Free Republic

The numbers are in: Israel is a happy place. Despite constantly facing vicious enemies and enduring a year and a half of sustained fighting and funerals, Israel ranks in the top 10 countries with the highest levels of happiness, according to the newly released 2025 World Happiness Report. At No. 8, Israel contrasts sharply with other war-torn countries that are quite reasonably miserable: Ukraine sits at 111, and Lebanon, which opened a second front against Israel in October 2023, is third from the bottom, at 145. Even advanced Western nations such as Great Britain and the United States, in 23rd...

Trans women should not be allowed to use women’s lavatories, the UK’s equalities watchdog has declared. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has issued interim guidance after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that the legal definition of a woman was tied to biological sex. It comes as the Government considers plans submitted by the watchdog last week for a wider overhaul of equality laws aimed at protecting women-only spaces. In an update published on Friday night, the EHRC told employers, pubs, shops and hospitals that they must all act in line with the Supreme Court judgment. “If...

To most Americans, the big problem with the Democratic Party is that it has moved too far left in recent years. If you’re among those who believe that, brace yourself. The worst is yet to come. A serious push is underway to move the party even further away from the political center, embrace economic plans close to pure socialism and launch radical woke culture battles. It sounds like a bad joke, but it’s really happening. And it’s a movement that goes beyond the socialist fever dreams of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria ­Ocasio-Cortez. Although some of the push is...

“You’re committing a Holocaust!” Last night at Princeton, Jewish students were called “inbred swine,” told to “go back to Europe,” and taunted with gestures of the Hamas triangle by masked protesters. Sadly, slurs like these have become commonplace at anti-Israel protests at my college in the months since Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, 2023, but university president Christopher Eisgruber insists he is “proud of the campus climate at Princeton.”What would it take for him to question that belief?The latest outrage was sparked by a visit from former Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett. More than 200 students had turned up...

As we survey the political landscape today, it is hard to escape the conclusion that a plague of mental catalepsy has swept the globe. One recalls the old multi-attributed adage: whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Clearly, being rendered stupid would be just as effective. In essence, we note there are two large demographic bodies that resemble one another in the extent of their cognitive impairment: brain-dead politicians and brain-dead electorates. They are not necessarily coterminous. In some nations, one predominates; in others, another. Sometimes the two dispensations are found in sync. In European nations such as...

The Texas judge who reduced the $1 million bond for 17-year-old Austin Metcalf’s accused killer was targeted in a doxxing hoax, KDFW reported. The Collin County Sheriff’s Office, in coordination with the FBI, is investigating the alleged doxxing of Collin County Judge Angela Tucker, who agreed to significantly reduce Frisco track meet stabbing suspect 17-year-old Karmelo Anthony’s bond. “Due to the nature of the situation, we are coordinating with the FBI and our Fusion Center to monitor for any concerning rhetoric or propaganda that could incite violence,” the sheriff’s office told KDFW. Doxxing, defined as a form of cyberbullying, involves...

A hilarious video filmed by a doorbell camera captured an alligator standing on its hind legs and “knocking” on the door of a Florida home, with the homeowner later estimating that the gator was between seven and eight feet tall and explaining that the visit was far from a normal occurrence in her neighborhood. For context, on April 25, 2025, Nathalie Gaines of Lake Mary, Florida, got a major surprise when she checked her doorbell camera feed after hearing strange noises outside her door. According to press coverage of the incident, Gaines was greeted by a large alligator, which had...

It’s time for another look at the inner machinations of Fake History. For example, some time back we examined the truth about Saladin. Although much extolled in the West for magnanimous and even “chivalrous” behavior, the Kurdish sultan was what we would call today a “radical” Muslim who beheaded Christians for not embracing Islam, and enslaved thousands of Christian women and children. Now let’s look at a similar but lesser-known example of this phenomenon of Westerners gushing over what are otherwise “radical” Muslims.

It’s not about political change, it’s about the mass murder of non-Muslims. When Muslim terrorists began their latest massacre in Kashmir, they first checked IDs and asked their victims to recite the ‘Kalmas’ one of several Islamic recitations used by Indian Muslims, beginning with, “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger.”Those who could not recite the Islamic doctrine were killed.“Are you Muslim? If yes, then recite the Kalma,” victims were told by the Jihadis.“He asked my husband’s name and religion. Then he shot him,” one female survivor testified.Describing the massacre of 26 innocent people, including an...

snip... The dashboard let out a debilitating shriek, as we drive away from the airport. The driver explained that the shriek is emitted by “the system” when he drives out of the “sector” of the airport. ...as we slowed to a stop before a red light, that “the system” fines him automatically if he does not stop - if he dares to drive through on a yellow light. He also explained that it records us “for safety.” He seemed to catch himself as I was asking if all of this surveillance was intrusive. He had started to agree but then,...

