Free Republic

The Italian Renaissance gave birth to ballet, but Russians dominated the art to such a degree no one questioned their supremacy. The Bolshoi, the world’s reigning company, pirouetted onto U.S. stages in 1959 and 1962. The State Department-sponsored American Ballet Theatre (ABT) went east in 1960 followed two years later by the New York City Ballet (NYCB), led by its Russian émigré choreographer George Balanchine. Adding a thermonuclear layer of stress, the Cuban Missile Crisis ignited in October 1962 when the Bolshoi and the NYCB were in each other’s countries. Upstart Americans left home unproven underdogs…The New York Times feared...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ Deck The Halls!!! Captain Ken Collins conducts the U.S. Navy Band Sea Chanters for the concert. Several of the ensembles within the Navy Band perform a show together at the end of the year to celebrate the holidays. (U.S. Navy Photo by Musician 1st Class Seth S. Johnson) Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Deviled Eggs!! Yummy! Deviled eggs sit on party platters in the Crosswinds Dining Facility at Nellis...

House Republicans passed a bill they say will lower healthcare costs for a broad swath of Americans by roughly 11%. It's a victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has been managing deep divisions within the House GOP on the topic of healthcare as insurance premiums are set to spike across the country in a matter of weeks. One glaring issue that remains unresolved is Obamacare subsidies, which were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic but are set to expire at the end of this year. The legislation passed 216 to 211. Just one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted against...

With most European leaders talking tougher about immigration amid a rise in far-right populism and Trump administration warnings that they could face “civilizational erasure” unless they tighten their borders, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stands apart. The Iberian nation has taken in millions of people from Latin America and Africa in recent years, and the leftist Sánchez regularly extols the financial and social benefits that immigrants who legally come to Spain bring to the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy. Spain’s choice, Sánchez often says, is between “being an open and prosperous country or a closed and poor one.” His words stand in...

The Diabolical Insanity of the Vatican’s New Book About Methodist and Pseudo-Catholic DialogueThe Vatican recently published a short book about the progress of ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Methodists, "We Believe in One God". This recent work of diabolical disorientation ought to be a wake-up call for all serious Catholics to unambiguously denounce the false ecumenical movement that has thrived for sixty years.As reported by OSV News, the Vatican publishing house recently released a short book about the progress of ecumenical dialogue between Catholics and Methodists, We Believe in One God: Sixty Years of Methodists and Catholics Walking Together:“Celebrating almost...

A NEW SOURCE SAYS ELLA COOK WAS SPECIFICALLY TARGETED IN BROWN UNIVERSITY ATTACK. WHY HAVE WE HEARD NOTHING PUBLICLY FROM THE OTHER KIDS IN THAT ECON STUDY SESSION. 7 Minute video at link................

On January 14, Charles Foehner will begin serving a four-year prison sentence. Yes, New Yorkers, we can finally rest easy. We got him. And by him, I mean a 67-year-old man who poses no danger to society.Foehner is a retired doorman with the gift of gab, a devoted wife, and a habit of saying “groovy.” He spends his time watching naval history videos on YouTube.While there are many violent criminals with rap sheets the length of a CVS receipt walking our streets, Queens DA Melinda Katz decided to throw the book at this senior citizen, after he pleaded guilty to...

Photo by Jordan Benton from Pexels ************************************************************************ How is it December already? What happened to 2025? And how did we suddenly jump from eating Easter eggs to putting up Christmas trees? To understand why our perception of time seems to bend and warp, we need to dig into how our brains tell time in the first place. The term “time perception” is actually a bit of a misnomer, because time itself isn’t “out there” to be perceived. When we perceive a color, a sound, a flavor or a touch, specialized sensory organs detect something in the environment: the wavelength of...

European Union leaders begin two days of talks in Brussels with a momentous decision to be taken on whether to loan tens of billions of euros in frozen Russian assets to Ukraine to fund its military and economic needs. Most of Russia's €210bn (£185bn; $245bn) worth of assets in the EU are held by Belgium-based organisation Euroclear, and so far Belgium and some other members of the bloc have said they are opposed to using the cash. Without a boost in funding, Ukraine's finances are set to run dry in a matter of months. One European government official described being...

Oops, they did it again.The White House decision to cooperate with Vanity Fair, giving the magazine exclusive access to top Trump administration figures, is one more example of what happens when you let the legacy media pretend that this time, it’s changed. That its editors won’t screw you over, its reporters won’t put the worst possible spin on your remarks, its photographers won’t dream of using Photoshop to highlight your every blemish for social-media snipers to spread far and wide.Why, oh why, does every Republican administration fall in love with the idea of trying to win over the people who...

