Free Republic

In a move that has the world talking, Israel has responded to Iran's provocation not with overwhelming force but with a strategic, measured action. According to the Drudge Report, in the pre-dawn hours of a Friday, April 19, Israel launched what can only be described as a "pin prick" attack on the Iranian city of Isfahan. This was not the wide-scale military retaliation many had expected following Iran's aggressive launch of 350 drones and missiles against Israel. Instead, Israel, aiming to avoid a broader conflict, sought to convey a clear message to the radical mullahs of Iran: even their most...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The ReidOut,” host Joy Reid argued that Israel’s strike on Iran on Thursday was “wag the doggish” and designed to distract from the war in Gaza and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has an “obsession with Iran” although she added that there is a “mutual” obsession between Netanyahu and Iran.

Israel downplayed reported airstrikes against Iran that appeared to hit targets near that country’s suspected nuclear program on Friday, seeming to cast the operation as proof Israel could reach the sites, rather than a full-scale attack. As Breitbart News noted, there were media reports that Israeli drones, or missiles, had hit targets near Isfahan, Iran — close to the Natanz nuclear facility — as well as targets in Syria and Iraq. Israel’s Army Radio repeated these reports. However, there were no reports of what the damage might have been, and one Israeli lawmaker — national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir...

A massive explosion was reported near Isfahan, Iran today. Isfahan is considered to be the primary location of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Explosions were also reported in Syria and Iraq on Friday morning. The Iranian media is reporting three major explosions in Isfahan. IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF TEHRAN JERUSALEM POST: SIMULTANEOUS EXPLOSIONS REPORTED IN IRAN, SYRIA, AND IRAQ ACCORDING TO INITIAL REPORTS — zerohedge (@zerohedge) April 19, 2024 This is not the first time the Isfahan nuclear facility has been targeted. IRANIAN MEDIA: 3 HUGE EXPLOSIONS WERE HEARD IN ISFAHAN, SOUTH OF...

Ukraine used Cessna-sized drones to attack deep inside the Russian Federation in the early hours of Tuesday morning, launching multiple strikes against a factory and oil refinery in the longest range hits of the war so far. A drone factory and an oil refinery over 800 miles from the frontline of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine were the targets in an attack claimed by Kyiv’s military intelligence bureau in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Footage shared from the scene by Ukrainian state media shows a large drone — perhaps the size of a civilian single-engine pleasure aircraft — crashing into...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that President Joe Biden’s military strikes to dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iranian-backed militias only killed “some @#&$@##.” Graham said, “They have four oil refineries you can see from space. If you knocked one of them out, they would stop this. Our American troops are in harm’s way. If the goal is to deter Iran, you’re failing miserably. If the goal is to protect American troops, you’re not achieving your goal. If you’ve convinced Iran you don’t want a wider war, they believe...

Former national security adviser John Bolton called for “disproportionate” strikes inside Iran after a drone attack killed three U.S. service members in Jordan over the weekend. Bolton said Sunday night on NewsNation that the U.S. needs to carry out retaliatory attacks in the wake of the deadly drone strike. He said the U.S. needs to “impose enough pain on Iran” to ensure it does not attempt a similar attack on the U.S. again. “To be clear, I don’t think it should be proportionate. I think it should be disproportionate. That’s how you create deterrence in the mind of your adversary,...

CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the Senate will press President Joe Biden over multiple airstrikes against Houthis in Yemen without congressional approval. Partial transcript as follows: MARGARET BRENNAN: And we have one of those, a- agencies with us later in the program, though far smaller than the 13,000 employees of the UN. President Biden has talked about these U.S. strikes on the Houthis continuing. I know you have some issue with that.

Nearly 200 demonstrators marched and shouted their way through Times Square Thursday night in a last-minute “emergency rally” called to condemn the US bombing of Houthi-linked sites in Yemen. A combination of organizations took to the streets to speak out against the bombings in Yemen while also slamming Israel for its military campaign in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas. Chants of “hands off the Middle East” and “hands off Gaza” boomed through midtown Manhattan as demonstrators unfurled a banner that stated “Stop the US bombing in Yemen” and waved “Free Palestine” and “End all US aid...

PARIS (AP) – The Eiffel Tower was closed to visitors Wednesday because of a strike over contract negotiations timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the death of its creator, Gustave Eiffel. One of the world’s most-visited sites, the Eiffel Tower is typically open 365 days a year – though it is occasionally affected by strikes – and is expected to play a central role in the 2024 Paris Olympics. Some tourists were visibly dismayed upon seeing a big sign beneath its iron façade announcing the closure in multiple languages, and apologizing for the inconvenience. Others took photos anyway,...

