Free Republic

The Texans' sacrifice at the Alamo and their improbable victory at San Jacinto still define our world in ways few understand.Today marks the 190th anniversary of the martyrdom of the heroes of the Alamo, who died to delay the dictator Santa Anna's army long enough so that Texian troops could rally and defend their homes. Singular among those heroes was Colonel and Congressman David S. Crockett, “King of the Wild Frontier.” Born in 1786 in that part of North Carolina which was then the renegade “State of Franklin” but not yet the State of Tennessee, “Davy” Crockett was a legend...

There will be changes in the UK government soon. I have little doubt of that, although exactly what those changes will be will, unfortunately, be determined by the feckless and immoral Labour Party in the near term. It's hard to say whether Keir Starmer is toast yet, but I would put a modest bet on the likelihood, if for no other reason than that the Labour Party will soon be in panic mode due to the steady stream of bad news and embarrassments. Starmer has somehow survived up until now, despite being the least popular Prime Minister since...well, nobody has...

The global order is no fan of Iran. Atlantic writer and former National Endowment for Democracy board member Anne Applebaum has consistently named Iran, alongside Russia and China, as one of the three greatest autocracies threatening the world. Senator Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a speaker at the Council on Foreign Relations, drew an explicit parallel during the 2022 Mahsa Amini massacres, declaring, “Just as we stood together with the people of Ukraine during their revolution of dignity, the United States must continue standing with the people of Iran.” One might think that these...

The men in Zhongnanhai do not rattle easily. Decades of patient statecraft, a foreign policy built on studied ambiguity, and an economy engineered to absorb external shocks have granted Beijing’s leadership a remarkable tolerance for turbulence. Operation Epic Fury, the American-Israeli air campaign now dismantling Iran’s military architecture, has produced something unusual in the corridors of Chinese power: visible confusion. Xi Jinping is scrambling. The word is not used lightly. For a leader who has built his image on strategic composure and long-horizon thinking, the current moment is acutely dangerous. Not because China faces a direct military threat, but because...

Luigi: The Musical will premiere in New York City this summer, mere miles from where Luigi Mangione allegedly assassinated the father of two children. The show is already a hit in far-left San Francisco. Prosecutors say Mangione gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood in December of 2024. The motive was to make a statement about the American health care system. “These parasites had it coming,” Mangione reportedly wrote on a note found on him during a police search. The political left immediately embraced the accused murderer as one of their own. CNN’s Kaitlan Collins promoted Mangione’s defense...

A woman named Stephanie Minter was stabbed to death because Fairfax County, Virginia, refused to lock up a violent serial criminal named Abdul Jalloh, who had more than 30 previous arrests, including 4 previous stabbings.How many stabbings does a person have to commit before they get locked up for life?https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/northern-virginia/long-criminal-history-tied-to-fairfax-county-bus-stop-stabbing-suspect/4068060/

First, a request to President Trump:Sir, may I humbly request you stop doing awesome stuff on Saturday. This humble meme gatherer would like her afternoons off. Thank you for your attention to this matter — SAH.To the people belly aching about war with Iran: BITCHES, I watched our country be humiliated by the taking of hostages. My 12 th grade class song was “And I Ran, I ran so far away” and no, it wasn’t talking about aerobics. We’ve watched Iran finance destruction against the US and Israel and taunt our presidents. We watched them arguably interfere with our elections...

Khamenei should have learned from Maduro. He didn't. He's now in the past tense.President Trump promised the people of Iran the United States would help them overthrow the Islamic dictatorship, and on Saturday he delivered. A joint attack with Israel killed the ayatollah and 7 of his henchmen generals. The bombing continued. We added to the list of the unalive a few other generals and of course our old friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the original Holocaust Denier.The lightning swift initial victory calmed my nervousness about this turning into another Iraq. The reality is this will not turn into a wider war....

Forty-seven years after the mullahs seized power, the countdown ended in fire, and Trump wagered that decisive force—not talk—would finally clear the path to Iran’s liberation.On January 25, just over a month ago, I wrote here that “The Countdown to Iran’s Liberation Has Begun.” Yes, there were peace talks. Donald Trump’s negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, jetted off to talk to Iran’s agents. Had Iran acceded to Trump’s key demands—above all, the abandonment of its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons—war might have been averted. As Churchill almost put it, it is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war. But the...

Communism is the only guarantee of human happinessCommunism is the only guarantee of human happiness. It has always worked wherever it has been tried. One need only consider the progressive reforms of Joseph Stalin in Russia in the mid-20th century. Those who refused to sign up to Stalin’s ideas tended to die young, which just proves that Communism saves lives. Now that we’ve reached 2026, surely it’s time to try this system again. Our new era has already begun, with Zohran Mamdani taking over as Mayor of New York. For those who don’t know, Mamdani is a devout Muslim who...

