Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that it is removing age limits for new hires at the agency responsible for immigration enforcement, as it aims to expand hiring after a massive infusion of cash from Congress.The department said in a news release that it would waive age limits for new applicants so “even more patriots will qualify to join ICE,” the agency responsible for finding, arresting, detaining and removing people who are in the U.S. illegally. The agency is at the center of the Trump administration’s efforts to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda....

The Albany Times Union headline read: Not so easy: Dousing the Canadian wildfires may not be possible.It may not be possible to put out the Canadian wildfires?! Humans learned how to fly. Americans and Canadians have won two world wars.Mankind has been to the moon and sent unmanned craft around the solar system -- and beyond.And Canada can’t put out a fire?Humans invented fire — or the planned use of it — around 800,000 years ago.Almost concurrently, they learned how to extinguish it.No matter the scope and location of today’s fires, it is surpassingly strange that we can’t put them...

MSNBC and CNN are hemorrhaging viewers. Tee hee. Compared to this same week last year, MSNBC lost 40 percent of its primetime viewers, while CNN lost 44 percent. Fox News, meanwhile, crushed them both, losing only 16 percent of primetime eyeballs. The public has wised up. Resistance TV no longer sells like it’s 2017. Just ask Stephen Colbert and Howard Stern. That Fox News number is the one that counts, for it gives us context. Sure, last year was a presidential election year, which is the Super Bowl for cable news. Unless there’s a war, no one expects cable news...

The U.S. doesn't seem to have changed in its penchant to concoct unfounded allegations in order to advance its geopolitical goals, as suggested by critics, including its own lawmakers. From Operation Mockingbird to the fabrication of the "lie of the century," an unambiguous behavioral pattern perpetuated by successive U.S. governments has damaged Washington's credibility regarding its stated foreign policy goals. During the Cold War, the U.S. government reportedly manipulated domestic American news media organizations for propaganda purposes. Its aim was to counter communist influence as part of its geopolitical fight against the Soviet Union. In Operation Mockingbird, the Central Intelligence...

Actor and American patriot Dean Cain, best known for portraying Superman, is now stepping into a new role: defender of the U.S. homeland. Cain just announced that he has officially joined Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as a sworn law enforcement officer and is calling on fellow Americans to rise up and do the same. Cain urged patriotic Americans to join ICE and help remove terrorists, rapists, murderers, pedophiles, MS-13 gang members, and drug traffickers from our neighborhoods, a mission that became supercharged under President Donald Trump. Dean Cain: “For those who don’t know, I am a sworn law enforcement...

A mosquito-borne virus that leaves victims in crippling pain and has triggered Covid-era restrictions in China is already in the US, experts say.Chikungunya virus can cause sudden, agonizing joint pain in the hands and feet, sometimes so severe that it leaves sufferers unable to move normally for months.Southern China is currently battling its largest outbreak since at least 2008, with more than 7,000 cases recorded in Foshan, at the epicenter, and infections in 12 other major cities. Heavy rains and warm weather have fueled a surge in mosquitoes, driving the outbreak.Dr Louisa Messenger, a mosquito researcher in Nevada, told the...

Stanford University is laying off more than 300 workers, according to a California Employment Development Department filing documents. In a Thursday update on the university’s financial issues, Stanford said the layoffs were in response to new Trump administration rules affecting Stanford's budget. Stanford University cited “ongoing economic uncertainty,” looming federal cuts and rising operational costs as the reasons for the staffing cuts. The university’s endowment tax was bumped up from 1.4% to 8% after President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” was signed into law. In an email to the Stanford Daily, Luisa Rapport, a university spokesperson, said an increase...

The Contrary Mother-in-Law A neighbor came running to Nasreddin's house with the news that the Hodja's mother-in-law had been washing her laundry in the river when she fell into the water and drowned. "And we cannot find her body," he continued. "We searched everywhere downstream for her, but all to no avail." "You should have searched upstream," replied the Hodja. "My mother-in-law is so contrary that she would never go with the flow."

[Catholic Caucus] They Lied to You About Rerum NovarumThe foundational document of modern Catholic Social Teaching calls private property sacred and condemns instigating class envy in the poor.In his first address to the College of Cardinals, Leo XIV explained his choice of name was inspired by “Pope Leo XIII [who] in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.” I knew of Rerum Novarum as the foundation of Catholic Social Teaching, and I had accepted the common claim that it rejects both socialism and capitalism. But there was a certain...

He further indicated that he would not impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has declined to personally call President Donald Trump to resolve the ongoing trade dispute, telling Reuters that to do so would be a "humiliation.""The day my intuition says Trump is ready to talk, I won't hesitate to call him," he told the outlet. "But today my intuition says he doesn't want to talk. And I'm not going to humiliate myself."He further indicated that he would not impose retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. Trump slapped the South American nation with a...

