Free Republic

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...

A day after President Donald Trump alleged widespread cheating in California’s primary, a top prosecutor said the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI are conducting “multiple election fraud investigations” in the state. Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney, did not provide any details or specifics of just what is being investigated, but said in a social media post: “We will follow the evidence wherever it leads and prosecute any violations of federal election law to the fullest extent.” A spokesperson for the FBI’s Los Angeles office would not confirm Essayli’s post, but said “suffice to say there are...

A controversial Israel-and-US-hating NYC college professor defended the murderous Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as she clamored to bring down the US empire “by any means necessary” at a meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America. Corinna Mullin, a radical political science prof once arrested for leading anti-Israel protests that resulted in $3 million in damage to the City College of New York’s Harlem campus, lauded Iran’s “phenomenal” military for depleting US weapons stockpiles in the Middle East, as she urged support for its armed forces. “Iran has won this war. . . . its indigenous military industry has produced phenomenal...

Three-and-a-half-thousand hungry Alsatians wolf down platters of charcuterie and periodically burst into noisy chorus....the latest iteration of a feasting phenomenon that is sweeping provincial France. The Alsace town of Colmar – famous for its half-timbered medieval centre – was the scene last weekend of one of the banquets géants – huge banquets whose popularity in the country has suddenly become a hot political issue. Run by a company called Le Canon Français (The French Cannon), the banquets are massively attended – €81 (£70) buying you four courses of local gastronomy, all the wine you can drink, and several hours of...

This being the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, I thought I’d post a story of my experience with a D-Day veteran. Perhaps other Freepers have stories they’d like to share here as well.