Free Republic

The encrypted-messaging service Signal is the application of choice for dissenters around the world. The app has been downloaded by more than 100 million users and boasts high-profile endorsements from NSA leaker Edward Snowden and serial entrepreneur Elon Musk. Signal has created the perception that its users, including political dissidents, can communicate with one another without fear of government interception or persecution. But the insider history of Signal raises questions about the app’s origins and its relationship with government—in particular, with the American intelligence apparatus. Such a relationship would be troubling, given how much we have learned, in recent years,...

Superior Judge James Joven of Marion County, Indiana, has issued a preliminary injunction against the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH), stopping the department from releasing its Termination of Pregnancy Reports (TPR). The ruling comes after abortionists Caitlin Bernard and Caroline Rouse filed a lawsuit in February to suspend the reports’ release. At that time, Joven issued an order temporarily blocking the state from releasing the TPR; Monday’s preliminary injunction extends that block. Historically, the TPRs have been used by Voices for Life, a pro-life organization in the state, to ensure that state laws are being followed surrounding abortion. Voices for...

More great news just dropped for those watching the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) tear through government waste. The department announced that dozens of wasteful federal contracts, representing $237 million in savings, have been terminated, doing so DOGE highlighted several wasteful grants, including $10M for “gender equity in the Mexican workplace.” For context, DOGE was established by an executive order to implement cost-efficiency measures across federal agencies, and has focused on reducing federal spending by terminating or renegotiating contracts and grants, particularly those involving waste, fraud, or abuse. This trend was exemplified by the announcement DOGE made on March 26,...

facebook sharing button Share twitter sharing button Tweet email sharing button Email New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has quietly inserted a $10 million funding request for yet another new abortion facility in Northern New Mexico into House Bill 450 — a $1.2 billion capital outlay package. The last-minute addition was made without public input, sparking strong opposition from Republican lawmakers and pro-life advocates who argue that taxpayer dollars should not be used to expand abortion access. Despite their objections, the bill passed the New Mexico House of Representatives by a 41-25 vote and now moves to the state Senate....

...The series, “Muawiya,” tells the story of Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, a major figure in early Islam. He was one of Islam’s early rulers and the founder of the Umayyad dynasty — the first hereditary rulers in Islam where power passed down within the same clan. He was also a reputed companion of the Prophet Muhammad. this chronicles events in seventh century that led to Islam’s first civil war between Sunnis&Shiites. The show was produced by a media conglomerate in Saudi Arabia, which, like most other Middle Eastern countries, is dominated by Sunnis. Some in Shiite Iran and Iraq, one...

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice (DOJ) terminated a top pardon attorney who claims it was over a gun rights dispute, but she oversaw President Joe Biden’s commutations of violent criminals and pushed for left-wing criminal justice initiatives. Elizabeth G. Oyer claims she was fired after she opposed restoring the gun rights of prominent Trump supporter and actor Mel Gibson, she originally told The New York Times. Oyer proceeded to blast the Trump administration in a Rolling Stone opinion piece, asserting she was fired for her decision and accused Trump’s DOJ of “bullying.” Gibson was convicted of a misdemeanor charge...

A Chicago alderman told Fox News Digital on Wednesday that city officials still want to divert funding away from the police department, even though the city was once again the nation’s homicide capital in 2024. “I said this for the last two mayors, too,” said 41st Ward Alderman Anthony Napolitano. “It’s not even so much so that these last two administrations are turning a blind eye. They’re ignoring the crime rate because their objective … is to demonize the police department, make it seem like there’s not there’s not as much of a crime issue as there is, because their...

In yet another major win for President Donald Trump’s Secretary of Defense, Army veteran Pete Hegseth, it is emerging that the story published in The Atlantic about a supposed group chat in which “war plans” were shared was a “hoax,” as there were no war plans shared in the chat, which is just what Hegseth said to discredit the story from the start. For reference, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, the magazine’s editor-in-chief, released an explosive report in which he claimed to have been added to a group chat in which Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and...

President Donald Trump talks about placing tariffs on Canadian goods. Ontario Premier Doug Ford talks about “inflicting as much pain as possible on the American people.” See the difference? Tell me again how the term “snowmexicans” is insulting. I digress. A few thoughts. First, apparently Doug Ford doesn’t quite understand that tariffs on steel, aluminum and auto imports are not part of the “reciprocity” tariff regime. They are an entirely different category classified under national security directives to ensure American industrial capacity. Second, as Canada moves into the “freedom fries” phase, voices like Doug Ford might want to consider the...

“He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads” (Revelation 13:16). These words written 2,000 years ago depict a future global system that controls who can buy or sell (Revelation 13:17). I’m coming at this from a Pre-Trib Rapture view and hold to the view that believers will be raptured before this Beast system fully manifests, yet we already see its technological groundwork emerging. In this article, we explore how astonishingly close modern technology is to enabling the kind of total surveillance and control...

