Free Republic

The threat against our shared reality.A time existed when you could turn to a library, a newspaper, or a news network and be fairly confident the information you received was factual. Seeing used to be believing. Photos, videos, recordings, and other sources validated information. Those days are gone. Mis- and disinformation run rampant through digital spaces, creating branching narratives that emerge from algorithmic bubbles and infiltrate the real world. And now that the technology to generate spurious video and audio with AI is accessible and quickly improving, the difference between real and fake is becoming harder to discern. Fact and...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth @SecWar Earlier this morning, on President Trump's orders, I directed a lethal, kinetic strike on a narco-trafficking vessel affiliated with Designated Terrorist Organizations in the USSOUTHCOM area of responsibility. Four male narco-terrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike, and no U.S. forces were harmed in the operation. The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics - headed to America to poison our people. Our intelligence, without a doubt, confirmed that this vessel was trafficking narcotics, the people onboard were...

Wikipedia founder Larry Sanger made waves this week when he discussed the crowdsourced website’s outright censorship of conservative voices via a blacklist of banned news outlets. For me, Sanger’s revelation came as no surprise: The news publication I founded and run, the Federalist, has been viciously censored by Wikipedia’s cabal of anonymous editors for more than a decade.We originally drew Wikipedia’s ire back in 2014 when we exposed left-wing darling Neil deGrasse Tyson as a serial fabulist and fabricator.At the time, the astrophysicist and professional bigmouth was going around the country giving talks about the ignorance and innumeracy of most...

A National Guard Captain told troops to “Defy Orders” — reckless advice that could destroy a career and even land soldiers in jail. Pete Hegseth fires back, warning that this kind of guidance ignores the Insurrection Act and the harsh reality of the UCMJ. In this video, we break down why following this advice could end careers, strip away GI Bill and VA benefits, or worse. Bad advice doesn’t just spark controversy — it sets up young service members for disaster.

Charlie Kirk’s murderer came from somewhere. We all do.Since the “In the beginning …” times, our species has wrestled with the fundamental logic – and perceived unfairness – of holding parents responsible for the sins of their children. Or the other way around. In the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, the prophet makes this explicit:The person who sins will die. A son will not suffer the punishment for the father’s guilt, nor will a father suffer the punishment for the son’s guilt; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon...

The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial facilities and on gas and energy infrastructure. It said it had conducted the strikes using high-precision long-range weapons launched from the air, land and sea as well as drones. Ukraine's energy ministry spoke earlier on Friday about the attack and top private energy provider DTEK said it had suspended operations at several gas facilities in the Poltava region.

The bureau conducted "Operation Summer Heat" from June 24 through September 20, which featured teams from all 55 FBI field offices and other law enforcement partners. The initiative cracked down on violent crime in major U.S. cities. The FBI on Thursday announced that its efforts to crack down on violent crime nationwide had yielded more than 8,600 arrests over the span of three months, and the seizure of over 2,200 guns.The bureau conducted "Operation Summer Heat" from June 24 through September 20, which featured teams from all 55 FBI field offices and other law enforcement partners. The initiative cracked...

[snip] In fact, I saw someone who actually worked on the Sierra Space Dreamchaser comment about this. I wanted to interview him, but right now he's working for SpaceX, which means he can't do interviews. But he wrote, "I spent years tiling this ship, drilling composites and making every detail perfect. Management was a disaster and even tried to convince us they were on par with SpaceX. Now that I work on Starship, comments like that sound even more childish than before. RIP Chaser never to be." [/snip] NASA May Have Put the Nail in the Coffin for Sierra Space...

VATICAN CITY — The supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church issued a sharp criticism of the Almighty Creator of the universe this week, as Pope Leo XIV publicly condemned God for instituting the death penalty. When asked by the media to comment on critics of the death penalty, the pope singled out the Lord, offering a stinging critique of the Almighty for instituting capital punishment and questioning whether or not God was actually pro-life. "I question God's moral standing here," Pope Leo told reporters. "Someone who says, ‘I'm against abortion,' but says, ‘I'm in favor of the death penalty,'...

With each passing day it becomes more obvious that the left has become incapable of rational debate or political compromise, and must now embrace the only tools available to it: intimidation, coercion, and political violence. Whatever liberals might believe about their progressive politics, today their program is based not on persuasion or representation, still less on open-minded rational inquiry or practical solutions to problems. It’s based on force.The assassination of Charlie Kirk last month is of course emblematic of what the left has become. Kirk was murdered for speaking out against transgenderism. Dissenting from that ideology in particular is intolerable...

