Free Republic

Senator John Cornyn was not consoled when President Trump professed on social media that the senior Republican from Texas would “remain my friend for a long time to come” after the president had enthusiastically endorsed the man who defeated Mr. Cornyn, ending his Senate career. “If that’s the way friends treat you, you wonder about his enemies,” Mr. Cornyn said this week in his first extensive interview since his loss two weeks ago to Attorney General Ken Paxton of Texas, an opponent Mr. Cornyn labeled corrupt and unfit for the Senate. Mr. Cornyn said he had come to terms with...

A U.S. official says the U.S. military shot down two Iranian drones that were trying to strike commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz tonight. “It appears Iran has attempted to strike commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz tonight. U.S. forces shot down two Iranian one-way attack drones. Traffic flow through the Strait continues,” the official said. The attack occurred after Trump spoke about being close to a deal with Iran this afternoon.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump set a new world record this week by winning the same war with Iran for the 27th time this year, shattering the previous record of one.According to White House officials, Trump first won the war with Iran in February. However, the war started again the following week, but was quickly won, and Trump has continued winning the war multiple times since."No one thought we could win the war so many times," Trump told reporters. "We won it very strongly. Then we won it again bigly, and then we won it even more. Frankly, nobody...

President Trump announced that he canceled planned strikes against Iran on Thursday and claimed Iran's leadership "approved" a draft agreement that would extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and launch 60 days of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. (snip)The sources said the gaps were narrowed on three key issues: The mechanism for releasing Iran's frozen assets — the most important issue for the Iranians.Arrangements for reopening the Strait of Hormuz during the 60-day ceasefire period.How negotiations over Iran's nuclear program would be conducted during the 60-day ceasefire period.

President Donald Trump called into Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Thursday morning and told the hosts that he has always wanted to invade Iran’s Kharg Island, one of the country’s key energy infrastructure sites. Trump ranted at the media coverage of the war in Iran and fumed, “The Wall Street Journal, they did an editorial today about we’re not hitting them hard enough.” “I mean, it is just, ‘not hitting them hard enough.’ We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy. And they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it...

@GenFlynn This was no mistake. The crew of the USS Liberty. @RepThomasMassie thank you for keeping this story alive.

President Trump warned Thursday that the US will soon take over Kharg Island, which processes about 90% of Iran’s crude oil for export, following a second day of airstrikes against the Islamic Republic. “The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT,” Trump announced on Truth Social. “At some point in the not too distant future, we will be taking Kharg Island, and other oil infrastructure points, and assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets,...

Last month, I directed our Great U.S. Military to execute a secret mission to support Oil Tankers and other Commercial Ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Today, I am pleased to announce that this effort has resulted in more than 100 MILLION Barrels of Oil making its way through the Strait, and into the Open Market. More than 200 Commercial Ships have safely traveled through the Strait. This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran. Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost. It’s over for Iran! Thank...

The Brief A judge who approved a search warrant that led to the arrest of a Henderson County resident over a Facebook post concerning Trinidad's water supply says he was misled by the Trinidad Police Department. Judge R. Scott McKee sent a letter to outgoing Trinidad Police Chief Charles Gregory that questions "the accuracy, completeness, and reliability of information presented" by his officers when he approved the warrant. The woman arrested has since filed a lawsuit against the city after her charges were dropped, while the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is investigating the city's water supply. SNIP

Musk predicts AI will write machine code directly by year-end, a shift TSLA's autonomy roadmap and MSFT's $37B AI business are already built around. Anthropic reports Claude authored over 80% of its merged code by May 2026, with engineers merging 8x more code daily than in 2024. AI-related layoffs in 2026 have already surpassed all of 2025's total, with software engineers and tech workers cut first. SNIP

Jennifer Combs says she never set out to become the face of a fight over free speech, dirty water and small-town power. She says she was simply trying to help people in Trinidad, Texas, report problems with their water. Some residents had complained about discoloration, sediment, odors and health concerns. So Combs used her Southern Belle Watch Facebook page to collect reports and send them to the state. Then, according to Combs, the situation took a turn that still sounds hard to believe. She says police came to her home and arrested her on a felony warrant over a Facebook...

I very rarely post here, it seems I am not PC enough in the particular flavor of this site. But I don't know of a better venue to make this observation. Large companies have crafted "Systems" that they no longer have control over. They are utterly unable to do what should be simple and routine task as "The system" will NOT ALLOW them. I am going to be specific to the case I have been fighting for what is now months. But I am sure that it is not unique, corporate business tend to adopt similar models and technology. Several...

The US fired nearly 50 Tomahawk missiles at the country on Wednesday night. Iranian state media has reported that explosions were heard around Minab and Sirik in the southern part of the country, near the Strait of Hormuz. Air defense systems in Asaluyah were also activated - though no attacks have occurred thus far in the key energy hub that houses refineries and petrochemical complexes, CNN reports. As the strikes then continued, Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters warned that the Strait of Hormuz would be closed to all marine traffic - and all ships seen passing through the waterway...

Summary A US missile attack on an oil tanker near Oman on Wednesday killed three Indian sailors, the Indian government confirms The US said its aircraft hit the tanker's engine room as it transited the Gulf of Oman It said the crew of the M/T Settebello "repeatedly failed to comply with directions from American forces" Meanwhile, the US and Iran have exchanged attacks for the second day in a row The US hit military, surveillance and radar sites in southern Iran Tehran responded with a round of strikes on US military sites in the region, including bases in Bahrain and...

The foul odor of TDS is definitely in the air when the editor of the Washington Monthly, published on the pages of Friday's Atlantic magazine website, can somehow connect the actions of an enraged Democrat congressman in 1856 caning anti-slavery Republican Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate to President Donald Trump.The author of the hit piece incorporating an incident from a couple of centuries ago is careful to discount the idea of making historical comparisons but that was exactly what Rob Wolfe did in "The Vicious Beating That Reshaped America."

US airstrikes on Iran reported, explosions heard in multiple cities US airstrikes on Iran have begun, a US official told Fox News on Wednesday while explosions were reported in Sirik, Minab, Isfahan and on Qeshm Island, according to multiple reports. Iran’s state broadcaster said air defense systems in Asaluyeh have been activated. An explosion heard in the port city of Sirik in Iran's southern Hormozgan province, Iran's Mehr News Agency reported on Wednesday. The sound of air defense systems was heard in western Tehran, according to Iran's Mehr News.

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked. The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said. It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves...

An Arizona jury convicted a Marine combat veteran who threatened to blow away President Donald Trump with an M16 rifle, saying he would do it with “rounds targeting the head, not the ear.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona tells Law & Crime that Rene Ortiz, of Casa Grande, was found guilty on Monday of threats against the president following a four-day trial in Phoenix. His sentencing has not been scheduled yet. Ortiz went on trial this week after being arrested in early 2025 for allegedly hurling assassination threats against Trump in November and December 2024 when...

Video at link. "President Donald Trump said the U.S. would hit Iran “very hard” today."

Inflation surged in May to the highest level since early 2023, as Iran war-related fuel costs worked their way through the broader economy.