Free Republic

Most political philosophies work better as theories than in practice. Take communism, for example: If you’re struggling under a different political model, communism has some truly splendid talking points, and if you think otherwise, you’ve lost the plot. There’s a reason why it’s still so appealing to millions of revolutionaries. The problem, of course, is that communism is utterly dysfunctional in the real world. By many metrics, it’s the most destructive political system in history. But despite its (considerable) track record of death, destruction, and devastation, its popularity continues. No matter how many times it crashes and burns — no...

Washington, DC — As the Senate continues to propose changes to the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” – the legislation that could defund Planned Parenthood for the next ten years – The House has launched a deep-dive investigation into Planned Parenthood and its possible use of federal funds for “unpermitted purposes.” In a letter sent to Alexis McGill Johnson, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood, Rep. Marjorie Greene requested all of Planned Parenthood’s non-public financial statements and annual reports, as well as a large catalogue of other documents. Rep. Greene is the Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government...

The man who allegedly killed his neighbors at an Inland Empire nudist resort last August reportedly did so over a hot dog. Michael Sparks, 62, allegedly killed Daniel Menard, 79, and Stephanie Menard, 73, in August 2024, and human remains were found under Sparks’ home at the Olive Dell Ranch Nudist Resort, according to investigators. Sparks and the Menards did not get along, but as detailed in a court hearing Monday, the final straw was a hot dog, the Press-Enterprise reports. A fellow inmate at the West Valley Detention Center reported to authorities that Sparks admitted to the killings and...

Vice President JD Vance is speaking out on Iran’s nuclear capabilities after President Trump slammed down his intel chief Tuesday morning for saying Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. As The Gateway Pundit reported, President Trump publicly dismissed his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, on Iran’s nuclear capabilities. The bold rebuke came during an early morning Air Force One gaggle on Tuesday, as Trump returned to Washington. “I don’t care what she said,” Trump said while being interviewed by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “I think they were very close to having one.” As TGP’s Cassandra MacDonald reported, Gabbard...

June 17 (UPI) -- A New York zoo is asking for the public's help to locate a wallaby that escaped from the property. Grace and Glory Animals, an animal education zoo in Oswego, said the wallaby, named Mac, escaped just prior to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

FBI Director Kash Patel on Monday evening turned over to Congress an intelligence report raising concerns that China had mass-produced fake U.S. driver's licenses to carry out a scheme to hijack the 2020 election with fake mail-in ballots for Democrat Joe Biden. The newly declassified intelligence reports from August 2020 weren’t corroborated or fully investigated and instead were recalled from intelligence agencies at about the time that then-FBI Director Chris Wray testified there were no known plots of foreign interference ahead of the 2020 election in which Biden defeated Donald Trump, officials told Just the News.

@RandPaul Congress spends $2 trillion more than its revenues, the Fed then buys this debt. Congress then pays the Fed interest. The Fed then pays interest to big banks to keep cash reserves. This is how govt makes the rich richer. But it gets worse. According economist Judy Shelton: “44% of the more the Fed currently [pays to the big banks] goes to foreign banks.” So, as Congress drags our country into bankruptcy, the FED enriches rich foreign banks.

צבא ההגנה לישראל @idfonline ״נפלה, התפוצצה, המטרה הופלה״: במהלך הלילה - חיל האוויר יירט כ-30 כטב״מים ששוגרו לעבר מדינת ישראל Israel Defense Forces @idfonline "Fall, explode, target downed": Overnight - the Air Force intercepted about 30 drones launched towards the State of Israel 0:08 VIDEO AT LINK................

President Donald Trump grew increasingly aggressive in his rhetoric regarding Iran on Tuesday, claiming that U.S. officials know the location of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and leaving the door open to assassinating him in the future. In a slew of posts on Truth Social, Trump expressed maximalist terms for the Israel-Iran war to end while taunting Iran. "We know exactly where the so-called 'Supreme Leader' is hiding," he said, referring to Khamenei. "He is an easy target, but is safe there — We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now. But we...

The truck carrying two men suspected of living in the country illegally was pinned between a white rusty fence and two border patrol vehicles near a busy intersection in Hawthorne. Standing by the passenger door, two federal agents were handcuffing a pregnant woman, a U.S. citizen, angering the crowd that had gathered there and prompting masked agents to stand guard with less-lethal weapons and batons. “Let her go, she’s pregnant,” a woman screamed out. “That girl is pregnant, let her go!” “Get back!” yelled an agent with a steel baton. “We are back!” a man responded loudly. The sweep near...

