Free Republic

Like most people in the western hemisphere, I woke on February 28 to an overwhelming rush of footage, reports, and rumors from the Middle East. The United States and Israel had launched a surprise attack on Iran overnight (after the markets closed for the weekend), and were pummeling the Iranians with massed air strikes. Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei - a longtime fixture in regional politics - was dead, according to soon to be confirmed Israeli reports. A few hours later, Iran began retaliating with missile strikes on targets all around the region, including Israel, American bases, and the...

An attempt to OSINT the current state of affairsEnergy: The US is a net petroleum exporter. At $100+ Brent, US shale producers benefit. The US saves approximately $250 million per day compared to Asia and Europe on energy costs during the war. [CONFIRMED — Forbes, March 16]China hurt directly: China was purchasing ~90% of Iran’s sanctioned oil — ~1.7 million barrels/day at deeply discounted prices. That supply is now disrupted. China’s teapot refineries face acute shortages. A direct strategic blow to a US competitor.Taiwan deterrence signal: Chinese intelligence watched B-2s deliver GBU-57s against hardened targets successfully. The US capability to...

Khamenei should have learned from Maduro. He didn't. He's now in the past tense.President Trump promised the people of Iran the United States would help them overthrow the Islamic dictatorship, and on Saturday he delivered. A joint attack with Israel killed the ayatollah and 7 of his henchmen generals. The bombing continued. We added to the list of the unalive a few other generals and of course our old friend, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the original Holocaust Denier.The lightning swift initial victory calmed my nervousness about this turning into another Iraq. The reality is this will not turn into a wider war....

The company responsible for the technical backbone of the controversial CBP One app - responsible for the mass, streamlined entry of illegal aliens into the U.S. under Joe Biden - is foreign-owned with ties to the British government and U.S. employees donating to Democratic candidates. Given the sizable damage CBP One inflicted on the U.S., these conflicts of interest demonstrate a partisan bias and concerning foreign ties. ...

Must-See RFK Jr. Interview Explains It All. In a Heritage Foundation forum on Monday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explained without saying so why leftists hate him as they do. In laying out the accomplishments of his extraordinary first year, Kennedy attributed his success on several fronts to the man who selected him. Said Kennedy, “Trump understands the uses of power better than any president in history.” For years, as Kennedy explained, he has been troubled by the inarguable deterioration in the health of Americans, children in particular. Said Kennedy, “I prayed God would put me in a place where I...

BASF plant in Ludwigshafen, 1881.In its ‘Climate & Energy’ newsletter on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal’s report on Germany’s chemicals industry headlined ‘The Agonising Decline of One of Europe’s Core Industries’ reads less like an industry report than a forensic examination of an industrial autopsy. Once Europe’s formidable manufacturing powerhouse, Germany is now presiding over the steady dismantling of one of its most foundational industries – chemicals – under the combined weight of self-inflicted energy scarcity, climate moralism and geopolitical miscalculation. In Politico’s view, the auto sector has already assumed the role of Exhibit A in Germany’s economic self-harm. But...

Organizations including the Chinese-American Planning Council and the Chinese Progressive Association — both of which have ties to the Chinese Communist Party’s overseas influence network — are among the signatories urging Congress to defund Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Border Patrol.Those groups joined more than 1,000 organizations in a coordinated letter demanding that lawmakers halt all funding for federal immigration enforcement agencies, a move that would effectively eliminate interior enforcement and deportation operations nationwide. The letter, organized by Amnesty International USA, does not call for reforms or oversight but for the removal of enforcement capacity itself.

President Trump IS the new world order now.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he is not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.”He also said, “Mexico has to get their act together because they’re pouring through Mexico and we’re going to have to do something.”He also said, “Cuba looks like it is ready to fall.”But the best thing he said was “You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security on Greenland?...

Cancer doctors have grown accustomed to good news. Over the past three decades, lung cancer deaths have plummeted by 40%. Breast cancer mortality has dropped 44%. Prostate cancer deaths have fallen by half. Colon cancer, once a leading killer, now claims 50% fewer lives than in 1990. These victories represent billions in research funding, surgical innovations, targeted therapies, and nationwide screening campaigns—the sum total of modern medicine’s war on cancer. Yet one malignancy refuses to follow the script. Pancreatic cancer—the silent executioner lurking behind the stomach, wrapped around vital blood vessels, often symptomless until the final act—is not only resisting...

I don’t know what you did on Friday night, but I spent about 90 minutes in the vice president’s study with him and the men you see above, talking geopolitics, Hungary, and the survival of Christianity in Europe, among other things. Of course I can’t be indiscreet about the discussion, but it was rich and vigorous. I’m really glad that JD got to experience the actual, living Viktor Orban in person, and to see for himself how wrong the propaganda is. They got on very, very well. I was able to have a few minutes with the vice president before...

And deserves to get it good and hard.Last night was the (well, not mid-term elections — those are next year — “quarter-term” elections?) and the areas that thought that Kamala Harris was a damned fine pick for POTUS last cycle stayed Blue. That should not have been a big surprise to anyone with a licence to adult..In Newt Yack City, a CAIR1-funded communist Democratic Socialist is now mayor.Whee. As long-time readers of my little scribblings have probably already figured out, I doubt that Mamdani will be as bad as his detractors say; but I damned sure don’t think he’s going...