Free Republic

The northern border shares something in common with the southern border of the United States - it is understaffed and Border Patrol agents are stretched thin. Despite a lack of proper support, agents at the northern border continue to apprehend a record number of illegal border crossers. In the busiest northern border sector of Swanton, Border Patrol agents made history by apprehending the greatest number of illegal border crossers in sector history of 1,109 in March, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. While the numbers are significantly lower than those apprehended at the southwest border, they are out...

Nearly three years ago I wrote about a mandatory diversity training that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill after the conservative paper on campus got an audio recording of the event.Ms. Parle started the presentation with an ‘indigenous land recognition,’ after which the hundreds of Greek attendees were advised that they should make a habit of repeating the political catechism in their daily lives and taught how to do so. After establishing her lecture was on stolen land, Ms. Parle asked students their feelings about ‘the system.’ Were they warm towards it? Apathetic? Or, the last option: ready to dismantle it?The...

On Monday, conservative attorney, legal scholar, and commentator Jonathan Turley weighed in on the day's testimony by Michael Cohen in the ongoing New York trial of former President Donald Trump. Mr. Turley's comments about Cohen were, to say the least, sharply pointed.Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court.In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.” Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing...

On May 6th, the 2024 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund was released. It’s a very long title for a report that simply tells us the financial state of Medicare and project the future financial solvency of the program. One claim of the report is Medicare solvency has been extended 5 more years than the 2023 projection, and won’t go broke until 2036. But as with all things involving the Biden Administration, that isn’t the entire story.The 261-page report should be a purely factual...

In the unedifying clash of heads between billionaire Twitter/X owner, Elon Musk, and Australia’s e-safety commissioner Julie Inman Grant, there could only be one rightful winner- Elon Musk. On Monday, Musk’s X succeeded in having a temporary injunction thrown out by Australia’s federal court preventing it and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta from posting images of last month’s Sydney stabbing. An Armenian Orthodox bishop, Mar Mari Emmanuel, was attacked in his church, allegedly by a religiously radicalized youth, in April. The incident was captured by the church’s own livestream of the event and beamed across the internet: the footage is disturbing but...

We’re barreling towards the 2024 election with few safeguards in place to stop the cheating from taking place again. Most politicians aren’t even talking about it, even though very few laws have been passed since 2020 to stop the cheating. In Arizona, because the governor is now Democrat Katie Hobbs — even though an exit poll from Rasmussen Reports showed Kari Lake beat her by 8 points — she vetoes any substantial election integrity bills. The only state that appears to have successfully passed any significant election integrity legislation since the 2020 election is Georgia. Surprisingly, Georgia’s RINO Governor Brian...

As Townhall reported — and anyone not blinded by rabid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas hatred presumed — the number of women and children killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its massacre on October 7 is far less than the United Nations or its terrorist sources reported. The UN's Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) quite quietly and without an announcement matching the breathless outrage at and coverage of previously reported (and literally unbelievable) numbers, halved the number of women and children it previously claimed were killed in Gaza amid the war. The more than 14,000 children it said...

One of the burning questions of the 2024 presidential election so far — and Lord knows we haven’t had many burning questions — is that of whom Donald Trump will pick as his running mate. The former president has dropped a few hints, and there’s been plenty of speculation. But what do voters think? If somehow Trump put the question to his base, whom would they choose? A new poll from I&I/TIPP gives us an indication.The pollsters asked 538 Republicans (I don’t know if that number was on purpose or a happy coincidence) over the first weekend in May. The...

I've been a fan of Jerry Seinfeld since I was in middle school. His sitcom "Seinfeld" has been my favorite show since I was 11 or 12 years old. As an adult, I've gone to see him do stand-up comedy several times. I've appreciated the fact that unlike many of his Hollywood contemporaries, he's remained rather apolitical in public. I've never had any illusions that he wasn't a liberal. He's a Jew from New York, after all, and he's reportedly very close with George Stephanopoulos and his wife. Seinfeld's co-stars and collaborators, however, have never been shy about pushing their...

So-called ‘abortion shield laws’ will prevent pro-life states and their citizens from holding abortionists accountable.Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, pro-abortion states have begun devising measures to shelter abortionists whose operations were hampered by states that chose to protect unborn life. These so-called “abortion shield laws” — many of which are likely unconstitutional — will defeat any ability for pro-life states and their citizens to hold abortionists accountable for violating their health and safety standards. Diligently enforced, shield laws invite a new war between the states over not just the lives of unborn children, but also our...

