Free Republic

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin ​will not attack a NATO country, and he played down media ‌reports that CIA Director John Ratcliffe warned Russian officials against such an attack earlier in the week. "He's not going to attack a NATO territory," Trump said of the Russian leader while speaking to reporters ​in the Oval Office. Earlier in the day, Trump told Axios in a ​phone interview that there would be no such attack, and that Ratcliffe, who ⁠flew to Russia on Tuesday to meet briefly with intelligence counterparts, had not ​been dispatched to...

SEATTLE — A 44-year-old citizen of Mexico who federal prosecutors say is illegally in the United States is now in federal custody in Seattle after being charged with returning to the U.S. following removal, a case that authorities say follows years of arrests tied to DUI-related offenses and more recent allegations including rape. Isidro Ocampo-Cayetano appeared in U.S. District Court in Seattle on Wednesday for the federal charge, according to an announcement from First Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Neil Floyd. Prosecutors say Ocampo-Cayetano was arrested and removed from the United States five times between 2007 and 2013, with most of...

Next stop for Karoline Leavitt after leaving the White House? Pulling up a chair next to the ladies who co-host ABC’s The View. On Thursday, the Daily Mail reported Leavitt was “in secret talks to join” The View, but CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter swiftly shot down the “implication” of the Mail’s headline as “false.” Leavitt was not going to officially join the show as a co-host, wrote Stelter, but simply had been invited to make a one-time appearance as a guest. Stelter called having Leavitt on The View a “no-braining booking move,” as the show “frequently tries to...

FRANKLIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) — In a unanimous vote, the Franklin County Commissioners voted against renewing the county's contract with Flock Safety amid ongoing concerns over its use of automated license plate reader cameras (LPR). Commissioner Dean Horst said he, personally, has an issue with Flock in the database area in particular, despite moves to reduce the amount of time the data is kept from 30 days to seven days. "I think we're at the point now to where the lack of public trust in the system really concerns me, for us to stay in this conversation much longer," Horst...

President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to rename Lake Ontario “Lake America.” The move comes amid the president’s repeated threats and taunts that he would do so amid his escalating trade war with Canada. “This is official, effective immediately,” Trump said after signing the order in the Oval Office. The president said he’d “filed all the necessary papers, documents, everything else” for the name change. “We notified all of the various people that we have to notify. So we’ve done everything that you have to do, and this is official, effective immediately,” he said. The order says...

Anybody who still believes in the liberal arts believes that higher education exists for a higher purpose than putting graduates in jobs. At the same time, even the truest believer has to grapple with the real harm done to graduates who can’t get the jobs they need to pay for that education. In the face of perpetually rising costs and ballooning student debt, it’s hard to keep the faith. One response is to decouple higher education from the liberal arts tradition and reduce it to professional preparation. Several state legislatures have recently passed bills pushing public universities to cut programs...

A Wyoming woman who shot and killed her 11-month-old boy during a brief standoff with law enforcement after allegedly kidnapping him and fleeing to New Mexico has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. Madeline Daly, 36, pleaded guilty this week in the Sixth Judicial District Court in Silver City, New Mexico, which eliminates the need for a trial that had been scheduled to begin Jan. 11, 2027, according to the local district attorney’s office.

WASHINGTON — A purported deal between Iran and Oman to control the Strait of Hormuz and share revenue from fees is “not even close to done” and would be meaningless so long as President Trump’s blockade of Iran remains in effect, a US official told The Post. A spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed Wednesday that the two nations had agreed to terms to control the shipping bottleneck — but The Post’s source said that ill-defined terms are still believed to lack full approval from Iran’s leadership. “The deals don’t mean anything unless we approve it. It...

Dolly Parton’s death this week has nothing to do with the name of the new tropical storm that formed in the Atlantic on Thursday, according to the National Hurricane Center. “The timing of the use of the name Dolly for this storm is purely coincidental,” said NHC senior hurricane specialist Eric Blake. The NHC felt the need to clarify that the name Dolly has been on the official Atlantic hurricane season name list for some time, as the alphabetical choices originate from the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO maintains a list of six years’ worth of names for 21 of...

After winning the Michigan Senate Democrat primary by falsely accusing his opponent of working for Israel, Abdul El-Sayed headed for a Pakistan Independence Day celebration. At the Pakistan Association of America, El-Sayed spoke out for ousted Pakistani dictator Imran ‘Taliban’ Khan notorious for his persecution of Christians and for harboring Osama bin Laden. The PAA had formerly been headed by Asad Malik who appears to have met in person with Khan and who also served as a board member at the Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee (PAKPAC): not to be confused with the American-Pakistani Political Action Committee (APPAC) which was...

