Free Republic

CHICAGO, Dec 13 (Reuters) - The windowless newsroom of The Phoenix, the Loyola University Chicago newspaper, hums like an old refrigerator. A coffee pot burbles in the corner as juniors Julia Pentasuglio and Ella Daugherty lean over a glowing laptop, updating a Google map. Each red pin marks a sighting of federal immigration agents near campus and the surrounding neighborhoods. Nearby, editor-in-chief Lilli Malone scrolls through reports from Rogers Park, a neighborhood along Chicago's lakefront where 80 languages mix. There were new pins from seven sightings that day alone - reports of vans barreling down side streets, masked immigration officers...

Trump’s tariffs and immigration raids are driving the latest farm crisis. White farmers have stood by him year after year—and still do. On Monday, Donald Trump announced that his administration will give farmers a $12 billion bailout—a tacit admission that his trade policies suck. Farmers have spent much of the last year complaining about rising production costs, falling crop prices and the loss of multiple markets due to Trump’s tariffs and the trade wars they have launched. All in all, farmers are projected to lose roughly $44 billion in profits this year, in large part because of Trump administration policies....

FOR THE respectable men running western Europe’s three biggest countries, misery is heaped upon misery. All are presiding over stagnant living standards and declining global influence. In Britain and France their rivals from the populist right are itching to take power (even the Alternative for Germany, or the AfD, may win a couple of state elections next year). And America, their key ally, has just accused them of hastening Europe towards what it calls “civilisational erasure”. Those three leaders also warn of a catastrophe—if the parties of the populist right should triumph. Friedrich Merz, Germany’s chancellor, describes his government as...

The nearly two dozen Indiana Republicans who voted against the president’s redistricting plan Thursday are in political jeopardy as Trump allies rally together to take them out. Republicans’ bid to redraw district lines ahead of the 2026 midterms failed after 21 state senators broke with their party and voted with the Democrats to strike the effort down 19-31. Trump claimed on Thursday that he “wasn’t working on it very hard” on the plan, though some have reported the president was making last minute calls to whip votes in favor of the new map. Major GOP organizations like Turning Point USA...

The word “capitalism” was invented by leftists to disparage Europe’s predominant economic system in the 19th century. While he didn’t invent the word, Karl Marx was its main popularizer. So the term was originally intended, and has always been used by the Left, as a term of disparagement. Nevertheless, conservatives have generally adopted the word “capitalism” and have sought to defend it. Meanwhile, throughout the 20th century, “socialism” ... was anathema in America. More recently, polls have suggested that, as a result of far-left indoctrination in the schools, many young Americans have become enamored of socialism. We decided to test...

President Donald Trump was sued on Friday by preservationists asking a federal court to halt his White House ballroom project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and wins approval from Congress. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is asking the U.S. District Court to block Trump's White House ballroom project, which already has involved razing the East Wing, until it goes through comprehensive design reviews, environmental assessments, public comments and congressional debate and ratification.

After the 2024 humiliation, the left is back. It could hurt the party in 2026. Kim Strassel speaks with law professor Jonathan Turley about why the charges were dismissed against James Comey and Letitia James and how Donald Trump is separately using the legal system to the executive branch’s benefit. What could get in the way of a coming 2026 Democratic wave, given history and the current public mood? Nothing but the Democratic Party itself, which is sitting placidly by as the progressives who lost them last year’s election mobilize to take over even more of the party. Bernie Sanders...

With climate change steadily dismantling the icy habitat essential to their existence, new research suggests polar bears are rapidly rewiring their own genetics in a bid to survive. The species is being forced to adapt to the harsher reality of a warming Arctic, in what scientists believe is the first documented case of rising temperatures driving genetic change in a mammal. Researchers from the University of East Anglia in Britain say these findings, published Friday in the journal Mobile DNA, offer a rare glimmer of hope for the species. "Polar bears are still sadly expected to go extinct this century,...

Maryland will launch a study to analyze the economic impacts of climate change to determine the costs associated with storm damage and health outcomes. The move is part of the Moore-Miller administration's strategic approach to investing in a clean energy economy and modernizing the state's energy infrastructure. "While the federal government has spent the past year rolling back climate protections and driving up energy costs, Maryland is taking a responsible step toward understanding the true price tag of climate change," Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement. "This study will give us a clear, data-driven look at the real burden...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has delayed a decision on whether to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies indefinitely despite years of warnings from conservationists that populations are shrinking. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced during the waning days of then-President Joe Biden’s term in December 2024 that the agency planned to add the beloved backyard pollinator to the threatened species list by the end of 2025, calling the insect “iconic” and “cherished across North America.” But the Trump administration quietly listed the effort as a “long-term action” in a September report on the status of...

