Free Republic

Consider the claim that the United States imported not just tens of thousands of Somali pirates and fraudsters, but hundreds of deadly killers as refugees. This notion demands careful unpacking, for it touches on matters of immigration policy, national security, and moral accountability. One might wonder how such a large-scale influx could occur without proper vetting, much like the hasty resettlement of Afghan refugees after the 2021 withdrawal. The answer lies in a pattern of lax procedures that prioritized volume over scrutiny, leading to unforeseen consequences in communities like those in Minnesota. Neither the residents of Minneapolis nor the...

There’s a deeper, darker truth lurking beneath the Somali-dominated, multi-billion-dollar Minnesota welfare fraud schemes that have commanded the attention of federal authorities and stoked nationwide outrage. And it may explain in part why for weeks, Democrats and regime media have been gaslighting the country, casting critics as bigots, and shooting the messengers who sent the long-neglected story viral — and why, now, state and local leaders are trying to turn Minneapolis into a powder keg. These dodges and diversions distract from the fact that the fraud is a feature of what we might call The Blue Model of government. Fueled...

Meta Platforms on Monday named former Trump administration official Dina Powell McCormick as its president and vice chairman, boosting the company’s lobbying efforts in the U.S. capital. President Donald Trump congratulated Powell McCormick in a post on his Truth Social account minutes after the company announced her promotion. “Congratulations to DINA POWELL MCCORMICK, WHO HAS JUST BEEN NAMED THE NEW PRESIDENT OF META. A great choice by Mark Z!!! She is a fantastic, and very talented, person, who served the Trump Administration with strength and distinction!” the president wrote. Her appointment is the latest in a series of changes Meta...

A fearless muntjac deer weighing just 50 pounds went head-to-head with a nearly two-ton rhinoceros at a zoo in Poland in a caught-on-camera David and Goliath bout for the ages. A caretaker at Wroclaw Zoo in Poland captured the standoff between Maruska the rhino and Mundzak the Chinese muntjac deer in a video viewed millions of times on social media.

Our eyes can frequently play tricks on us, but scientists have discovered that some artificial intelligence can fall for the same illusions. And it is changing what we know about our brains. When we look up at the Moon, it seems larger when it is close to the horizon compared to when it is higher up in the sky even though its size, and the distance between the Earth and the Moon, remains much the same during the course of a night. Optical illusions such as these show that we don't always perceive reality the way we should. They are...

While Denmark’s leaders downplay the threat to Greenland posed by Russia and China amidst President Donald Trump’s outspoken desire to acquire the frozen island, Denmark's Danish Defense Intelligence Service (DDIS) recently released an assessment bluntly warning of Russian and Chinese military ambitions toward and expansion around Greenland and the Arctic. Trump said last week that the U.S. needs Greenland “from the standpoint of national security” as he argued that the frozen autonomous territory owned by Denmark was “covered” with Russian and Chinese ships. Top Danish foreign policy and defense officials quickly sought to push back on Trump’s claims, claiming there...

On this date 45 years ago, Blondie released “Rapture,” a genre bending single that quietly became one of the most important crossover records in Hip Hop history. Released in 1981 from the album Autoamerican, the song did far more than expand the band’s sonic palette. It helped introduce rap music and Hip Hop culture to a global mainstream audience at a time when the genre was still largely confined to New York City neighborhoods. “Rapture” blended new wave, disco, funk, and spoken word rap into something unfamiliar yet accessible. Debbie Harry’s rhythmic verses referenced early Hip Hop figures and...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #32 of 33 YOUNG JESUS TEACHING IN THE TEMPLE L U K E CHAPTER 2 Every year his parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When he was twelve years old, they went up to the Feast, according to the custom. After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find...

Energy Louisiana Trial Lawyers Steered Thousands to Judge Overseeing Their Case Against Oil Companies—Then Won a $744 Million Judgment 'The whole thing is set up as a kangaroo court,' former AG Bill Barr tells Free Beacon L: Offshore oil and gas platform (Mario Tama/Getty Images) R: Chevron logo Thomas Catenacci January 12, 2026 The Louisiana attorneys who helped secure a landmark verdict requiring U.S. oil company Chevron to pay $744 million in environmental damages gave nearly $15,000 to the state judge who presided over the case, ethics filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show. The Baton Rouge-based law firm...

JPMorgan Chase Bank is suing former Chicago Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot for letting her $11K credit card bill go unpaid for 17 months.The media has learned that Lightfoot, who became the first Democrat Chicago Mayor not reelected to city hall in about 40 years, was served with a subpoena at her $900,000 Chicago home in October, the Chicago Tribune reports.Chase ultimately decided in March that her $11,000 bill would be a charge-off, but her last payment of $5,000 on the debt was made on August 7, 2024, according to the bank’s records.

