Free Republic

Independence Day is a reminder that America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ America is owned by no one. It belongs to all citizens. And at this moment in history—when core democratic principles seem to be continuously under attack, when too many people around the world have become cynical and disengaged—now is precisely the time to ask ourselves tough questions about how we can build our democracies and make them work in meaningful and practical ways for...

Several California cities canceled their Fourth of July celebrations, reportedly citing Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities as the reason for the last-minute decision. With President Donald Trump's vow to execute the biggest deportation effort in the nation's history, ICE has increased its efforts to find and detain illegal aliens. California, the state with the largest illegal immigrant population, has been a prime target of the administration's immigration enforcement activities, sparking mass protests and even destructive rioting last month. Now, several California cities are reportedly faulting ICE for their decision to cancel Independence Day celebrations. The city of Cudahy, located in...

The legislation has been lauded as a "groundbreaking" bill, with an emphasis on taxes, federal spending and government policy that could significantly shape the next generation of the American experience. President Donald Trump's triumph in passing the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" not only demonstrated he could conquer the often-maddening politics of Congress, he also set the United States on a fundamentally different course when it comes to taxes, government spending and domestic policies like Medicaid and food stamps. Both chambers of Congress passed the Trump agenda megabill this week, ahead of their July 4 deadline, and it will be signed...

Friday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) claimed many of her Republican colleagues “don’t understand” the “Big, Beautiful Bill” they just voted for. Co-host Wolf Blitzer said, “I spoke with your colleague and I think a friend of yours, Republican Congresswoman Lisa McClain, the chair of the Republican conference, fellow Michigander, about the impact that this bill could have on Medicaid in your state of Michigan. I want to highlight some of what she told me about the Medicaid changes that are in this bill.” Representative Lisa McClain (R-MI) said, “My constituents applaud us for what we’re...

Did Russia Help America in the Revolutionary War? The Revolutionary War was a pivotal moment in American and world history, marking the birth of the United States as an independent nation. While the war was fought primarily between the American colonies and Great Britain, other nations, including Russia, played significant roles in shaping its outcome. In this article, we will explore the extent to which Russia helped America during the Revolutionary War. Early Relations between Russia and the American Colonies Before delving into the specifics of Russian-American relations during the Revolutionary War, it is essential to understand the early history...

In only a few months, Trump has corrected his predecessors’ Titanic course of our ship of state.In the postwar period, the rise of the New Left and its “long march” through the institutions accelerated the erosion of patriotism, particularly among those who spent time in universities. Love of one’s country joined faith as a malign superstition, while sexual restraint and virtue became cultural shorthand for repression, ignorance, unsophisticated gullibility, and fascism. The United States was transformed by the left from the “shining city on a hill” to a cesspool of tyranny, racism, oppression, philistinism, and heartless greed. But this year...

The secret formula the podcasters have figured out is that audiences want to be talked to, not talked at.In the 2024 election, candidate appearances on podcasts were huge, yuge even. Donald Trump showed up on an array of them, from Theo Von to Joe Rogan to Barstool Sports’ Bussin’ With The Boys. Kamala Harris did fewer, with Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy being the most notable. After Trump’s resounding win, some Democrats blamed Rogan for the victory, though even John Oliver cautioned against that notion. (Also, Rogan gave Harris an “open invitation” to come on his podcast, but she declined...

As President Trump, Secretary Noem (DHS), Secretary Rollins (Ag), Secretary Burgum (Int) and various administration officials arrive back to Joint Base Andrews from their visit to Iowa last night, the President delivers impromptu remarks to the assembled press pool. Covering a wide range of topics and questions, President Trump and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins also explained Trump’s controversial remarks about expanded visas for illegal alien farm workers to get them into compliance. Secretary Rollins states an expedited H2A guestworker visa is currently in the works.President Trump also notes from his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, likely focused on Iran,...

The Trump administration plans to implement a process whereby farmers in Iowa can vouch for hard-working, law-abiding migrant farmworkers who may be facing deportation, so that they can remain in the U.S. The proposed process was shared by President Donald Trump during an event at the Iowa State Fairgrounds on Thursday night, kicking off a year of patriotic celebrations meant to honor the nation’s 250th birthday. Trump said the new plan will take place in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security and that legislation for the measure is currently being drafted while speaking Thursday evening from Iowa. “You know,...

A federal judge on Friday temporarily halted deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan the day after the Supreme Court greenlighted their removal, saying new claims by the immigrants’ lawyers deserved a hearing. District Judge Randolph Moss proceeded with the extraordinary Fourth of July hearing on Friday afternoon, directing the Trump administration to discuss whether a prior Supreme Court ruling that immigrants slated for removal under an 18th century wartime act invoked by President Donald Trump deserve due process might also apply to those due to be removed to South Sudan. The administration has been trying to deport the...

