Free Republic

“It is one thing for the people (of Iran) to be ruled by globally feared autocrats armed to the teeth, but quite another to be governed by humiliated, now impotent incompetents and buffoons.” —VDH Wednesday the US / Iran ceasefire expires. It has been an interesting two weeks. The US used it to negotiate an end to hostilities, resupply our ships in the Arabian Sea, do maintenance on our ships and warplanes, dismantle Iran’s banking conduits, and blockade Hormuz to shut down the regime’s remaining income flow. The Iranians used it to jump up and down and go woo-woo-woo. They...

They’re holed up in a bank demanding three large pizzas, a helicopter, and a personal phone call from Sydney Sweeney. . . ."— Greg Gutfeld on Iran’s negotiating position. The Russians have a phrase for it: negotiation-incapable (ne peregovorosposobny). That is what the Iran delegation demonstrated during a long day of talks with the US team over the weekend in Islamabad. What part of “no nukes” didn’t they understand? All of it, apparently. The corollary question on the table — arguably more pressing for Iran — was: how much more punishment are you willing to suffer to sustain your dream...

“I am sick of serving in Congress with immoral freaks who abuse their office and bring dishonor to the institution.” —Rep Anna Paulina Luna You have entered the season of chaos. Better get used to it. The center quit holding a long time ago, and now even the margins are quivering. Buckle up and batten down. It will probably get rougher and weirder. Struggle is everywhere. Will Iran reopen Hormuz or not? They really only have days to stop playing games with the rest of the world. It will soon be clear whether they can negotiate in good faith. It...

"The ends must justify the means — the only question is what means are necessary." —Saul Alinsky Why do the news anchor ladies of CNN, Erin Burnett, Kate Bolduan, always look so depressed on the air? They never smile. Their faces always register something between grave concern and hysteria. Is it the network’s cratered ratings? The pending hostile takeover by Paramount / Skydance (led by conservative David Ellison)? Too much botox, zombifying the small facial muscles? Or is it self-loathing from being compelled to slant everything they report on in the direction of a lie? There does seem to be...

It’s all backstage now. This fraught moment, the power centers locked in the coldest cold of the year, the Spanish language lessons of Bad Bunny behind us, all the real action in the battle to save the country is out of sight, moiling and churning in the deep background. Everybody’s on edge waiting for shoes to drop, praying they don’t drop on their heads. You should have seen Senator Mark Warner (D-VA; Vice-chair of the Senate Intel Committee) on Face the Nation Sunday, frothing at the mouth over Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence (DNI). He cannot believe she turned...

". . . power that goes unpunished only learns one lesson: it can do whatever it wants." —Roger Stone. John Brennan, former US Communist Party member, former CIA Director, and Convert to Islam. Has it occurred to you that the video footage of the hallway outside Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell that shows nobody coming or going around the hour that he “killed himself” could be fake? All authorities from the FBI to The New York Times pretend that the date-and-time stamped video is authentic, and that it proves nobody went into his cell to kill him. Nobody has questioned this....

You probably can’t tell whether this is the alien itself or the ship it landed in. Possibly both at the same time. Hard to distinguish the tentacles from the portholes or the eye-sockets, while the salmon-pink folds and creases have a certain gynecologiocal feeling. In any case, this beast landed in Xalapa, capital of Veracruz state, Mexico. It is called Casa de los Milagros or House of Miracles by architect Danilo Veras Godoy and is a private residence, not an intergalactic freight transport vehicle / organism. As a technical matter, this is an extreme case of what you get when...

When the newly-formed Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay, April 1861, they ignited the Civil War. They, at least, had a clearcut goal: to maintain an economy (and society) based on slavery. It was patently evil, but it was firmly established and it was their engine for daily life, and they didn’t want it to end. When Charlie Kirk was murdered in 2025, Civil War 2.0 kicked off. The enemy this time are not Confederates with a coherent command structure and a goal. They are an army of nihilists like the gang in The Big Lebowski, who, for one...

“If you want a friend in DC, get a dog. We're coming for you.” —Dan Bongino, Deputy Director, FBI. You better believe Martha Stewart baked a cake last night — the lovely Gâteau Opéra perhaps? — when she got the news that the ham sandwich known as James Comey got indicted by a federal grand jury twenty-two years after that same ham sandwich indicted the goddess of hearth and home for lying to the FBI and the SEC over a trumped-up insider-trading rap, and sent her to federal prison for a five-month stretch plus five additional months of confined home-making...

"I’ve never talked to a Democrat who ever wanted to listen. They start to glitch out if you try.” — Sasha Stone. This past summer, I tried to open a line of communication with a West Coast relative. We exchanged a few letters. I tactically steered the conversation away from the political. Here was the closer salvo from my relative: Jimmy, on a completely personal level, and in different times, I think we could have been very good friends. At this point in our history, I find what you say in your blogs and Kunstlercast to be outrageous, deceptive, and...

