Free Republic

Acting Iranian foreign minister Ali Bagheri held conversations about the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh with his counterpart in Russia, as well as in Arab countries on Thursday, the ministry announced on X. According to the ministry's twitter, Bagheri emphasized "that the Zionist regime has crossed the red line" and said that the "Islamic Republic of Iran has a legitimate right to defend itself" in a phone call with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov. Bagheri also thanked Russia for its support, and asked for continued cooperation between the two in stopping "the aggressive actions of the Zionist regime."

After the Israeli army carried out an attack in southern Beirut, representatives from Hamas, Yemeni Houthis, Iran, and the Russian Federation promptly responded. Moscow: In a stern statement, the Russian government condemned the Israeli action, calling it a “dangerous escalation” that threatens regional stability. The Russian Foreign Ministry urged Israel to cease its military operations immediately and called for international mediation to prevent further conflict. “We strongly oppose any actions that exacerbate tensions and lead to the loss of civilian lives,” the statement read. Russia also reaffirmed its support for a two-state solution and called for renewed efforts towards peace...

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday declared Friday, Aug 2, a day of national mourning over the killing of the head of Hamas' political bureau Ismail Haniyeh. "In order to show our support for the Palestinian Cause and our solidarity with our Palestinian siblings, a day of national mourning was declared tomorrow (August 2 Friday) due to Hamas Political Bureau Chairman Ismail Haniyeh's martyrdom," he said on social media platform X.

Presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders introduced a plan on Monday that would reverse President Donald Trump’s tax cuts for businesses and return the corporate tax rate to 35% from its current 21%. The Corporate Accountability and Democracy Plan would also eliminate many of the tax breaks and loopholes in the tax code and do away with off-shore tax havens. Other highlights: “Democratize Corporate Boards. Under this plan, 45% of the board of directors in any large corporation with at least $100 million in annual revenue, corporations with at least $100 million in balance sheet total, and all publicly traded companies will...

Claims by police apologists that a "war on cops" ensued from a reform movement that emerged after the shooting of Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri, has no statistical support. Preliminary data from the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund (NLEOMF) finds that 128 police officers died in the line of duty in 2017—44 of them were fatally shot. Last year 64 officers were fatally shot. And since 2011, the numbers have largely gone down. In the meantime, police have fatally shot 971 people so far this year—the youngest of them just 6 years old. Last year, 963 people...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he will use every resource he has at his disposal to stop President Barack Obama from bailing out newly-bankrupt Detroit because he believes the city can and must save itself and learn from its fiscal mistakes. "I basically say he [Obama] is bailing them out over my dead body because we don’t have any money in Washington.” “There’s some good things that come out of bankruptcy,” Paul said in a phone interview from Iowa. “One is you get to start over. Bankruptcy lets you be forgiven of your debt. And you do so by getting...

The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism. Both seek to dominate society and to use state power to do so. Both seek to eliminate the Other -- for Islamic fanatics, that means non-Muslim religions and secularism; for secular fanatics, it means Christianity and virtually any public invoking of God. The Islamists impose Sharia law; the American Civil Liberties Union and the left generally impose secular law. The Taliban wiped out public vestiges of Buddhism in Afghanistan; the ACLU and its allies seek to wipe out public vestiges of Christianity in America...

The real question the media needs to ask Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman -- and even Harry Reid coincides with my new tagline: 'SHOW US YOUR SPIRITUAL BIRTH CERTIFICATE FROM KOLOB' Mormons make bold claims to a pre-existence on Kolob: Having a dad-become-god father and a divine mother...giving "spirit birth" as aliens to this planet. Then being sent here to Planet Earth to inhabit bodies. Well. We wanna see the proof! Actually, I'd even settle for significantly less than "proof!" I'd just like to hear each of them utter: "Yes, I was spirit-born on Kolob to a divine goddess." That's...

We are constantly reminded about the destructive consequences of religion -- intolerance, hatred, division, inquisitions, persecutions of "heretics," holy wars. Though far from the whole story, they are, nevertheless, true. There have been many awful consequences of religion. What one almost never hears described are the deleterious consequences of secularism -- the terrible developments that have accompanied the breakdown of traditional religion and belief in God. For every thousand students who learn about the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials, maybe two learn to associate Gulag, Auschwitz, The Cultural Revolution and the Cambodian genocide with secular regimes and ideologies....

"Polling stations using electronic voting systems suffered more voting discrepancies than polling stations using traditional paper votes ..."

"The costs are staggering."

"...The results produced some remarkable anomalies, such as 21 counties showing no Republican voters and three counties showing no Democratic voters..."

"...electronic voting system shut down across the board..."