Free Republic

On Monday’s CNN This Morning, the network cast President Trump less as the Commander-in-Chief than as a common street criminal. Global affairs analyst Kim Dozier -- who was a longtime overseas reporter for CBS News -- likened Trump’s negotiating posture toward Iran to an armed robbery, suggesting the U.S. was telling Tehran: agree to Washington’s demands, “or else this is a stick-up.” Discussing the gap between competing U.S. and Iranian proposals, Dozier brushed aside diplomacy as little more than window dressing. “The fact of the matter is the 15-point plan that the U.S. has put forward versus Iran's five-point plan...

The New York Times Tried Shielding For Iran, Now They're LOSING Their License! (Video)JNS Meira Khttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1qa3MyJXyoThis could be categorized as a masterclass on media manipulation.Attempted manipulation. Thank you for your attention to this matter... M

Both Ayn Rand and George Orwell would have recognized what is going on—and, in fact, they warned us about it. A form of torture I endure for my research is reading the New York Times morning emails. The phrase “alternate universe” aptly describes its sly, misleading story titles, which demonstrate a built-in bias even before the report itself begins. A good example was a heading marked “Territorial Adventurism” used the other day in reference to Trump’s geopolitical strategy in Iran and elsewhere. Adventurism is defined as “Involvement in risky enterprises, especially in foreign affairs, while disregarding established principles or...

Oil prices could surge to as high as $200 a barrel if the Iran conflict extends into June and the Strait of Hormuz remains closed, Bloomberg reported, citing an analysis from Macquarie Group. A war lasting through the second quarter could drive historically high real prices, analysts including Vikas Dwivedi said in a note, assigning a 40% probability to that scenario. A separate outlook, with a 60% probability, sees the conflict ending by the end of this month. Brent crude (CO1:COM) is on track for a record monthly gain in March as the war involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran...

CNN, in a laughable attempt to boost its ratings, has attempted to dress up a couple of its broadcasts in podcast trappings -- based on the misguided notion that viewers will be attracted to the new form rather than the losing substance of what journalists such as Jake Tapper and Anderson Cooper are saying. As an inevitable result, such a desperate move has been the object of widespread mockery. What is interesting is this mockery is not only coming from the right but even from left leaning media such as the New Yorker. Jay Caspian Kang who is himself a...

Donald Trump has brutally slapped down Benjamin Netanyahu's push for the US to incite a bloody street revolution to topple the Iranian regime. 'Why the **** should we tell people to take to the streets when they'll just get mowed down,' Trump told Netanyahu during a call last week. The call came just hours after Iran's security chief Ali Larijani was killed in an Israeli strike last Tuesday. Netanyahu told Trump the regime was in disarray and that there was a window for a popular uprising, a US official and Israeli source told Axios. But Trump feared a massacre, mindful...

Many years ago, at the height of anti-Vietnam War agitation, leaders of the movement would say that they weren’t anti-war, they were on the other side. I was reminded of that, watching this video of left-wingers cheering for American soldiers to be killed: (video at source) There are quite a few people at this rally. Some are obviously Middle Eastern, while others look like mainstream Democrats. To the extent that people who attended this rally are not citizens, they should be deported. If they are naturalized citizens, they should be denaturalized. Whoever is left should be shunned and banned from...

CNN is set to lay off staffers this week as boss Mark Thompson presses ahead with a sweeping digital overhaul — with deeper cuts looming as a potential merger reshapes the network’s future. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned outlet is set to cut “a few dozen” staffers as it moves to modernize its 3,000-plus global workforce, according to the Status newsletter. The cuts are expected to hit roles not tied to growth areas, marking CNN’s latest move away from its cable roots and toward a digital-first future, Status reported. The move follows a prior round of cuts under Thompson, who eliminated...

This video will completely rewire how you read the news by exposing the subtle, almost invisible tricks media outlets use to shape what you believe without ever technically lying. Host Meira K breaks down how headlines manipulate your gut reactions, how “half-truths” hide the real story, and how language, images and repetition quietly steer you toward a narrative, all using real examples from coverage of the Iran war. By the end, you won’t just see bias, you’ll recognize the exact playbook being used on you daily, making this less of a commentary and more of a survival guide for thinking...

Don't count on the TACO trade this time around.President Donald Trump reignited investors' hopes that there's a simple off-ramp for the US from the conflict in the Middle East, sending stocks surging and oil prices tumbling on Monday.TACO, shorthand for Trump Always Chickens Out, proved to be a reliable way to navigate the president's trade-war threats, but real war is different.Here's why market pros think that Trump's cooler Iran rhetoric on Monday isn't a TACO moment.

