Free Republic

Florida condo owners are waking up to a brutal new reality: their homes are becoming virtually worthless. Desperate sellers all over the Sunshine State are slashing prices to as little as $10,000 - and still failing to find buyers. The property problem across the state has been triggered by a tough new safety law brought in after the 2021 deadly Surfside condominium collapse that killed 98 people, forcing aging buildings to undergo inspections and fund massive repairs. Florida-based real estate expert Katrin Pfitzenreiter told the Daily Mail that, for many owners, this has meant repair bills in excess of $100,000,...

Iran rowed back on its decision to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and fired on a tanker attempting to pass the waterway on Saturday. It warned that it would continue to block transit through the strait as long as the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.Confusion over the critical chokepoint threatened to deepen the energy crisis roiling the global economy and push the two countries toward renewed conflict, even as mediators expressed confidence a new deal was within reach.Iran’s joint military command said on Saturday that “control of the Strait of Hormuz has returned to its previous state...

Some conservative commentators accused CBS’s "60 Minutes" of airing a segment featuring three "left-wing" cardinals who criticized the Trump administration’s immigration and Iran policies. Father Gerald Murray and author Robert Royal joined Raymond Arroyo on "The Prayerful Posse" to discuss whether the situation was meant to spark a conflict between President Donald Trump and Pope Leo XIV. "The three of them are billed as so-called influential, but none of them hold offices in the U.S. Bishops' Conference, and they have never been elected," Royal said. He compared the group to "The Squad" in U.S. politics, calling them "a very definite...

Long time columnist for the New York Times Thomas Friedman publicly discussed his moral dilemma this week, saying "I really want to see Iran defeated militarily because this regime is a terrible regime for its people and the region. And nothing would improve the region more than the replacement of this regime with a regime that is focused on enabling its people to realize their full potential, and integrating peacefully with other countries, and stop occupying Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. So I'm all for that." "On the other hand, I really don't want to see Bibi Netanyahu or Donald...

LONDON — Nigel Farage, who led the charge on Brexit, Britain’s push to quit the European Union, and more recently founded the anti-immigration Reform UK party, was euphoric when Donald Trump swept back into the White House. Farage had campaigned for Trump, visited him at his Mar-a-Lago estate and compared him, favorably, to Winston Churchill. ... Farage was an early supporter of Trump’s strikes on Iran, but as anger at the war — and at the president — grows among Britons, who will vote in local elections May 7, he is backtracking. Reform UK’s standing has dipped in recent weeks,...

Barbara Boyd argues Tom Friedman admitted some prefer Iran not be defeated if it politically benefits Trump or Netanyahu, then frames recent events as exposing “theater” about defending democracy. She claims the EU executed a regime-change operation against Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, citing NGO pressure, frozen funds, threats to strip voting power, and a push to end EU member-state vetoes, amid protests over a fuel crisis tied to the Iran war. Boyd highlights JD Vance’s remarks in Hungary about radicals, sovereignty, and foreign election pressure. She says Tulsi Gabbard declassified documents showing Trump’s first impeachment was a hoax driven by whistleblower...

For a few glorious weeks in the spring of 2026, the foreign policy establishment believed it had witnessed the impossible. Iran, a nation whose air defenses had been systematically dismantled, whose navy had been reduced to wreckage on the floor of the Persian Gulf, whose supreme leader had been killed by an American strike, had somehow emerged from 38 days of devastating combat as the victor. That, at least, was the story the drive-by media told. European leaders repeated it with undisguised satisfaction. Democrats echoed it with barely concealed glee. Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz, the world's...

The largest oil shock in history caused prices to surge. Now they're so high that they may be causing "demand destruction." That would mean slower economic growth. Oil prices have started to slip — but not necessarily for reasons that suggest a return to market normalcy. The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that “demand destruction” has begun to unfold. As a result of the acute energy commodity shortages stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, oil appears to have reached a point where it is now so expensive that overseas businesses and households have begun curbing investment and...

It's a game to watch Watching the media scurry all over cyberspace to explain away why their TDS-afflicted economic catastrophe forecasts aren’t panning out. Take the surprisingly tame inflation on the month, despite the ongoing Iran War. Despite a 4 percent increase on the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported April 14 that the Producer Price Index of wholesale prices increased 0.5 percent month-over-month for March, which was much less than the 1.1 percentage increase forecasted by economists as conflict over the energy-critical Strait of Hormuz ensued. Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy indicators, also came in...