A nearly century-old Wine Country cheesemaker is closing its award-winning factory citing ongoing challenges since the Covid pandemic. Vella Cheese in Sonoma County announced Monday that after 94 years it has made the “incredibly difficult decision” to cease production of its famous products. “Our business has never fully recovered from the challenges of COVID, and the financial demands of operating a small, artisanal company in today’s fast-paced food industry have become more than we can sustain,” the message read. The firm was founded in 1931 by Gaetano “Tom” Vella, who worked at the Sonoma Mission Creamery before a group of...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Sarah condemns Latin Mass restrictions: ‘Destructive to the Church’ Cardinal Sarah said that the Church ‘cannot wage war’ on Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass, calling it ‘a short-sighted and entirely ideological attitude, therefore not pastoral and not Christian.’ Cardinal Robert Sarah said that restricting the Traditional Latin Mass was “neither wise nor respectful” and that war against traditional Catholics is “destructive to the Church.”In a recent interview with Italian newspaper Il Giornale, Cardinal Sarah addressed Pope Francis’ restrictions on the Latin Mass through his motu proprio Traditiones Custodes and the “war” on traditional Catholics.He was asked...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and the IRS could revoke the tax-free status of left-wing nonprofits such as George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, three sources familiar with the matter have told The Post.It is part of a Trump-backed crackdown on “bogus” charities, *** Bessent’s inner circle is drafting a blueprint that could ultimately strip non-compliant organizations of their 501(c)(3) status, according to two of the people familiar with the plans. The reviews could result in massive back payments and civil penalties, the same sources said. The initiative leans in part...

With the midterms coming, an astonishing number of Republican voters cannot name three things President Trump has accomplished. Which is remarkable when you consider that Donald Trump has accomplished more in a year and a half than any other president ever did in four. Indeed, he has accomplished so much, so fast, across so many fronts that most people cannot keep up. The Enemedia buries the victories, while Republicans do an abysmal job of explaining them.

Senior Fellow Susan Martinuk argues Canada’s MAiD program has exceeded its ethical limits. With expanding criteria, alarming error rates, and insufficient oversight, she urges a critical reassessment of current policies before further expansion in 2027.Thousands of errors and questionable MAiD cases expose serious cracks in Canada’s safeguards Ten years after Canada legalized medical assistance in dying (MAiD), the safeguards Canadians were promised are looking increasingly shaky. Troubling cases and serious questions about oversight should give Canadians reason to pause before the system is expanded again. Since 2016, there have been more than 100,000 MAiD deaths and Canada has gained an...

Southern Methodist University will not allow a CAIR-Texas-promoted Muslim youth leadership symposium branded “Unapologetically Muslim: Youth in Action” to take place on its campus after reviewing the planned event and citing what the university called the State of Texas’ “current designation of the symposium’s organizer.” SMU announced the decision in a statement to The Dallas Express after DX requested comment about the September 19 Muslim Youth Leadership Symposium, which CAIR-Texas had advertised for the SMU campus. SMU says event will not take place SMU described the symposium as unaffiliated with the university and said allowing it to proceed on campus...

Synodalism Marches On: Martyrs Need Not Apply To be "written in blood," meant (and still means) to make binding. God himself called the New Testament, written in His blood, an everlasting testament.Martyrs are now passé—for the Synodalist Church, that is. Martyrs spilled their blood for Truth come down from Heaven. For the Synodalist, there is no truth, only transactional process.Who would die for that?For the Synodalist, truth is an antediluvian embarrassment—and so are martyrs.To the chagrin of faithful Catholics, the Synodal Church marches forward. Any religion worth its salt cringes at the sandbox therapeutics of this comedy parading as Catholicism.Our...

🚨 JUST IN: USPS confirms their new requirements for mail-in voting is OFFICIALLY in effect and applies IMMEDIATELY to the November 2026 election, after an activist judge DISSOLVED her block on Trump's order LFG! 🔥 Under Trump's order, ballots can only be mailed to those on DHS and SSA lists of confirmed U.S. citizens age 18 or older who reside in that state. The lists draw from federal citizenship, naturalization, Social Security, and SAVE-program recordsAdditionally, USPS will NOT accept or deliver those ballots if a state does not submit a “mail-in and absentee participation list” (voter names, addresses, and unique...

Left-wing voting organizations are racing back to Obama-appointed U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in a renewed attempt to shut down President Donald Trump’s mail-ballot integrity rules before the November midterms. On Wednesday, the plaintiffs filed a 29-page memorandum asking Talwani to immediately issue a temporary restraining order and then a preliminary injunction blocking the U.S. Postal Service’s final Ballot Mail for Federal Elections rule. The new filing comes just hours after Talwani was forced to vacate her nationwide injunction following the Supreme Court’s August 24 ruling in Trump v. California. As The Gateway Pundit reported on Wednesday, Talwani conceded that,...

Hundreds of police officers from across England have been drafted in to restore order in Middlesbrough amid fears the town is on the brink of descending into a gang war. Violence, believed to be linked to five young men who were killed in a wrong-way crash on the A66 on Saturday, has spiralled across Teesside. This afternoon, armed police swarmed a house on the Bankfield estate in Eston after a 39-year-old man was injured in a stabbing. A house was also rammed by a vehicle this morning in South Bank. The suspected knife attack took place just down the road...