Free Republic

USS Carney (DDG-64) and USS Arleigh Burke (DDG-51) shot down between four and six Iranian-launched ballistic missiles, a senior military official told reporters Sunday.Both ships were in the Mediterranean. Carney most recently made a port visit to Palermo, Sicily, Italy, on April 10. Arleigh Burke is forward deployed to Rota, Spain.A senior military official said that land- and sea-based aircraft were also involved in the U.S. response. USNI News understands that the aircraft did not come from USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69). The aircraft carrier is in the Red Sea as part of the country’s Operation Prosperity Guardian, which aims...

PROSECUTORS HOLD a lot of power. They determine criminal charges, recommend bail and sentences, accept or reject plea deals. Their actions, or inaction, affect millions of Americans each year.But until fairly recently, elections for the more than 2,300 DA offices across the country were low-profile, down-ballot affairs. Candidates worked the radio circuit and hammered signs on street corners. They ran ads and shook hands. But campaigns started to change in 2015 when outside money poured into the Red River bottom lands of Caddo Parish, La., the spot George Soros selected for a test run of his new philanthropic plan. Soros’...

A few notes from the many articles.Commemorative events like wreath-laying ceremonies, speeches, and luncheons are held to mark the occasion at venues that include the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC, war veteran medical facilities, and military cemeteries.ALLEGHANY COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) - National Vietnam War Veterans’ Day is March 29. It’s been celebrated every year since 2017, when the Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act was signed into law. WDBJ7 unpacks the importance of honoring those vets and how our hometowns are supporting them.Wesley Womelsdorf is a Vietnam veteran who said the war was a significant time in his life.Womelsdorf said...

Dick Higgins, the Bend resident and Pearl Harbor survivor whose public appearances and first-person recollections of that infamous day – Dec. 7, 1941 – became ever more special with every day, week and year, passed away early Tuesday at the age of 102, his grieving yet grateful family announced."Gramps went home to be with Jesus this morning. He was a humble, generous, funny and loving husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend. This community has celebrated and honored him and we are forever grateful for the impact he has made on all of us. At 102 years old, we have...

“The commander in chief expressed ‘disapprobation of such disorderly proceedings’ (ad hoc mass meeting of officers) as the illegally called meeting. He summoned a meeting of his own for the following Saturday, March 15, 1783. This was probably the most important single gathering ever held in the United States. Supposing, as seemed only too possible, Washington should fail to prevent military intervention in civil government?

This product provides a visual comparison of Iranian missiles and weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and those displayed and employed by Houthi forces in Yemen to attack civilian infrastructure across the region. Photographs of weapons displayed and fired by Iran and the Houthis, as well as those illegally smuggled aboard boats from Iran, strongly suggest their Iranian origin. Iranian aid has enabled the Houthis to initiate a campaign of missile and UAV attacks against commercial ships in the Red Sea since November 2023. As of mid-December 2023, several of the largest global shipping firms had suspended transit through the Red...

Faced with a shortfall of more than 7,000 sailors, the head of Navy personnel is tapping into a new population of potential recruits: those who haven’t finished high school.Since 2000, the Navy has not permitted anyone who did not have a high school or GED diploma to enlist in the sea service. But on Jan. 26, the service opened bootcamp to these Americans with some caveats, the Navy announced.Vice Adm. Richard Cheeseman is aiming to enlist at least 500 people who did not finish high school or earn a GED diploma, he told USNI News this week. As of 2021,...

The Covid cover-up began in China. But in a way we make too big a deal of that. No one should be surprised that a totalitarian government run by the Chinese Communist Party would seek to cover up its responsibility for a worldwide pandemic. What was mind-jarring—and what we should focus our attention on—is the cover-up in our own country spearheaded by Dr. Anthony Fauci and his fellow public health bureaucrats. And they might have gotten away with their deception if a federal judge hadn’t ordered their emails released.In January 2020, Fauci was told that the Covid virus appeared “inconsistent...

This week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby revealed his love for throwing on a dress and twerking in public - but Kirby still has a few secrets hidden under that wig! Here are seven exciting new features coming to your next United Airlines flight, courtesy of its drag queen leader:1.Oxygen masks will be replaced by feather boas and glitter: Remember, put on your own feather boa before assisting those next to you.2.The pre-flight safety demonstration will be replaced by the crew dancing to "It's Raining Men": Hallelujah!3.The exit row will now be outfitted with stripper poles: Extra leg room comes...

DES MOINES, IA — Christians in Iowa and across the nation are outraged after a Democrat statue was unveiled at the state's Capitol Building."I believe in freedom of speech and religion, but this just goes too far," said Gov. Kim Reynolds to reporters. "Sick, disturbing, Democrat displays have no place in the house where state laws are passed. I'm horrified."Sources say a local Democrat non-profit is responsible for the frightening statue, which they say is a true representation of everything Democrats proudly stand for. "We have a right to express our Democratic views," said a spokesperson for the group. "We...

