Free Republic

"Minnesota is drowning in fraud” Over the summer I wrote about the grand scale of the latest stage of Somali welfare fraud in Minnesota. The $250 million ‘Feeding Our Future’ free food fraud in which Somali groups stole a quarter of a billion dollars while claiming to feed hundreds of thousands of children who never existed seemed like the biggest case of welfare fraud in Minnesota, but it may be just the beginning. In 2019, Feeding Our Future distributed $3.4 million in taxpayer food aid funds to the non-profits it was sponsoring, In 2020, that shot up to $42 million...

Federal agents had to deploy tear gas after anarchy erupted outside of an immigration facility in Chicago. Demonstrators, that included a Democratic mayor and congressional candidate, clashed with federal agents outside of the Broadview ICE facility on Friday. The confrontation saw agents firing chemical agents, dragging protesters from the roadway, and making arrests. Amid the mayhem, cameras caught masked officials and politicians, including Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss and Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh - who claimed she was body slammed by an agent. Biss also later accused ICE of trying to 'intimidate' peaceful demonstrators in a post made to his...

President Donald Trump on Friday rolled out a version of his administration’s long-promised gold card, a $1 million fast-track for wealthy foreigners to live and work in the United States. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, in a call later with reporters, said the gold card will replace the current EB-1 and EB-2 visa programs for people who are of “exceptional value” to the United States. He said the administration expects to initially make 80,000 gold cards available but will continue to evaluate the model and could eventually phase out other visas.

A school board meeting in Maine descended into chaos after a board member slapped a phone out of an attendee's hand during a heated exchange. Tensions flared during a Regional School Unit 67 meeting on Wednesday night when Tim Bodnar, a social media personality, targeted a teacher. The unknown teacher was placed on leave last week over comments they made about the killing of Charlie Kirk, with an investigation pending. Bodnar, known online as the 'Truth-slinger' and followed by tens of thousands on social media, repeatedly disrupted the otherwise orderly meeting. He condemned the teacher and accused the district of...

On Monday, Jimmy Kimmel used his monologue to accuse MAGA of "trying to cover up the fact that the person who killed Charlie Kirk was one of them." This was after Utah Attorney General Derek Brown had disclosed evidence that the shooter had admitted that he hated Kirk for his anti-trans views, had a trans lover, and had been planning the assassination for a week. Andrew Alford, President of Broadcasting for Nexstar, an affilate of ABC, called Kimmel's comments "offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum...

On May 28, 2021, I ran for my life through the streets of downtown Portland, Ore. Antifa had discovered me working undercover after one of their members, John Hacker, exposed me to the mob. I screamed for help as I fled, but drivers and pedestrians looked away. The businesses were all shuttered, remnants of the ongoing destruction from the 2020 BLM-Antifa riots. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. They caught me. Antifa tackled me to the ground, tearing my knee tendon in the process as I slid across the pavement. They punched me over and over and tried...

I asked for recommendations of contemporaneous histories of the post-Civil war Reconstruction in the South years ago, but lost the bookmark to that thread. Had several great replies, but I can't remember the authors. Looking for balanced accounts, preferably pre-WW1. Thanks for any tips.

“Hey, Van, I mean it, I’d love to have you on my show to have a respectful conversation about crime and race. I would be a gentleman as I know you would be as well. We can disagree about the issues agreeably.” Unfortunately, before I could even respond, Charlie Kirk was killed —

BREAKING: Timothy Cardinal Dolan on fallen hero Charlie Kirk: "The more I learned about him, I thought this guy is a modern-day Saint Paul. He was a missionary, an evangelist, a hero." Charlie should be made a SAINT!

Venezuela on Friday accused the United States of waging an “undeclared war” in the Caribbean and called for a UN investigation of American strikes that killed over a dozen alleged drug traffickers on boats in recent weeks. Washington has deployed warships to international waters off Venezuela’s coast, backed by F-35 fighters sent to Puerto Rico in what it calls an anti-drug operation. “It is an undeclared war, and you can already see how people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, have been executed in the Caribbean Sea. Executed without the right to a defence,” Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez...

President Donald Trump announced a third strike on a drug boat on Friday, which killed three alleged “narcoterrorists.” Trump said he directed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to conduct the strike. An accompanying video shows a boat cruising through the water before being blown up. “On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage enroute to poison Americans. The...

