Free Republic

President Donald Trump’s admission last week that Iran had refused to abandon uranium enrichment—even after U.S.–Israeli strikes in June—exposes the harsh reality of Mideast power politics. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington on Monday, ostensibly to discuss Gaza, but, according to a well-informed Israeli journalist, with the next steps on Iran topping his actual agenda. Trump now faces a pivotal choice: statesmanship in pursuit of U.S. interests or subservience to Israel’s radical government. The recent strikes were meant to cripple Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, they proved the limits of coercion. Satellite imagery shows Iran rebuilding its bombed Fordow facility,...

Christians are permitted to hate sin and death without explaining how they fit into some inscrutable providence of Almighty God.The flooding in Texas that has killed at least 100 people, including dozens of little girls at a Christian camp on the Guadalupe River, is the kind of catastrophe that causes people to question the existence of God. How could a loving God allow this to happen? How can a system of Christian belief in a God of justice and mercy be reconciled with such suffering and devastation and death?These questions aren’t new, of course. They regularly and understandably resurface at...

Lily Allen says she "can't remember" how many abortions she's had. On an episode of her podcast Miss Me?, the British singer, 40, shared that she used to "get pregnant all the time" and noted that she's had several abortions. "Abortions, I've had a few. But then again, I can't remember exactly how many...I think maybe like, I want to say four or five," Allen said as her co-host Miquita Oliver added that she's also had "about five." As she recalled one of her experiences, Allen said, "I remember once getting pregnant and the man paying for my abortion, and...

On the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationally, supporters say they are secure but also wary and watchful.Could same-sex marriage be next?Gay Americans and their allies have much to celebrate on Thursday, the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Same-sex marriage has, by almost every indication, become ingrained in everyday American life. Since the decision, there have been 591,000 same-sex marriages, and today, nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of the policy. Same-sex couples are staples in contemporary movies and television shows, and reside, often with their...

For the first time, mice born to two fathers have grown up and produced offspring, scientists in China have revealed. The researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University managed to insert two sperm cells - one from each father - into a mouse egg whose nucleus had been removed. A gene editing technique was then used to reprogram parts of the sperm DNA to allow an embryo to develop – a process called androgenesis. The embryo, featuring the genetic material from two fathers, was transferred to a female womb and allowed to grow to term. Finally, the resulting offspring (male) managed...

.. every objective metric, support for trans rights is worse now than it was six or seven years ago. And that’s not isolated to just trans issues. I think if you look across issues of gender right now, you have seen a regression. Marriage equality support is actually lower now than it was a couple of years ago in a recent poll. support that we saw for trans rights in 2016, 2017 — it was a mirage of support in some ways. Because I think, in the postmarriage world, there was a transfer of support from the L.G.B. to the...

Imagine going to the doctor and being told that the medication you’ve been taking for years is now illegal to prescribe to you. The doctor can give it to other people who are different from you — people experiencing depression, for example, or women going through menopause, or cancer patients — but it’s no longer allowed for people like you. ...news broke of a manager’s amendment to the budget that changed what was initially a ban on gender-affirming care for youth on Medicaid into a ban on adult transition care on Medicaid. A change to one line in the budget...

She is one half of a Trump-world power couple. But she’s on Team Elon. It’s gotten complicated. It was the three-word gavel-bang heard across Washington — the conversation-ender meant to cow colleagues and cabinet secretaries, deployed daily by a slight woman with a big job: “Elon wants this.” For months, Katie Miller, the all-purpose operative for the world’s richest man, had been entrusted to help execute Elon Musk’s merry rampage through the federal government, conveying his priorities, his vision, his likes and dislikes with the tacit force of an executive order. When she spoke, Ms. Miller implied to Trump acolytes...

Any use of nuclear weapons likely will result in immediate global escalation.Israel has lost the initiative. Clearly losing the war. Large numbers of Israelis have fled or are fleeing Israel. “The tribe” is migrating.United States is staking all of our might on defending what amounts to maybe a couple million core Israelis. A country dependent on massive American support while we bleed.More than two million Arabs live in tiny Israel amid a total of only about 9 million people.Iran’s allies are powerful, proximate, and easily resupply Iran. Such as China using the new rail system:The global center of mass —...

