Free Republic

America isn't a democracy but a constitutional republic designed to limit majority rule and protect individual rights. This distortion enables narratives that label dissent as dangerous, especially in portraying Trump as a "threat to democracy" -- a claim pushed by institutions caught spreading falsehoods about him. What appears as consensus is actually assigned opinion enforced by media and political power, as "conspiracy theories used to silence dissent are proving to be true. What follows is not just a list of lies -- it’s a pattern of systemic deception that reveals where the real threat lies. The Concealment of President Biden’s...

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A new round of talks between Russia and Ukraine could be take place in the Vatican mid-June, the Wall Street Journal has reported, citing informed sources. The newspaper said a US delegation led by Secretary of State and Acting National Security Advisor Marco Rubio and including Special Presidential Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg would also be present. Pope Leo XIV has said the Vatican is willing to host peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv to try to end the war in Ukraine (ANSA).

Shari Redstone-controlled Paramount is poised to settle a closely watched legal battle with President Trump over alleged deceptive editing of a controversial “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris – but warring factions within the company have delayed the move, On The Money has learned. The media giant is said to be willing to spend up to $50 million to end the $20 billion lawsuit brought by Trump, thus lifting a legal black cloud that is that is hampering Redstone’s plans to sell Paramount, and its CBS News subsidiary at the center of the lawsuit, to independent studio Skydance in a...

You can find many unusual things in gardens, but stumbling upon a treasure worth millions of Dollars isn’t exactly common. Michel Dupont, a 52-year-old farmer from Auvergne, accidentally discovered a gold deposit on his land valued at 4 billion Dollars. This discovery stands as one of the most significant finds in French history. However, Dupont’s joy was short-lived, as the government soon informed him that everything found beneath his garden legally belongs to the state. The discovery occurred while Dupont was walking along a stream on his farm and noticed a strange shimmer in the water. He dug into the...

The Democratic Party is finally saying the quiet part out loud: "Biden should not have run again." Revelations about President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up have returned to the national conversation ahead of next week's release of CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson's book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a 2024 presidential campaign surrogate for President Joe Biden, and considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, acknowledged on Wednesday that Biden should not have run for a second term. And...

..... Initial reports indicated that one of the victims was a staffer of the Israeli embassy in Washington. Later reports clarified that both were employed by the embassy. Eyewitnesses said the shooter shouted "Free Palestine" before carrying out the attack. The suspect has been named as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago.

Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman on Wednesday bizarrely chose to stoke the flames by acknowledging arrested ex-grad student Mahmoud Khalil at the Ivy League school’s chaotic graduation. Hordes of graduating students in the riled-up audience began chanting Khalil’s name and nearly booed Shipman off the stage throughout her remarks at the embattled university’s commencement. “We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else, and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising their right,” Shipman told the crowd of nearly 37,000. “I know many in our community are...

Washington — President Trump met Wednesday with key conservative holdouts to the massive budget package containing his second-term agenda, before GOP leaders made concessions to fiscal hawks and blue-state Republicans — as leadership aims to hold a vote on the bill possibly within hours. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, returned from the meeting between Mr. Trump and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, calling it "productive." Johnson said the plan is still to move forward as expected, with the details of the final version of the legislation unveiled later Wednesday. "There's not much changing here, because the...

Canadian Prime Minister Markey Carney has said that "high level" talks are taking place with the US about joining its proposed "Golden Dome" missile defence system, aimed at countering futuristic threats. US President Donald Trump unveiled the plan for the new missile defence system on Tuesday, announcing an initial total cost of $25bn (£18.7bn). He said Canada was interested in joining the project. There are doubts from experts on how the US would deliver a comprehensive system and it is unclear how Canada would participate or how much it would pay. "It's something that we are looking at and something...

A crazed gunman shouted 'Free Palestine' after he shot and killed two Israeli embassy staff members outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington D.C. The suspect, identified as Elias Rodriguez, was pacing back and forth before allegedly opening fire on a group of four people who were standing outside the museum. Rodriguez then entered the building, where he was taken into custody. Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon described it as a 'depraved act of anti-Semitic terrorism.' He said: 'The shooting outside the event at the Jewish Museum in Washington – in which Israeli embassy employees were also...

