Free Republic

Blow up the moon. It sounds like the grandiose plan of a James Bond villain. Only the idea came, not from a fictional villain, but the government of the United States of America. The secret mission, code-named “Project A119,” was conceived at the dawn of the space race by an Air Force division located at New Mexico’s Kirtland Air Force Base. A June 1959 report entitled “A Study of Lunar Research Flights” outlined plans to explode the bomb on the moon’s “terminator” — the area between the part of the surface that’s illuminated by the sun and the part that’s...

The first shots exploded around 9:40 p.m. On Sept. 11, 2012, a group of local fighters, AK-47s in hand, burst through the fortified front gate of a US outpost in Benghazi, Libya. One very long night later, the diplomatic compound was engulfed in flames and a covert CIA base a mile away lay in ruins, partially reduced to rubble by mortar fire. Four Americans were dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and two CIA members. What happened in between is covered in “13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi,” a new film from “Transformers” director Michael Bay in theaters Friday. The...

In his movies, Chuck Norris has battled ninjas, drug kingpins and foreign armies. Now he's taking on something far more sinister: the US government. Norris, a conservative columnist and Christian, has written "Black Belt Patriotism," a collection of his "common sense solutions" to the problems facing America. Even five years ago, many would have laughed at the idea of the star of "Sidekicks" as an elder statesman, but Norris demonstrated his clout when his primary endorsement of Mike Huckabee gave the candidate a major boost. He spoke to The Post about his views and whether his tears really cure cancer....