Free Republic

Lincoln Project founder Rick Wilson said Friday on MSNBC’s “The ReidOut” that the Republican Party wanted the 2024 presidential election to be the last election in America. Wilson said, “They’re trying to throw so much friction into voting and all the sand into the machine, especially in communities they don’t feel will be reliable voters for them. So they are not going to bitch and moan about early voting in a red county. ”

Russia announced Thursday it will hold huge naval drills involving more than 140 warships and supporting vessels this month and in February, at a time of heightened tensions with Western nations. The war games to be held in the Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic, and Mediterranean will involve "more than 140 warships and support vessels, more than 60 aircraft, 1,000 pieces of military equipment, and about 10,000 servicemen," the defence ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.

"The purpose of this drill is to strengthen security and its foundations in the region, and to expand multilateral cooperation between the three countries to jointly support world peace, maritime security and create a maritime community with a common future," the Iranian official told ISNA. Both navies from Iran's armed forces and Revolutionary Guards will take part in the drills, which include various tactical exercises such as rescuing a burning vessel, releasing a hijacked vessel, and shooting at air targets at night.

BEIRUT — Anne Frank's diary has been censored out of a school textbook in Lebanon following a campaign by the militant group Hezbollah claiming the classic work promotes Zionism. The row erupted after Hezbollah learned excerpts of "The Diary of Anne Frank" were included in the textbook used by a private English-language school in western Beirut. Frank wrote the diary while her family hid from Nazi police and sympathizers in an Amsterdam attic from 1942 to 1944. She later died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp at the age of 15, and the diary was published posthumously.

Eleanor Holmes Norton is the Democrats’ non-voting congressional observer from the District of Columbia. You may remember her as the genius who claimed that people didn’t know they had to sign up for ObamaCare because evil Republicans had convinced everyone it had been repealed. Well, Democrats, congratulations. Your brain trust is at it again. This is a woman you actually elected and she’s dropped another nugget of wisdom in your laps. An incensed Ms. Eleanor Norton wants everyone to know that the Iraq war was “perhaps the most catastrophic war of the 20th century.” Here’s the clip:

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s recent cancelation of its plan to buy 50 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion from the United States showed that the close trading partnership between the UAE and China could be playing a role. The cancelation means that the UAE has chosen Huawei’s 5G technology over the F-35, which is used by the US as a “favor” to form military alliances with other countries. At the US request, the UAE previously agreed to halt the construction of a logistic port that is being built by China. But this time, strong US pressure has failed...

In the last article, I discussed the impacts Covid-19 may potentially have on all our lives in 2022. In this article, I want to look at one of the main potential geopolitical flashpoints of 2022: Israel and Iran. The Israel–Iran issue has been largely out of our news feeds during the past twelve months, yet the drumbeat of war between Israel and Iran has not calmed in 2021; it is just that the rest of us have been very much distracted by Covid-19. With each passing month, Israel’s growing need to defend itself against what it perceives to be an...

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Israel’s Environment Minister said Thursday a clandestine oil deal that would have turned a scuba divers’ paradise into a waypoint for Emirati oil headed for Western markets has effectively been blocked.... ...The secret deal would have significantly increased the number of oil tankers docking and unloading in the Israeli resort city of Eilat. It was struck last year between the Europe-Asia Pipeline Company, the Israeli government-owned corporation, and MED-RED Land Bridge, a joint Israeli-Emirati venture, following the historic agreement establishing formal diplomatic ties... ...Senior officials in former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government — including his...

On January 5, a giant statue of Qassem Soleimani, the Iranian regime's dead terrorist mastermind, was displayed in the city of Shahr-e Kord. The regime unveiled the statue with much noise and fanfare just ahead of the second anniversary of Soleimani's elimination in a US drone strike in 2020. Mere hours later, the statue was engulfed in flames by dissidents, dealing a major blow against state propaganda to bill the former commander of the terrorist Qods Force as a "hero." Just a couple of days prior, the regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi delivered a televised speech in which he promised revenge...

When South African President Cyril Ramaphosa delivered a eulogy for the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu, he described the spiritual leader and activist as "a crusader in the struggle for freedom, for justice, for equality and peace, not just in South Africa, the country of his birth, but around the world as well." Over the years, Bishop Tutu's tireless efforts brought him in contact with countless other crusaders for the exact overarching cause. That friendship began when Bishop Tutu condemned the Iranian regime's crackdown on the mass anti-regime protests of 2009. The following year he sent a message of support to...