Now more than ever, we need to make sure that our elections are fair, lawfully conducted, and free of foreign influence.Congressional Democrats insist that the SAVE Act — which requires proof of citizenship to establish eligibility to vote in federal elections — is unnecessary because federal law (18 USC § 611) already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Those making this argument ignore a glaring problem: the government officials who register voters and conduct federal elections aren’t allowed to require proof of citizenship. It’s therefore shockingly easy for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, leaving our elections dangerously vulnerable...

Up to now, there is a winner and a loser out of this Manhattan trial. The winner is President Trump, who keeps getting stronger. The loser is New York, or the perception that the Empire State is a banana republic. Using the legal system to target political opponents is Banana Republic 101. This is from Jonathan Turley:Cohen’s testimony will be the culmination of this travesty of a trial. But Bragg already jumped the shark with Daniels. After three weeks, legal experts are still debating what the crime was that Trump was seeking to conceal by recording payments for a standard...

U.S. News and World Report compiled a rankings list of the best states to live in, 2024. The magazine also compiled a list of the best cities to live in 2023-2024. There are some interesting incongruities between the two. Below I highlight apparent discrepancies between three of the top ten states, and the main cities therein.For example, U.S. News ranks Washington State as the 8th best state to live in. However, in a separate ranking of best places, they rank greater Seattle a very lowly 81st best place to live.That is curious because the timeframes are the same and their...

Prince Andrew, whose involvement with Jeffrey Epstein's underaged girls has disgraced the U.K. royal family, is now causing other problems for them. According to Fox News:Prince Andrew is reportedly facing eviction from his brother, King Charles III, after neglecting to pay the annual $503,000 upkeep of his $37 million Royal Lodge mansion.The claim was made by Us Weekly, which alleged that the Duke of York is unable to keep up with the expenses to maintain the sprawling 19th-century property, which the monarch’s estate owns. A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace didn’t immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.British royal...

Crowded enough for you at O.B., as the surfer dude haven of Ocean Beach is known in San Diego?Here come the illegals, making it even more crowded. Ocean Beach, California. Saturday, May 11, 2024 These are not Asylum seekers folks. Wake the Hell up. pic.twitter.com/6aZY9NuRo0 — Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) May 13, 2024 Yes, we've seen this phenomena already starting to happen now that San Diego has become the border crossing of choice for cartel-financed illegals into the U.S.Nobody knows who they are, where they're going, or what they're doing.But they are getting in, and what's more, nobody's doing anything about...

As I walked around taking photographs of the Anti-Israel encampment at Cornell University, one of the participants kept calling after me -- “Julie! Julie, right? Haven’t we met before?” It was one of the appointed mediators for the student activists. She wore a yellow vest, carried a walkie-talkie, and used any pretense she could think of to strike up a conversation with non-students to quickly discern their intentions. A week before I visited, twenty-two students and two staff members had been arrested for staging a sit-in in Day Hall, the administrative center for Cornell. Shortly before that, multiple suspensions had...

There have been some unsettling developments in the Gaza Strip this weekend, suggesting a situation that many analysts had previously warned us about. Israel has been portraying the assault on Rafah as essentially being the "last stand" for Hamas, where the IDF would take out the terrorist group's four remaining battalions of fighters. But yesterday, fighting broke out in Jabaliya and Gaza City in the northern part of the Strip that Israel had cleared months ago. The IDF was attacked in multiple locations. Some of the attackers may have been Hamas fighters that were missed in the original clearing efforts...

<p>A small group of anti-Israel protesters from a Florida chapter of Queers for Palestine blocked access to Walt Disney World Saturday — and were promptly arrested.</p><p>Some fed-up drivers were seen using the shoulder of the highway to go around the demonstrators — while one angry motorist got out of his car to confront them, video showed.</p>

In February of this year, Nassau County in Long Island, New York banned males from participating in girls' and women's sports. While many supported the move, protests broke out on the left and lawsuits were filed. On Friday, a judge on the state Supreme Court struck down the rule. This led to celebrations among trans activists, including New York Attorney General Letitia James. But those celebrations may turn out to be a bit premature. A closer reading of the ruling reveals that Judge Francis Ricigliano did not rule that the ban couldn't be enacted. Instead, he determined that the County...

Joe Biden has been hiding intelligence on the whereabouts of Hamas leaders and their command tunnels, depriving Israel of vital information that could lead to an end to the war. That revelation came in a report on Saturday and was framed as the administration offering that information now if the ongoing operation in Rafah is canceled. Why has Biden been keeping intel on Palestinian terrorists from Israel while 5 Americans are being held hostage in Gaza and Israel is their only way out?!Why is Biden constantly playing interference on behalf of Hamas? pic.twitter.com/FB7uLgMdZP— Marina Medvin 🇺🇸 (@MarinaMedvin) May 12, 2024The...