Free Republic

Politicians and presidents sometimes make Faustian bargains. They make trade-offs. The stereotypical Faustian bargain is one in which someone sells his or her soul to the devil in exchange for money or fame. But let’s say you’re the president of the United States, and the two options before you are to keep your country safe or to better position you and your party to hold onto power. It all centers on a country that has been chanting “Death to America" since 1979, and that is very close to obtaining nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could wipe out its neighbors,...

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated that the country will defend its rights under international law and refuse to submit to coercion or externally imposed demands. Pezeshkian made the remarks on Tuesday during separate meetings with the newly appointed ambassadors of Portugal, Switzerland, Türkiye and Nigeria, who presented their credentials in Tehran. Receiving Portuguese Ambassador Waltier Matias, Pezeshkian criticized misleading portrayals of Iran and its people in Western media, saying, “Many of the things published about Iran and our nation in Western media do not correspond to reality.” The president also denounced state terrorism and the targeting of scientists,...

Russia quickly adopted, mass-produced and frequently adapted the Iranian-designed Shahed attack drone during its war against Ukraine. But it took the United States about three years to deploy its own version of the drone, Ryan said. “The technology was equally available to all. What differed was institutional speed,” Ryan wrote in the assessment, titled “Fast Following: Military Emulation and Twenty-First-Century Transformation.” The report says the ability to copy an enemy’s innovations could prove as important as inventing new military technologies. During the war, Ukraine and Russia have repeatedly borrowed each other’s drone tactics. For example, Ukraine quickly adopted fiber-optic drones...

Pete Hegseth is increasingly looking like he may take the fall for Republicans’ midterm losses, despite Donald Trump’s vocal support for his defense secretary, even calling him a champion of war. The war in Iran, which voters and Trump have named as a key reason for Republicans’ midterm losses, “has been primarily a Department of War-led effort because you chose to take military action to resolve a foreign policy matter”, a former senior Pentagon official told CNN. “If the president is serious about anyone taking responsibility for it, it’s Pete Hegseth,” one Republican close to the White House added in...

The new Texas governor-elect, Gina Hinojosa, is and has been an open-borders activist with a long record of bitterly opposing any and all border security measures, and she will likely take every action she can to that effect when she assumes office. That could include scaling back state-led border enforcement operations and limiting discretionary cooperation with Border Patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), although existing Texas law would constrain how far she could go. Fox News' Bill Melugin paints an uncomfortable picture on this matter. He Tweets: Understand the implications of what happened in Texas last night. Gina Hinojosa...

On Monday, Pat Buchanan turned 88. I leave it to others who knew and worked with him to sing his praises; I have little new to add. I can say simply that his record speaks for itself. It is, however, my privilege to help run the magazine he founded. When in the Trump years you’ve run into conservatives in the under-50 DC set, they’ve always been enthusiastic about Pat and the idea of his magazine, even when they can’t tell you a single thing it’s published in the past year. People knew how much the Trump thing owed to our...

A German doctor who rose to prominence for his criticism of Covid measures has been arrested in Berlin for "insulting" Berlin’s Mayor over his links to a convicted paedophile drag queen, reports John Rosenthal. A German doctor who rose to prominence during the Covid period for his criticism of the Covid-response measures has been arrested in Berlin in connection with “insults” of Berlin’s outgoing Mayor Kai Wegner. Paul Brandenburg, who has several social media channels and a podcast, has previously been the target of numerous other German speech-crime investigations and charges. Although a native Berliner, he presently lives in Switzerland....

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) said there will be Senate Republican support for ending the war with Iran as soon as possible and threatened that Democrats will use the “power of the purse” to starve the Defense Department of funding if necessary to bring a swift end to the conflict. “We are going to end the war. We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the Founding Fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people,”...

Vice President JD Vance delivered a blunt assessment of Republicans' sweeping midterm losses Wednesday morning, pointing at the Iran war as the driving force behind the party's election-night defeats. "But the real reason we lost is obvious to almost everyone," said Vance on X."The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night. If you'd like to argue it was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so. Argue it was a worthwhile cost to pay. Agree or disagree, that's at least honest. But everyone knows why...

U.S. President Donald Trump called Greenland the greatest gift the United States had ever received in a call to Fox News on Tuesday. “Remember, [Europe] just gave the United States the greatest gift we were ever given. Do you know what it was? Greenland. We just got Greenland, you know that, right?” he said during a broadcast about Tuesday’s midterm elections, which was reshared on X by the U.S. State Department. Someone else on the call quickly clarified that Trump was referring to “a military deal.” Until September, Trump had repeatedly pushed for the U.S. to take control of the...

