Free Republic

Owning a home is a cornerstone of the American Dream. But with the recent rise in home prices and mortgage rates, homeownership feels like a far-off dream for an increasing share of Americans, especially those in their 20s and 30s. In 2019, the median first-time homebuyer was 33 years old. Today, the typical first-time homebuyer is 40 years old. That shift didn’t happen on its own. It’s an unintended consequence of the federal government’s COVID-era policies that included pumping trillions of dollars into the economy and driving short-term borrowing costs down to near zero. These policies briefly led to a...

ASHWAUBENON, Wis. (WBAY) - An employee at the Cinnabon location in Ashwaubenon’s Bay Park Square Mall has been fired following a viral video that showed her making offensive comments towards a customer. The video, posted to TikTok, was recorded on December 5th, according to the video caption. The poster says that she started recording after the employee made a derogatory comment about her hijab. The employee went on to make more comments, including using the N-word and calling herself a racist. The full video can be found here, though viewer discretion is advised for strong and offensive language.In a comment...

Everyone knows that so called “double tap” strikes on land are legal, Obama did it all the time, but CNN keeps inviting land lawyers on to say narco terrorists have special privileges at sea. Let’s look at the admiralty law: 🧵 Source: International law studies @NavalWarCollege “Rudderless and Adrift: States’ Unwarranted Timidity Respecting Stateless Vessels Andrew Norris” Ships without a recognized flag, “stateless vessels”, are the outlaws of the ocean. They don’t have a clear nationality, so no country claims responsibility for them. International law already allows governments to stop, board, and enforce laws against these vessels.

Trump is right to warn against mass immigration and the Islamification of EuropeLast week the Trump administration expressed its fear that Europe faces “civilizational erasure.” Its concern was articulated in a 33-page National Security Strategy that outlined Donald Trump’s world view and how America will respond economically and militarily.The sentence that caused the most reaction on the other side of the pond was the assertion that, if current trends continue, Europe will be “unrecognizable in 20 years or less.” Those trends are mass immigration and what conservative French commentators call the “Islamification” of Europe. If Europe doesn’t address these trends,...

For over a decade, Americans have been force-fed a medicine that was supposed to heal our healthcare system. Instead, like a treatment with devastating side effects, the Affordable Care Act has left millions of families sicker financially than before they took the first dose. The prescription label promised affordability, but the bill that arrives each month tells a different story. While Democrats held the government hostage during the longest shutdown in American history over their precious ObamaCare subsidies, working families continued hemorrhaging money to insurance companies. The enhanced subsidies that progressives fought to protect are set to expire at year’s...

As we asked last week… Why is this demon still working at the DOJ? Why was she not cut loose? Why is she not being prosecuted? Jocelyn Ballantine was one of the Department of Justice attorneys assigned to Michael Flynn’s prosecution. The Department admitted altering evidence in the case following a reprimand from the judge. She called this an inadvertent mistake at the time. Ballantine also provided altered documents to Sidney Powell, and submitted an FBI interview report with redactions to information that was crucial to the case, according to En-Wikipedia. When the US government threw out the case against...

X has surged in popularity after the European Union announced last week that it had fined the social media platform for violating transparency rules and other regulations. Elon Musk, who purchased X in 2022, has celebrated X’s surging popularity and mocked the European Union’s attempts to punish the free speech platform. Musk has touted rankings that show X has become the most downloaded app across Europe since the EU announced its action against Musk’s platform. Now number 1 in every EU country! https://t.co/tQOpiPVRkw— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2025“X is seeing record-breaking downloads in many countries in Europe,” Musk posted...

U.S. podcaster Tucker Carlson announced that he plans to buy a home in the Qatari capital of Doha during an interview with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani yesterday (Sunday). Carlson stated that the purchase is being made in response to accusations that he has been paid off by the Qatari government for his recent praise of Qatar, defense of Sharia law and Islamist terrorist organizations, and hatred for the State of Israel. “I’ve never taken anything from your country and don’t plan to,” Carlson said. “I’m an American and a free man, and I’ll...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who voted with President Trump 98% of the time before her relationship with him fractured, accused the president in a recent interview with 60 Minutes of forsaking his base. The Georgia representative has recently split with the president on a number of issues, including affordability and foreign affairs. She said she believes he's failed to keep domestic policy as his top priority. In her resignation video, Greene said the president has forsaken the MAGA base, specifically pointing to his support of the crypto and pharmaceutical industries. "Those are the areas that are still getting everything they...

This past weekend, Michael Dorgan of Fox News devoted an episode to Minnesota's "Little Mogadishu,"America's largest Somali community. The rapidly expanding Muslim population in Minneapolis has become a focus of intense national debate over immigration and welfare fraud. Dorgan observes how the Somalian population is reshaping the state’s historically Scandinavian, Christian cultural landscape. President Donald Trump blasted Somali Minnesotans as welfare abusers who have been raiding state coffers for years. Says President Trump, "I hear they ripped off -- Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars, billions every year... They contribute nothing," Trump said, amid news that some...