The power of principles and perseverance.The first Karate Kid movie was released in June 1984, and presently, the story lives on with the new release of Karate Kid: Legends. I recently re-watched The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II with my own kids, and these films were just as good as I remembered. When I was growing up in the ’80s, these films instilled lessons that still resonate. So, in light of the Legends release, I thought it would be fun to pay homage to some classic takes from the originals and point out that Mister Miyagi’s lessons...

The Trump administration is open to arresting Supreme Court judges, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told it on Monday morning. “You guys arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit judge for allegedly helping illegal immigrants get away,” Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Leavitt. “As you guys look at other judges, would you ever arrest somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice?” “That’s a hypothetical question, again I defer you to the Department of Justice for individuals that they are looking at or individual cases. But let’s be clear about...

War hero and triple-amputee Brian Kolfage sits in prison for daring to build a Southern Border wall when Congress would not. The SDNY targeted and imprisoned him – the same SDNY that is withholding Epstein files from AG Bondi. Brian Kolfage may die in prison after being convicted on false charges pushed by the corrupt SDNY in a corrupt New York court overseen by corrupt Obama judge, Analisa Torres. Brian did nothing wrong. The judge prevented evidence that would exonerate him from being shared in the court and he was convicted by a biased New York jury that didn’t give...

Ana Navarro told her co-hosts Monday on ABC’s “The View” that President Donald Trump’s administration welcomed “racists.” Navarro said, “The way JD Vance, you know, talked about it, ‘I don’t think stupid social media activity should ruin a kid’s life.’ Okay. This wasn’t years and years ago. These tweets, they were months ago. So, if he’s such a kid, what the hell is he doing having access to sensitive information at practically every department in the federal government? She continued, “But, you know racism like this could ruin being subjected to racism, being the victim of racism, of discrimination, of...

President Donald Trump signed a broad executive order targeting transition-related medical care for minors Tuesday. The order, titled “Protecting Children From Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” intends to restrict access to gender-affirming medical care — including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery — for minors, which it defines as those younger than 19. It prohibits federal funding from covering such care for minors, restricts research and education grants to medical schools and hospitals, and directs the secretary of Health and Human Services to issue regulations to end such care for minors. The order also directs all federal agencies to rescind guidance...

While polls of Democratic primary voters have been showing that they supposedly want Vice President Kamala Harris to run again, there's a new name out there, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a member of the far-left Squad. On Friday morning, The Hill put out an analysis of potential 2028 Democratic candidates, with Harris topping that list of seven candidates, and AOC closing it out. As their blurb on the congresswoman read:When Democrats talk about the future of the party, the 35-year-old New York congresswoman’s name always bubbles to the top.Democrats have long been impressed with Ocasio-Cortez’s ability to “cut through the...

The “Trump Dance” appears to be exploding across the NFL. It started with the 49ers’ Nick Boas last week, who celebrated sacking the Dolphins quarterback by performing a little Donald Trump dance. But now, players on three other teams have joined the dance craze. First up was Bosa, who performed his take on Trump’s hilarious little double-fisted low pump after he sacked the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ Baker Mayfield in the 49ers win. Bosa later admitted that he was, indeed, doing the Trump dance. The resemblance is unmistakable: But this weekend, the dance craze was seen spreading. Early in the NFL’s...

In retrospect, maybe running the DEI hire for president was not a good idea. On the other hand, President Joe Biden's revenge plan worked perfectly. As reported by The New York Times, after his catastrophic debate, Biden’s White House staff kept presenting congressional Democrats with data proving he still had a much better chance of beating Trump than his vice president did. Then, the moment he was defenestrated, guess who Biden endorsed? Kamala Harris, the candidate he’d told them could not win. But she was a black lady, so … checkmate! Inasmuch as the sole motivating factor of the modern...

A real bombshell blockbuster. ☺

MOSCOW, August 19. /TASS/. Moscow will provide assistance to any foreigners who want to escape the neoliberal ideals being put forward in their countries and move to Russia, where traditional values reign supreme, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin. Under the document, such foreign nationals will have the right to apply for temporary residence in Russia "outside the quota approved by the Russian government and without providing documents confirming their knowledge of the Russian language, Russian history and basic laws."

Russia claims Ukraine is planning to detonate a "dirty nuclear bomb" targeting nuclear power plants in Russia.