The commander of Iran's navy said in a speech on January 7 that the modern-day Saudi Arabian royal family are descendants of Jews who fought early Muslim tribes. The commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy said on January 7 that the ruling royal family of Saudi Arabia were actually Jewish, and that their conflict with Iran harkens back to 7th century battles between Muslim and Jewish tribes. The speech was aired on Iran's Bushehr TV and translated by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute. “We cannot bear to see injustice in a Muslim country that is perpetrated...

While American forces were able to shoot down the terror drones, these latest acts of Iranian diplomacy came complete with the words “Soleimani’s revenge” scrawled on the drones. The latest Iranian attacks on Americans forces use Soleimani’s death as a pretext, but the attacks began before the Iranian terror boss was killed, and have sharply escalated under Biden in response to his appeasement of the Islamic terror regime.

Forces at the US embassy in Baghdad are attempting to intercept what could be rockets or suicide drones with radar-controlled rapid-fire guns, according to the BBC’s Nafiseh Kohnavard. Multiple videos surfaced on Twitter around 1200 ET, one by Kohnavard of Counter rocket, artillery, and mortar (CRAM) weapons activated and firing large bursts into the night sky to combat incoming rockets and or suicide drones in the air before they hit the embassy. “US embassy’s anti-rocket system CRAM in Baghdad activated a few seconds ago. I heard explosions,” Kohnavard tweeted. Breaking US embassy’s anti rocket system C-RAM in Baghdad activated a...

Last Thursday was the second anniversary of the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani; while the date passed virtually unnoticed in the United States, it was a major event in the Islamic Republic of Iran, featuring numerous threats of revenge from enraged Iranian leaders. One of these stood out from the others: Soleimani’s successor as Quds Force commander declared that the revenge would come from inside the United States. Iran’s state-controlled Tasnim News Agency reported that Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani was “delivering a speech to a ceremony in Mashhad” for the anniversary...

In an unprecedented meeting on December 28, 2021, at the private residence of Benny Gantz in Rosh Haayin (central Israel), Israel’s Defense Minister hosted Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmud Abbas. Gantz approved significant trust-building concessions to the Palestinians. Aiming at bolstering the failing fortunes of the PA and Abu Mazen’s in particular, against the increasing influence of Hamas in the West Bank. Gantz approved the addition of 600 entry permits to Israel for Palestinian businessmen, as well as Palestinian vehicles. Dozens of Palestinian officials will receive VIP permits. Moreover, Gantz agreed to provide the PA with advanced tax payments...

ight rockets targeted the US Embassy in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone late Sunday, Iraq's military and Iraqi officials said, sparking fears of renewed unrest as next month's anniversary of the US slaying of an Iranian general draws near. An Iraqi military statement said an 'an outlawed group' launched eight rockets targeting the Green Zone, injuring one Iraqi security person manning a checkpoint and causing material damage to a residential complex and some cars. The residential complex is usually empty. The US Embassy's C-RAM defense system, which is used to destroy missiles in mid-air, was activated to deflect the attack,...

The Biden administration is taking seriously a string of recent threats and sanctions from Iran against Trump administration officials around the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 3, 2020 strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Iran’s actions may indicate Iran is plotting to assassinate the officials. On Saturday, Iran announced sanctions against 51 Americans, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley as well as several individuals who worked with the Trump administration, like former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and private military contractor Erik Prince. While sanctions typically yield economic punishment, current and former U.S. officials...

Iran’s imposition of “sanctions” on dozens of Americans amounts to an assassination threat against members of former President Donald Trump’s administration, according to a senior U.S. official who threatened “severe consequences” for any harm done to them. “Make no mistake: the United States of America will protect and defend its citizens,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Sunday. “This includes those serving the United States now and those who formerly served.” Iranian officials have made explicit their interest in killing one of the people involved in the U.S. strike that killed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Gen. Qassem Soleimani....

DUBAI (Reuters) - Iran plans to buy 950 tonnes of uranium ore from Kazakhstan over three years and expects to get Russian help in producing nuclear fuel, its top nuclear official said in remarks published on Saturday. The acquisition would not violate Iran’s landmark 2015 deal with world powers over its disputed nuclear program as the deal did not set limits on the Islamic Republic’s supplies of uranium ore. The report by the Iranian Students’ News Agency ISNA comes a day after the U.N. atomic watchdog said Iran’s official stock of enriched uranium had fallen by half after large amounts...

The UN imposed an arms embargo on the Houthis in 2015. The United States and ally Saudi Arabia — which leads the military coalition backing the Yemeni government — have long accused Iran of supplying the Houthis with weapons, a charge Tehran denies. Citing a confidential report by a UN Security Council panel of experts on Yemen, the Journal wrote that boats and land transport were used to smuggle weapons made in Russia, China and Iran into Yemen. deck, in a photo released Dec. 21, 2021. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Elisha Smith/US Navy via AP) WASHINGTON — The United Nations...