Free Republic

Iran’s leadership is edging toward a war scenario not because diplomacy is necessarily collapsing, but because confrontation is increasingly seen as the least damaging option for a ruling system under intense internal and external pressure

Green Day have changed the lyrics to two of their most famous songs ahead of the band's upcoming Super Bowl performance. Green Day, comprising Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool, will perform at the Super Bowl's opening ceremony show on Sunday, February 8. The Grammy Award-winning band, which has outwardly condemned Donald Trump in the past, will be singing a number of their biggest hits as the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots prepare to take the field at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California. Following the American Idiot's hitmakers' performance, Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny will perform,...

If he were so inclined, I think Governor Walz could rewrite the Paul Simon song subtitled “How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission.” In Walz’s case, it would go “How I was Nancy Pelosi’d Into Submission.” The lyrics would explain how he was Nancy Pelosi’d into submission by Amy Klobuchar, or perhaps how he was Klobber’d into submission. I told the public part of the story in the Examiner column “Exit Tim Walz, stage Biden.” Walz has now folded his campaign for an absurd third gubernatorial term. To say that Walz is the worst governor in Minnesota history does not...

It is not momentous events that are the most meme-worthy. Rather, it is moments when liberals show their true colors and embarrass themselves, often in relatively trivial ways, that set meme-creators to work. This week, along with the ongoing fiasco in Minnesota, we had severel such events. The Washington Post, hemorrhaging losses, laid off a large portion of its staff, causing its newly-unemployed reporters to demonstrate outside the building. They marched in defense of the moral principle that Jeff Bezos is obliged to support them forever, no matter how much money they lose. I wonder whether some of the newly-laid-off...

The FBI's seizure of ballots, documents, and machinery used by Fulton County in the 2020 presidential election was challenged by Fulton County election Commissioner Marvin Arrington. "Look, we went through all this nonsense in November of 2020," he complained. "At that time everyone agreed that Trump lost the election. The media declared Biden the winner. Judges determined that Trump lacked standing to challenge the results. Reexamining the outcome at this late date isn't worthwhile and could destabilize the country if it turns out that some mistakes were made." FBI Director Kash Patel pointed out that "the 'lacks standing' grounds used...

Dear Republican presidential nominee for the 2028 election: I am here from the future to tell you why you just got crushed, as the EU censor-plex completely encircles the MAGA movement and the White House is not doing nearly enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQuF7LBqT7A

Some residents of a California nudist resort are experiencing birthday suit blues after the owners of the property allegedly cut their power for refusing demands to clothe themselves. The drastic step is the latest development in a feud between the owners and residents of the historical refuge for the unclothed, Olive Dell Ranch near Riverside, California. Despite its nudist roots since 1952, owners of the ranch enacted a “textile” policy months ago, forcing residents to clothe themselves in public areas. The residents then sued the owners, alleging they violated their civil rights by restricting their freedom to bare arms, legs...

Exclusive: New York City’s mayor explains why he’s backing New York’s governor in the 2026 election.Zohran Mamdani “The era of empty promises ends.” That’s the vision that drove our mayoral campaign. It’s the foundation of my administration. It’s also what Governor Kathy Hochul said as we celebrated an agreement to deliver universal childcare—one of the largest expansions of the social safety net in our city’s history. It is as consequential a policy victory as our movement has seen in quite some time. A burden of more than $22,500 lifted, the difference between whether or not a family can stay in...

Long before he won NASCAR’s preseason Clash Wednesday night, Ryan Preece had plans to race at New Smyrna Speedway before next week’s Daytona 500 and its preliminaries. But in the afterglow of his longshot victory, he seized the opportunity to heap big praise on the “phenomenal” half-mile Samsula track, where Preece will be racing Late Models and Modifieds in the coming days during the annual World Series of Asphalt Racing. The post-race topic turned to the Clash’s potential future at Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., which has been host to the past two Clashes. NASCAR hasn’t talked about potential...

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani just signed a defiant executive order to ban ICE from city property. Invoking the Quran and calling federal enforcement an "abuse of power," Mamdani is drawing a line in the sand against the Trump administration.

When Chuck Schumer released a brief list of Senate Democratic demands for reforming Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of his maneuvers just prior to the beginning of a partial government shutdown last week, he had the short-term tactical goal of looking both tough and reasonable. For the moment, it placated the Democrats, who wanted an all-out fight to radically change or even abolish ICE, while holding out the prospect of negotiations with Republicans if they agreed to separate Department of Homeland Security appropriations from the rest of a giant spending package. The gambit served its original purpose, but Schumer’s...

