Free Republic

We could call this A Tale of Two Facilities. Iran launched an unprecedented direct attack on Israel in retaliation for the targeted strike on IRGC and Hamas commanders. That attack did little damage despite a volley of well over 300 missiles and drones, thanks to the regional defenses and the several hours of lead time necessitated by Iran's launch from its own territory.That demonstrated the facility Iran has for offensive operations in the region. Israel responded by demonstrating its facility, and as the New York Times hears from officials in Iran and the West, the result shocked the Iranians:An Israeli...

CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig writing in a Cafe Brief newsletter that was reprinted in New York magazine on Friday presented both the pro and anti Trump ways of looking at the Alvin Bragg case that takes place on April 15 in Manhattan. It is obvious which of the two point of view that Honig thinks is most realistic in "Donald Trump’s Trial Is a Rorschach Test."

Haaretz whitewashes 'smite the necks of unbelievers' "Palestinian" Hosam Salem Islamofascist - fired by NYT Oct 27, 2022The whitewash: Sheren Falah Saab, "A Palestinian photographer claims that he was fired from the New York Times because of anti-Israel posts." Haaretz, Oct 7, 2022. Now the facts: New York Times 'Takes Action' vs. Pro-Hitler, Pro-Terror Freelancers Due to HonestReporting Probe, HR, Aug 24, 2022. [...] New York Times Photographer Hosam Salem: 'Smite the Necks of Unbelievers' ...on November 18, 2014, Hosam Salem again used Facebook to express his joy over the massacre of four rabbis and an Israeli-Druze police officer in...

US President Joe Biden dissuaded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from greenlighting an immediate retaliatory strike against Iran after it launched around 300 attack drones and missiles at Israel last night, the New York Times reports.

KYIV — As Russia steps up airstrikes and once again advances on the battlefield in Ukraine more than two years into its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky’s options for what to do next — much less how to win the war — range from bad to worse. Zelensky has said Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including land that Russia has controlled since 2014. But with the battle lines changing little in the last year, militarily retaking the swaths of east and south Ukraine...

As Russia steps up airstrikes and once again advances on the battlefield in Ukraine more than two years into its bloody invasion, there is no end to the fighting in sight. And President Volodymyr Zelensky’s options for what to do next — much less how to win the war — range from bad to worse. Zelensky has said Ukraine will accept nothing less than the return of all its territory, including land that Russia has controlled since 2014. But with the battle lines changing little in the last year, militarily retaking the swaths of east and south Ukraine that Russia...

“How many more police officers and how many families need to make the ultimate sacrifice before we start protecting them?” Stephanie Diller’s plaintive question at Saturday’s funeral for her husband, Det. Jonathan Diller, somehow turned out to be news not fit to print for The New York Times. Nor the lines that preceded it: “It’s been two years and two months since Detective Rivera and Detective Mora made the ultimate sacrifice — just like my husband Jonathan Diller. SNIP Her words made the front page of The Post and even the hyperleft Daily News; nebbishy Newsday at least put the...

Tesla and China built a symbiotic relationship, with credits, workers and parts that made Mr. Musk ultrarich. Now, his reliance on the country may give Beijing leverage. When Elon Musk unveiled the first Chinese-made Teslas in Shanghai in 2020, he went off script and started dancing. Peeling off his jacket, he flung it across the stage in a partial striptease. Mr. Musk had reason to celebrate. A few years earlier, with Tesla on the brink of failure, he had bet on China, which offered cheap parts and capable workers — and which needed Tesla as an anchor to jump-start its...

The New York Times is facing a sustained wave of backlash.The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public.Criticism of The Times is nothing new, but as it appears with each passing day that Trump has a real shot of recapturing the White House, the expressions of disapproval have become particularly pronounced.In the view of its critics, The Times has been far too distracted...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Last Word,” New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof stated that if you simply drop food aid into Gaza, it will be stolen by Hamas. Kristof stated, “So, one reason for the tragedy yesterday was that Israel apparently did not want to have food aid delivered through UNRWA, the U.N. organization that it has made a lot of allegations against and that may well have had twelve people participate in the October 7 attacks. It has also been reluctant to work with traditional aid agencies. And so, it apparently had contractors protected by Israeli tanks...