The No. 1 challenge facing U.S. military recruiting is the American public’s lack of familiarity with its armed services, the Pentagon’s and services’ civilian personnel leaders testified Wednesday . At the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee hearing, Franklin Parker, assistant secretary of the Navy for manpower and reserve affairs, said “under 13 percent [of eligible recruits] have a parent that served” in one of the armed services.Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), panel chairman, added four out of five recruits have a family member who served. The number of veterans in the population is declining.Agnes Schaefer, Army assistant secretary for manpower and...

This year I went to the Veteran’s Day celebration at my grandkids school, which does an outstanding job. I sat next to a 103 year old survivor of the Pearl Harbor attack. He was a PBY crewman, and somehow made it through the entire war. These reconnaissance aircraft were so vulnerable, that the squadron in the Guadalcanal area said their call sign of NNOK stood for “notify next of kin”. Neither of us could hear that well even with hearing aids, but we two Navy men had a grand time.Winston Churchill’s assessment of the attack is found on page 606...

Obama’s defense department announcement on December 3 of 2015 allowing women in combat followed repeal of DADT. Defense secretary Ash Carter contended the decision followed a long period of study and vigorous debate. However, he managed through premeditated ignorance to find only those mutually supportive creatures that serve social agendas bringing future needless devastation to those who serve. The narrative results from the links which I hope are comprehensive, well chosen, and more important than the narrative.Most of the points highlighted about women in combat arose first when the decision was made to do away with DADT. Subsequently, the LGBTQ,...

Several U.N. Security Council resolutions adopted between 2006 and 2010 required Iran to cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA’s) investigation of its nuclear activities, suspend its uranium enrichment program, suspend its construction of a heavy-water reactor and related projects, and ratify the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement. Iran did not comply with most of the resolutions’ provisions. However, Tehran has implemented various restrictions on, and provided the IAEA with additional information about, the government’s nuclear program pursuant to the July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), On the JCPOA’s Implementation Day, which took place...

In the late 1980s, a group of academics, including Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, Sandy Stone, and Susan Stryker, established the disciplines of “queer theory” and “transgender studies.” These academics believed gender to be a “social construct” used to oppress racial and sexual minorities, and they denounced the traditional categories of man and woman as a false binary that was conceived to support the system of “heteronormativity”—i.e., the white, male, heterosexual power structure. This system, they argued, had to be ruthlessly deconstructed. And the best way to achieve this, they argued further, was to promote transgenderism. If men can become women,...

ALEXANDRIA, VA - In an effort to root out racism, the Salvation Army announced they will no longer be accepting any donations in the form of bills or coins that have white people on them."Ever since we learned that racism is everywhere, all the time, ingrained in every aspect of life, we realized most U.S. currency depict the faces of white men who only did evil, racist things in their lives," said the Commander-in-Chief of the Salvation Army, Clurvis Bellman. "We then decided the best way to feed, clothe, and comfort the poor and needy is to stop accepting money...

The transgender movement is pressing its agenda everywhere. Most publicly, activist teachers are using classrooms to propagandize on its behalf and activist health professionals are promoting the mutilation of children under the euphemistic banner of “gender-affirming care.” The sudden and pervasive rise of this movement provokes two questions: where did it come from, and how has it proved so successful? The story goes deeper than most Americans know.In the late 1980s, a group of academics, including Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, Sandy Stone, and Susan Stryker, established the disciplines of “queer theory” and “transgender studies.” These academics believed gender to be...

Finding Bin Laden meant getting a source inside Al Qaeda at a level high enough to know his physical location. It took almost a decade for the CIA, with all its resources, to acquire such a source, even though this was probably the CIA’s single highest priority.More recently, in 2020, we found ourselves amidst a worldwide pandemic that originated in China. Despite attempts to characterize this as a natural outbreak of a disease found in bats, it has become abundantly clear that COVID-19 was the product of gain-of-function research in a bio lab in Wuhan, China. It has also become...

More recently, the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have demonstrated the effectiveness of UASs. In those conflicts, unmanned systems have been used at a scale and sophistication far beyond those of any previous conventional war. UASs and loitering munitions (LMs) proved crucial to Azerbaijan’s victory. Ukraine’s Turkish-built Bayraktar drones grabbed headlines early in the 2022 invasion when they destroyed Russian vehicles with precision munitions.2 Russian Lancet-3 LMs have likewise been documented destroying high-value Ukrainian targets such as surface-to-air missile systems and howitzers.3In addition to purpose-built systems, Ukrainian volunteer groups have used commercially purchased and custom-built unmanned aerial...

On Veterans Day we remember from WWII the hazards faced by the young men who became our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers. For example, the 8th Air Force suffered over 26,000 dead compared to the Marine Corps losing nearly 20,000 killed in the Pacific. Their bombers were mainly crewed by teenagers and men in their early twenties, but of all crew members the ball turret gunner confronted the most dismal fate.The emerging certainty the United States would be drawn into WW II promoted creation of an autonomous Army Air Force. Until the war in Europe began, dominate Army doctrine gave the...