Free Republic

The head of the U.S. Border Patrol on Wednesday told lawmakers the agency does not have operational control of the U.S. southern border -- as he also said that migration levels were at "crisis" levels in parts of the border. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz was speaking at a House Homeland Security Committee hearing in McAllen, Texas and was asked about Chairman Mark Green about Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’ prior claims last year that the Department of Homeland Security has operational control of the border. "Does DHS have operational control of our entire border." "No sir," Ortiz responded.

Joseph Maldonado-Passage, or “Joe Exotic the Tiger King,” as some may refer to him from his Netflix show, has decided to join the 2024 United States presidential race. Maldonado-Passage, 60, is currently serving a 21-year federal sentence after being convicted on numerous charges, but he claims that his incarceration time will not stop him from becoming the nation’s future 47th president. He is running as a Libertarian. Mr. Exotic urged fans to look past the fact that he is “incarcerated and gay” and to help him “take back the country.” …

[EXCERPT] The Department of Defense received 155 formal reports of sexual assault at three military academies during the 2021-22 school year — and officials suspect that hundreds more went unreported.The figure comes from a mandated anonymous survey conducted at service academies to address the likelihood that many young men and women are reluctant to come forward about sexual assault and harassment — an issue that has plagued the military for years…The survey found that 21.4 percent of female students and 4.4 percent of male students indicated that they experienced unwanted sexual contact, from groping to rape, in the past school...

You may have noticed by now that folks on the left defending the effort to trans children in K-12 schools are still arguing that it is not happening. They claim conservatives and libertarians worried about such a thing are simply being bigoted reactionaries, using children to demonize members of the LGBTQ community.Despite numerous reports detailing how educators and members of school staff have promoted transgender ideology among children and have even helped many of these students “transition” to the opposite sex, progressives claim this is nothing more than a myth. But now, parental rights advocacy group Parents Defending Education (PDE)...

You have probably heard that the city of San Francisco is going to pay out billions of dollars to black American residents as a form of reparations. Indeed, the city’s board of supervisors voted unanimously to shell out $5 million for each black resident living in the city regardless of whether their ancestors faced slavery and/or Jim Crow.This development mirrors what the state of California is attempting to accomplish by ascertaining what type of reparations package the Golden State can concoct to address the evils of discriminatory laws passed during the Jim Crow period since there was never slavery in...

Video description: A man trying to steal a massive truck got more than he bargained for when the owner of that truck caught up to the thief.

The U.S. military is rushing equipment to the battlefield and training Ukrainian forces at a rapid pace, ahead of a major offensive against Russia expected by late spring.Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin projected a sense of urgency on Wednesday after a virtual meeting of the multinational Ukraine Defense Contact Group, saying that “Ukraine doesn’t have any time to waste.”“We have to deliver swiftly and fully on our promised commitments,” Austin said. “That includes delivering our armored capabilities to the battlefield and ensuring that Ukrainian soldiers get the training, spare parts and maintenance support that they need to use these new systems,...

Dr Bradford David Ferrick, 32, appeared at a Boston federal court on Tuesday and was ordered held without bail over the disturbing allegations. Raids at his apartment in Amherst and at his parents' $1.1 million Winchester mansion are said to have turned up thousands of child porn images held on 60 electronic devices. Ferrick is also accused of secretly recording medical examinations on children as young as six using a piece of jewelry that concealed a camera lens. During one recording obtained by police, he was heard discussing a young male patient's genitals with the boy's mom, although they cannot...

Something is Rotten in Buenos Aires After ten years of avoiding Argentina, the baffling and mysterious excuses are no longer convincing. Why won’t Bergoglio visit his homeland?Jorge Bergoglio has traveled all over the world to 59 countries during his decade long pontificate. One would think that he would have returned to his home country by now. Popes are expected and encouraged to return home to their countrymen who are proud that one of their own sits on the Chair of Peter. It’s a memorable and jubilant celebration for the Catholic faith and the home country, as the pontifical native son...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, 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. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14

A mega-prison in El Salvador brought in a second wave of suspected gang members who will now serve out their sentences in the notorious facility that has been criticised over its 'severe conditions.' The second group of 2,000 inmates were moved today amid tight security to the new Izalco prison, the largest mega-prison in the Americas, which was built to accommodate more than 40,000 gangsters. Footage shows the heavily tattooed and barefoot men, dressed only in white shorts, being hurriedly moved around with their heads bowed and hands cuffed behind their backs. The latest look inside the facility revealed that...

