Free Republic

America’s ruling class has performed another miracle. They took the most basic truths in human civilization ... crime needs punishment, borders need enforcement, schools should teach, welfare should be temporary, families matter, merit matters, and taxpayers should not be looted by professional parasites ... and somehow rebranded all of that as “extremism.” Incredible work, really. Apparently, a “compassionate” society is one where the violent repeat offender gets another chance, the victim gets a candlelight vigil, the taxpayer gets the bill, the schoolkid gets passed along illiterate, the fraudster gets a grant, the NGO gets another contract, the illegal alien gets...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) vowed that “Anthony Fauci will answer to the American people” in an X post as he ramps up his investigation into the former top health official’s role in the federal response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Paul, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said his investigation into COVID-19 origins has been blocked in the past but is now moving forward with broader access to records. Paul suggested that newly reviewed evidence and a subpoena for testimony will force answers to long-running questions about the pandemic and government-funded research.

Among the latest departures is Gen. Christopher Donahue, commander of U.S. Army forces in Europe and Africa, who is stepping down after about 18 months. Donahue previously oversaw the final phase of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan under the Biden administration.

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It's summer, which means the weather is hot again. In Europe, which is in the grip of a heatwave, the BBC says some 1,300 people have died from the rising temps. Despite that, Europeans remain reluctant to consider air conditioning. Sure, there are some areas where people are fighting over air conditioning units, but the climate change hysteria has been so ingrained in the culture that many people would rather drop dead than plug in an air conditioning unit that uses an infinitesimal amount of energy. In Germany, a public broadcaster is waging an 'anti-AC campaign' telling people air conditioning...

A shooting at a youth welfare facility in northern Germany on Monday left six people dead, police said. The suspected shooter was arrested. Five people – four women and one man – died at the scene of the shooting in Stade, police said. A sixth, also an adult, died later at a hospital. Police said several people were wounded, some of them seriously, German news agency dpa reported, but they did not give a specific figure or information on the victims’ identity. Police said the shooting took place in the facility on Dankersstrasse, a street south of the town center....

The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can continue counting mail-in ballots sent by, and received within, five days of Election Day - delivering a staggering blow to President Donald Trump on one of his biggest fixations. The high court ruled 5-4 to allow state voting laws that permit the counting of the mail-in ballots to remain in place. Republicans argued it conflicted with federal legislation. 'The federal election-day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be...

A man who had strangled his girlfriend to death later died while trying to dump her body in the woods. Daniel Robbins, 44, of Georgia, killed his girlfriend Jessica Folds, 47, of Alabama sometime in early June. "He died of a heart attack while doing it," 5th Judicial Circuit District Attorney Mike Segrest said, according to Al.com. "Their bodies were right there together." Robbins and Folds had been in a relationship prior to her death. The couple was found together on June 10 at about 12:20 p.m. after Chambers County sheriff's deputies were called to a wooded area along County...

WASHINGTON — Rejecting a Republican National Committee challenge, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that elections officials may count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day if they were postmarked beforehand. The court, divided 5-4, held that the Mississippi law challenged by the RNC does not unlawfully conflict with the federal law that sets Election Day in early November. The ruling, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, is a setback for President Donald Trump, who has frequently criticized mail-in voting, claiming without offering evidence that it is rife with fraud. Two of the court’s conservatives were joined by the three liberals...

China is so CASHLESS that even beggars use WeChat QR code when they beg for money.

Supreme Court refuses to review E. Jean Carroll’s $5M sex abuse, defamation verdict vs. Trump WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up President Trump’s appeal of the $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict that followed a lawsuit by former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. Now Trump will have no choice but to pony up the $5 million to the 82-year-old, who has repeatedly claimed that the president sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room during the mid-1990s.

SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. — A 31-year-old woman died after she was attacked by an alligator while swimming in a Seminole County river. The woman, whose name has not been released, was swimming with friends in the Little Econ River on June 28 when the gator attacked, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said. The woman was taken to an area hospital, where she died, WFTV reported. This was the third gator attack in Central Florida within the past week. A gator bit a child in Marion County on June 27, while an alligator bit a snorkeler in the Rainbow...

