Free Republic

Germany’s “social-ecological market economy” is a textbook illustration of this dynamic. The state declares hydrogen and other favored technologies to be the “future,” pours billions into subsidies, and attempts to construct markets by decree. Yet even an official body like the Federal Audit Office now describes this as a “planned economy approach” and doubts that the government will reach its own goals. In all likelihood, Germany is about to confirm once again what Mises showed in theory a century ago: planned economies do not deliver their promised outcomes. Instead, they generate rising costs, failing projects, and increasing chaos—while making society...

(Snip) The Air Force’s preparations for war were fascinating. Because the number of aircraft and pilots is fixed and known, and because it was clear a race would develop between Iran’s launch capability and the Air Force’s ability to destroy launchers and missiles, the solution devised by the Air Force was to increase the number of waves. How? Fly to Iran and back three times a day. Every pilot. And how is that done? With stimulant pills. That was the trick they planned. And it worked. When every pilot does this three times a day instead of once or twice,...

"President Donald Trump announced on Saturday, March 7 that the United States now formally and 'legally' recognizes the current Venezuelan government with Delcy Rodríguez as the leader."

"I think 47 years of western policy to Iran has been rubbish. You know why? Because they focused only on the hard power nukes, missiles, foreign mercies, never on the rights of the Iranian people. Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, John Stewart is my guilty pleasure. I know everyone on the right can't stand him, but I kind of like him. I think he's consistently funny. Yeah, he has a case of Trump derangement syndrome, but it's not as severe as someone like, I don't know, Rosie O'Donnell. I feel like people on the right treat John Stewart like...

President Donald Trump met Friday afternoon with CEOs of major defense industry companies at the White House as the war against Iran ended its first full week.After the meeting, Trump said in a social media post that “we discussed Production and Production Schedules” and “they have agreed to quadruple Production of the ‘Exquisite Class’ Weaponry in that we want to reach, as rapidly as possible, the highest levels of quantity.”Trump did not explain what he meant by “Exquisite Class Weaponry.” The term is used in the defense industry to describe one-of-a-kind technology or systems.Trump said the meeting included CEOs of...

A classified report by the US National Intelligence Council concluded that the Iranian regime was unlikely to be toppled even by a large-scale assault, the Washington Post reports. Three people familiar with the report tell the newspaper that the assessment, completed around a week before Israel and the US launched their assault on the Islamic Republic, outlined small- and large-scale assaults as scenarios for potential succession. The report concluded that protocols would be followed if supreme leader Ali Khamenei were to be killed to ensure the regime’s survival, with it “unlikely” that Iran’s opposition would take control. The Post says...

The incident further inflamed tensions between Hungary and Ukraine, which are embroiled in a bitter feud over Hungary’s access to Russian oil through a pipeline that crosses Ukrainian territory. Hungarian authorities have detained seven Ukrainian citizens, including a former intelligence officer, and seized two armored cars carrying large amounts of cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said Friday. Ukraine accused Hungary of taking the Ukrainians hostage and illegally seizing millions of dollars in cash. “This is state terrorism and racketeering,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X late Thursday. The seven were employees of the Ukrainian...

A viral clip of then, Senator Marco Rubio from 2015 has resurfaced, showing him laying out exactly what he believed would happen if President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal went into effect. A decade later, much of what Rubio warned about appears to have come to pass. Now, with Rubio serving in the Trump administration, the United States is approaching Iran in a way he argued it should have all along. https://x.com/GuntherEagleman/status/2029390255661432838? "I do want to be recorded for history's purposes before I know what is going to happen in regards to this if it goes through. Iran will immediately use...

excerpt- The Pentagon on Friday posted photos showing Ford and USS Bainbridge (DDG-96) sailing through the Suez Canal on Thursday. The transit takes the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier into a part of U.S. Central Command where the Iran-backed Houthis have attacked both U.S. warships and commercial vessels over the last two-and-a-half years. excerpt Meanwhile, the next aircraft carrier expected to deploy from the United States finished its training exercise on Thursday, the Navy announced. USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), its escorts and air wing wrapped up the composite unit training exercise

Ian Huntley, the former school caretaker who murdered two 10-year-old schoolgirls in Soham, has died following an attack in prison. The 52-year-old suffered significant head trauma after being attacked with a makeshift weapon by another inmate at HMP Frankland on 26 February and had been on life support in hospital. He had been serving a life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years for murdering best friends Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in 2002. The brutality of his crimes made him a target in prison and he had been attacked several times previously. The BBC understands that triple killer...

