Free Republic

Elon Musk just defended America better than every politician in Washington combined. Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country. Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?” One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had. Total dominance. Zero competition. No risk of retaliation. Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it. Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans. They conquered until they collapsed. America had a bigger advantage than all of them...

The remains of the second missing US soldier who disappeared earlier this month during African Lion, a training exercise in Morocco, have been recovered. The second missing soldier was identified as Spc. Mariyah Symone Collington of Taveras, Florida. She was 19 years old. “Royal Moroccan Armed Forces transported the Soldier’s remains by a Moroccan helicopter to the morgue of Moulay El Hassan Military Hospital in Guelmim, Morocco,” the US Army statement said. Earlier this week, the remains of Lamont Key Jr., the other missing US soldier who disappeared earlier this month during African Lion, a training exercise in Morocco, were...

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Wednesday cast the deciding vote against the latest effort to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to attack Iran — the seventh such time he’s broken with his party since the war began but the first time that Republican deflections made his vote decisive. The war powers resolution failed 49 to 50 as the Pennsylvanian was the only Democrat to vote with Republicans who control the Senate. Three Republicans — U.S. Sens. Rand Paul, of Kentucky; Susan Collins, of Maine; and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska — voted with Democrats. The vote comes less than a...

China’s belated confirmation of the visit reflects Beijing’s broader approach to Washington under Trump’s second administration: do not initiate, do not refuse, and do not compromise.U.S. President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae International Airport terminal in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. On May 11, Beijing announced that U.S. President Donald Trump would visit China from May 13 to 15 – just two days before his summit with President Xi Jinping was due to begin. Trump had publicly confirmed his visit dates back in March. For months, Beijing’s public response...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently made a secret visit to the United Arab Emirates, where he met with Mohammed bin Zayed, the country's president, sources told CBS News. Netanyahu's office acknowledged the trip, saying in a statement Wednesday that it "resulted in a historic breakthrough in relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates." Sources told CBS News that the meeting occurred in late March. But hours later, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied the meeting took place, saying in a statement that the UAE's "relations with Israel are public and conducted within the framework of the well-known...

Naftali Bennett, a former Netanyahu aide who is seeking to replace him as prime minister for a second time, is offering voters a straightforward promise: a “rebuild.” Israel’s main anti-Netanyahu alliance, led by Bennett and Yair Lapid…offered a conservative, hawkish vision that carries echoes of Netanyahu — but none of his baggage. Their pitch will be tested in a momentous election this year that will reveal whether voters want younger faces to lead Israel through a period of growing domestic division and international isolation… Lapid’s centrist supporters say they do not agree on all issues with Bennett…But he is someone...

A decorated CIA officer testified before the U.S. Senate on Wednesday that Dr. Anthony Fauci deliberately manipulated intelligence community analyses on COVID-19's origins, steering federal investigators away from the lab leak theory and toward a predetermined conclusion of natural origin. The fix was in from the beginning: Fauci hand-picked the experts, shaped the process, and leveraged a network of grant-dependent researchers to make sure the intelligence community reached the answer he wanted. The hearing confirmed what millions of Americans long suspected: The government lied, and it knew it was lying. CIA special operations officer James Erdman III, a 13-year Agency...

The World War II slogan (that’s a two, not an eleven, Ilhan) “loose lips sink ships” reminded Americans that careless talk could provide our enemies with vital intelligence. Here we are, nearly a century later, and the principle still applies. Recent events involving Senator Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Defense secretary Pete Hegseth illustrate how public disclosures about military capabilities can still compromise our national security.AdvertisementSenator Kelly appeared Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. Drawing from a classified Pentagon briefing on U.S. weapons stockpiles that were depleted during operations against Iran, Senator Kelly detailed the strains on specific munitions: Tomahawk missiles,...

Like Fang Fang, the Chinese spy who had former Rep. Eric Swalwell under her thumb, Arcadia's Democrat mayor, Eileen Wang was quite the social butterfly. She got around. She was an active member of the Arcadia Rotary Club, the Arcadia Chamber of Commerce, the Arcadia Lions Club, the Arcadia Association of Realtors and the Arcadia High School Chinese Parents Booster Club in addition to organizing the “U.S. Heroes Music and Art Festival” which sounds like a pretty busy calendar.AdvertisementAnd with all this socializing, she won a seat on the Arcadia city council in 2022, which in its rotating system, allowed...

