Free Republic

The Chinese did, in fact, meddle in the 2020 presidential vote in the United States, and the intelligence community did hide that information from President Donald Trump. That's according to a new investigative report at Just the News on the clouded vote results that already are known to have been under the undue influence of two factors. Those are the FBI's decision to interfere by falsely claiming that accurate information about Biden family scandals revealed in a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden was Russian disinformation and Mark Zuckerberg's decision to put his thumb on the scale by handing out $400...

Sizable minorities on both the left and the right want America to intervene in fewer foreign conflicts and to exercise more restraint in foreign policy. In the 2006 midterm elections, antiwar voters contributed to the Republicans’ loss of both houses of Congress. They also helped defeat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary contest and the Republican nominee, John McCain, at that year’s general election. While McCain styled himself a “maverick,” the label could be more accurately bestowed upon the anti-interventionist Republican Ron Paul, who shocked the GOP establishment by showing that an unstinting critic of the Iraq War...

In an expedited procedure, the European Commission recently raised tariffs on ceramic and porcelain products from China. Additional tariff measures are also being considered to protect the European internal market from the Chinese export engine. Is the EU economy now facing a trade war with Beijing, alongside the potential import halt on rare earths? Tensions in international trade policy are escalating on multiple fronts. After the U.S. Supreme Court initially declared the tariff regime implemented by President Donald Trump since April of last year unlawful, it appears the administration has explored new ways to stabilize its tariff policy going forward....

America should not play global judge, jury, and executioner. This role is bad for us. It harms our economy and rots our national character. Moreover, foreign wars distract from much more important goals here at home. Trump’s decision to pursue the Iran war, for instance, distracts from his much more important domestic policy goals on immigration, inflation, and dismantling leftist-controlled institutions. The political capital required to wage this war of choice is simply too high. The downside risks of being sucked into a months- or even years-long war are too great. The threat to the global economy from a sustained...

As fascinating as drone warfare can be — particularly the seemingly sci-fi drone-vs-drone variety — keeping up with all the developments is a fool's errand. Yesterday's hot new thing is practically outdated today, and today's hot new thing may look obsolete tomorrow. That's an exaggeration, of course, but some days it doesn't seem like much of one. That's why today's news about Ukraine's Sting counter-drone caught my eye, and what it might mean for U.S. and other Western forces going forward. I vaguely remembered reading something about the Sting a year or more ago, but I just learned today that...

As the joint American-Israeli military campaign in Iran continues, President Trump’s coalition is starting to exhibit some cracks. The war in Iran has emerged as a proxy battle over a broader, long-simmering conflict within the right about Israel. And the fight over Israel is, in some important ways, a proxy battle about Jews in general. Big picture, what we’re seeing now is that the traditional divisions on the right between paleoconservatives and neoconservatives, between hawks and doves, are being reshaped into a battle over Israel specifically. It’s a very difficult subject; this issue has become highly emotional and personal for...

Let me begin by putting all my cards face-up on the table. No one wishes the SAVE Act, requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo-ID in order to cast a ballot, to become law more than I. Currently, in my home state of California, it's actually illegal here to both ask for ID at polling places and to show ID. Elections are held open for weeks until enough stray mail-in ballots, which for some reason break for Democrats every single time, flow in to swing a total that at one point showed promise of sanity in...

The artist and singer/songwriter formerly known as Cat Stevens, and then as Yusuf Islam, and then as Yusuf/Cat Stevens (you can call him anything, just don’t call him late for iftar dinner), early on Thursday morning weighed in on the conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran. He did not, however, have a negative word to say about the bloodthirsty Iranian regime; instead, he said that the problem was all anti-Muslim propaganda: Perhaps I was particularly blessed to have discovered Islam in 1977, before the Iranian Revolution, when Muslims were less visible and the monstrous propaganda machine had not been...

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's funeral was held on Friday, and numerous familiar faces were in attendance, including former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, former President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, and former President Barack Obama and... (checks notes)... no partner.Hmm.Not surprisingly, since the reverend was a figure revered by the Left, there were moments where it felt more like a DNC convention than the proper celebration of the man’s life and contributions to the world. Whether you’re a fan of Jackson or not, there’s no denying his consequential impact on society.Obama can always be counted on...

Obamacare had problems even before it launched in 2014. Marketplace websites were glitchy during the open enrollment period, frustrating many would-be customers.Sweeping changes ushered in by the Affordable Care Act, the law creating Obamacare, all but guaranteed that premiums would increase—which they did by 23 percent in the program’s first year.Even so, public opinion swung in favor of Obamacare starting in 2017 and remains positive, according to KFF Health Tracking polls.More than 24 million people were insured through the program by 2025.And insurers learned to thrive under the new rules, more than doubling annual revenue to $1.1 trillion and consistently...