Does anyone know where I can find a chart or article that shows what the tariffs imposed by EU countries on U.S. goods were...preferably by year (i.e., pre Trump)? This whole discussion is a disaster unless you know what Trump was dealing with BEFORE he took office. The Europeans wine about Trump's tariffs but you NEVER read about what they imposed when our goods were exported to their countries. I'm interested in the tariffs they imposed on American food products, alcohol products (wine, liquor etc.), automobiles, electronics, etc., etc. Thank you!

Aww, would you look at that? Conservatives are answering Zohran Mamdani's call for shovelers in New York City, even though he's demanding that volunteers show their papers.We're not sure what's funnier here: that conservatives are 'signing up' to help, or that Mamdani isn't bright enough to see his own hypocrisy about the whole paperwork thing. Hey, show your ID to shovel snow, but don't worry about it when you vote. Socialists.Or is he a commie?Eh, either way ...

Democrats cheer or jeer the Court as convenience dictates; their lone consistency is power—pursued relentlessly, defended fiercely, and projected onto opponents.“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote. The Democrats might repeat Emerson’s motto, but they go one better. They eschew all forms of consistency—except one. Today, since the Supreme Court just ruled against Trump’s use of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs, the Dems are in a festive mood and are happy to praise the Court. No worries, Trump has recourse to many other statutes to pursue his economic policies....

Taliban “supreme leader” Hibatullah Akhundzada recently approved a novel criminal code, multiple outlets reported this week, that dramatically expands the legal ability for men to physically abuse women and children and provides for the creation of a formal “slave” class in the country. The Taliban is a radical Islamist terror organization that currently operates as the uncontested government of Afghanistan. The Taliban returned to power on August 15, 2021, following former President Joe Biden’s decision to extend the 20-year-old Afghan War beyond the deadline of May 15 of that year that President Donald Trump had previously agreed to. The Taliban’s...

The Sally Jenkins meltdown.Taking things particularly hard has been sportswriter Sally Jenkins, publishing a piece called “You Can’t Kill Swagger” in The Atlantic. “The Post Sports section is, was, no ordinary section, in heritage or in coverage,” Jenkins wrote. “It was habitually young, because it required hiring people with no sense of off-the-clockness. We moved in a close group… We came from all over, competed desperately to outwrite one another, teased one another mercilessly, loved one another.” The Post’s sportswriters were trained “to grab the pen and go, and to regard sportswriting as merely another portal through which to report...

The Land of Make Believe will eventually come to an end, and sobriety and rationality will be restored. Let’s pray the correction doesn’t come in the form of a hot war or a natural disaster.In a recent viral video, an angry mob (composed almost entirely of white women) hurled expletives at the staff of a Minneapolis CorePower yoga studio, berating them because they reportedly removed anti-ICE signage. While their verbal onslaught apparently worked in this case, these females revealed just how many women live in a Land of Make Believe where everyone magically bends to their will. This tiny glimpse...

Intent vs results. I had this conversation with Grok.Me:This person was planning to be a nursing assistant, but they died in a car crash and were not wearing a seat belt.It seems to me that if someone was not wearing a seat belt, they’d probably be very bad as a nursing assistant, because they ignore the most basic of safety instructions.https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/high-school-senior-dies-high-202105021.htmlGrok:The article you linked (and recent reports confirm) is about Olivia Bumbac, an 18-year-old high school senior from Parkway Central High School in Missouri. She died on February 15, 2026, in a tragic high-speed crash on Interstate 64. She was...

“Not only are Jews unsafe in her care, but it calls into question the judgment of those who employ her" says Physicans Against Antisemitsm (PAA).A California-based registered nurse has come under fire from the nation’s largest organization combatting antisemitism in healthcare after she posted dozens of tirades against Judaism and Jews, saying they pray to the “Synagogue of Satan” and that Judaism is “built on lies.” The nurse — RN Gina Borggrebe — works at Michael Lin Advanced Dermatology and for Paul Dougherty MD, according to her LinkedIn. The nurse is based in California and works throughout the LA county...

And Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have never looked so out of touch.You know things must have been bad for Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Munich for the New York Times to attempt some damage control.But rather than the substance of her arguments, it was her on-camera stumbles when answering questions about specific world affairs that rocketed around conservative social media and drove plenty of the discussion about her visit, as political observers speculated whether they would make a dent in a potential presidential run in 2028.It must be nice to have a full court press — a propaganda machine — to...

Parents surprised to see a man with a beard wearing makeup and a dress at Countryside Elementary. He uses a man’s name but instructs the children to call him “Miss”. Parents were not informed of the staff change.