Free Republic

In this episode of Straight Up, Daniel Seaman cuts through the week's headlines to examine why media narratives often paint a very different picture from geopolitical reality. You'll learn why some of Israel's loudest critics continue to dominate the conversation, how new strategic alliances are expanding across Europe, Latin America and Asia and why Israel's growing technological and security influence may be reshaping global politics despite the headlines. Plus, you won't want to miss a remarkable New York Times report on an alleged Mossad operation that sounds almost too unbelievable to be true.

Most wildfires in Canada are impossible to fight. As smoke from forest fires in Canada have darkened skies south of the border, lawmakers in Michigan, Ohio and other U.S. states have accused the Canadian authorities of inaction and poor forest management. But most wildfires in Canada spread in such remote, vast areas that they cannot be fought effectively — and are often left to burn. Half of Canada’s wildfires, like the ones now burning in northern Ontario, burn in such areas — either unpopulated or dotted with small Indigenous communities, said Michael Flannigan, an expert on fire management at Thompson...

When President Trump tried to undermine and overturn the election results in 2020, he ran into stiff pushback — not just in the courts, but from many officials in his own government.He made sure there would be little room for such dissent when he returned to the White House. Those seeking to join Mr. Trump’s second administration had to pass a key litmus test: Did they believe the 2020 election was stolen from Mr. Trump?With like-minded allies now positioned in key roles throughout the government, Mr. Trump has trained the full arsenal of the federal government on one of his...

https://x.com/PrometheanActn/status/2076728881831178400Promethean Action@PrometheanActn·7hThe FBI asked the NYT not to publish Air Force One's classified defense details.They ran it anyway.Trump already told you why: "They go after the big names." Lincoln. McKinley. Now him. What do all three have in common? TRANSCRIPT BEGINS~~~Susan Kokinda: The FBI asked them not to do it, but they did it anyway.Just before the President departed Ankara, the New York Times leaked classified information about Air Force One's self-defense capabilities, and they ran it at a momment of renewed hostilities with Iran, and renewed threats to the President.On July 11, the Department of Justice issued subpoenas to...

On July 16, “The Catcher in the Rye,” by J.D. Salinger, will turn 75. Commemorating such a nice big number would surely strike its adolescent hero, Holden Caulfield, as the absolute nadir of “corny,” but maybe we could use a little corn, as the data centers invade our farmland. Pour out a Scotch and soda — make that a malted milk — for this spry codger of a novel that’s stayed on the dance floor long past when might be expected, leaping over book bans from the right and dodging cancellation from the left. “Catcher” has somehow inspired artists as...

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) is extremely upset after being detained in the West Bank by armed Israeli settlers. This incident took place last Wednesday, but Khanna and The New York Times chose to report on it Saturday. Why Khanna was even there is another question. The 2028 election is still a long way off, and this soft launch was, frankly, awkward. The stunt got nuked by Israeli Ambassador Dr. Michael Leiter, who cooked Khanna’s stunt on CBS’ Face the Nation yesterday. Additionally, the California liberal was in a restricted military zone where civilians were not allowed. Lastly, Khanna refused to...

A black feminist historian whose work is being labeled as misleading — and who may have lost her cushy academic job — says it all comes down to an attack on black women. The New York Times tells the tale of Kerri Greenidge, whose 2022 book “The Grimkes” was hailed for its narrative about a slaveholding family and its work in the abolitionist movement. Publishers Weekly put the book on its list of that year’s top books, while the American Historical Association handed Greenidge the Joan Kelly Memorial Prize, which honors scholars in women’s history and feminist theory. But the...

Apple and Google spent months suppressing negative news stories about the scandal-plagued Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner prior to his recent downfall, according to a new study obtained by Fox News Digital. The Media Research Center (MRC), a conservative watchdog group, found that Apple News and Google News published zero stories between November of last year and May of this year about the various controversies that muddied Platner's Senate bid, including headlines about his Nazi tattoo and his offensive Reddit posts. The MRC study said the blackout in coverage began after a poll released in late October suggested Platner...

Here's my biggest problem with the current state of looniness on the left these days. It's not just that the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media have had sanity in their rearview mirrors for years now; it's that they've become criminally boring while doing so. We've all seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest; we know that there are crazy people out there who are fun to watch. The 2026 Democrats are just an endless parade of yawn-inducing predictability.

This is something I haven’t seen noted anywhere–the New York Times is expanding geographically, by adding “local newsletters” for metro areas outside of New York. The first one will be in the Twin Cities: The New York Times is piloting a local newsletter for the Twin Cities. It said: "Our hope is that The Local: Twin Cities can serve as a model for similar future efforts elsewhere around the country" https://t.co/6LvGQxgpZU — Press Gazette (@pressgazette) July 9, 2026Apparently the Times thinks the Star Tribune and other local left-wing news outlets are too weak to get the job done. They could...

