Free Republic

Russia has a question for the European countries that have shunned its energy exports: Do you miss us now? The Kremlin is enjoying a sudden resurgence of its importance as a global supplier of oil and gas, as the conflict in Iran disrupts energy production and shipment across the Middle East and sends global energy prices soaring. “Now other markets are opening up, and perhaps it’s more advantageous for us to stop supplying the European market right now,” Mr. Putin said on Wednesday to a state television reporter, Pavel Zarubin, who chronicles the Russian leader. “We are seeing an increase...

The California governor made the remarks at an event to promote his new memoir, 'Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery.'California Governor Gavin Newsom compared Israel to an “apartheid state” and questioned future U.S. military support for the country. Speaking on stage at an event to promote his new memoir, Young Man in a Hurry: A Memoir of Discovery, Newsom, who is widely expected to enter the 2028 presidential race, was asked by Pod Save America host Jon Favreau about the U.S.-Israel relationship and whether it should be reconsidered. “It breaks my heart, because the current leadership in...

For decades, Iran managed to bluff American presidents. It deterred attacks from a superpower and carried out proxy campaigns against its neighbors and Israel. Our strikes on Iran on Saturday are evidence that this long-term strategy of negotiating in bad faith is bankrupt. The military campaign underway is the direct result of Iranian leaders’ foot-dragging, obfuscation and delay tactics. This time, they misjudged the president. The path to today began in 2020, when President Trump made the decision to strike then Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, an Iranian military leader who masterminded attacks against American people and facilities in the Middle...

The combined political and liberal media counteroffensive against President Trump was underway within hours of the Iran strike. As socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) launched a frontal assault on Trump’s decision — declaring the military action “absolutely and clearly grounds for impeachment” — the New York Times provided covering fire, unleashing a barrage of skepticism about the justification for the strikes. [snip] With American forces engaged overseas, the political and media barrage began at home within hours — unrestrained even as service members moved into harm’s way.Get the rest of the story here.

Pakistan carried out airstrikes on Afghanistan’s two largest cities on Friday, including the capital, Kabul, according to officials from both nations, escalating months of tension and border skirmishes into an open conflict. Beyond Kabul, home to six million people, the strikes hit the southern city of Kandahar — where the Taliban’s supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, lives — and the border province of Paktia, according to Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban government. Pakistan launched the strikes hours after Afghan troops had attacked Pakistani border positions, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials. The Afghan attacks were described as retaliation...

With the threat of a U.S. strike on Iran looming, the United States embassy in Jerusalem has told its workers that they may leave Israel and warned them that if they want to, it is vital that they do so immediately, according to an email from Ambassador Mike Huckabee sent to the U.S. mission Friday. The move followed meetings and phone calls through the night, Mr. Huckabee told embassy workers in the email, and resulted from “an abundance of caution” and conversations with the State Department in which officials agreed that the safety of embassy staff was a priority. Those...

Since its peak last fall, Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, has lost almost half its value. Nearly $2 trillion of wealth has evaporated from the global crypto market since October. We have one question. What took so long? Outside of crimes and scams, the technology is useless, and its economics are even worse. ....At a time when investors have grown skittish about riskier assets, the value of Bitcoin has fallen nearly 50 percent since October, dropping to below $70,000, proving it was only a matter of time before crypto faced the critical lens it always needed but never truly received....

If China invades Taiwan and cuts off its chip exports to American companies, the tech industry and the U.S. economy would be crippled.Federal officials have for years tried to wean Silicon Valley from its dependence on Taiwan, an island democracy roughly the size of Maryland that makes 90 percent of the world’s high-end computer chips. In secret briefings held in Washington and Silicon Valley, national security officials warned executives from companies like Apple, Advanced Micro Devices and Qualcomm that China was making plans to retake Taiwan, which Beijing has long considered a breakaway territory. A Chinese blockade of Taiwan, the...

Drug lords have been killed or captured, and cartels have splintered or collapsed, only to see more violent ones replace them and the illicit trade expand. So, 60years of war on drugs, what has actually worked? ...The Sinaloa Cartel, after all, did not go away after its chief, Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the notorious drug lord known as El Chapo, was captured and extradited to the United States. ...Rather than simply going after kingpins like Mr. Oseguera, the authorities need to take a holistic approach to dismantle these groups more completely, analysts say. The Mexican government has to use a combination...

The husband of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer has been barred from the department’s headquarters after at least two female staff members told officials that he had sexually assaulted them, according to people familiar with the decision and a police report obtained by The New York Times. The women said Ms. Chavez-DeRemer’s husband, Dr. Shawn DeRemer, had touched them inappropriately at the Labor Department’s building on Constitution Avenue. One of the incidents, during working hours on the morning of Dec. 18, was recorded on office security cameras, the people said. The video showed Dr. DeRemer giving one of the women an...

