Free Republic

Something extraordinary happened above Israel over the weekend. It wasn’t that Israel repelled a massive Iranian rocket and drone barrage, although that was sufficiently miraculous. Nor was it that amazing that Saudi Arabia helped defend Israel against Iranian incursions because it’s been rumored for decades that Saudi Arabia occasionally lends a hand in those matters. What was truly extraordinary was that Saudi Arabia openly admitted to helping Israel fight back against Iran’s attack. It shows the truth of the ancient proverb that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Many people are pointing to President Trump’s Abraham Accords as...

A point I often make is that Donald Trump’s travails were not because of Democrats. Instead, they were because of Republicans. Had the Republicans supported him, the past seven years would have been very different. And if you doubt that Republicans are a problem, just check out how the Republicans in North Dakota’s legislature vote. When Democrat voters cast their ballots for a Democrat candidate, they know what they’re getting: Someone who will reliably vote in lockstep with Democrat party leadership, whether that leadership comes from the White House or Congress, and whose votes will invariably hew left. That’s not...

If he’s right, he’s put himself in the Deep State crosshairs and, if he’s wrong, he looks foolish. Either way, speaking up was a risk. I always find Tucker Carlson’s monologues interesting, and that’s true whether I agree with him or not. I also find that he’s very brave, speaking truths that others in the media either oppose or are scared to utter. Thursday night saw Tucker take one of his bravest stands yet, advancing a spin on Watergate that, if true, puts him in the Deep State’s crosshairs and, if he’s wrong, makes him look utterly foolish. Tucker’s monologue...

Because Independence Day always makes for a slow news weekend, that leaves room for looking at and thinking about other news stories that wouldn't normally make the grade at American Thinker. The one that caught my eye was the Daily Mail's huge photo essay showing the wedding of Charlotte Freud, one of Rupert Murdoch's granddaughters, to Luke Storey, a rapper. It was held in the exquisitely picturesque English Cotswold district, but the photos are a testament to the death of beauty in the modern era. If you like things that are quintessentially English, the Cotswold district is the place for...

It turns out that Elon Musk had a good reason to put the Twitter deal on hold: It’s possible that Twitter management may have misrepresented the number of actual accounts it has versus fake/spam accounts. And in another blow to the now-beleaguered social media company, Project Veritas put out another undercover video on Tuesday, this one of an ad executive mocking Musk for supporting free speech and having Asperger’s, along with freely admitting that Twitter doesn’t make any money. Between the one and the other, it’s entirely possible that Twitter will soon collapse from its own weight. It was a...

Even before the Ukraine war began, people were speculating that something was physically wrong with Putin. He looked puffy, not as if he’d gained weight, but as if he were reacting to medicines. Speculation escalated with recent videos showing him clutching a table and with a badly shaking hand. Now, The Sun, a British tabloid, is claiming that Putin is going under the knife for a cancer operation, as well as suffering from Parkinson’s. As early as January 3, Britain’s Telegraph paper was suggesting that Putin is seriously ill. The five pieces of evidence it reported were his puffy face;...

Biden’s executive orders ending the Keystone Pipeline, along with exploration and drilling on almost all federal land, when combined with the Democrats’ and RINOs’ uncontrolled spending (made possible by printing money), has created unprecedented inflation in America. To try to stave off the worst of it before the mid-terms, Biden recently announced he was releasing 1 million barrels of oil per day from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. However, it turns out that he’s sending at least some of that oil to Europe! When you have a government that destroys America’s energy independence, you’re going to have rising fuel prices. (As...

War is one of the most consequential actions our government can take. The question is whether, looking back at America’s conflicts in the past hundred-plus years, we can discern lessons that should guide us going forward. David T. Pyne, a former U.S. Army combat arms and H.Q. staff officer with an M.A. in National Security has used his Substack account to write a concise essay analyzing which wars America should have avoided entirely and which were justified wars, whether conducted wisely or not. Trump understood much of this intuitively; Biden does not. The post, entitled “How Modern Wars Have Harmed...

One of the things that’s bewildered me for almost 20 years is why poll workers are so often Democrats. I assumed it was because Republicans were too passive and disinterested to get involved at the ground level. This matters because, as both Stalin and Biden said, what ultimately matters is who counts the votes—and the next closest thing to counting the votes is being a poll worker. I just learned that I owe Republicans an apology. It turns out that, in 1982, the RNC entered into a consent decree that prohibited it from aggressively enlisting poll workers, and that consent...

Like a broken-down vaudeville performer of old, Joe Biden has just a few acts in his repertoire and he’s sticking to them. One of those acts that he drags act as often as possible is climate change. So it was that, after the terrible damage when a tornado devastated Mayfield, Kentucky, Biden immediately said that the tornado is proof of global warming. (Other Democrats piled on with the same message.) However, the reality is that extreme weather events are getting less frequent. More than 40 tornadoes touched down in a six-state region on Friday night, with the greatest damage centered...

