Free Republic

Iran is facing its largest demonstrations in years as people hit the streets of Tehran and other cities to protest the country's dismal economic situation. The protests erupted Sunday and gathered pace Monday after the Islamic Republic’s currency, the rial, hit a record low against the dollar. Many in Iran are already struggling with the cost of living, and rising prices have fueled concerns about potential hyperinflation. In Tehran, shopkeepers protested near the city’s central bazaar, reminiscent of the Iranian revolution in 1979 when merchants played a key role by shuttering their shops and protesting against the reigning monarch at...

A growing group of former CBS News journalists is preparing to confront the network’s new owner David Ellison, chief of Paramount Skydance, demanding “editorial independence” after a 60 Minutes investigation into deported migrants was abruptly pulled from air. In a petition addressed to Ellison and published by the New York Post, signatories warn that CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss’s decision to spike the report represents a dangerous political intervention in journalism. The letter is being circulated among current and former staff and is expected to be sent in early January. The 60 Minutes segment, examining the treatment of migrants sent...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #18 of 33 SHEPHERDS, FIRST TO HEAR OF THE SAVIOR L U K E CHAPTER 2 She gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you...

A Minneapolis child care center has become the unlikely focus of social media speculation and regulatory scrutiny this week after digital sleuths discovered its public contact information led directly to the office of Governor Tim Walz.The facility, identified as Sweet Angel Child Care, went viral on Monday when users on X (formerly Twitter) noted that the phone number listed for the business on Google Maps connected callers to the governor's administration rather than the day care itself. The anomaly surfaced shortly after YouTuber Nick Shirley featured the location in a video investigation released Friday, which sought to verify the legitimacy...

Blue Zone political culture is empty. There’s nothing in it. They don’t make anything, they don’t do anything, they aren’t trying to do anything. Let’s bracket a great piece of journalism with more details and some context. By now, I assume most readers here have seen the magnificent work of the independent journalist Nick Shirley in Minnesota, showing widespread Somali fraud in government-funded programs by simply walking up to the front doors of daycare centers and healthcare organizations and inquiring about their services. Daycare centers with millions of dollars in government funding and no children inside, and neighbors who say...

There's a beer on the market so strong it rivals cocktails — and it's illegal in parts of the U.S. Earlier in the fall, Samuel Adams announced the release of its Utopias 2025, a "barrel-aged extreme beer" that packs an impressive 30% alcohol by volume (ABV). "Utopias 2025 is one of the strongest beers ever brewed, and as a result, is illegal in 15 states," the release said. TARA REID'S DISPUTED DRINK-TAMPERING CLAIM LEADS EXPERTS TO WARN AGAINST 'ILL INTENTIONS' OF STRANGERS The banned states are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South...

I was in the middle of writing something else, but this has to be said. No doubt in response to what's being uncovered in Minnesota and Maine, there is a great push for attention to the conditions in Gaza. Gaza today. pic.twitter.com/yGIbIGlMpC — Muhammad Smiry 🇵🇸 (@MuhammadSmiry) December 27, 2025What is happening to us now is beyond anyone’s imagination or ability to endure. We are living through catastrophic and terrifying conditions amid the world’s complicity, as we are left to be killed and tortured in silence.💔 pic.twitter.com/cwL3fGaIWb — Haitham in Gaza 🇵🇸🍉 (@HaithamElmasri1) December 15, 2025💔 Airstrikes, shootings, hypothermia, this...

A case study in how moral blackmail paralyzed government and let organized fraud run free A sprawling Somali welfare fraud scandal has swallowed Minnesota. Somali refugees in Minnesota have committed the 'biggest theft of taxpayer dollars in US history' and local Democratic officials were 'fully complicit' in the scheme, White House officials declared Friday night.Federal authorities announced this week that at least 86 people - mostly within small Somali communities in the state - have stolen more than $1 billion in public funds from programs meant to feed children, assist the homeless and provide autism therapy.The suspects allegedly ran companies...

George Clooney publicly said this past fall that he was concerned about raising children in Hollywood and that a farm in France was the family's primary residence. American-born actor George Clooney has been awarded French citizenship. The French government listed their names in the naturalization decree published this past weekend, according to The Hill newspaper. In addition to Clooney, his wife, Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer, and the twins, wins Ella and Alexander, were offically granted citizenship. Amal Clooney was listed under her maiden name, Alamuddin, the Hill also reports. George Clooney publicly said this past fall that he...

Climate change worsened by human behavior made 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists said. The analysis from World Weather Attribution researchers, released Tuesday in Europe, came after a year when people around the world were slammed by the dangerous extremes brought on by a warming planet. "If we don't stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, very soon, it will be very hard to keep that goal" of warming, Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College London climate scientist, told The Associated Press. "The science is increasingly clear." "The heat waves we...

