Free Republic

U.S. Flag with Israeli Stars Which of the United States or Israel uses the other for its foreign policy? Is Israel the proxy for US foreign policy in the Middle East? Or does Israel determine US foreign policy, both through and because of the Zionist lobby and the neocons and liberals present in the US administration? Is it “the world upside down” “tails wagging dogs”? This is a very old question: who manipulates whom in this American-Israeli relationship?

Next year, the United States will observe the 250th anniversary of its Declaration of Independence. To begin a year of celebration, Donald Trump appeared at the Iowa State Fairground in early July. “We’ve saved our country,” he proclaimed to the crowd of supporters. Trump then announced a “giant patriotic festival” on the National Mall for next summer, and suggested an Ultimate Fighting Championship event could take place on White House grounds. UFC is one of the corporate sponsors of ­America250, the nonprofit organization that will be overseeing the country’s semiquincentennial celebration. Other sponsors represent different parts of Trump’s corporate coalition:...

Celebrity Climate activist Greta Thunberg claims she’s been subjected to heinous conditions inside a bedbug-infested Israeli holding cell following her detention as part of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza. Sweden’s Foreign Ministry notified Thunberg’s parents via email, which was shared with The Guardian, that they had met with the outspoken 22-year-old in Israel. In the email, officials said Thunberg has complained of dehydration, claiming she hasn’t been given enough food or water. “She also stated that she had developed rashes, which she suspects were caused by bedbugs,” the email said. “She spoke of harsh treatment and said she had...

Tomorrow, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth brings hundreds of U.S. generals and admirals to Quantico for what amounts to a mass leadership formation. The agenda is opaque, the logistics unusual, and the stakes high. With President Trump now planning to attend, the gathering risks becoming as much a signal about civil-military relations as it is about readiness. What should Americans take from it — and what should our flag officers hear? First, let’s dispense with the novelty. Large, in-person convocations of nearly the entire general/flag officer corps are rare. Reporting indicates Hegseth intends to hammer “warrior ethos,” grooming and standards...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday said that Medals of Honor for soldiers who took part in an 1890 massacre of Native Americans would not be revoked. More than 300 Lakota Sioux men, women and children were killed by U.S. Army soldiers on Dec. 29, 1890, in one of the deadliest attacks on Native Americans by the United States military. The Lakota people had gathered to resist government control in an area of South Dakota that is now part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation..... In 2019, Democratic lawmakers, led by Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, introduced legislation to revoke...

Sinclair has agreed to stop preempting Jimmy Kimmel Live!, allowing the show to resume airing on its ABC affiliates. Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show was indefinitely suspended by ABC after comments the comedian made about Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with the murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. “We hit some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” said Kimmel on the Sept. 15 episode. President Donald Trump...

The vast majority of officials and diplomats in the UN General Assembly Hall appeared to walk out as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage for his address on Friday.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that she had a source within Fox News’ war room who leaked data to her team about how things were looking on election night during an appearance on The View Tuesday. Recalling the night of the 2024 election, Harris told the co-hosts of The View that her husband, Doug Emhoff, “told me that he had been out campaigning with my brother-in-law in Pennsylvania, and we met back up in D.C., and I remember him being a little out of sorts, but there was so much happening.” She continued, “But on his way back from...

Lawmakers in both parties fighting to force the Trump administration to release all the federal files on Jeffrey Epstein took a big step closer to their goal this week. Adelita Grijalva’s victory on Tuesday in a special House election in southern Arizona sends another Democrat to Capitol Hill — and secures the deciding endorsement of the procedural tool forcing a House vote on legislation to compel the Justice Department to disclose the still-concealed documents related to the late child sex offender. That procedural tool, known as a discharge petition, currently has 217 signatures. Grijalva is set to make it 218,...

The New Jersey governor’s race between Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-N.J.) and former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli (R) is tied, according to a new poll. A new Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill survey released on Thursday found both Sherrill and Ciattarelli receiving 43 percent, with a separate 11 percent undecided — underscoring how the race has tightened in the final stretch before the November election. The poll, which was released days after the first debate between the two candidates, is sure to raise alarms for Democrats, who are looking to beat back a Republican effort to flip the governor’s mansion after President...