Tokyo stocks ended lower in volatile trading Wednesday, with the Nikkei briefly plunging toward 60,000, as media projections showed Democrats had regained control of both houses of the U.S. Congress. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average ended down 893.23 points, or 1.42 percent, from Monday at 62,188.63. The broader Topix index finished 34.90 points, or 0.89 percent, lower at 3,895.38. Japanese markets were closed on Tuesday for a public holiday. On the top-tier Prime Market, the main decliners were nonferrous metal, oil and coal product and mining issues. The U.S. dollar weakened, briefly falling to the lower 157 yen range in...

Last week, authorities received a warning from the Military Intelligence Service, as well as allied services, that diversionary actions could take place on the border with Russia - including border violations by armed groups. The police secure the royal region for possible events that could lead to acts of diversion - says RMF FM Marek Boroń. Therefore, reinforcements from police commands from several voivodships [jurisdictions: comparable to a county] came to the borderland. This is due to the information we also have from external services. We are to take care of the safety of the citizens who live there, but...

Independent international monitoring of detention facilities in Russia has come to an end with the country’s formal withdrawal from the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture, the Council of Europe said on Sunday. In a statement, the Council of Europe said inspectors from the convention had carried out 30 visits to more than 450 detention facilities in Russia during the 23 years it was a member. Russia, however, permitted the publication of only four visit reports over that period. “Russia may authorize the publication of [the remaining] reports at any time,” the statement read, noting that the unpublished reports...

President Trump announced Tuesday that he had reached an agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to stop US aid to Israel after the end of the year. “They don’t need it,” Trump said on Fox & Friends Tuesday morning. “We give them more than anybody else, and they no longer need it. We’ve been doing it for years. I’ve been doing it, but Israel is a very thriving country. They don’t need it. If they did need it, I would say keep it going.” The president said the idea came from Netanyahu himself, suggesting that the agreement was also...

Last year, Barcelona Mayor Jaume Collboni, of the Catalan Socialist Party, announced that Gaza and other Muslim occupied terrorist areas would be considered the 11th district of the city. This year, Collboni cut ties with the Israeli city of Tel Aviv, tried to visit his new Muslim neighborhoods in Israel, but was barred from entry. The Catalan Socialist Party, a formerly Soviet-linked organization which was formed through a merger with the Communist Party, called this a “hostile act” and demanded a “forceful response” from the EU. The Socialist politician, unable to reach Gaza or any place in Israel, had to...

To ChatGPT:Internet dissidents, for convenience designated as centering around Andrew Napolitano, seem entirely oblivious to the potential for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps “capitalists” (IRGC) to form their own military-industrial-complex as demonstrated by Iran’s ability to produce new generations of non-nuclear missiles, the Iranian prowess in the field showing that their missiles exceed the velocity of the much-vaunted Oreshnik rated at Mach 12, with Iranian missiles rated at Mach 15. Dissident war news portrays the Iranian war-technology advance as a heroic response to unprovoked U.S. and Israeli aggression, failing to note the connection between IRGC enterprise ownership and the cutting...

President Trump said that he was in 'no rush' to decide whether to resume fighting Iran on the eve of the midterm elections. Speaking to Axios on Monday afternoon, he said: 'One way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush. We crippled them financially. They have no money, no gasoline and their people are getting very tired of it.'... The president held the final rally of his nationwide, 28-stop midterm campaign yesterday in Salina, Kansas as he sought to shore up Republican support and preserve the party's congressional majorities. Democrats' odds of taking control of...

Mario ZNA @MarioBojic Chaos in Kyiv after people discover Zelensky's torture chambers, where more than 40 men are being held captive. In Kyiv, Ukraine, people have just uncovered basements where Zelensky's units tortured kidnapped Ukrainians. According to initial witness accounts, the torturers broke prisoners' bones, cut off body parts, and sexually abused them. Who knows how many more of these torture chambers exist across Ukraine? The evil Zelensky is inflicting on his own people is directly supported by the EU. Video <1min at link

Idea is intended to unlock energy ceasefire between Moscow and Kyiv but it faces resistance in European capitals The U.S. is backing a quick resumption of Russian natural-gas sales to Europe via pipelines running through Moscow’s wartime enemy—Ukraine—as part of negotiations aimed at securing an energy ceasefire ahead of the coming winter, according to U.S., European and Ukrainian officials.The idea, broached by U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff during trips to Moscow and Kyiv in September, would involve selling Russian gas via a U.S. intermediary to circumvent European sanctions—and could create a lucrative opportunity for American investors, people who...

A few pre-midterms thoughts to start the week: ~Yesterday the last undecided voter in America made up her mind: bigshot Michigan Democrat Haley Stevens announced she'd be voting for the Republican. Which isn't usually the way it goes: it's almost like the Bush family faxed her the playbook upside down. However, the Dems have cunningly neutralised such defections by signing up the dead - and not just deceased humans: 'Biscuit' the dog is latest dead felon to get their voting rights back from Spanberger, confused owner says A Southside Virginia lawmaker is demanding an investigation after a constituent received an...