U.S. Steel shares are jumping in premarket trading Friday on a report that Nippon Steel is offering to spend as much as $7 billion to upgrade the American company’s aging Rust Belt facilities in a bid to obtain the Trump administration's approval of their $14 billion merger. The Biden administration had blocked the sale of U.S. Steel to Japan’s Nippon Steel on national security grounds in January. Semafor reported that Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel are in talks with the Trump administration for the Japanese company to raise its $2.7 billion planned investment in the US firm's facilities. U.S. Steel...

The Trump administration plans to immediately freeze $27.5 million in the form of Title X family-planning grants to organizations, including Planned Parenthood, as it determines whether the taxpayer funds have been used for the promotion of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported the move Tuesday, citing information from an agency spokesman within the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). According to the WSJ, the organizations “that would be subject to the freeze include Planned Parenthood affiliates, the people familiar with the matter said.” “Altogether, the groups were set to get a total of...

I just read an “explainer” article by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) published in the Christian Index, and to no one’s surprise, it’s exactly what we’ve come to expect from the Southern Baptist Convention’s well-funded public relations department. It’s a cautiously worded, carefully scripted, spiritually neutered position paper disguised as righteous outrage. It’s a magnum opus, a virtuosic performance, in moral hedging. At a time when the nation’s house of ethics is burning down, ERLC president, Brent Leatherwood, and his merry band of religious bureaucrats are busy arguing over whether the paint color is pink or ambrosia. The...

CPH:DOX, the internationally-renowned nonfiction film festival in Copenhagen, is confronting a dramatically altered geopolitical order, one that threatens the values of freedom of expression upon which the documentary field is founded. The theme of this year's festival, decided several months ago, centers on "the state of human rights, civil liberties, and the international rule of law," festival artistic director Niklas Engstrøm tells Deadline. "We thought it would be very, very timely. I think it became even more timely than we had prepared ourselves for with what is happening right now with the U.S. [Trump] administration de facto trying to change...

Some people who witnessed the mesmerizing and mysterious glowing spiral over the United Kingdom Monday night thought it might be an alien encounter, but the large swirl has been identified as the result of a SpaceX rocket launch. VIDEO at link.............. The blue spiral, visible for several minutes across Britain, sparked widespread curiosity and theories ranging from aircraft activity to extraterrestrial phenomena. However, experts say the spectacle is the result of a Falcon 9 rocket launch from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, and the stunning image is likely fuel from the rocket. The Falcon 9 is a reusable...

President Donald Trump urged voters in Florida’s Sixth Congressional District to get out and vote for Republican Randy Fine in a critical special House election during a tele-rally with the candidate on Thursday. Trump urged those on the call to support Fine via early voting or in person on election day Tuesday, as Democrats try to flip the district in hopes of cutting into House Republicans’ already thin, 218-213-seat majority. “We’re just a few days away from an all-important special election taking place in your state on Tuesday, April 1, and I’m asking you to get out and vote for...

This afternoon, MI Speaker Pro Tempore Rachelle Smit and Chair of the MI House Election Integrity Committee sent a letter to the United States Attorney General Pam Bondi calling for an investigation into fraudulent voter registration efforts and electioneering by partisan voter registration groups who have accepted donations from 501(c)(3) organizations in violation of IRS regulations that prohibit them from engaging in partisan activities. Screenshot The letter was signed by Smit and 21 additional Michigan Representatives. Not a single Democrat lawmaker from Michigan signed the letter. Is it possible that the Democratic state representatives don’t care about protecting the sanctity...

Jesper Steinmetz, a correspondent for Danish channel TV 2, reported that U.S. representatives had gone around "knocking on one door after another" in recent days to ask if they would welcome a visit from Usha Vance. "Everywhere, the answer was the same: no thank you," Steinmetz said. He said that was the reason the plans were changed.

The Russian president reiterated that such precedents under the auspices of the UN existed in East Timor, New Guinea and parts of former YugoslaviaMURMANSK, March 28. /TASS/. The international practice presumes the possibility of introducing external governance, paving the way to legitimate talks on the settlement of the Ukraine conflict, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a meeting with the servicemen of the Arkhangelsk nuclear-powered submarine of the Yasen-M class (Project 885M). He reiterated that such precedents under the auspices of the UN existed in East Timor, New Guinea and parts of former Yugoslavia. "Such practice does exist and, technically,...

Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump did not discuss the idea of implementing foreign administration in Ukraine during their phone conversation, said Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, APA's Moscow correspondent reports According to him, the topic was not touched upon during the phone call. Peskov noted that Putin only mentioned the idea of foreign administration in Ukraine in a hypothetical manner, and therefore, it is too early to discuss details. "The president emphasized that this is one of the ideas and it should be kept in mind. As for the details, as you know, the president did not...