The new Air Force One, which President Trump flew on earlier this week to Turkey, lacks the same defensive countermeasures that were security features of the old model, including its advanced antimissile capabilities, according to multiple officials who have been briefed on how the jet was retrofitted.Experts say the absence of those capabilities on the Boeing 747-8 aircraft, which was donated by Qatar, creates potential risk in using the jet abroad, a dynamic underscored by the abrupt decision on Wednesday for Mr. Trump to leave Turkey on the old Air Force One at the urging of the Secret Service.The episode...

Two American allies, Germany and Japan, already have permission to build the American interceptors, a license that President Trump says he will also grant to Kyiv. In 2022, as fears mounted over Europe’s missile defense capabilities against Russian strikes, the Biden administration granted permission for Germany to build a factory to manufacture state-of-the-art Patriot air defense interceptors. That factory has yet to produce a single Patriot — a sign of the time it can take and how difficult it can be to ramp up production of American weapons abroad, even after winning approval from the United States government to do...

From Judge Steven Merryday (M.D. Fla.) today in Trump v. N.Y. Times Co. (for the Complaint in the underlying case, which involves various statements about Trump's early life and business career, "A public figure, perhaps the world's most prominent public figure, whose actions and remarks routinely generate immediate global news coverage, sues a newspaper, perhaps the world's most prominent English-language newspaper, along with the world's largest trade book publisher and three authors. The plaintiff initiates in the Middle District of Florida an action for defamation arising from two articles and a book, researched, written, and edited in New York but...

Critics say the administration is weakening public safety. Proponents say regulations would be where they were before President Joseph R. Biden took office. The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions. The drastic retrenchment at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, was not entirely unexpected: President Trump campaigned as a champion of gun rights. In the view of critics and even some A.T.F....

Nearly 1 million people who bought President Trump’s memecoin have lost money through the end of June, according to a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen. Their losses total $3.81 billion. The analytics firm’s assessment was calculated this week after Mr. Trump signed an annual financial disclosure showing that he walked away with a $636 million payout on the same crypto bet, part of a haul of at least $2.2 billion from all of his business ventures in 2025. Once a crypto skeptic, Mr. Trump embraced the profit-making opportunity of digital currencies in 2024, while he was running for...

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pressed President Trump earlier to cripple Iran. But as Iran asserted its power, the prince urged a cease-fire, and is now pursuing his security priorities.President Trump and his military commanders were in a bind.They had announced the start of a new mission to help guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had effectively closed early in the war. U.S. naval and air power would ward off any Iranian attacks during a tentative cease-fire, the commanders said.But U.S. Central Command was caught by surprise when officials from Saudi Arabia said American forces could...

Norway plays the Ivory Coast tomorrow afternoon in the first knockout phase of the soccer World Cup, and one suspects the New York Times will be backing the Norsemen. The Gray Lady has gone gaga for Norway’s “Viking Row,” a synchronized routine where fans mime the rowing of a Viking longboat to the bang of a drum. It’s caught on among the Norwegian players as well as politicians back in Norway, who performed the row in parliament last week. For the last two weeks the NYT has been publishing breathless pieces about the zany Norwegians and their Viking antics. “The...

John Stockwell, who publicly resigned from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1977, accusing it of deceit and illegality, after a career as a covert operative in Vietnam and Africa, died this month in Austin, Texas. He was 88. .... Mr. Stockwell’s break with the C.I.A. — during a period when several former officers published damning exposés of what was informally known as “the Company” — was public and showy. His resignation letter ran in The Washington Post. He wrote a tell-all book, “In Search of Enemies” (1978), which the C.I.A. sought to suppress. He was interviewed on the CBS news...

Supporters welcomed the agreement as a step toward curtailing Iran’s influence within Lebanon, but others took to the streets, calling it a capitulation. After Israel and Lebanon signed a preliminary agreement in Washington on Friday aimed at establishing a lasting peace between them, the reaction in Lebanon was immediate and sharply divided.Supporters of the U.S.-brokered deal said it was a move to curtail Iranian influence in Lebanon, setting out a pathway for the disarmament of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah, which Israel is at war with. They also said it asserts Lebanese sovereignty over the country’s internal security.Others, not least...

President Trump threatened to scrap a just-finalized trade deal with the European Union on Friday, saying that any country that levies a digital services tax would be hit immediately with a 100 percent tariff on all exports to the United States. Mr. Trump seized on the fact that several European countries are discussing imposing such taxes. Those taxes would apply to the revenue that major U.S. tech firms earn in Europe. If they choose to proceed, the United States would “immediately" impose a 100 percent tariff on them, he said. “This TARIFF will supersede Trade Deals made with the Country,...