YORBA LINDA, California — Fifty yards from Richard Nixon’s grave, which sits not quite in the shadow of the modest home where he was born, a series of exhibits at his presidential library describe him as a psychologically unbalanced fool. The Nixon White House, museum display panels announce, was consumed by “a climate of deep suspicion.” The infamous Plumbers took action against “perceived political opponents within the Federal Government.” A video display allows visitors to choose clips on the theme of Nixon’s “Conspiracy Thinking.” Paranoid, the president mindlessly lashed out at enemies that he hallucinated. This is still the official...

Nickolay Mladenov, the head diplomat in charge of the Board of Peace's subcommittee on the Gaza ceasefire, stressed on Friday that all armed groups in the Gaza Strip must disarm. Mladenov was responding on social media to a post by Aaron Goren, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who wondered why Mladenov refused to respond to a question on whether reports that Hamas will only be partially disarmed as part of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan are accurate. “I've made it very clear that all militants in Gaza need to be disarmed and there is...

The Times Guild Bargaining Committee sent staffers a newsletter on Tuesday detailing the latest labor negotiations. The Guild said it made a "big push to end the two-tier system The New York Times created and perpetuates by wrongly excluding jobs and workers from the Times Guild" and received a revised proposal from the company to end all hybrid work guarantees on March 1, 2027. "At that point, they would have the right to require us to work in the office five days a week and to eliminate our contractually guaranteed three weeks of remote work per year. As we saw...

Republican officials and candidates in Texas have shifted their rhetorical attack lines from the border fears that dominated recent elections to the state’s growing Muslim population, with language that echoes the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric has unnerved many in the state’s Islamic community while sending signals to Republicans outside Texas who might be searching for rhetorical targets now that the nation’s southwestern border has grown quiet. Ads for Senator John Cornyn of Texas have touted his fight against “radical Islam.” Texas Republican lawmakers created a “Sharia-Free America Caucus” in Congress....

Apparently The New York Times has snowflakes for brains as it struggled to find the climate change link in the blistering cold that has gripped the Eastern Seaboard. Times reporter Eric Niiler ran a ridiculous February 7 piece of propaganda disguised as news that was laced with a complete lack of self-awareness: The headline? “What’s Up With This Big Freeze? Some Scientists See Climate Change Link.” Niiler floated the possibility that “A warming Arctic can stretch the polar vortex, a high-altitude air ribbon, one says. The ‘wobble’ can disrupt the jet stream, causing extreme cold in the East.” At least...

Turns out even a broken clock can get it right twice a day. The New York Times just plastered their front-page with an exposé connecting the sadistic Jeffrey Epstein empire with the politically radioactive Clintons. Following the release of long-awaited files pertaining to the Epstein case by the Department of Justice, Times investigative reporter Danny Hakim took a detour away from his employer’s never-ending Trump bashing to draft a February 8 story that’s sure to make liberal heads spin: “Epstein Files Reveal Scope of Ghislaine Maxwell’s Role in Clinton Circle.” What made this even more impression was it is something...

The state can require federal agents to display identification, the judge said. The Trump administration had asked the court to block both laws, which were designed to help identify federal agents. A federal judge on Monday said that California could not prohibit federal law enforcement agents from wearing face masks unless it amended the law to also apply to state agents. But the judge did allow the state to require federal agents to display identification. Judge Christina A. Snyder of the Federal District Court in Los Angeles issued a preliminary injunction against the mask ban, ruling that California’s new law...

It’s known as “Don Colossus.” At 15 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf. For more than a year, the golden statue has been at the center of one of the stranger moneymaking ventures of the Trump era. A group of cryptocurrency investors paid $300,000 to have a sculptor create it as a tribute to Mr. Trump, an outspoken crypto proponent. Then they used it to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT....

Jeannine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, on Monday threatened jail time for anyone who enters the capital with a gun. In remarks on Fox News that could deepen a growing rift between gun owners and the Trump administration, Ms. Pirro declared that if anyone brings “a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” Her remarks prompted swift pushback from the Republican Party’s pro-Second Amendment wing, which was thrown...

At a Spanish port 50 miles northwest of Gibraltar, four Turkish Navy ships, including a brand-new amphibious assault ship that doubles as an aircraft carrier, were set to arrive Friday to take part in NATO military exercises. Heavy winds had delayed the Turkish vessels, but once they dock at the Spanish Navy port, they will form a fleet with Spanish ships, sail around the continent and rendezvous with French, German, Polish and Dutch vessels. They will then travel to Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, bringing tanks, landing craft, helicopters, drones and troops from southern Europe to northern Germany. About 10,000 troops...