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 33-year-old Shreya Mishra Reddy, a technical program manager at Visa based in Austin. Business Insider has verified Reddy's employment, immigration status, and unsuccessful H-1B attempts. The following has been edited for length and clarity. I never dreamed of living in the US. I grew up in India and wanted to stay close to my parents. In December 2021, I moved to the States for a Master's program in engineering management at Duke University. After I graduated in 2022, I got a job at Visa as a technical program manager in 2023....

When I saw this headline in the WSJ — “Fractious Democrats Show Rare Unity” — I thought, What journalist who has been alive the last sixteen years would write that? Then, as I searched for the article, I found two others with essentially the same headline and storyline. Anybody who watches the Democrats knows that they almost always vote in lockstep. Of course, most journalists, who pretend they are independent, also write in lockstep. This is from the AP: “Democrats embrace a shutdown fight in a rare moment of unity against Trump.”And here is CBS, back in 2004: “Democrats show...

The Washington establishment is once again working overtime to undermine the best of President Trump’s restraint-oriented foreign policy instincts. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which Congress is currently debating, includes three separate provisions that reduce the president’s ability to reposition or withdraw U.S. troops from Syria, Europe, and South Korea. The hypocrisy is blatant. Congress is content to avoid tough votes by abdicating its warmaking powers to the executive branch. It has not formally declared war since the Second World War. Yet when the President displays a willingness to end wars and consolidate America’s overstretched military, Congress seeks to...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is calling out media outlets for cutting off his remarks yesterday during a Q&A about Democratic demands to restore $200 billion in health care subsidies for illegal aliens.Both CNN and MSNBC broke away from Johnson’s remarks during a press conference yesterday when the Speaker began citing the Democrat’s continuing resolution (CR) bill that contains $1.5 trillion in spending demands, including restoring $200 billion in taxpayer-funded health care benefits going to illegals.Johnson had encouraged voters to check out Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s counter-proposal to the GOP’s CR, specifically directing viewers to got to page 57,...

The current federal government shutdown is framed by Democrats as an attempt to “protect Medicaid” enrollees from “devastating” cuts in coverage by the Trump administration. Republicans argue that Medicaid should be focused on truly medically vulnerable citizens and should not be paying for illegal residents or healthy adults who have returned to work. Both sides miss (or ignore) the real point: the U.S. healthcare system is failing Americans because it rewards bureaucracy, not care, effectively wasting trillions of dollars a year.Medicaid was never meant to be the sprawling entitlement it is today. In 1965, it was designed to cover less...

Industrial action is causing real economic pain.The strike that closed almost all of London’s underground network for four days in mid-September is estimated to have cost the UK economy £230 million ($307 million). It was arranged by the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union, which campaigns for one of the most exploited groups of workers in British society: the capital’s tube drivers, who work 35 hours a week for £70,000 ($94,000) a year—almost double the national average salary.Two 24-hour strikes had been planned in November, but were called off after Transport for London (TfL) offered tube drivers a 4.5% salary...

VIDEOSee if you can spot a cameo appearance by The Terminator as Pope Leo and New Age pagans bless a chunk of ice. This video concludes with a chunk of ice turning the tables and blessing all of us in the best way possible.

The Trump administration is planning to roll out the first tranche of bailout payments for farmers in the coming weeks, likely using billions of dollars in funding from an internal USDA account, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. But it won’t be enough: USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation fund — which President Donald Trump previously tapped to provide $28 billion in farm aid during his first-term trade war with China — has just $4 billion left in the account. Trump officials, including those at the Treasury Department, are looking at how to tap tariff receipts or other...

WOODFORD COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — A Woodford County family learned today that Ronald Exantus, the man who police say killed their 6-year-old son Logan Tipton in 2015, has been released from prison early for good behavior. The Tipton family says Exantus caused irreversible damage when he entered their home as a stranger and attacked their family while they were asleep. Logan died from his injuries, while his sister Dakota survived being stabbed. "He didn't just kill my son. He killed every member of my family, every single one of us, and every person that's sitting here today is a...

Watch the video of Curtis Sliwa on Fox News. He's pumped, excited, and in it to win it. He is not dropping out.