Free Republic

Until recently, American politics operated on a simple premise: Aspiring politicians must suck up to party bosses, run for local office, earn supporters, master policy details and only then earn a shot at higher office. That model has collapsed. Today’s rising stars take a different escalator — television, social media, podcasts, activism, entertainment or the internet — that goes straight to the top. Their chief currency is not institutional support but the attention economy. Which helps explain why Los Angeles now finds itself facing the possibility that Spencer Pratt could make a mayoral runoff. Pratt, if you’ve been living under...

Vice President JD Vance has spoken out against “the politics of self-hatred and the mass invasion of migrants” in the United Kingdom after the brutal death of student Henry Nowak, the second U.S. intervention on “civilisational decline” in Britain in 24 hours. British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer attempted to kick back against the President Donald Trump Administration and American concern for the country’s descent into chaos on Friday night, characterising comments from Washington as political interference and even an attempt to “stir up division on our streets”. U.S. Vice President JD Vance made one of the present Trump Administration’s...

California Sheriff says their elections are being RIGGED!Your vote in California is being STOLEN by illegals, and they're not even hiding it anymore.Sheriff's investigators uncovered that people from PAKISTAN were voting in California elections. Multiple people living OUTSIDE… pic.twitter.com/K0rZjAMukX— Bridgett Fertig (@LightOnLiberty) June 5, 2026

One of the WNBA’s most prominent voices wants her league to consider the place of women in America at the birth of the country before agreeing to wear a celebratory jersey patch. Aces forward Brianna Turner, the players association treasurer, balked at the idea that WNBA All-Stars should wear the “USA 250” patch on their jerseys that other professional sports leagues have adopted to celebrate America’s upcoming 250th birthday.

U.S. influencers and an administration official arrived in Russia just as Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, needed a publicity boost. The small group of Americans flew in as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, or SPIEF, often dubbed Russian Davos, opened on June 3 in the port city. The annual conference serves as a promotional vehicle for the country as Putin seeks to project strength and global power. Officials say this year they are receiving 20,000 guests from over 100 countries, with 76 countries sending high-level representatives. Putin has increasingly faced setbacks on the battlefield as a Ukrainian drone strike...

An apparently loony, lefty political worker handing out campaign leaflets for a DSA candidate in Brooklyn was arrested after allegedly punching and beating a 98-year-old man with a broomstick and metal chair in a crazed dispute over the reelection flyers, police said. Tashara Abel was stuffing reelection flyers into mailboxes in the lobby of a building at Maple Street and Rogers Avenue in Prospect Lefferts Gardens when the nonagenarian walked in around 4 p.m. Thursday, cops said. The two began beefing over the handouts for candidate and Democratic Socialists of America member and New York State Committee Member Anthony Beckford’s...

While spending money on video games is not uncommon, EVE Online stands out because players' assets can be permanently destroyed; their real-world cash outlay gone in seconds. The game's financial system is so complex that in 2025, a former economist from the Central Bank of Iceland was hired to oversee it. Players can amass huge virtual fortunes by mining raw materials or fighting as mercenaries, but they aren't allowed to convert in-game wealth back into real-world cash. Playing EVE Online can take hundreds of hours. Some see it as a second job, dedicating up to 35 hours per week to...

🚨 IT'S OFFICIAL: The US Supreme Court could be on the verge of STRIKING DOWN California's "election month" and late mail-in ballot shenanigans A case has ALREADY BEEN HEARD and multiple states' mail-in laws may be null and void soon. MAKE IT HAPPEN 🔥 "There is a Supreme Court case pending. Right now the courts already heard it. We're waiting at this end of the term in June. We get all of these last decisions. The big ones. This one came out of Mississippi and it deals with a state law that says how long you can count ballots after...

Today, I want to speak plainly for myself as a veteran and a soldier who has seen firsthand the high cost of war. As someone who serves under President Trump's leadership, I have experienced the promise of peace... The old Washington way of thinking is something we hope is in the rear-view mirror and something that has held us back for too long. For decades, our foreign policy has been trapped in a counterproductive and endless cycle of regime change or nation-building. It was a one-size-fits-all approach of toppling regimes, trying to impose our system of governance on others, intervening...