According to a report in the Sport Business Journal, the Triple Crown schedule could be shaken up in 2027 as media rights to the Preakness go up for grabs after this year’s edition. The report indicates that the middle jewel of the Triple Crown “is set to make a historic shift to one week later in May,” three weeks after the Kentucky Derby. However, Maryland Jockey Club president and general manager Bill Knauf denied the published SBJ report. He told The Blood-Horse: “We are in the middle of media rights negotiations and have yet to meet with two potential partners....

President Donald Trump has slipped underwater with one of the most important blocs in his political coalition, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, which found his net approval among white working-class voters turned negative for the first time in his second term. The survey, conducted March 26 to March 30 among 1,201 adults, showed Trump at 49% approval and 50% disapproval with white non-college voters, a narrow but politically notable reversal for a group that helped drive his return to the White House. The shift matters because white working-class voters have long been central to Trump's electoral...

Kristen Welker: "I want to start with President Trump because President Trump's threats to take over Cuba come as the United States has removed President Maduro from power, has invaded Iran and killed its Supreme Leader. Do you fear you could be killed or arrested by the United States?" Miguel Díaz-Canel: "That is a very interesting question. Those of us who have leadership positions in the revolution have a strong commitment to our revolution and to our heroic people. In this connection, our responsibility entails the conviction and the commitment that we are willing to give our lives for the...

Ocean Drive was filled with [homosexuals parading] as the Miami Beach Pride Parade marked its 18th anniversary. Despite new legislation limiting local government support for diversity, inclusion, and equity (DIE) initiatives, this...

... Vance's popularity has dropped by 21% since the start of the term in 2025. Compared to other Vice Presidents in recent history, he holds the worst rating at this stage of a term, with a score of -18.

A wave of sexual assault accusations against Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) hit on Friday. In the time since, a number in the media and political spheres have claimed that they knew all along that the California congressman was at best, a pest — and at worst, involved in behavior that might be criminal — but never went public with that information. Local reporter Steven Tavares, author of the East Bay Insider, said that he had been covering Swalwell for more than a decade — beginning when he was just a member of the Dublin City Council — and that he...

NYT columnist says that while he supports the downfall of the Iranian regime, he would not want to see it politically strengthen the leaders of the US and Israel, who he called 'terrible, terrible people.'

Like the paper he works for, Thomas Friedman is a longstanding institution. People read the New York Times so they can repeat his slick glib nonsense at parties to people just as clueless, but slightly too busy to read his verbose ramblings in the paper for themselves. But give Tom some credit, he was just a little too honest in this CNN interview.

Hide the sharp objects—at least if you take Nicolle Wallace seriously. On Friday’s edition of Deadline White House, Wallace began by painting an apocalyptic picture of the situation in Iran. Grim enough to have Trump supporters reaching for the Lexapro—if they believed her. After laying out her bleak scenario, Wallace went a step further, warning of: “A full-scale global economic crisis that might actually be even worse than those headlines, and worse than we think.”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

The exact terms have not been agreed but Iran wants to charge tolls of up to $1 million on ships that pass through the Strait during the two-week period, an unnamed Middle East official told the Associated Press. Trump welcomed the idea on Wednesday, telling ABC: 'We're thinking of doing it as a joint venture. It's a way of securing it - also securing it from lots of other people. 'It's a beautiful thing.' The Strait, through which a fifth of the world's oil flows, has now become known as the 'Tehran Tollbooth', according to Bloomberg. Ship owners go through...

What better way for Morning Joe to mark the Iran ceasefire than by once again tying President Trump to the “monsters of history”? On consecutive days, co-host Jonathan Lemire reached for the same loaded line. He first used it yesterday, reacting to Trump’s bellicose Truth Social post warning Iran of severe consequences. He rolled it out again today—clearly deciding it was too good not to reuse. This time, he escalated further, suggesting Trump’s rhetoric would leave a lasting “stain” not just on his presidency, but on the United States itself. On Tuesday’s show, Lemire cited Trump’s threat-laden language—of the sort...