Woom Sing Tse arrived in America from communist China almost 50 years ago with $100 to his name and worked his way up to owning a successful restaurant. On Wednesday, a 23-year-old Black career criminal executed him on Chicago’s streets. Maybe a rival paid for this hit or maybe this was yet another example of the Black community’s incredible hostility to Asians.The core story is awful:A Chicago man who loved ones said was the “epitome” of the American dream was shot dead while walking to buy a newspaper a block from his home Tuesday.Woom Sing Tse, 71, had just finished...

Most of the Western world has transferred its manufacturing sectors to China. Every single day, Chinese container ships ply the world’s oceans, fanning out to every continent except, maybe, for Antarctica. We’ve long known that those ships are carrying cheap goods and the West’s economic destruction, but The Sun is contending that those same ships are likely to be disguised missile launchers. Here’s the main part of the story, although you should visit The Sun to read the whole thing: CHINA has been secretly developing Trojan Horse-style missiles hidden in shipping containers that can be unleashed on enemy ports, experts...

Most of the Western world has transferred its manufacturing sectors to China. Every single day, Chinese container ships ply the world's oceans, fanning out to every continent except, maybe, for Antarctica. We've long known that those ships are carrying cheap goods and the West's economic destruction, but The Sun is contending that those same ships are likely to be disguised missile launchers.Here's the main part of the story, although you should visit The Sun to read the whole thing:CHINA has been secretly developing Trojan Horse-style missiles hidden in shipping containers that can be unleashed on enemy ports, experts warn.Military analysts...

Bill de Blasio has managed in less than a decade to inflict as much damage on New York City as multiple Democrat mayors did in the 1960s through the 1980s. He's the overachiever of awful. And with his administration winding down in a matter of weeks, he decided to lob one more bomb at his beleaguered city. The mayor announced that any children over five who wish to participate in indoor activities must be double-vaccinated. And if attacking NYC's children isn't bad enough, he also mandated that all private-sector workers must be vaccinated by December 27. It's all in the...

One of my correspondents is an incredibly acute observer of the Democrats' non-stop assaults on the State of California, especially in the transportation industry. He recently sent me an email about the fact that California didn't stop with its attack on trucking. Instead, California Democrats are also going after the shipping industry. He gave me permission to reproduce his email here:Did you know that, in addition, to all the other wanton destruction in this state, such as the electric car mandate (for which no infrastructure is yet being built), Democrats have similarly deliberately destructive plans for shipping? In 2027, they're...

New video from the Capitol tunnel raises the appalling—but still believable—possibility that the Capitol Police may have killed another woman. After January 6, although the media initially reported that MAGA protesters had trampled Rosanne Boyland to death but, the D.C. coroner attributed it to a drug overdose. Now, though, footage has emerged showing a Capitol Police Officer brutally beating a woman in the Capitol tunnel—a woman who may have been Rosanne Boyland. Julie Kelly has written about a motion for the release of a January 6 prisoner, Ryan Nichols. Nichols, a former Marine with a career as a volunteer search-and-rescuer,...

Up until Friday, the Kyle Rittenhouse trial was very clear: Easily understood videos and witness testimony (including testimony from the prosecution witnesses) showed that Kyle, despite trying hard to avoid conflict, was attacked by a crazed child rapist, whom Kyle shot as the rapist was grabbing Kyle’s gun, at which point a mob went after Kyle. He then shot and killed a domestic abuser trying to bash his head in with a skateboard, and shot and wounded a felon aiming a loaded, illegal gun at his head. On Thursday, however, the court allowed prosecutors to enter into evidence a fuzzy...

When Granholm started giggling in response to a question about soaring gas prices, she revealed something chilling about the Biden administration. A short video is circulating showing Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm’s response to being asked about rising gas prices. Granholm starts giggling and says “That is hilarious.” Most thought she was laughing at people’s suffering but, in a way, her response was worse than that because she was really laughing about the fact that she and Biden do not plan to improve the situation for ordinary Americans. Rising gas prices are a huge problem. Not only do they make...

If you’ve watched Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe lately, you may be guessing that he’s a pretty mean-spirited, self-centered, short-tempered jerk, who never should be allowed anywhere near political power. Now, you don’t need to guess. In a 2007 autobiography, McAuliffe freely admitted facts showing that he is quite possibly the most selfish, self-centered, unkind man in America. In the years leading up to 2007, McAuliffe was a massively successful real estate investor and home developer. Starting in 2009, he began to invest in “green” auto technology. He ended up being investigated for visa fraud in connection with 32 wealthy...

Critical Race Theory demonizes Whites and seeks to create dangerous racial tribalism within America. Less obviously, CRT (by which I mean all variations of the theme holding that America and White people are irredeemably racist) is that it paints minorities, especially Blacks, as pathetic, helpless people. For all the talk about "Black power" and "strong Black women," those Blacks marinated in CRT view themselves as weak — and nothing illustrates that better than Kyla N. Golding's opinion piece in the Harvard Crimson.Golding, two years away from graduation and a "Crimson Editorial editor," decided to go public with her decision to...