Argentina has issued a new arrest warrant for an Iranian official in connection with the 1994 AMIA Jewish community center bombing in Buenos Aires, at the same time that the alleged mastermind was named the new head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ahmad Vahidi was appointed head of the IRGC on Sunday, a day after the unit’s previous leader was killed in the first wave of US-Israeli strikes. Vahidi helmed the IRGC’s Quds Force paramilitary arm responsible for attacks abroad at the time of the AMIA bombing. Argentinians see poetry in the first strikes, which killed Iran’s supreme leader,...

Amid rising tensions in the region, a second Iranian ship has sought assistance from Sri Lanka, while 208 sailors are expected to be brought to Colombo following distress calls in the Indian Ocean. Reports say another vessel is currently near Sri Lanka’s territorial waters, raising security and humanitarian concerns.

Iran's fragile regime suffered another blow today as reports emerged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the man briefly installed as supreme leader, has been killed... Mojtaba, long viewed as the hardline favorite to inherit power despite no formal public role, was reportedly named successor earlier this week amid chaos and Israeli warnings that any new leader would become a target,.. Circulating accounts, including from sources inside Iran, claim Mojtaba was eliminated today—his tenure lasting mere hours—after strikes hit his location. Social media erupted with claims of confirmation, including posts noting his "career" from appointment...

Everyone is focused on Iran right now and appropriately so, but we're still watching event in Cuba closely. President Trump suggested this week that Cuba's government was going to collapse and that Sec. of State Rubio had been talking to people there about a future deal. However, the president said he wanted to remain focused on Iran for a couple more weeks.“We want to finish this one first,” Trump said Thursday, referring to the current attack on Iran. It “will be just a question of time” before Cuba’s government falls, and “you and a lot of unbelievable people are going...

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered a striking explanation for why the United States attacked Iran: Washington, he said, “knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” anticipated that Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces, and therefore hit first to reduce American casualties. The formulation is not only politically convenient; it is conceptually confused. It implies that the United States acted because Israel was going to act—yet also insists that the operation “needed to happen,” as Rubio put it, regardless. That is, the argument simultaneously portrays America as reluctantly reacting to an ally and decisively pursuing...

President Donald Trump told CNN Friday morning that Cuba “is going to fall pretty soon.” “Cuba is gonna fall pretty soon, by the way, unrelated, but Cuba is gonna fall too. They want to make a deal so badly,” he told CNN’s Dana Bash in a phone interview when touting US military success in his second term. “They want to make a deal, and so I’m going to put Marco (Rubio) over there and we’ll see how that works out

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that President Trump is "well aware of who's talking to who" amid reports that Russia is providing intelligence to Iran on U.S. movements in the region. Hegseth told Major Garrett in an interview airing Sunday on "60 Minutes" that the U.S. is "tracking everything" and factoring it into battle plans. "The American people can rest assured their commander-in-chief is well aware of who's talking to who," he said. "And anything that shouldn't be happening, whether it's in public or back-channeled, is being confronted and confronted strongly." Earlier Friday, multiple sources, including a senior U.S. official,...

What we knowIRAN REJECTS NEGOTIATIONS: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas that Iran has not asked for a ceasefire, rejecting negotiations with the U.S.SUB ATTACK REVENGE VOW: Tehran has warned that the U.S. will "bitterly regret" the torpedo attack on an Iranian naval ship in the Indian Ocean. Iran, still being hammered by American and Israeli strikes, launched expanding drone attacks in retaliation that led to blasts across the region.SENATE PUSH TO STOP WAR FAILS: A war powers resolution to restrict President Donald Trump’s ability to carry out further military action against Iran, which...

The BBC has been accused of mistranslating remarks by Pete Hegseth about the conflict with Iran, after a speech was altered in a way that suggested the United States was targeting the Iranian “people”. BBC Persian, which broadcasts to audiences inside Iran, translated comments by the US defence secretary as saying Washington was bringing death to the Iranian “people”. However, Mr Hegseth had in fact referred to the Iranian “regime” as the target. The error was quickly highlighted by pro-Israel media campaigners, who argued it raised questions about the BBC’s impartiality. The translation also sparked criticism and debate across social...

Police Scotland has refused to release the number of call-outs to asylum hotels over fears the data could spark violence and "heighten community tensions". The national force was slammed for dodging a "reasonable request" from the Scottish Daily Express to reveal the true scale of crime at migrant hotels in Scotland. Police bosses admitted they are concerned that releasing the data will result in more angry scenes outside the hotels, after a number of high-profile protests and counter-protests across Scotland last year. Our Freedom of Information request asked for the number of incidents, including crimes recorded, police call-outs and arrests...