In the eighties, I had a friend who worked for me on and off. He was a competent handyman and could do an oil change without screwing it up, something that was always useful in an auto shop, which I ran. Eventually, however, he got a better paying job as a drywaller. Anyone who has ever done a home project with even a small drywall repair knows how difficult it is not to have even a small repair stick out like a sore thumb. Stevie was good and patient. He has that ability to measure with his eye. And so...

Meet three AWFL (Affluent, white, female, liberal) Minnesota judges who are making headlines for the most predictable reasons imaginable. These ladies have recently dismissed cases against Somali fraudsters in Minnesota, even overturning jury verdicts, allowing the immigrants stealing millions from Americans and Minnesotans to walk free. Each of these judges found small, technical prosecutorial errors, resulting in the cases being tossed. Here's local reporting in Minnesota on the case where Judge Sarah West tossed the jury verdict: Jurors who were chosen for the case were shocked by West's decision. 'I am shocked,' jury foreperson Ben Walfoort told KARE 11 News....

Credit: Geograph Britain and Ireland The United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) has introduced a new policy requiring its officers and staff members to declare whether they are Freemasons. The MPS wrote in a statement on X, “There have been calls going back a number of years for the role of Freemasonry in policing to be properly addressed, including as a recommendation in the report of the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel.” “We strongly believe that failing to act on these calls would further damage trust not only among the public but also other officers and staff,” added the MPS. In...

For faith leaders supporting and ministering to anxious immigrants across the United States, 2025 was fraught with challenges and setbacks. For many in these religious circles, the coming year could be worse. The essence of their fears: President Donald Trump has become harsher with his contemptuous rhetoric and policy proposals, blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages and, in a social media post, demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.” Haitians who fled gang violence in their homeland, as well as Afghans allowed entry after assisting the U.S. in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover, now fear that their refuge in America may...

Thousands are flooding Tehran, chanting for Reza Pahlavi as the crowd swells beyond control.

As Josh Abbotoy gazes out at lush green woods and pastureland nestled among Tennessee's Appalachian hills, he describes what he intends to build here: a neighbourhood with dozens of residential lots, centred around a working farm and, crucially, a church. Mr Abbotoy is prominent in US conservative circles and describes his development as an "affinity-based community" - marketed to people not only interested in the peace and quiet of rural life, but in a constellation of right-wing ideals. "Faith, family and freedom," he says. "Those are the values that we try to celebrate." Initially he didn't attract much local attention...

A pair of Empire State snowbirds just learned it’s not easy to fly the coop. An upstate couple who relocated to Florida is still on the hook for a $60,000 New York tax bill because they didn’t prove their Sunshine State pad was their main residence, a state tax panel ruled in a recent bombshell decision. John Hoff and his wife, Kathleen Ocorr-Hoff, kept cashing paychecks here and didn’t give up their local country club memberships, the tax panel found in the decision — which could give pause to snowbirds splitting time between the Empire State and Florida. The couple...

Teen Discovers 1.5M Space Objects With AI | Image by Matteo Paz @matteopaz06/X A recently graduated high school student made an artificial intelligence breakthrough using retired NASA data, which led to a public recruitment pitch from the agency’s new administrator on social media, including a fighter jet ride. The teenager from Pasadena, California, used AI to identify approximately 1.5 million previously unrecognized cosmic objects in archival NASA data. His work went viral on X, capturing the attention of senior space officials. This led to an informal public recruitment pitch from Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur recently appointed as NASA administrator....

Three weeks after college, I flew to Senegal, West Africa, to run a community center in a rural town. Life was placid, with no danger, except to your health. That danger was considerable, because it was, in the words of the Peace Corps doctor, “a fecalized environment. “In plain English: s— is everywhere. People defecate on the open ground, and the feces is blown with the dust — onto you, your clothes, your food, the water. He warned us the first day of training: do not even touch water. Human feces carries parasites that bore through your skin and cause...

It’s been nearly 20 years since Minnesota elected a Republican governor. The former House Speaker Tim Pawlanty (R-MN) was the last conservative to earn that distinction, winning consecutive terms in 2002 and then 2006. Since 2010, the Democratic-Farmers-Labor party, or DFL as it is commonly known in Minnesota, has ruled the political roost in the Land of the Lakes. But the MAGA stalwart and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is hoping to loosen the blue grip in Minnesota, announcing this week his intentions to run for governor of the state in 2026. In a statement broadcast to his eponymous platform, Lindell...