The New York Times proudly announced last Monday that it had “won three George Polk awards, including two for its coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.” Those prestigious journalism awards went to “Samar Abu Elouf and Yousef Masoud of The Times” for “photojournalism for their photographs of the conflict from inside Gaza, capturing the horrific toll of Israel’s airstrikes on civilians, including the death and injury of many children.” The Times neglected to mention, however, one telling detail: Masoud has been unmasked as a member of Hamas who participated in the Oct. 7 jihad massacres inside Israel.The Paper of Record shows...

The New York Times‘ Angelo Fichera on Wednesday published several extraordinary fact checks on President Joe Biden’s slippery talking points about his economic record. While Biden, 81, is an “elderly man with a poor memory,” according to the special counsel, his cogent staff likely carefully crafted the scripted talking points the Times fact-checked. The fact check comes just days after a feud surfaced between the White House and the paper. Biden aides were “extremely upset” with the outlet for reporting analysis about the president’s age and memory.

Alexey Navalny, the dissident and political nemesis of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spent the last few years of his life behind bars but still managed to stay connected to the outside world. Letters from the final months of his life, obtained by The New York Times, showed Navalny, who had been imprisoned since January 2021, managed to stay on top of current events — including in the US. In a letter sent to a friend, photographer Evgeny Feldman, Navalny called former President Donald Trump's agenda for a second term "really scary," according to the Times. If President Joe Biden has...

Mr. Biden’s signature accomplishment, according to the historians, was evicting Donald J. Trump from the Oval Office.President Biden has not had a lot of fun perusing polls lately. He has a lower approval rating than every president going back to Dwight D. Eisenhower at this stage of their tenures, and he trails former President Donald J. Trump in a fall rematch. But Mr. Biden can take solace from one survey in which he is way out in front of Mr. Trump.A new poll of historians coming out on Presidents’ Day weekend ranks Mr. Biden as the 14th-best president in American...

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton defended staying in the Democratic nominating contest on Friday by pointing out that her husband had not wrapped up the nomination until June 1992, adding, “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California.” Her remarks were met with quick criticism from the campaign of Senator Barack Obama the comments touched on one of the most sensitive aspects of the current presidential campaign — concern for Mr. Obama’s safety.

Yet another Democratic Party thought leader has demanded that Joe Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race. Ezra Klein, the co-founder of Vox and now a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times, said he understood that many liberals would be angry at him for calling on Biden to go but that it was necessary. "I want to say this clearly: I like Biden. I think he’s been a good president. I think he is a good president. I don’t like having this conversation. And I know a lot of liberals, a lot of Democrats are going...

The former president now controls the Republican Party by virtually every conceivable measure. He has a commanding lead in fund-raising and polling. His policies are a beacon to which most conservative lawmakers orient themselves in affairs both foreign and domestic. His endorsement remains the single most coveted asset that any Republican could hope to brandish in a primary race, and he has already received support from an overwhelming majority of prominent elected Republicans. In this election cycle, Mr. Trump has received endorsements from 130 House members and 31 senators, a majority of both Republican caucuses, according to an analysis by...

Terror group appears to pour cold water on mediators’ latest offer after Qatari PM says ‘good progress’ made; Israel said open to lengthy truce but refuses to end war Hamas on Monday evening appeared to reject a new framework for a hostage deal that had been agreed to by Israel, saying it would not accept any agreement that did not include an end to the war and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza. The terror group issued a statement alongside a smaller terror group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, insisting Israel must halt its “aggression”...

On Friday a crooked New York City court slapped President Trump with an $83 million judgment for speaking out against the disgusting lies of a crazed woman who said he lured her into a Bergdorf Goodman store some 25 or maybe 30 years ago and raped her in a dressing room where they were trying on lingerie. The entire story lacks credulity and is like something from a Law and Order sketch. Today, the crooked court ordered President Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $83 million for something he said about this crazy woman back when he was president in...

After more than 100 days of war, Israel’s limited progress in dismantling Hamas has raised doubts within the military’s high command about the near-term feasibility of achieving the country’s principal wartime objectives: eradicating Hamas and also liberating the Israeli hostages still in Gaza. Israel has established control over a smaller part of Gaza at this point in the war than it originally envisaged in battle plans from the start of the invasion, which were reviewed by The New York Times. That slower than expected pace has led some commanders to privately express their frustrations over the civilian government’s strategy for...