Explanation: Peering from the shadows, the Saturn-facing hemisphere of tantalizing inner moon Enceladus poses in this Cassini spacecraft image. North is up in the dramatic scene captured during November 2016 as Cassini's camera was pointed in a nearly sunward direction about 130,000 kilometers from the moon's bright crescent. In fact, the distant world reflects over 90 percent of the sunlight it receives, giving its surface about the same reflectivity as fresh snow. A mere 500 kilometers in diameter, Enceladus is a surprisingly active moon. Data and images collected during Cassini's flybys have revealed water vapor and ice grains spewing from...

Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries may call it common-sense solutions, but I would call their list of 40 demands for amnesty-like attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement, nothing less than abolishing ICE altogether, and returning to President Biden’s catastrophic open-borders policy is their not-so-hidden agenda. If you go through their list, you can see that they are siding once again with the far-left wing of the Democratic party that wants to abolish, defund, and damage ICE. They can’t defund it cause it’s already funded from the One, Big, Beautiful, Bill, with roughly $75 billion, but then again the...

America’s biggest funder of the humanities subsidizes ‘Ecowomanism,’ ‘Black Trans Studies’ and the like. The University of Virginia launched a hiring spree in 2020 as it pledged to become “a racial-equity-focused university.” A special initiative promised to recruit 30 postdoctoral fellows and “open the gateway” for them to fill tenure-track jobs. One current fellow’s specialties include “transfeminisms” and “genderqueer life writing.” Another researches how Filipino nurses resist “racial capitalism.” The program owes its existence to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which funded it to the tune of $5 million. With a $7.7 billion endowment, the Mellon Foundation is the nation’s...

HYPER MOBILE JOINT SYNDROME IS REAL AND IT HURTS I ASKED: I inherited hyper mobile joint syndrome. Please talk about how difficult this is at age 78 as all your ligaments stop working. no one will even admit it's real. AI: It is an incredibly valid and, unfortunately, common to feel dismissed regarding Hypermobile Joint Syndrome (or hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome/HSD) at age 78. While many doctors mistakenly believe this condition "gets better with age" (often confusing decreased flexibility with decreased pain), the reality is that the aging process often causes a 78-year-old's hypermobile body to feel like it is "falling...

It was a moment that should have been simple—a press conference in Milan, just as the Winter Olympics were getting underway. However, ingratitude appeared and destroyed the moment. Two American freestyle skiers, Chris Lillis and Hunter Hess, stood before the international press and used their platform not to celebrate their country, or to honor the people who helped them reach the world stage, but to distance themselves from the United States. They suggested that ICE’s actions “do not reflect the country they represent,” as if enforcing the law were somehow a national embarrassment. While this episode may have been brief,...

7 February 2026 Saturday of week 4 in Ordinary Time Altarpiece and shrine of Saint Richard the Pilgrim, in San Frediano, at Lucca, ItalyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First reading1 Kings 3:4-13Solomon chooses the gift of wisdomKing Solomon went to Gibeon to sacrifice there, since that was the greatest of the high places – Solomon offered a thousand holocausts on that altar. At Gibeon the Lord appeared in a dream to Solomon during the night. God said, ‘Ask what you would like me to give you.’ Solomon replied, ‘You showed great kindness to your servant David, my father,...

A newly rediscovered drawing of a foot created by Michelangelo has just been auctioned off, fetching an eight-figure price tag and setting a record.The five-inch chalk drawing of the Libyan Sibyl's foot sold for $27.2 million on Thursday, Feb. 5, according to world-famous auction house Christie's.The subject of the drawing, which shows a foot with its heel off the ground, appears on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican, which was painted from 1508 to 1512, the auction house said.This drawing now sets the record for the most spent at auction for a piece of Michelangelo artwork, topping...

You love to see it happen. The lawless mob that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz has emboldened was literally at his door, making demands Friday night. The crowd called on Walz to fight back against ICE and the Trump administration and to legalize all illegal aliens.Leftists outside the Minnesota governor’s mansion have turned on Tim Walz for not being radical enough:“We are demanding legalization for all. We hope this is the moment you finally grow a pair!"Tim has tried so hard to please them lmao https://t.co/MTpJz7WN9t— Western Lensman (@WesternLensman) February 7, 2026

By Dr. John BergsmaThe Readings for this Sunday remind me of the Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, which I’ve had the privilege of visiting a couple of times in the past few years. This beautiful church is built on a hillside and is easily visible from much of the modern city of Nazareth. The architect designed the dome of the basilica to look like a lighthouse, symbolizing the light of Christ going out to all Nazareth and the rest of the Galilee region, in keeping with the theme of last week’s Gospel, “Those walking in darkness have seen a...