KEY FACTS: The Texas House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 21 (SB 21) with a 101-42 vote, approving the creation of a state-level strategic Bitcoin reserve. The bill, authored by Senator Charles Schwertner and sponsored by Representative Giovanni Capriglione, allows the Texas comptroller to invest in cryptocurrencies with a market cap exceeding $500 billion, currently limited to Bitcoin. Following New Hampshire and Arizona, Texas would be the third U.S. state to establish such a reserve if Governor Greg Abbott, a known crypto advocate, signs the bill within 20 days.

Phys.org reports that farmers were transporting live fish to stock mountain lakes in the Pyrenees much earlier than previously thought. High mountain lakes are often historically fishless due to natural barriers created by glaciers, as was the case with Lake Redon in northeastern Spain. The 240-foot-deep lake is isolated from fluvial waterways by a 330-foot waterfall, which makes it impossible for fish to naturally enter and colonize it. However, there are an estimated 60,000 brown trout living in it today. Historic documents record that the process of fish stocking was begun by at least the fourteenth or fifteenth century. Recent...

Cyril Ramaphosa must have prepped for an awkward meeting. After all, just a week earlier the Trump administration chartered a Boeing 767 to fly 59 Afrikaner farmers out of his country so they could claim refugee status amid allegations that the white population faced a genocide. But he may not have reckoned with Donald Trump’s sense of theatre. “Turn the lights down and just put this on,” he directed his aides in the Oval Office. “It’s right behind you.” Ministers, reporters, two of the greatest golfers of all time, and the world’s richest man craned their necks to watch as...

A man and woman were shot and killed in front of the Capital Jewish Museum in Northwest D.C. Wednesday evening. The shooting took place in the area of 3rd and F streets in Northwest — in front of the Capital Jewish Museum and behind the FBI field office and the U.S. attorney's office. … The FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force is responding, sources familiar with the shooting told News4. … Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon posted on the social media platform X that Israeli embassy employees were injured in the fatal shooting. He called it “a depraved...

Donald Trump has proved to be the political Rottweiler of right-wing Afrikaner groups, taking their fight to South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa.They were quick to celebrate the US president's ambush of Ramaphosa in the Oval Office, with the Solidarity Movement - which had toured the US to lobby the Trump administration - saying it welcomed the fact that South Africa's "enormous problems have been placed on the international stage".Ernst Roets, a leading personality on the Afrikaner right, showed his admiration for the US president. "Donald Trump made history today," he said in a post on X, before thanking him for...

Bleary-eyed House Republicans advanced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act past the Rules Committee after a marathon hearing Wednesday, overcoming the final hurdle needed to bring it up for a floor vote. In an 8-4 vote shortly before 11 p.m., the colossal legislation cleared the GOP-led committee along party lines. The panel convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the measure due to requirements that Democrats get two days to file minority views. A “Manager’s Amendment” making last-minute tweaks to the mammoth bill — including a provision cementing a deal to increase the State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions cap...

Disney World has placed dozens of Venezuelan employees on unpaid leave after a court ruling allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from 350,000 migrants. An estimated 45 employees at the Florida park were notified on Tuesday that they had been placed on unpaid leave as a direct result of a Supreme Court order allowing Trump to revoke Temporary Protected Status for a huge cohort of Venezuelans. These employees were warned that their jobs would be terminated next month if they could not secure a new work authorization, Bloomberg reported. 'As we sort out the complexities of this situation,...

The collection of Roman sculpture assembled by the aristocratic Torlonia family rivals that of Europe's greatest museums. This year, for the first time, a traveling exhibition has brought highlights of the collection to America. I visited the Art Institute of Chicago (111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603-6110) to see them. The Biggest Private Collection of Roman Art | 12:12 Toldinstone Footnotes | 41.2K subscribers | 4,970 views | May 20, 2025

The US Air Force launched a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to anywhere on Earth Wednesday morning — as part of a regular test of the country’s doomsday missiles. The Minuteman III missile was unarmed when it launched from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the military said. The missile traveled 15,000 miles per hour to a test site in the Marshall Islands 4,200 miles away, officials said. The Minuteman is a 1970-era program that the Air Force plans to replace with the Sentinel system — but that program has been plagued by...