Republicans are turning the heat back up on the Trump administration for its handling of the Epstein files. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie torched FBI Director Kash Patel over the weekend after he caught the bureau chief off guard on information that Patel should have already been privy to. “I told Director Kash Patel that the FBI has names of 20 men to whom Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women and girls,” Massie wrote on X. “This basic fact seemed to surprise him. Why? “Is the FBI withholding those names to protect the President’s rich and powerful friends?” Massie continued, before demanding that...

It turns out that the services benefiting the well-to-do are most impacted by DC’s ICE crackdown.According to Yesim Sayin, who studies the city economy at the D.C. Policy Center think tank, this is all terrible news for the municipal economy, coming at a moment when federal job cuts have made the tax base ever more reliant on hospitality and real estate. “All these actions with ICE are like putting additional weight on something that’s about to break,” she said.But the identity of the most prolific consumers of the impacted industries is also likely to shape the politics around the immigration...

The director discusses all of that, as well as what happened to this new episode’s previously announced 2023 release date.The case against Adnan Syed has pretty much been never-ending, so why should The Case Against Adnan Syed be any different? Amy J. Berg’s HBO documentary series has returned with a fifth episode a mere six years after the fourth one aired. To put that half-dozen-years break into perspective, HBO Max — which premiered episode five, “The Tree Grew,” on Thursday — didn’t even exist when the docuseries debuted as a four-parter. Syed was arrested in 1999 for the murder of...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel launched its offensive in Gaza City on Tuesday, vowing to overwhelm a city already in ruins from nearly two years of war as thousands of Palestinians fled in vehicles strapped with mattresses and other belongings that clogged a coastal road. The operation into the largest Palestinian city escalated a conflict that has roiled the Middle East and likely pushed any ceasefire with Hamas farther out of reach. The military would not offer a timeline for the offensive that aims to crush the militant group’s ability to fight, but Israeli media suggested it could take months. “Gaza...

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, in a Tuesday opinion piece for The Guardian, called out President Trump for boosting “divisive, far-right politics” worldwide in recent years. “We must unite to take on the reactionary populists and nativists who are exploiting economic concerns, the atomisation of modern life and a growing distrust of political and media institutions – something we have seen in countries across Europe and, of course, in the US,” Khan said in his Guardian piece. “President Donald Trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world in recent...

The GOP has turned so hard on free speech that now even “libertarian” Rand Paul is calling for a “crackdown” on those using their First Amendment rights. “I was assaulted six, seven years ago, attacked from behind, had six ribs broken and part of my lung removed, and still online, on a daily basis people say they wish that it would happen to me all over again,” Paul said Tuesday on Fox Business. “And by sort of making light of what I suffered, they are encouraging other people to do it. That oughta be taken down, and social media oughta...

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly exasperated over President Trump’s refusal to give them permission to move tough bipartisan sanctions legislation against Russia and countries that buy its oil. Trump pressed European allies over the weekend to levy harsher sanctions against Russia, but he has dragged his feet on the bipartisan sanctions bill, which Republican senators were hoping to get done in July. The failure to act is fueling growing disillusionment among some Senate Republicans that Trump is not serious about helping Ukraine. One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on the stalemate over the sanctions legislation questioned whether...

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday to continue the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, specifically information about who other than Epstein, if anyone, was on the receiving end of girls and women being sex trafficked. “The issue’s not gonna go away,” said Kennedy during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s FBI oversight hearing, where Patel was testifying. “I think you’re gonna have to do more to satisfy the American people’s understandable curiosity in that regard.” Kennedy’s comments were notable as the Trump administration battles complaints about the Justice Department’s slow, piecemeal approach to...

Popular conservative creator Matt Walsh called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired immediately after she said businesses must allow fans of Charlie Kirk to print posters in honor of the slain Turning Point USA founder. Walsh said that comment, to go along with Bondi’s recent statement on targeting “hate speech” against Kirk, as well as her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, make it clear President Donald Trump needs to fire her. “Get rid of her. Today. This is insane,” Walsh posted on X on Tuesday, in response to a clip of Bondi talking about companies not being...

FBI Director Kash Patel is scheduled to appear before senators Tuesday as he faces growing questions about his ability to lead the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Patel's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was put on the books weeks ago but comes at a delicate time for the director, who is a loyalist of President Trump but has no experience leading an organization like the FBI. In just the past week, he has come under criticism for his social media posts and actions during the manhunt for the man who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He's also been sued...