“With apologies for bluntness, the mainstream press f[--]d around, now the mainstream press is finding out.” —Matt Taibbi. By now, it must be kind of obvious that Mr. Putin of Russia was staged-up into a demon for the convenience of Hillary Clinton — resulting in a decade of deformed US foreign relations that has dragged us to the edge of a third world war. Nice work, Democratic Party! I will proffer a harsh truth to you: the best outcome in Ukraine would be for Russia to win the war as expeditiously as possible, neutralize and disarm the place, change-out its...

“. . . [W}e are closing in on more disclosures and fixing past wrongs to personnel. We’re making sure this is done correctly. But it’s absolutely getting done.” Dan Bongino, Deputy Director, FBI. Elon, as he is currently imagining himselfWho knows what to believe these days? Well, what would you expect after years, even decades, of anti-reality operations by everyone from the CIA to The New York Times to Harvard U? Is it any wonder that reality-optionality is making the people both apathetic and insane? We are told now by the FBI that there is no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein...

"Great cities fall to the sound of cheering crowds." Ami Kozak on "X" The Democratic Party put another bullet in its head this week with the election of the charming, affable jihadi communist Zohran Mamdani. Is “communist” too harsh a label? (He styles himself, softly, a “socialist.”) Yet his campaign platform looks like a template from the venerable Soviet Council of Ministers circa 1957: Free Everything: housing, buses and subways, college, child-care, government food stores. . . with a cherry-on-top of replacing police with social workers in high crime areas — because rapists and car-jackers would quit their rowdy ways...

“The Caliphate looms; it is inevitable, and the road to its gates is paved with the skulls of English children.” —Peachy Keenan Do you hear those alarm bells ringing? Looks like June is bustin’ out all over, as the old Broadway ditty goes. Bedlam is in the air, and in more varieties than Heinz has pickles. Take your pick: civil war blooming in France and the UK, maybe even Germany — if it can shake off its psychotic stupor. World War III flutters over the continent like an answered prayer coming in for a landing. And here in the USA,...

“The modern politics of division have become a banally hectoring faux morality play put on by the theater kids for the other theater kids.” —El Gato Malo on X. President Trump Alone While Jake Tapper leads the Mea Culpa Chorus singing Kumbaya in a minor key, absolutely nobody is fooled that the grotesque psychotic deformities of US politics can be reduced to a few White House factotums lying to the news media about “Joe Biden’s” cognitive abilities. For one thing, the news media was not lied to. The news media (including Jake) lied to the nation, consistently, flagrantly, mendaciously, for...

“Is the Blue Party really only the customer service desk for the administrative state?” —Jeff Childers It’s pretty universally acknowledged that America’s recent wars — say, starting with Vietnam — have been stupid, pointless, and fake in instigation. And yet the soldiers we sent into these fiascos acted bravely and honorably for the most part. So, it has felt a little weird to celebrate their sacrifices minus any sense of political justice, victory, or meaning in the endeavors they sacrificed for. Ergo, the holiday is lately reduced to a celebration of grilled meat. This Memorial Day, for a change, the...

"Every time I watch The View, I become even more misogynistic." — Laura Loomer. Saint Jake Tapper.Bad as it was, “Joe Biden,” the figment president, was merely one manifestation of a nation made mad by power-seeking demons, real-live, ill-intentioned human beings driving a runaway political machine, the party of hoaxes, hustles, and hatred. The country is just now struggling to exit a convulsion of mass mental illness. The demons are still there, though, and still hard at work trying to drag you all back into mass formation. A central mystery is how the news media made itself the enemy of...

“Don’t misunderstand me. I want Biden to get better and live many more years, so he can watch his family go broke from running out of influence to sell.” Oilfield Rando on X If the slithering denizens of Okefenokee-on-the-Potomac were nervous about their fates before Sunday — and I’d say they’ve been rather jumped-up since Nov. 4 — then Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday morning session with FBI top dawgs Patel and Bongino must have been a near-death experience for them. Something Roto-rooterish this way comes, officialdom must be thinking, if you can call utter hysteria “thinking.” Washington is nervous because there...

"No more government in the shadows." Mike Benz The decade-long treasonous hectoring of Mr. Trump keeps on coming, you understand, for the simple reason that there have been absolutely zero consequences for any of the vicious rogues behind it. Not so much as a rap on the knuckles for seeking to overthrow a president, steal elections, hide high crimes, rob the treasury, and recklessly frame the innocent. And suddenly this week, as startling as a mythic goddess of justice riding a spring zephyr, comes a brisk demonstration of exactly what-to-do. Days ago, Governor Phil Murphy of New Jersey ordered his...

“Perhaps history is teaching us that today’s popular leaders like Donald Trump and Marine Le Pen are not the people’s last chance. They are the globalist’s last chance.” — Kurt Schlichter Do you see the pattern? Populist party leaders all over Western Civ getting undone by the law courts — Călin Georgescu in Romania, election cancelled; Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, de-railed by President Lula’s stooge judges (with CIA help); Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia shot-up with five bullets in May last year (survived miraculously); the Alternative-for-Deutschland Party de-platformed by the Scholz-Merz ruling junta; then, this week, Marine Le Pen,...