On Friday, during an appearance on CNN’s “NewsCentral,” actor and director Rob Reiner stated that President Donald Trump had “declared war on this democracy.” […] He continued, “First of all, He throws people out of the country without due process. He takes funds that were appropriated by Congress, refuses to distribute them, in clear contradiction to the Constitution, the separation of powers. He’s browbeating businesses and universities and law firms. This is way beyond Jimmy Kimmel. We are fighting. This is a man who’s a convicted felon, an adjudicated sex offender and business fraudster, and he’s decided that our 250...

Back in December of 2023, Dan and Jennifer Mead announced they were suing the Rockford Public School District in Michigan. The school their daughter attended had been socially transitioning her without informing them.The Meads' biologically female child had attended Rockford Public Schools, a district operating 20 schools in Rockford just north of Grand Rapids, since kindergarten, but after beginning sixth grade at East Rockford Middle School in fall of 2020, the child began meeting with the school counselor regarding a dip in their academic performance.Over the next two years, the child continued regularly meeting with the school counselor, branching into...

This morning the House passed a clean CR designed to fund the government through November, thereby avoiding the possibility of a shutdown at the end of this month. Democrats how vowed not to support it in the Senate.The vote was 217-212, with one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, joining Republicans in voting yes. Two Republicans — conservative Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Victoria Spartz of Indiana — and all other Democrats voted against the bill.The short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, now heads to the Senate, where Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other...

There's an ongoing debate, happening almost exclusively on the far left, about whether or not Jimmy Kimmel even said what everyone else thinks he said. Rolling Stone is leading this charge.“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it,” Kimmel said during his monologue on Monday. Kimmel’s slightly ambiguous comments came after conservatives spent the weekend blaming the left and transgender people for Kirk’s killing. At the time, the...

President Donald Trump confirmed that the U.S. military carried out another strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug vessel, following his recent announcement that we would wage war against narco-terrorists "poisoning" our citizens.In a post on Truth Social on Friday, Trump said that, "On my Orders, the Secretary of War ordered a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization conducting narcotrafficking in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility.""Intelligence confirmed the vessel was trafficking illicit narcotics, and was transiting along a known narcotrafficking passage en route to poison Americans," he added. READ MORE:Trump Administration Just Put a Massive...

Nicholas J. Roske, the 29-year-old who pleaded guilty in April to the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, will be sentenced on October 3. According to a Friday court filing, Roske faces up to 30 years in prison. The Department of Justice said in the sentencing memo that they deem Roske's action as an act of terrorism. As RedState reported, in June 2022, Roske traveled from California to Washington, D.C., for the sole purpose of assassinating Kavanaugh. Roske wandered the D.C. suburb near Kavanaugh's home armed with a pistol and ammunition, a crowbar, a "tactical knife," zip ties,...

A first for Finnish figure skating Two young skaters are set to make history on the ice. Emma Aalto, 19, from Finland, and Millie Colling, 20, from England, will soon become Finland’s first same-sex ice dancing team to compete in a national qualifier. Their entry marks a major turning point for Finnish figure skating, opening the door for greater inclusivity in a sport that has long relied on traditional male-female pairings. The rule change that made it possible Until earlier this year, Finnish rules stated that an ice dancing team had to consist of a man and a woman. That...

...the home of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. searched following a bomb threat... "War, a lot of strange things happen"...Trump asked about the safety of Israeli hostages... Israel's military spokesman warning of 'unprecedented force' as that assault on Gaza... Trump Administration seeking Congressional approval for a six billion dollar weapons... French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirming...recognize a Palestinian state... More than 70 people killed in a drone attack on mosque in Sudan's... Shots fired at a television station building in Sacramento... US Attorney for Eastern Virginia Eric Seibert resigning under pressure... Turkish President...Trump at White House next...

A leading U.S. tech giant has issued an urgent advisory to its H-1B employees visiting India, warning that they may be unable to return to the United States after September 21, unless their visa petitions carry an additional $100,000 payment as required under a new Trump administration proclamation. Employees already in the U.S. have been told to remain there for the foreseeable future to avoid being locked out. While the proclamation does not directly reference H-4 dependents, the advisory recommends that spouses and children on dependent visas also avoid international travel. -snip- For H-1B employees currently outside the U.S., including...