WASHINGTON — Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy threatened Friday to yank $73 million in federal highway funding meant for New York after an audit found more than half of the Empire State’s commercial trucking licenses were issued to foreign-born drivers in the US illegally. “What New York does is if an applicant comes in and they have a work authorization — for 30 days, 60 days, one year — New York automatically issues them an eight-year commercial driver’s license,” Duffy said during a press conference at DOT headquarters in DC Friday. “That’s contrary to the law.” “But we also found that...

Marjorie Taylor Greene is returning to "The View" for another round. The Republican congresswoman from Georgia will sit for a second interview on the ABC talk show Jan. 7, Executive Producer Brian Teta revealed on his "Behind the Table" podcast Wednesday. Perhaps by little coincidence, Greene's last day in Congress is scheduled for Jan. 5.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has granted a full pardon to Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk whose case has become a rallying point for election-integrity activists across the country. Trump has previously described Peters as a "political prisoner" on several occasions.

"Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour, / England hath need of thee, she is a fen / of stagnant waters” begins a famous sonnet by William Wordsworth about the spiritual troubles of two hundred years back. Of course, things seem just as catastrophic today as they did in 1802. After the English people voted for Brexit, the elites of England seem to have declared war on the country’s culture and liberties. They are swiftly bankrupting the country and breaking its party system; they make a mockery of the established Christian religion while the king celebrates Muslim holidays; they...

… Among other requirements, Minneapolis' separation ordinance forbids Minneapolis police from taking part in immigration enforcement or assisting ICE agents. It also prevents city employees from investigating an individual when the only law they've violated is being in the United States illegally. City employees are also restricted from inquiring about immigration status except when required to do so by law. This week, the council presented a revised version of the separation ordinance with tougher language intended to combat ICE, amid a targeted immigration operation ordered by President Trump focused on the Somali community. The new ordinance declares the city will...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KATU) — The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) says work requirements for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are now being enforced in every county in Oregon. The policy changes at the USDA follow the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (H.R.1). ODHS said about 37,000 Oregonians are immediately affected. The statewide rules took effect on Dec. 1, 2025, expanding the work requirements from six counties. The shift affects adults classified as able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs). These are people aged 18 to 64 who do not live with children under 14. Those individuals must now...

Diary of disturbing disinformation and dangerous delusionsThis claim:“We lowered the price of everything.” — Former President Joe Biden, Friday We say: Uh oh, Joe’s into the Rocky Road again. Maybe if you too slept through his presidency you could buy Biden’s line that his was a golden age of affordability. But if you had to buy groceries or pay for gas then, you surely saw how inflation ran red-hot on his watch: Home prices alone soared 38% and gasoline prices rose 31% — while real wages fell 4%. Affordability? Please.

The Indiana Senate on Thursday voted down a plan to redraw the state’s congressional districts to produce two more GOP-friendly seats, rejecting President Donald Trump’s months-long campaign to pressure the Republican supermajority in the deep-red state to bend to his will. The 31-19 vote saw 21 Republicans join 10 Democrats in voting down the proposed map that would have positioned the GOP, which currently holds seven of Indiana’s nine US House seats, for a sweep of all nine seats in next year’s midterm elections. The vote comes with significant ramifications for the 2026 midterm elections as some Democratic- and Republican-led...

This image of eight teenagers laying in the shape of a swastika on a football field has been circulating online. This image of eight teenagers laying in the shape of a swastika on a football field has been circulating online. Sign up for Weekday J and get the latest on what's happening in the Jewish Bay Area. Updated at 5:50 p.m. A photo of eight teenagers lying in the shape of a swastika on Branham High School’s football field, accompanied by an antisemitic quote from Adolf Hitler, circulated online Wednesday, raising concerns in the district and beyond. The photo was...

Since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center towers, many have designated September 11, 2001 as the true close of the 20th century. That event indeed changed many things in the United States and in the world. It was a sign that the American-led global order established after World War II had become fragile and hollowed out. But in the decades that followed, our leaders clung to the pieties and perspectives of the pre-9/11 period, applying obsolete solutions in a new era with much different problems. In retrospect, Donald Trump’s 2015 presidential campaign was the true start of the...