During college, one of my professors in Political Philosophy said that the only real revolutions in modern Western civilization were the French and the Russian. He was right, but I didn’t quite get it at the time. I do now. While the American Revolution was ostensibly a revolution, in reality, it was more of a divorce where the kids kept the same parents, they just lived with their Mom. Their Dad was still their Dad, but they didn’t have much to do with him. In contrast, the French and Russian revolutions were basically the children taking their parents out back...

The Streisand effect continues to be real, as Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's AI comments go viral. A couple of days ago, Nadella penned a short note on his hopes for artificial intelligence going into 2026. As you know, Microsoft is very much "all in" on AI, with Azure providing a significant chunk of the backbone for OpenAI's ChatGPT. Microsoft has been baking its ChatGPT-powered Copilot app into virtually every product it has, whether you like it or not. The brute force by which Microsoft is introducing these products has led to an unrelenting backlash on social media, and Nadella's latest...

Pete Hegseth flashed a Vulcan salute Monday as he joined Elon Musk at SpaceX headquarters, where the war secretary touted the Pentagon’s wartime approach to unleashing technological innovation. “We want to make Star Trek real,” Musk said as he welcomed Hegseth to Starbase, the small South Texas town incorporated by SpaceX employees and home to the tech tycoon’s massive rocket-building facility and launch site. “Star Trek real,” Hegseth quipped after being introduced by Musk. The war secretary’s remarks – part of his “Arsenal of Freedom” tour – emphasized the need for the US to “win the strategic competition for 21st...

Soon after Eric Holder was confirmed as Barack Obama’s attorney general in February 2009 he gave a speech to his new employees in honor of Black History Month. It proved memorable. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,” said Holder, “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards.” In February 2023 Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams showed that not all white Americans were afraid to speak about race. On his podcast, “Real Coffee with Scott Adams,” the soft-spoken Adams delivered a droll, only...

Sen. Rand Paul ripped into his fellow Republicans Tuesday over their tepid response to the Trump administration’s series of strikes against suspected drug-running vessels, saying his colleagues on Capitol Hill “don’t give a s— about these people in the boats.” “We’ve been blowing up these people in boats off the coast of Venezuela. They’re accused of running drugs, but nobody knows their names and nobody’s put up any evidence,” Paul (R-Ky.) said during an apperance on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “And so what I think is bizarre is I hear mostly my Republican colleagues say, ‘Well, we shouldn’t have...

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, the Massachusetts-based Obama judge who blocked the Trump administration from cutting federal funds to Planned Parenthood last month, issued a temporary restraining order on Saturday preventing the Department of Homeland Security from revoking the legal status of tens of thousands of foreigners. The Trump administration announced last month that it was terminating all categorical family reunification parole programs and corresponding work authorization for aliens from Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, and Honduras as well as for their immediate family members, effective Dec. 15. Per the announcement, the "temporary parole period of aliens who...

As unrest spreads across Iran and authorities tighten controls on communication, news reports suggest that the government is using foreign military technology to block satellite internet services. Iran has reportedly turned to Russian military technology to disrupt Elon Musk-owned Starlink satellite internet services. According to a Forbes report, specialised jammers have interfered with as much as 80 per cent of Starlink’s uplink and downlink traffic in the country.

This is not my usual fare. I typically summarize books that expose institutional capture, medical corruption, or the mechanisms by which official narratives diverge from observable reality. Atlas Shrugged is not that kind of book. It is a novel—a thousand-page philosophical novel published in 1957 about railroads and steel mills and a mysterious man who stops the motor of the world. It came up recently in conversation with a close friend, and I realized that despite its enormous cultural footprint, almost no one I know has actually read it. They know the name Ayn Rand. They have opinions about her....

The Trump administration has intensified its efforts to enhance vetting of foreign nationals entering the U.S., resulting in a record number of visa revocations. The Department of State announced that in 2025, it revoked over 100,000 foreign visas, including 8,000 student visas and 2,500 specialized worker visas. That figure is more than double the number of visas that were revoked in 2024 — 40,000 — under former President Joe Biden's leadership. Foreign nationals whose visas were canceled included those who had encounters with U.S. law enforcement for criminal activity, the State Department reported. "We will continue to deport these thugs...

The FBI executed a search warrant on the home of a Washington Post reporter as part of an investigation into the leaking of government secrets. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, was at her home in Virginia when federal agents descended on her home on Wednesday morning, the Washington Post said. The outlet said Natanson was raided as part of a probe into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials, and she had her home and devices searched.