Labour has secretly dropped a ban on small-boat migrants and other illegal immigrants winning British citizenship. The extraordinary U-turn came in the wake of a legal challenge which claimed the policy was a breach of human rights laws and international refugee treaties. It means illegal migrants who win asylum here will now be able to secure British passports, three years after they were barred from doing so by the Conservatives. Under documents drawn up by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood they now simply have to claim it was 'outside their control' that they arrived in the UK without permission. Remarkably, the...

One afternoon in late 2024, a sixth-grader nicknamed Bug came home from school with an announcement to make. Bug, who was assigned female at birth, told his parents he was a boy — and would be using he/him pronouns. “OK, cool,” his mother, J, remembered saying. (J asked to be identified by only her first initial, and Bug by his nickname, because the family fears harassment.) “‘What do you need to be supported?’” she recalled asking next. “He asked to get healthcare.” This was the kind of moment J had been anticipating since the family had moved earlier that year...

Footage circulating on social media shows what appears to be hundreds of Palestinians taking part in protests against against Hamas in multiple locations throughout the Gaza Strip. Today’s demonstrations were planned several weeks in advance, with anti-Hamas activists pledging a major turnout on today’s date of July 26. But as the date approached, Hamas operatives began issuing threats against Gazans considering taking part in the protests, which may well have impacted turnout. The protesters are carrying signs reading, “God willing, Hamas out,” “We are not pawns,” and “We want to live.” In one video, chants of “Enough with the destruction”...

🚨 BREAKING: In a BIG ruling, US Supreme Court 6-3 ALLOWS President Trump to FIRE Democrat FTC commissioner Rebecca Slaughter and ABOLISHES the rule that initially blocked him from doing so A nearly CENTURY-OLD precedent has just been overturned Great! He is the CHIEF EXECUTIVE! 🇺🇸 Should’ve applied this logic to the Federal Reserve. NO ROGUE BRANCHES OF GOVERNMENT!

During her terms in office, Democratic Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer offered billions in taxpayer-funded subsidies to select companies. Overall, she authorized $6.9 billion in subsidies during her tenure. Of that, $2.7 billion was offered to just eight major projects. Of the $1.8 billion of that figure that has been spent so far, there have only been 602 jobs created, breaking down to about $3 million spent per job, according to a new report from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. According to the report, the Whitmer administration said that the major subsidy projects would "create 20,595 jobs in Michigan. So...

With the rapid takeover of their party by the Democratic Socialists of America underway, it’s time for every Democrat to answer for what the DSA believes in. As the City Journal’s Stu Smith reported, the DSA has adopted a new platform that is, incredibly enough, even more radical than its previous one. Although it still hasn’t been published on its website, an advance version, which Smith obtained, is straight-up Marxism, declaring “the entire global system of capital” as its enemy and promising to “build a new society from the ground up.” We doubt that many Democrats – much less the...

Democratic Socialists of America members, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s political organization, have been cultivating connections with Chinese Communist Party officials and agreeing to take pro-China positions, according to extensive minutes of internal meetings seen by Newsweek. The minutes of the DSA meetings show participants discussing contacts with officials from China’s ruling party in the name of “anti-imperialism,” with some members saying the organization should avoid topics that are sensitive for Beijing, such as China’s threats to invade Taiwan, its security crackdown in Hong Kong and abuses of the Uyghur Muslim minority. They also discuss visits to China. Chinese...

Expert stock picker Nancy Pelosi revealed her post-Congress retirement plan Monday. The 86-year-old Pelosi has spent 40 years in Congress, building an incredible stock portfolio while leading the Democratic Party, and will finally retire in January. Her next project will be a fake “bipartisan” academic center at the University of California, Berkeley, aptly named the Nancy Pelosi Institute, where students and future civic “leaders” will be brainwashed beginning in January 2027. “I think all of us in public service who have an opportunity to do so want to use our experience to train leaders for the future,” Pelosi told CNN....