BRIDGE hit — traffic jam, Dnipro crossing blocked 6:48 — 🏚️ Northwestern Kyiv warehouses and malls wiped out 7:19 — 🔄 First night since mid-October WITHOUT strikes...

U2 front man Bono is attacking Christians and Jews who have supported Elon Musk and President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut wasteful and fraudulent government spending with the efforts of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The “With or Without You” singer insisted that you can’t be a real Christian or Jew if you support the spending cuts to government programs such as USAID and other programs that lavished billions of U.S. tax dollars on foreign nations. He made his latest comments on the New York Times sponsored The Interview podcast. “What Christian household, what Catholic household, what Jewish, religious...

Zelensky just blinked. President Trump has been pressing Kyiv to make a deal. On Tuesday he said it plainly: "We want Zelenskyy to make a deal." Now Zelensky is moving. On Fox News Wednesday he was asked if he'd accept freezing the war where the lines are now. "Yes, right now, we have to freeze," he said. He called it a "real way to end this war." After meeting Steve Witkoff in Oslo, he also says Ukraine will back new three-way talks with the U.S. and Russia, likely in November. It's not a peace deal yet. Zelensky still wants security...

The Michigan Senate candidates faced off in their second and final debate before the Nov 3 general election Former Rep. Mike Rogers and his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, tore into each other at their second Michigan Senate debate Wednesday evening. Rogers, a former FBI special agent and the Republican U.S. Senate candidate, clashed with El-Sayed over the personal barbs, accusations and fierce divides that have defined one of the country's most anticipated Senate elections.

Oil flows out of the Persian Gulf in October nearly returned to levels seen before the start of the Iran war, but traders remain wary about a fragile recovery. Total crude exports in the region, or flows coming out of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman, recently recovered to within 10% of their previous levels in January and February, according to data compiled by TankerTrackers.com, a maritime intelligence firm tracking crude oil shipments (see chart below).

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps threatens to strike American bases across the Middle East if the US military continues to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz. “The US military must know that if this trend continues, the conflict will extend to its bases in the region,” the Guards say in a statement on their Sepah News website. “This is a serious warning,” they added. Iran claims control over Hormuz, a strategic shipping route through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies passed before war broke out in February. It regularly attacks ships that attempt to navigate...

A Polish soldier who accidentally shot a Syrian refugee who had entered Poland over the border from Belarus has been acquitted of negligent use of a weapon. The Syrian man had been seeking 50,000 zloty (€11,500) in compensation from the soldier. The verdict was welcomed by defence minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, whose ministry had supported the soldier’s legal defence. The incident in question took place in November 2023 in Poland’s northeastern Podlasie province. The soldier, named only as Adam Ł. under Polish privacy law and who holds the rank of second lieutenant, had only recently received his first posting to the...

Ben Roberts-Smith has revealed he contemplated suicide for months amid war crimes allegations, saying thoughts of his children helped him through his lowest point. The nation's most decorated living soldier said the relentless coverage took a psychological toll and left him believing his family might be better off without him. 'When that flood of media and allegations came, it was relentless,' Roberts-Smith told NewsCorp. 'From the perspective of someone sitting there going, 'What is going on? I don't understand where it's coming from. I don't know why that's being said.' 'Psychologically, that takes a toll. 'And there were many times...

Somaliland’s president has offered to put Donald Trump’s name on an airport.Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi, commonly known by his nickname Irro, has floated renaming Berbera International Airport. The idea came after weeks of lobbying at Washington and New York to win what his government has sought for decades: formal recognition from the United States. Berbera, a port city on the Gulf of Aden, has a runway built by the Soviet Union in the 1970s that stretches more than 4,000 meters, among the longest in Africa. So far, no agreement has been reached on the airport, on military access, or on recognition...

Former SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith has questioned whether he can receive a fair trial, giving two major interviews on his dramatic arrest at Sydney Airport, the prospect of life behind bars if convicted on five counts of war crime murder and his defamation loss against the Nine newspapers. Breaking a years-long silence amid serious allegations he murdered unarmed Afghan civilians and prisoners between 2009 and 2012, the Victoria Cross Recipient said he was unsure a jury could be found that were impartial towards him — but he was “trusting again in the system”. It comes after his legal team pondered...