With the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform looking into the Biden administration and issuing subpoenas to many Biden staffers to review White House autopen use and the covering up of President Joe Biden’s mental decline, more people are coming forward ... Li, a former National Finance Committee member and former DNC fundraiser .. having “a front-row seat to Joe Biden’s presidency and the people who pulled the strings behind the scenes.” Jill Biden is definitely complicit, but there were a lot of .. puppet masters ... elder abuse.. no question ... Joe was not able to do a...

Far-left Democratic Boston Mayor Michelle Wu and equally far-left Democratic Minnesota Governor Tim Walz aren’t the only top party members who apparently hope a few Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are taken out. One more is the small-town vice mayor who invited Hispanic gangs to fight the agents. And now another party panjandrum can be added to the list. Count in Democratic Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington, an Indian immigrant whose office on Capitol Hill, staffers have said, is a Dickensian sweat shop. She thinks ICE agents are “terrorists,” yet another label that might just get one of them...

Wilson Tindi, a Kenyan national who was convicted of sexually asssaulting a woman while she was asleep in Minnesota, had avoided deportation for years after completing his prison sentence. During that time, he got a job and was appointed an audit director at the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE), where he used to check taxpayer spending and oversee internal accountability. That was until June 27, 2025, when authorities arrested him for an unrelated offense. Tindi, 42, who was in the country illegally, was convicted of criminal sexual conduct over a decade before being hired. In December 2014, he admitted to...

On the morning of June 17, 1775, a physician in his mid-thirties stood near a rough earthen redoubt overlooking the Charlestown Peninsula. He had no command, no formal post on the field, and no obligation to be there at all. But as the smoke from British warships rose in plumes over Boston Harbor, Dr. Joseph Warren made his way toward the crest of Breed’s Hill, musket in hand. He was the president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress and was commissioned a major general just days before. He declined command and chose instead to fight as a private soldier—an ordinary volunteer—alongside...

DAD, WHAT's UNABHÄNGIGKEITSTAG?"Is that when the thirteen colonies broke away from England?" My ten year inquired out of nowhere at 6 AM German time this morning. "Yeah, why do you want to know, eat your breakfast," I mumbled, too sleepy to be very curious. "Because I am afraid my teacher will ask me, since I am wearing this T-shirt and I'm the only American in the class." With an effort, I adjusted my gaze upward to his white T-shirt. It was brand new. Prominent on his breast was an image of the flag and below that:OLD NAVYFREEDOM 2005 TRADITIONWaking up...

History shows that’s never a good idea.Zohran Mamdani has moved forward in the New York City mayoral race as the Democratic nominee, after beating out former New York Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo in the primary. With Mamdani’s rapid rise to popularity among NYC’s more well-to-do circles comes a slew of promises, all pointed at introducing a new agenda to the Big Apple: socialism.Mamdani has promised everything from freezing rent and raising the minimum wage to $30, to constructing affordable housing, providing free public transportation, and offering “no-cost” childcare. One of his more far-fetched ideas is to create a network of...

President Trump continues to ramp up the pressure on Harvard: The university has lost $2.7 billion in funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the president is now attempting to bar Harvard from enrolling international students. Harvard is, of course, not alone in these forfeitures: The NIH has terminated over 400 grants to Columbia University, while Cornell University has received 75 stop-work orders from the Department of Defense even as the federal administration has frozen $1.7 billion destined for Brown, Northwestern, and Princeton Universities, as well as the University of Pennsylvania. But...

The Beginning: “A day after OSI training ended nobody knew what to do with me and they had me filing and typing when a Major taped me on the shoulder.” Even then there was less of men actually touching a woman but the idea of sexual harassment or inappropriate touching was slow to catch on. There was nothing inappropriate, I was just startled to be touched by a senior officer. “Colonel Blom* wants to see you. Now.” (An asterisk indicates name changed. Colonels don’t send Majors to fetch a Captain. With a shiver of dread, I knocked at the door...

Independence Day makes Progressives squirm. They despise the principles of the American Revolution. If they could, their scotus judges would gut the Declaration as thoroughly as they have the Constitution. To them, our Noble Declaration, this expression of God-given reason subverts social justice; they are right. Since the Declaration is indeed hostile to their moral relativism, the Left has long attempted to minimize our founding to a fuzzy faith in the people. The “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,” and “all men are created equal,” translates in their Marxist minds as widespread democracy accompanied with equal...

As those of us in the United States this week celebrate freedom from British governance, consider the many ways that Presbyterianism influenced the decision to enter a war for independence and take up arms against a magistrate: Only a Presbyterian understanding of Romans 13 would allow us to enter a war. The Bible calls for submission to magistrates, but Presbyterians understood the nuances that allowed for rebellion against tyranny. (See James M. Wilson's Establishment and Limits of Civil Goverment for an exposition of Romans 13.) It was psalm singing Presbyterians like Rev. James Caldwell who helped win some battles--when paper...