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement that U.S. military strikes against sites used to injure U.S. troops in Iraq on Christmas Day were “proportionate.” “Today, at President Biden’s direction, U.S. military forces conducted necessary and proportionate strikes on three facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups in Iraq,” Austin said in a statement on Monday. He added: These precision strikes are a response to a series of attacks against U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-sponsored militias, including an attack by Iran-affiliated Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups on Erbil Air Base earlier today, and intended to...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called out Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday, as Israel restarted attacks in its war on Hamas after a roughly weeklong truce. “Netanyahu’s resumption of bombing in Gaza is beyond the pale,” Sanders posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Two million people are now in south Gaza. Many have fled earlier fighting in the north.” Israeli fighter jets hit Gaza minutes after a weeklong truce expired on Friday, resuming the nation’s war with Hamas. Israel dropped leaflets over parts of southern Gaza urging residents to leave their homes, suggesting it will be...

On a recent trip to the grocery store, I picked up a half gallon of orange juice. Only, it wasn’t a half gallon. Hasn’t been a half gallon in years. I still call it that, but it’s only 52 ounces. Sometime in the past twenty years, the old half gallon of orange juice – 64 ounces – gradually started to shrink. Now they sell a 52 ounce bottle or carton. At first, it was just one brand, then two, then all of them. And while I haven’t made a careful study of it over the years, once they all standardized...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is the latest to join striking United Auto Workers (UAW) members on the picket line, speaking with members and holding up a sign in Tappan, New York, as Democrats attempt to halt former President Donald Trump’s courtship of the strikers. “We’re going to fight until we win,” Schumer said, explaining that his father, a “union guy,” told him, “When you’re doing the right thing, when you’re doing something important, look in your heart, make sure it’s the right thing.”

President Biden made an unprecedented stop Tuesday, joining the picket line with striking autoworkers and marking the first time a sitting president has done so. The president stood in solidarity with United Auto Workers (UAW) at a General Motors facility in Van Buren Township, Mich., and spoke to the group via bullhorn alongside union President Shawn Fain. “Wall Street didn’t build the country. The middle class built the country. Unions built the middle class,” Biden, wearing a baseball cap and quarter-zip sweater, told the striking workers. “Let’s keep going; you deserve what you’ve earned, and you deserve a hell of...

Ford CEO Jim Farley joins "Barron's Roundtable" to discuss the debate on electric vs. gas cars, the auto company's growth and approach to the auto industry, and reacts to Warren Buffett's comments on investing in the industry. Ford is readying plans for its white-collar salaried employees to step in and keep parts flowing in the instance that its blue-collar union workers walk off the job next month amid threats that the United Auto Workers are preparing to strike at Detroit's Big Three automakers. The Detroit Free Press first reported that Ford is holding meetings with salaried workers like engineers to...

UPS employees are edging closer to a major work stoppage that could be the biggest the United States has seen since the 1950s. The approximately 330,000 UPS drivers, loaders and handlers who are represented by the Teamsters Union on Wednesday rejected a final offer by the company as "unacceptable" in early July, CBS reports. Talks are now being presumed as the group's labor contract runs out at the end of the month.Strikes and work stoppages have returned as a mainstay of U.S. news among recent high profile walkouts, for example at the Writers Guild of America, among newly unionized Starbucks...

Joe Biden loves to tout “Bidenomics” which is a top-down command economy model with massive Federal spending directed primarily at green energy. But remember that a pillar of Bidenomics is support for labor unions. But “Union Joe” will be remembered as “Inflation Joe” as inflation remains hot. But now the labor unions are threatening to stall the recent rise in real weekly earnings (finally above 0%!). Tensions between employees and employers are heating up this summer. Bloomberg reports 650,000 workers threaten to walk off the job and picket in the streets to secure improved benefits, wages, and other conditions amid...

The Kremlin celebrated bringing fresh hell to Ukraine on Friday with a wave of early morning missile strikes that killed at least 22 civilians, including four young kids. “The strike has achieved its goal,” Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov crowed of the first large-scale cruise missile bombardment in nearly two months. “All the designated facilities have been hit,” the Kremlin official said, claiming without evidence that the struck buildings housed Ukrainian military reserve units awaiting deployment. Images instead showed deadly devastation in a number of cities across Ukraine, including a nine-story apartment block in Uman with a huge...

Both the EVG railway union and the huge Verdi services union are combining forces to push for increased pay for their memberships amid persistent inflation. Verdi last week said the union was calling for 120,000 workers — including security and ground workers at all German airports except in Berlin — to walk out. Almost all major airports are on strike, including Frankfurt, Hamburg, Munich, and Stuttgart. The German airport association ADV warned that as many as 380,000 airline travelers would not be able to take their flights because of the planned strikes. The EVG union is calling for 230,000 workers...