The Trump administration has moved to seize more than 14 acres of land owned by the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces to expand border‑wall infrastructure near Mount Cristo Rey in southern New Mexico, according to court documents reported by KVIA. The effort puts federal border‑security construction on a collision course with religious‑freedom protections tied to one of the region’s most significant Catholic pilgrimage sites. If approved by a judge, the action could disrupt annual pilgrimages and set a legal test for using eminent domain against religious institutions along the U.S.-Mexico border. The civil case was filed at the request of...

WASHINGTON — Energy Secretary Chris Wright warned Wednesday that Iran is “frighteningly close” to developing weapons-grade enriched uranium.Speaking to lawmakers on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Wright stressed that Iran’s enriched uranium, which President Trump is deadset on confiscating, puts the regime just weeks away from the threshold needed to get a nuke.“They are a small number of weeks away to enrich that to weapons-grade uranium. There’s still a weaponization process that happens after that, but they’re quite close,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Gunshots have been heard in the Philippine Senate building, Senate authorities said on Wednesday, where a senator wanted by the International Criminal Court has been holed up to resist arrest. [SNIP] Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos insisted the incident was not carried out by government personnel, but rather an apparent shootout between an unidentified armed group and Senate security personnel. Marcos said no government forces attempted to enter the Senate to arrest Senator Ronald Dela Rosa, a longtime ally of former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who evaded arrest by local investigative unit officers earlier this week. Senator Dela Rosa was filmed...

Iran has rebuilt most of its missile infrastructure along the Strait of Hormuz, according to US intelligence assessments.The regime has reportedly restored operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along and around the narrow maritime chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.According to people with knowledge of the assessments, Tehran has also retained roughly 70 per cent of its pre-war missile stockpile and mobile launchers.About 90 per cent of its underground missile storage and launch facilities are now considered “partially or fully operational”, The New York Times reported.

When a career CIA operative steps before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today, the moment carries more than procedural weight. This is not another bureaucratic exercise in finger-pointing. It is the latest—and potentially most damaging—crack in the edifice of official denial that has shielded the federal government’s role in the origins of COVID-19 for more than six years. Senator Rand Paul, the committee chairman, has made clear what is coming: confirmation from inside the intelligence community that the lab-leak reality was known early, suppressed aggressively, and that American taxpayer dollars helped make it possible. Paul told Fox...

Nine years since his first state visit to China, US President Donald Trump touches down in Beijing ahead of the highly anticipated China-US presidential summit. Trump said on social media on Monday that he was “very much looking forward” to his China visit and that “great things will happen for both countries”.

Wholesale prices in April posted their highest annual increase in more than three years, signaling more nettlesome inflation as pipeline costs intensify.The producer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 1.4% for the month, much higher than the 0.5% Dow Jones consensus forecast and the upwardly revised 0.7% March increase, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday. This was the largest monthly gain since March 2022.On an annual basis, the index was up 6%, the biggest increase since December 2022.

AI giant Anthropic rebuffed an attempt from a Chinese think tank to gain access to its newest AI model, Claude Mythos, during a private meeting in Singapore, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Anthropic unveiled Mythos in April, but has limited its release to around 40 American companies, which include Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, over concerns that it is so powerful it could threaten national security systems and potentially disable companies that use it. During the April meeting organized by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a representative from a Chinese think tank asked Anthropic officials to loosen their stance...

Secret new assessments say Iran has operational access to 30 of its 33 missile sites along the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that its military remains far stronger than President Trump has asserted. The Trump administration’s public portrayal of a shattered Iranian military is sharply at odds with what U.S. intelligence agencies are telling policymakers behind closed doors, according to classified assessments from early this month that show Iran has regained access to most of its missile sites, launchers and underground facilities. Most alarming to some senior officials is evidence that Iran has restored operational access to 30 of the 33...

The European Union is moving to tighten migration controls after years of struggling to deport most migrants ordered to leave, with a top official saying the bloc is now working to "get control back" ahead of sweeping new asylum rules set to take effect in June. European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said deportations have increased and new border screening systems are identifying potential security threats, part of a broader effort to address gaps in enforcement that have drawn criticism from the United States and fueled political pressure across Europe. "Ten years ago, we didn't have a...

The full nationalisation of British Steel is expected to be announced in the king’s speech this week, a year after the government took over the daily running of the loss-making business from its Chinese owner. The steelmaker, which employs 3,500 people at its plant in Scunthorpe, came under government control last April amid fears that its owner, Jingye, was planning to shut down the site. British Steel operates the last two remaining blast furnaces in the UK, but its economic control remains with the Chinese company, which bought it out of insolvency in early 2020. An announcement confirming the plans...