The story you heard first — that President Donald Trump fired Kristi Noem over a $220 million ad campaign — isn't wrong, exactly. But it's incomplete. The ad spending lit the fuse; an eight-word question that Noem refused to answer in plain English plunged the detonator.Here's what really pushed Trump to fire her.It was previously reported that the breaking point for Trump was when Noem testified on Tuesday that he had personally approved $220 million in Homeland Security advertising, including a cinematic spot of her riding a horse in front of Mount Rushmore with a voiceover that said, "From President...

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough swooned over Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico after his primary victory over Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Scarborough said that Talarico had “exploded onto the national stage, a lot like Barack Obama.” Scarborough unapologetically repeated the analogy: “Yes, I will say, a lot like Barack Obama.”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Britain, France and Germany have announced coordinated cooperation with the United States and its allies regarding the escalating confrontation with Iran, signalling a widening international involvement in the crisis. In a joint statement issued on Sunday evening, the three European powers said they had agreed to work alongside Washington and partner states and were examining defensive measures aimed at neutralising Iran’s missile capabilities.

With St. Patrick's Day taking place on Monday, Ireland had a rather curious day of celebrating the saint who spent years of captivity there. As video footage shows over X, the Ha’Penny Bridge bridge in Dublin has not only featured Irish flags, but Palestinian flags over the weekend as well. Despite how anti-Israel the Irish government has been, other social media posts, especially when it comes to pro-Palestinian accounts over Instagram, claim that the flags were flown by protesters because their government isn't Palestinian enough. Irish celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Ireland by waving PALESTINIAN flags next to Irish flags....

The official story is real — but incomplete. Operation Epic Fury’s stated goals — eliminating Iran’s nuclear program, destroying its missile arsenal, degrading its proxy networks, and annihilating its navy — are all legitimate grievances rooted in 47 years of Iranian hostility toward the United States. But they are the surface layer of a much deeper strategic play.

While Beijing publicly advocates restraint, sustained tensions between the U.S. and Iran serve its strategic interests.Recent heightened tensions between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s repression of nationwide protests and its advancing nuclear program have raised concerns about maintaining peace and stability in the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump has ordered key military assets to move into the region, and he may decide on whether to use force within the next few days. At the same time, Washington and Tehran have met indirectly in Oman and agreed that diplomacy on the nuclear issue should continue. Diplomacy is the...

Last June when the United States targeted Iran’s nuclear facilities in a series of coordinated airstrikes with Israel, President Trump boasted that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.” He said that on the day of the operation, which hit the enrichment facility at Fordow, buried under a mountain, as well as sites at Natanz and Isfahan.In the ensuing days and months, Trump repeated this claim, saying that Iran’s nuclear facilities and capabilities had been “obliterated.” In August he said, “We obliterated … the future nuclear capability of Iran.” In October he said, “Well, they don’t...

On Tuesday night, President Trump made his case for attacking Iran. #Perhaps we ought to ask ourselves if an attack on Iran is prudent or desirable.#In his address, Trump argued that Iran was in the process of developing intercontinental ballistic missiles to hit the United States. This assertion is farcical and risible. Iran simply has no ability to hit the United States, and even if it did, the doctrine of classical deterrence would come into play. The United States and the Soviet Union had thousands of nuclear-armed ICBMs targeted at each other for decades yet never engaged in direct conflict....

President Donald Trump’s 2026 State of the Union speech gave every American a front-row seat to see exactly who Democrats are — and more importantly, what they refuse to stand for. According to reports, more than 70 Democrats chose not to attend the speech, but most did, and several times over the course of the evening, they made a choice. They sat. They scowled. They heckled. While Republicans rose time and again in applause, the left side of the chamber looked like a group of children being punished. And Trump noticed. He called them out — repeatedly — for refusing...

Researchers at the University of South Alabama (USA) want people to know that "Queer Animals Exist! It’s just biology." The Comparative Cognition and Communication (C3PO) Lab is a program of the USA Department of Psychology promoting queerness through research on "queer animals." “Our goal is to further destigmatize queerness through communication of scientific findings of animal researchers regarding queerness in the animal kingdom,” reads the lab’s resource page, which is available via its Instagram account. The C3PO lab, operating as its own research lab at USA, also has the stated goal: “understand our world and the animals we share it...