If asked to picture an award-winning vineyard, your mind may well wander to a traditional wine-growing region such as Rioja in Spain, Napa Valley in California, Tuscany in Italy or Burgundy in France. It seems unlikely that you would begin with the sweeping plains and granite hills of Texas, but that may be about to change. The past few decades have seen an explosion in the Lone Star State’s wine production, with the number of Texan wineries soaring from around 20 in the 1980s to roughly 450 today, according to industry body Texas Wine Growers. This has been coupled with...

If it seems like allergy season is getting worse and longer every year, you aren't mistaken. Eighty-one million Americans suffer from allergies, and 87% of people living in cities say the allergy season is getting longer. "As climate change progresses — the temperature keep increasing and the CO2 in the air — the prediction is, allergy season will keep getting worse”, said Mary Margaret Johnson, principal research scientist at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. For those who have allergies, Johnson recommends wearing a mask outdoors to reduce the amount of pollen that you take into your body...

How about a heartwarming story to take our minds off district judges and injunctions? How about talking about something other than district judges and injunctions? Yes, I’m angry about that, too. But today let’s remember one spring day in Wrigley Field, or when they used to play day games. We remember Rick Monday, a pretty good outfielder who played for the A’s, Cubs, and Dodgers. His best years were with the Cubs (1972–76), when he hit 106 home runs and was a very tough out. Later he moved to the L.A. Dodgers and hit a 9th-inning H.R. to beat Montreal...

Things have gone so well all spring for Journalism that the sometimes nerve-wracking event that is the Kentucky Derby post-position draw didn’t weigh heavily on his trainer, Michael McCarthy. But Journalism did fare extremely well, drawing post 8 in a field of 21 entered Saturday for the $5 million Kentucky Derby to be run May 3 at Churchill Downs. A stalking-type runner, Journalism did draw outside most of the expected speed in the race with the exception of East Avenue, who drew post 12. “I have so much confidence in this horse I probably would have been happy with wherever...

In a groundbreaking joint effort, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Miami and Florida law enforcement agencies arrested nearly 800 illegal immigrants during the first four days of Operation Tidal Wave, a massive, multi-agency immigration enforcement crackdown. Fox News obtained information on some of the ICE arrests from the ongoing operation, which include a convicted Colombian murderer, alleged MS-13 and 18th Street gang members and a Russian with an Interpol Red Notice for manslaughter. Savva Klishchevskii, a Russian illegal immigrant, has an Interpol Red Notice out of Russia for vehicular manslaughter. Aron Isaak Morazan-Izaguirre, a Honduran illegal immigrant, is a...

Cooking how-to videos, recipe blogs and mass-produced cookbooks may be relatively recent inventions, but our ancestors liked to cook, too. Archaeologists have found remnants of food resembling our own all over the world, from traces of burnt porridge on Stone Age pots to "beer loaves" of bread in ancient Egypt. Yet, for much of history, cooking was an art passed down orally and not often documented in writing.So what's the oldest known recipe?The answer hails back to one of the oldest civilizations, although their recipes look a little different from the ones we see today...In fact, what we now know...

An illegal immigrant was arrested Saturday for stealing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s pricey Gucci bag containing $3,000 in cash and other personal items – and a second migrant suspect is still on the loose, according to sources. Noem, 53, was on an Easter outing with her family at The Capital Burger in Washington, DC, when the masked thief stole the luxury shoulder bag, which also contained her driver’s license, passport, DHS badge and apartment keys on April 20. The suspect, whose identity was not immediately available, was busted by the DC Metro Police and the Secret Service, sources said....

In the real world, governments aren’t cute and cuddly. They’re monsters. There is a sentence that has long bothered me. It is treated as a piece of universal wisdom that humans gain with experience, and surely every member of a modern, industrial society has heard it in some form. Whether spoken by a close friend or complete stranger, its utterance usually comes with a sly grin that invites the listener to reconsider a fundamental belief. Here it is: That’s not how the real world works. That dirty, little sentence slithers into conversations meant to turn a person’s perception of reality...

MILWAUKEE, WI — While being questioned by authorities following her arrest, FBI agents discovered 17 more illegal aliens hiding in the back of County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan's robes. "Oh, that's — that's weird," Agent Damon Chandler was heard saying as he made the chilling discovery. "That ain't right, your honor. These robes are for justice... not breaking the law." Judge Dugan, who was charged with two felonies for aiding and abetting an undocumented migrant, has now been charged with a further 17 felonies for hiding Mexicans in her judge robes. In a 17-page complaint filed by District Attorney Al...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(4/27/25)[Prayer]Names and Titles of God the Holy Spirit (Omnipresent Spirit) Revelation 5:6-76 And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. 7 And he came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.King James Version________________________God Bless America.ML/LTOS