Today we remember the D-Day invasion, 82 years ago today. That was the Greatest Generation, in its most courageous and finest moment. The end of the war was in sight. And now, almost all those brave men are gone. In many ways, it was like the Republican victory in November 2024. There was still a lot of hard fighting ahead. Nazi Germany, like the Democratic Party, was still very dangerous. But that day made total victory almost inevitable.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has issued a pardon to Stephen Buyer, a former Republican congressman from Indiana who served nearly two years in prison for making illegal stock trades based on inside information after he left office. Buyer was sentenced to 22 months in prison in 2023 for trades made while working as a consultant and lobbyist. He was ordered to forfeit more than $350,000, representing the amount of the illegal gains, and pay a $10,000 fine. He was released in 2025.

Thomas Albert Howard's "God and the Atlantic..." is a thoroughly researched examination of the contrasting religious paths between Europeans and Americans... Moving beyond Alexis de Tocqueville’s oft-quoted appraisal of American religiosity, Howard’s analysis progresses in two directions. First, he examines negative assessments both from the left (America viewed as overly religious) and the right (America’s religion is too distinct from Europe and thus represents bad religion). Second, he explores two European elites who each wrote about and lived in the United States: Philip Schaff, a Swiss-German Protestant church historian, and Jacques Maritain, a French Catholic philosopher... British intellectuals who were...

Thousands of people attended the 24th Jerusalem Pride Parade on Thursday, in honor of Pride Month. As part of the opening to the event, former prime minister Yair Lapid announced that in the first 100 days of the next government, they would pass a law ensuring that all couples in Israel would be equal. "Mother and father, father and father, mother and mother, all will have the same rights, all will be equal before the law," he said. "We stand here with the entire gay community today to say: The situation is not a given, reality is not a decree...

Nigel Farage went into the 2024 election with the claim that Reform UK was now the “real opposition” party – and today half of Britons agree. The share of the country who see Mr Farage’s party as the main opposition to Labour has soared from 37% in May last year to 49%. Back in 2024 – days after he stunned the country by announcing he would return to frontline politics and stand in the Essex seat of Clacton – Mr Farage told the Sunday Express: “We’re the real opposition now.” Ipsos polling reveals just one in five (21%) people consider...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth urged European leaders on Saturday to remain vigilant against the threat of what he described as “dangerous ideologies” coming to the continent, invoking the lessons of D-Day to warn about modern-day immigration. “In the years since these beaches, much of the West, in some places, in some quarters, and in some capitals grew comfortable, we forgot that freedom is not free,” Hegseth said during remarks at Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France. The Pentagon secretary was in France to commemorate the 82nd anniversary of the Allied invasion of Normandy during WWII, which ultimately enabled the U.S....

It's June, which means the baseball world will be on edge for the next 25 days or so. A tradition unlike any other in this country! For those who don't know (and that's none of you, because it's everywhere), June is Pride Month. Haven't you heard?! You know in October when the NFL wears pink for a month? That's June in Major League Baseball, except it's rainbow hats and social media posts. And, of course, the Texas Rangers angering half the country because they don't do any of it.

Braun has previously given Indiana roughly “65-35” odds of landing the team and has repeatedly highlighted the advantages of Indiana’s business-friendly environment compared to Illinois’ high-tax, high-regulation climate. Losing the Bears would represent far more than a symbolic defeat for Illinois. It would mean losing thousands of potential construction jobs, long-term economic activity, tourism revenue, and one of the state’s most iconic institutions. It would also send a powerful message to businesses nationwide about the direction of Illinois under Democratic leadership. The potential departure would fit a troubling pattern. Since Pritzker took office, Illinois has seen more than 500,000 residents...

President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to the national lab in Oak Ridge, Tennessee on Thursday for consultations with a team of technical experts that could play a role in nuclear negotiations with Iran, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The White House is trying to reach a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Iran to end the war and begin in-depth nuclear negotiations, and wants to have experts at the ready should those talks be launched. (snip)The intrigue: Axios was alerted on Thursday to the fact that Witkoff had made an unannounced trip to eastern Tennessee. Two...

My fellow Americans: Last night, when I spoke with you about the fall of Rome, I knew at that moment that troops of the United States and our allies were crossing the Channel in another and greater operation. It has come to pass with success thus far.And so, in this poignant hour, I ask you to join with me in prayer:Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization, and to set free a suffering humanity.Lead them straight and true; give strength...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth traveled to the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, for the second consecutive year, where he delivered remarks today honoring the approximately 160,000 Allied troops — 73,000 of them Americans — who landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, to liberate Western Europe from Nazi control. The beginning of the Battle of Normandy, more commonly referred to as D-Day, would lead to more than 2 million Allied troops being on the ground in France within three months, followed by the ultimate downfall of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi regime just over eight months later. "Eighty-two...