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote a short article for the Human Rights Defender about the ‘right’ to own guns. In those days there wasn’t much to say. Even in the gun-crazy United States of America (USA), the courts had consistently ruled that the vaunted Second Amendment to the Constitution was no obstacle to regulation of firearms; its power was psychological and political, rather than legal. My article was prompted by the emergence of rights rhetoric from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA), part of the Australian pro-gun lobby, which had formed an alliance with the US National Rifle...

Australian cops will hide while Jews are getting shot like fish in a barrel, but the second someone's toxic masculinity stops the shooter, they'll magically work up the courage to shoot the guy who stopped the shooter. Bondi Beach hero helped disarm terrorist before police mistakenly shot him: report https://t.co/6ZqMjoTXAD pic.twitter.com/8TPsApPvR7— New York Post (@nypost) December 15, 2025A man who rushed in to help disarm one of the terrorists who fired at a crowd celebrating Hanukkah in Australia's famous Bondi Beach was mistakenly shot by police and tackled by bystanders, according to a new report. ... The man quickly sneaks...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. government admitted Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration and the Army played a role in causing the collision last January between an airliner and a Black Hawk helicopter near the nation’s capital, killing 67 people. The official response to the first lawsuit filed by one of the victims’ families said that the government is liable in the crash partly because the air traffic controller violated procedures about when to rely on pilots to maintain visual separation that night. Plus, the filing said, the Army helicopter pilots’ “failure to maintain vigilance so as to see and...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, Religious Freedom and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. "Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God...

Pope Leo XIV is expected to name Bishop Ronald Hicks of Joliet, Illinois, to succeed retiring 75 year old Timothy Cardinal Dolan as archbishop of New York, sources briefed on the transition say. About Bishop Hicks Pope Leo is from Illinois, and he has tapped a fellow Illinois native to lead the archdiocese of New York. Hicks, 58, and Pope Leo have much in common. They were both born and raised in suburban Chicago, with Hicks being born in Harvey and raised in South Holland. Both men also speak fluent Spanish after spending years ministering to the poor in South...

This is what the end of Jewish safety looks like in a city that refuses to confront the ideology driving the violence, first denial, then normalization, then blood. During the festival of Hanukkah, a holiday centered on light, faith, and survival, visibly Jewish New Yorkers returning from celebrations were violently targeted on a New York City subway train. The assault was not random. It was ideological. And it is increasingly becoming the norm in a city unraveling under radical political and cultural forces that have normalized open hatred toward Jews. Footage circulating on social media shows a young Jewish man...

President Trump unleashed a new addition to the Presidential Walk of Fame in the White House Rose Garden, where portraits of all 47 US Presidents are displayed.Trump famously replaced the picture of Joe Biden with an autopen, taking a jab at the 46th President for not actually running the White House but ceding his power to those around him, who took illegal executive actions with the Biden signature affixed by a robotic signature machine.Reporters in the White House noticed this morning newly placed plaques under the photographs, which gave a Trump White House-crafted biography of the President.Biden and Obama, both...

Dan Bongino has said he will leave his role as the FBI's deputy director in January. "I want to thank President Trump, AG (Pam) Bondi, and Director (Kash) Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose," Bongino wrote on X. It comes after US President Donald Trump said earlier on Wednesday the former podcast host "did a great job" in office, and "wants to go back to his show". Bongino, who was appointed to the role by Donald Trump in February, was previously a New York City police officer and a US Secret Service agent. In recent years, he built...

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino will resign his position with less than a year on the job — after reportedly packing up his belongings and bidding adieu to his team. “I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January,” Bongino announced on social media Wednesday night. “I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose. Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you. God bless America, and all those who defend Her.” SNIP A different source said that it’s understood that...

A Jewish New Yorker described Tuesday how he was stabbed just centimeters from his heart by a hateful sicko — who made a chilling promise before lunging at him on a Brooklyn street. “I’m going to kill a Jew today,” the knife-wielding goon seethed before launching the antisemitic attack, said victim Elias Rosner, 35, in an interview with The Post on Wednesday. Rosner, a member of the Lubavitch Hasidic community in Crown Heights, had just left the temple on Tuesday afternoon when he came across the still-at-large attacker spewing antisemitic slurs.