The EU is inching toward the biggest peacetime surveillance experiment in its history, with plans to quietly search every private message before you hit send. The European Union is still wrestling with a controversial plan that would turn private messaging services into surveillance tools. For over three years, talks have stalled over whether providers should be forced to scan every user’s messages for possible illegal material and forward anything suspicious to law enforcement. The European Commission is still pushing for a universal scanning requirement. In contrast, the European Parliament insists any checks should apply only to unencrypted messages from people...

White House envoy Steve Witkoff told hostage families on Saturday that President Trump wants to "shift" the Gaza policy from trying to get a partial and phased Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal to reaching a comprehensive deal that ends the war and returns all remaining hostages at once, according to a statement by the families and recordings from the meeting. Behind the scenes: Two members of the hostage families who were in the room said Witkoff listened for a long time to every family member who wanted to speak. "We never have these meetings with senior Israeli government officials," one...

We now have plausible intelligence suggesting the attorney general may have assured Clinton allies that the FBI investigation into Hillary’s emails would go nowhere.The FBI never investigated explosive allegations that Attorney General Loretta Lynch coordinated with the Clinton campaign to suppress Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal. Those allegations stem from a secret Russian intelligence memo that circulated inside the U.S. government in 2016. The memo was so concerning that it pushed FBI Director James Comey to break ranks with Lynch during the Clinton email probe. Now, thanks to the newly released appendix of Special Counsel John Durham’s report on the...

Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff held another meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier today. This is the fifth meeting between Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin.Witkoff has spent more time with Putin than any government official in recent history.“My Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just had a highly productive meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Great progress was made! Afterwards, I updated some of our European Allies. Everyone agrees this War must come to a close, and we will work towards that in the days and weeks to come. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” ~ President TrumpAssistant to the...

A Chinese scientist horrified the world in 2018 when he revealed he had secretly engineered the birth of the world's first gene-edited babies. His work was reviled as reckless and unethical because, among other reasons, gene-editing was so new and the technology's full risks were unknown. China imprisoned the scientist, He Jiankui, for three years for violating medical regulations. Fast forward to today: Mainstream scientific organizations are encouraging very careful basic research to explore gene-editing and human reproduction. But they still warn any attempts to create more genetically modified children anytime soon should remain strictly off limits. Now, however, Silicon...

There is "science," and then there is "The Science." These are two very different things. Science is a method that is used to determine certain kids of truths and facts about how things work; "The Science" is a method of extracting money and power out of the existing economic and power structure to benefit so-called "scientists." "The Science" is, effectively, organized crime. It bears as much relationship to "science" as a pyramid scheme does to investment. Except that, in the case of "The Science," the infrastructure that society has created to root it out is entirely ineffective because, as often...

Venezuelan “migrants” are President Joe Biden’s gift that keeps on killing.The latest case of “migrants” freed at the border under the standing orders of Biden and his Homeland Security secretary, unindicted visa fraudster Alejandro Mayorkas, involves three Venezuelan hoods charged in the capital murder of a man at a Motel 6 near Dallas, Texas.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has placed detainers on the newest members of a not-very-exclusive club: illegal-alien criminals who commit crimes — yet another murder in this case — enabled by the Biden administration.The MurderThe Dallas Express reported that cops in Garland, about 16 miles northeast...

There is a Christian guy in Denver, Colorado, Jamie Sanchez, who felt “called” in 2012 to open Recycle God’s Love, a charity project for homeless people. It’s expanded since he opened it, but it is small in financial terms. Unlike many “non-profits” which are marred by greed, deceit, and essentially money-laundering, Recycle God’s Love seems legit, with volunteers working there and an overall budget in the $100,000 range. Besides offering meals to 300-400 people daily, Recycle God’s Love provides clothing, wound care, hygienic supplies, help with obtaining official ID, haircuts, and, of course, the Gospel. In 2023, it opened a...

Plastic wrap may seem convenient, but it shortens your cheese's shelf life. Think twice before wrapping your cheese in plastic and tossing it in the fridge. If you want your favorite block or wedge to stay flavorful and last longer, how you store it matters - a lot. Most people unknowingly shorten the life of their cheese by sealing it in airtight plastic, which suffocates the product, ruins its texture and dulls its taste. Instead, take a cue from the pros. We spoke with John Montez, certified certified cheese professional lead at Murray's Cheese in New York, who shared how...

Survey suggests UBI has minimal impact.Last October, I reported on a study that gave participants $1,000 a month and measured the impacts of the transfer. The results were disappointing to advocates of universal basic income (UBI). To summarize, the study found that people worked less, and, according to the researchers:[Participants] used the time they gained from working less to engage in leisure, and there is no evidence of an increased use of time in other categories UBI proponents purport to care about, such as creative output, entrepreneurship, community engagement, self-improvement, or even spending time with children.A second study on guaranteed...