Infants and children 6 months through age 4 who received the three-dose primary series of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are now eligible for a fourth dose — Pfizer’s bivalent booster shot. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday amended the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine for the younger age group, but only for those children who received the three-dose series before the FDA authorized Pfizer’s bivalent Omicron booster as the third shot in the primary series. Under the amended authorization, children can receive their fourth shot two months after completing the three-dose primary...

Controversial exiled Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui — an associate of former Trump White House advisor Steve Bannon — was arrested Wednesday in New York for allegedly orchestrating a complex $1 billion fraud scheme that duped online followers with promises of outsized investment returns. Guo allegedly used some of the money raised through his company GTV Media and other entities to buy a 50,000-square foot New Jersey mansion, a $37 million yacht, a $3.5 million Ferrari for his son, a $140,000 Bosendorfer piano and two Hasten 2000T mattresses that cost a whopping $36,000 apiece. Prosecutors seized more than $650 million in...

Several national grassroots organizations on Monday joined Americans for Citizen Voting to voice our opposition to a new law (Local Resident Voting Rights Act) that allows non-citizens to vote in D.C.’s elections. The change in law, unfortunately, went into effect the next day. The purpose of our press conference was to put pressure on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to bring up for a vote SJR 5 and SJR 6 which bans non-citizen voting in The District.I was joined by Election Transparency Initiative‘s National Chairman Ken Cuccinelli, J. Hogan Gidley, Vice Chair, Center for Election Integrity at America First Policy...

Something was truly lost when James O’Keefe and Project Veritas had an unhappy parting of the ways, as we reported in February. Project Veritas’ social media following went into free fall after his ousting, and virtually everything they posted on Twitter was met with people saying, “Bring back James O’Keefe.” Many were concerned that this would cause his crusading mission to call out corruption and the left would suffer because of his leaving the organization.But perhaps not for long.Now O’Keefe is announcing a new venture for all those who were concerned. It sounds like he will be up and at...

Three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said the highest levels of the Kremlin approved the aggressive actions of Russian military fighter jets against a U.S. military drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday. The Russian jets dropped jet fuel on the MQ-9 Reaper, an unprecedented action, and two of the officials said the intelligence suggests the intent seemed to be to throw the drone off course or disable its surveillance capabilities. It was “Russian leadership’s intention to be aggressive in the intercept,” said one of the officials. One official said he had not gotten indications that the signoff went...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security panel, abruptly walked out of a committee markup Wednesday morning after clashing with the panel’s chairman, Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), over amendments. Paul vented his frustration over Peters’s use of procedural tactics to effectively shield Democrats on the committee from voting on Republican amendments to the Fire Grants and Safety Act. Peters offered second-degree amendments to the Republican-sponsored amendments that completely gutted their content. At one point, Paul suggested that all the Republican members walk out of the committee meeting. “If this is the way you’re going to...

A growing chorus of conservative pundits and politicians have said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of the bank’s “woke” policies, blaming the California lender’s commitments to workplace diversity and environmentally and socially conscious investments. These claims are without merit. The bank’s collapse was due to financial missteps and a bank run. Moreover, the firm’s policy on diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as D.E.I. — is similar to ones that have been broadly adopted in the banking sector. So is its approach to taking environmental and social considerations into account when investing — referred to...

Click the link to see Mark Twain reading this essay and hear the narration (turn on your sound)If you collect a hundred black ants And a hundred fire ants And put them in a jar Nothing will happen But, if you take the jar, shake it violently and leave it on a table, the ants will start killing each other Red believes the black is the enemy while black believes the red is the enemy When the real enemy is the person who shook the jar The same is true in society Men versus women Black versus white Faith versus...

The Epoch Times, along with the Spectator Australia, were two of very few media outlets around the world that came out against the lockdowns from virtually day one and never wavered. We knew and argued that these policies were wrong on the data; wrong in principle for any society with a passing commitment to freedom and civil liberties; wrong in terms of sensible decision-making by throwing out carefully laid-down pandemic plans that focused on protecting the vulnerable in favour of a sledgehammer approach to attack just one perceived threat, without undertaking any cost-benefit analysis of doing so. Pretty much every...