Judging by Donald Trump’s outbursts of late, he can’t seem to decide whether reopening the Strait of Hormuz is easy or hard. He also can’t seem to decide whether he needs international allies to help with this urgent task or not. Iran’s blockade on oil shipments exiting the strait—done in response to Trump’s attack—is causing worsening global consequences daily. So it would be useful for Trump to settle these arguments in his own mind already. But Trump’s incoherence on the Strait of Hormuz actually reveals something else, as well: a massive political weakness. .....

video run time = 00:01:00 Iran’s “Mosaic Defence Doctrine” is a unique military strategy developed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to survive large-scale attacks and continue fighting even if key leaders or command centres are destroyed. According to defence analysts and intelligence sources, the doctrine decentralises command across regional units, allowing military forces to operate independently if central control in Tehran is disrupted.

In the nearly three weeks since President Donald Trump struck Iran, conventional wisdom has set in that his base is sticking with him on the war. It’s true that Trump’s base hasn’t ditched him in huge numbers — and an overwhelming number of MAGA supporters, especially, say they support the war. The opposition from the likes of Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Megyn Kelly and other influencers hasn’t translated to wide swaths of the GOP base itself. But Trump has alienated some significant portions of his base, and he’s risking alienating more. A fresh batch of polling in recent days...

As the United States and Israel prepared to go to war with Iran, the head of Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service, went to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a plan. Within days of the war’s beginning, said David Barnea, the Mossad chief, his service would likely be able to galvanize the Iranian opposition — igniting riots and other acts of rebellion that could even lead to the collapse of Iran’s government. Mr. Barnea also presented the proposal to senior Trump administration officials during a visit to Washington in mid-January. Mr. Netanyahu adopted the plan. Despite doubts about its viability among...

Three weeks after the joint US-Israeli war against Iran began, the conflict has reached a fuzzy state of mixed messages and uncertainty, with Donald Trump's public comments often seemingly contradicted by realities on the ground. The war is "very complete, pretty much", Trump has said, but new American ground forces – including a Marine expeditionary unit - are moving into the region. It is "winding down", but US and Israeli bombing and missile strikes on Iranian targets continue unabated.Opening the Strait of Hormuz, the geographic choke point through which 20% of the world's oil export travels, is a "simple military...

President Donald Trump’s war with Iran is not going well. He began the conflict with a promise to use an air campaign to initiate regime change in as little as “two or three days.” But about three weeks in, Iran’s government, military and security forces remain highly functional. No popular uprising has emerged. And Iran’s government has seized control of the Strait of Hormuz, sending global oil prices surging and Trump into a panic. Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, is one of the analysts who saw this situation coming a long way off. An expert...

CBS News Radio is being axed as part of layoffs that were announced by division honchos Bari Weiss and Tom Cibrowski on Friday, The Post has learned. The pair told staffers the nearly century-old service will shut down May 22 with all roles in the unit eliminated. The move comes as CBS News slashes roughly 6% of its workforce — impacting about 60 employees — in a sweeping overhaul driven by Weiss as she reshapes the newsroom under owner David Ellison.

Three weeks into a military engagement in Iran, a war Republicans will not call a war, the American and Israeli militaries have all but wiped out Iran's capacity to make war. We have killed their leadership, the replacement leaders, and militia members on the ground. We have destroyed their missile launchers and the factories in which they made the missiles. But Iran still has one of the most powerful weapons in the world on its side, and it is ruthlessly deploying it – the American press corps. "Families mourn as dead are laid to rest in Tehran," blared the front...

During Operation Epic Fury (U.S.) / Roaring Lion (Israel), BBC America—anchored by Caitriona Perry—has systematically avoided showing any meaningful images of damage, injuries, or deaths inside Israel from Iranian missile and rocket barrages. Instead, it has aired daily, graphic footage from Lebanon of the aftermath of Israeli strikes, even though Hezbollah’s attacks on Israeli civilians escalated from early March onward. Only today (3.19.26), for literally a split second, did the network flash any Israeli impact at all: amid weeks of massive Iranian barrages raining down on residential areas across the country—including the killing of four Arab Palestinian women yesterday by...

A US F-35 fighter jet made an emergency landing at US air base in the Middle East after it was struck by what is believed to be Iranian fire, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Capt. Tim Hawkins, a spokesperson for US Central Command, said the fifth-generation stealth jet was “flying a combat mission over Iran” when it was forced to make an emergency landing. Hawkins said the aircraft landed safely and the incident is under investigation. “The aircraft landed safely, and the pilot is in stable condition,” Hawkins added. “This incident is under investigation.” The incident would...