Formally backing a Palestinian state is no longer a symbolic gesture. It’s a strategic imperative.Ali Shihabi is a Saudi author and commentator and member of the advisory board of the new Saudi region of Neom planned by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.The world should wait no longer to formally recognize the State of Palestine. This is not about sentiment or symbolism. It is about urgent, necessary action to rescue a peace process on life support. Recognition is a critical diplomatic tool to shift a stagnant and increasingly dangerous status quo. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has persisted for more than seven decades....

President Donald Trump on Tuesday warned Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that he is an “easy target” and “our patience is wearing thin,” before demanding Tehran surrender in its conflict against Israel. “We know exactly where the so-called ‘Supreme Leader’ is hiding,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “He is an easy target, but is safe there - We are not going to take him out (kill!), at least not for now,” he wrote after declaring “total control” over Iran’s airspace. “But we don’t want missiles shot at civilians, or American soldiers. Our patience is wearing thin.” Trump in a subsequent...

JD Vance @JDVance Look, I'm seeing this from the inside, and am admittedly biased towards our president (and my friend), but there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media, so I wanted to address some things directly on the Iran issue: First, POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal. The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one...

Analysts say the Kremlin is prioritizing its own war against Ukraine, as well as its relations with Gulf nations that don’t want to see a stronger Iran.Iran aided the Kremlin with badly needed drones in the first year of its Ukraine invasion, helped Moscow build out a critical factory to make drones at home and inked a new strategic partnership treaty this year with President Vladimir V. Putin, heralding closer ties, including in defense.But five months after that treaty was signed, the government in Iran is facing a grave threat to its rule from attacks by Israel. And Russia, beyond...

NEW YORK (AP) — A judge blocked New York City’s mayor from letting federal immigration authorities reopen an office at the city’s main jail, in part because of concerns the mayor invited them back in as part of a deal with the Trump administration to end his corruption case.New York Judge Mary Rosado’s decision Friday is a setback for Democratic Mayor Eric Adams, who issued an executive order permitting U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to maintain office space at the Rikers Island jail complex. City lawmakers filed a lawsuit in April accusing Adams of entering into...

For those who lived through the Great Depression, the strangeness of it was hard to convey. The nation had suffered no great natural disaster. The farmers were still farming, and the factories were still standing. Yet there lay rotting food that people couldn’t afford to buy and empty factories next to shanty towns filled with the unemployed. In 1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the presidency with the promise to restore prosperity. But he and his advisers had no clear explanation for the collapse and his subsequent New Deal would amount to a series of experiments. FDR admitted to the nation...

President Donald Trump issued a memorandum last week blocking an effort that was underway during the Biden-Harris administration to remove four hydroelectric dams in the Snake River. Trump’s memorandum revokes a directive from the previous administration, which Trump described as an effort by “radical environmentalism” to raise the “equitable treatment for fish” above that of human flourishing. “The negative impacts from these reckless acts, if completed, would be devastating for the region, and there would be no viable approach to replace the low-cost, baseload energy supplied,” Trump stated in the memo. If the experiences of those in northern California living...

The New York Times is still force-feeding its readers agitprop that the long-awaited inflation Armageddon it's been hawking for months is still nigh. That’s despite a bevy of welcome economic news in recent weeks that has defied the retrospectively stupid predictions of President Donald Trump’s most pompous critics still high on their bloated egos. “Where’s the Inflation From Tariffs? Just Wait, Economists Say,” doom-mongered Times reporter Colby Smith in a June 13 crystal ball item passed off as news. They always locate "Economists" to say what they want to impose as conventional "wisdom." “Tariffs raise consumer prices. It’s a view...

June 17 (Reuters) - The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) on Tuesday sent a notice to billionaire Elon Musk's xAI, signaling its intention to sue the company over air pollution from the AI startup's data center in Memphis.The letter, sent by Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) on NAACP's behalf, alleges xAI has violated federal law by using methane gas turbines at its South Memphis data center without acquiring permits or "best available" pollution controls.Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here.Data centers that provide...

President Donald Trump announced, “We now have complete and total control” of Iranian airspace and that the U.S. knows “exactly where” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “is hiding.” Trump’s announcements came in a string of Truth Social posts. “We now have complete and total control of the skies over Iran. Iran had good sky trackers and other defensive equipment, and plenty of it, but it doesn’t compare to American made, conceived, and manufactured ‘stuff,'” Trump wrote. “Nobody does it better than the good ol’ USA,” he added. Trump then said the United States knows where Khamenei is located.