Marine Le Pen is set to officially launch her presidential campaign this weekend at the National Rally two-day party congress in Orléans. The latest Ifop poll, carried out in the wake of the mass protests and riots in France, suggests the far right leader would win the first round of the presidential election by a wide margin, and far-left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon emerged as her most likely opponent in the runoff. ...

When an Iranian dissident proclaims that “the greatest killer of Iranians has been Islam,” the statement is less an exercise in academic historiography than a cry of immediate political exhaustion. Across the diaspora and within the quiet corners of Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz, a powerful counternarrative has taken hold. Confronted with the gallows, morality police, and institutional dogmatism of the Islamic Republic, many Iranians have turned history into a weapon of resistance. In this narrative, the seventh-century Arab conquest is not a distant chapter in antiquity, but the original sin of Persian history – an ongoing catastrophe linking the fall...

Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano’s policy of leniency toward immigrants has caused his prosecutors to regularly decline to pursue cases involving drunken driving, felony drug possession, shoplifting and grand larceny against migrants, according to a new congressional audit. Investigators for the House Judiciary Committee said they found more than 100 previously unreported cases in which Mr. Descano’s office failed to prosecute or under-prosecuted cases against migrants. That included a Chinese migrant “serial fraudster” who had more than 50 charges dropped. The audit, released Tuesday, tied those cases to Mr. Descano’s stated desire to protect immigrants from having to face...

COMMENTARY ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED BY WSJ "Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has labeled his military's strikes on Russia's oil infrastructure “the most effective sanctions.” Meanwhile, reports indicate that alongside urging Europe and India to halt purchases of Russian oil, Washington plans to share additional intelligence with Ukraine on Russian refineries, pipelines, and other energy infrastructure. Most discussions about these “sanctions” have focused on their financial implications for Russia. Vladimir Putin relies heavily on corruption and patronage, with oil and gas serving as key revenue streams. Disrupting the flow could force Putin to choose between sustaining the war and maintaining the payouts to...

Big news on the El-Sayed front. James O’Keefe, the spymaster of conservatism, has revealed that Abdul Muhammed is actually – and illegally – being financed from overseas. One of O’Keefe’s Project Veritas operatives penetrated El-Sayed’s campaign, hitting it off with Abdoul Beckwith, the campaign’s “regional field organizer.” Beckwith proceeded to give O’Keefe’s guy a complete rundown on the internals of the sheik’s campaign, including the illegal contributions coming in from foreign sources. “You know, he has people from overseas that donate to him… no, it is not allowed.” Quite so. Federal election law is very clear on this. Statute 52...

"Russian president says [this] area will not be part of any potential peace talks while Kremlin says the zone spans 660km. What we know on day 1,697" • Russia is establishing a “security zone” inside Ukraine along the border and it will be non-negotiable in any ⁠future talks with Kyiv, Vladimir Putin • The planned security zone spanned 660km (410 miles), of which 70% was currently under Russia’s control, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. Peskov did not say how deep it would reach inside Ukraine. • As Russian missiles and drones have systematically slammed into power plants in Kyiv and...

The second-hand online marketplace Vinted has removed listings of looted French goods and stepped up checks on "suspicious" adverts, as the country's authorities seek to prevent goods stolen during riots from being sold online.

American Stephen Hubbard was released by Russia on Wednesday, state news agencies reported, the latest sign of warmer ties with the Kremlin as Washington pressures Kyiv to agree to a deal that ends Moscow’s war. The news of Hubbard’s release followed talks between U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and President Vladimir Putin early Wednesday. Putin said that Hubbard, 74, was at the Pulkovo Airport near St. Petersburg, the TASS state news agency reported. There was no immediate confirmation from the United States. Trump said Tuesday that he had raised with Putin the idea of releasing Hubbard, who was being held in...