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has reportedly filed hundreds of criminal complaints against members of the public for insulting him during his tenure as a politician. According to research conducted by the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, Merz is “one of the most sensitive politicians in the history” of the German republic. Die Welt’s Sunday paper reported that during his time as a member of parliament, Merz filed criminal complaints against citizens for calling him names such as “little Nazi”, “asshole,” and “filthy drunk”, among others. The paper said that documents from a law firm commissioned by Merz to file such complaints...

Paramount Skydance is launching a hostile bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery after it lost out to Netflix in a months-long bidding war for the legacy assets, the company said Monday. Paramount will go straight to WBD shareholders with an all-cash, $30-per-share offer. That’s the same bid WBD rejected last week, according to people familiar with the bid who asked not to be named because the details were private. The offer is backstopped with equity financing from the Ellison family and the private-equity firm RedBird Capital and $54 billion of debt commitments from Bank of America, Citi and Apollo Global...

Donald Trump Jr. revealed that his father, President Donald Trump, may walk away from Ukraine due to the lack of progress towards a peace deal. Speaking at a forum in Doha on Sunday, Trump Jr. criticized the major corruption in Ukraine, which penetrated the highest levels of government in Kyiv, including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s longtime chief of staff Andriy Yermak, who resigned after facing a massive embezzlement probe. Yermak, the former lead negotiator for Ukraine who was widely regarded as the second-most powerful figure in the nation, resigned after anti-corruption investigators raided his home last month in connection with...

*Ramaphosa urges global efforts to debunk white persecution myths * Trump boycotted G20 summit over alleged mistreatment of whites * Ramaphosa: supremacy ideas are harming national security JOHANNESBURG, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Ideas of white racial superiority are a threat to South Africa's post-apartheid unity, its sovereignty and its diplomatic relations, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday, calling for global efforts to debunk false stories about white persecution. Ramaphosa was speaking at a conference of the co-ruling African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela that defeated racist white minority rule in South Africa three decades ago. "Some in...

Diagnosis rates of autism among children have more than tripled over the past 15 years. One reason, which Minnesota’s welfare scandal lays bare with shocking details, is Medicaid fraud and abuse. Medicaid pays healthcare providers big bucks to diagnose and treat children with autism—sometimes tens of thousands of dollars a month for a single child. Yet states rarely verify that kids who are diagnosed actually meet the medical criteria for the disorder or that they get appropriate treatment from qualified specialists. The result: Children covered by Medicaid or the government-run Children’s Health Insurance Program are 2.5 times as likely as...

Columbia Borough police weren’t about to let anyone — or anything — ruin a visit from Saint Nicholas on Saturday night. Authorities say they responded to multiple calls regarding a suspect, dressed as Santa, who threatened to ruin Christmas while Saint Nicholas was distributing free Christmas trees at the Turkey Hill store located at 301 Linden Street. When they arrived, officers found the suspect attempting to escape in a multicolored tow truck belonging to Unlimited Towing. He didn’t get far, according to a Crimewatch release. The suspect was apprehended, and during a search, police said they discovered contraband (pine needles)...

A man who is accused of raping a woman outside a Nashville church, who later died, has a long list of offenses that have been largely dismissed. FOX 17 News has found he has a long list of offenses, and spoke with victim advocates who said enough is enough. They are demanding change in the criminal justice system. According to the Davidson County Sheriff's Office, Mohamed is still behind bars on a $300,000 bond. But victim advocates like Verna Wyatt said the suspect should have stayed behind bars for his previous offenses to prevent the accused rape. "It's infuriating," she...

A border abandoned and laws ignored have turned public frustration into a sweeping backlash that now threatens even legal immigration. It is hard now even for Democrats to defend illegal immigration, given that the Biden administration allowed in more than 10 million entrants. Among them were an estimated 500,000 criminals. No one believes that was wise or should ever be repeated. Worse, the message went out that there would be few, if any, deportations and no real ICE kinetic activity beyond the border. The world’s poor, sick, both law-abiding and criminal, young and old, understood that anyone could now enter...

2,000-year-old Jerusalem city wall uncovered. The section of the wall unearthed at the Tower of David Museum is among the longest and most intact segments ever uncovered. JNS Staff. A section of Jerusalem’s city wall dating from the Hasmonean period more than two thousand years ago has been unearthed in the city’s Tower of David Museum, the Israel Antiquities Authority announced on Monday. The wall was discovered during an excavation on the grounds of the museum, located just inside the Jaffa Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem, adjacent to the citadel, within the historic complex known as the Kishle,...

Qatar, Turkey trying to dissuade Hamas from disarming, as Phase II of ceasefire still under discussion. Alternatives proposed would see Hamas give up its weapons to the Palestinian Authority or transferred them to a secure storage under oversight, which could preserve Hamas' influence in Gaza; this is likely to be the main issue discussed at the Trump-Netanyahu meeting in Florida The second phase of the Gaza ceasefire plan is still being shaped by the Americans, though nothing has been finalized. Israel and the U.S. jointly drafted the original 20‑point plan, which included a clear agreement that Hamas must be disarmed....