Free Republic

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared detailed information about forthcoming strikes in Yemen on March 15 in a private Signal group chat that included his wife, brother and personal lawyer, according to four people with knowledge of the chat. Some of those people said that the information Mr. Hegseth shared on the Signal chat included the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets targeting the Houthis in Yemen — essentially the same attack plans that he shared on a separate Signal chat the same day that mistakenly included the editor of The Atlantic.

WEST OLIVE, Mich. — The eight new members of the Ottawa County Board of Commissioners had run for office promising to “thwart tyranny” in their lakeside Michigan community of 300,000 people. In this case the oppressive force they aimed to thwart was the county government they now ran. It was early January, their first day in charge. An American flag held down a spot at the front of the board’s windowless meeting room. Sea-foam green carpet covered the floor. The new commissioners, all Republicans, swore their oaths of office on family Bibles. And then the firings began. Gone was the...

At a moment when the country has never seemed angrier, two political commentators from opposite sides of the divide concurred last week on one point, nearly unthinkable until recently: The country is on the verge of "civil war." First came former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, a Fox News regular and ally of President Trump. "We are in a civil war," he said. "The suggestion that there's ever going to be civil discourse in this country for the foreseeable future is over. . . . It's going to be total war." The next day, Nicolle Wallace, a former Republican operative turned...

The tributes to former president George H.W. Bush poured in this weekend, each in their own way exposing the pitfalls ahead this week for the Oval Office’s current resident. The 41st president was remembered by Barack Obama, the 44th, as “a humble servant.” “Honorable, gracious and decent” were the words Bill Clinton used in praise of his immediate predecessor. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s encomium described Bush as “great in his character, leading with decency and integrity.”

President Trump on Monday put the brakes on a preliminary plan to impose additional economic sanctions on Russia, walking back a Sunday announcement by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley that the Kremlin had swiftly denounced as “international economic raiding.” Preparations to punish Russia anew for its support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government over the alleged chemical weapons attack in Syria caused consternation at the White House. Haley had said on CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that sanctions on Russian companies behind the equipment related to Assad’s alleged chemical weapons attack would be announced Monday by Treasury...

Vice President Biden delivered a passionate defense Sunday of President Obama’s policy toward Israel and took a direct shot at Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump’s divisive and polarizing rhetoric. Biden, speaking to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s policy conference in Washington, where Trump is expected to appear Monday, didn’t mention the billionaire businessman by name. But it was clear that he was speaking of Trump when he condemned those political candidates who seek to divide Americans. “As the Jewish people know better than any other people, any action that marginalizes one religious or ethnic group imperils us all,” Biden...

This is what occurs in a slow-news environment at The Washington Post: they lament the lack of honors for Barack Obama. The front page of Saturday’s paper carried the headline “Hawaii wipes out in Obama honors.” With nothing better to do in Honolulu, White House reporters Greg Jaffe and Juliet Eilperin spent 1,286 words unspooling  the “embarrassing record” of Hawaii’s failure to name more than a snowcone after the current president. The story began at Sandy Beach, where former Honolulu city councilman Stanley Chang wanted to name a favorite Obama hangout for the president: “It was almost a prose poem,”...