Free Republic

Vail Unified School teachers on Halloween thought this was a good idea.

Attempting to bargain with the Left is futile. The current Schumer shutdown amply illuminates their fanaticism, quest for power, and economic illiteracy. What’s more, the four long, hard years before the second Trump administration offered endless clues as to how far the Democrats and the Left in general have regressed. ... What is the common denominator to the socially destructive, heart-sickening behaviors which we’ve witnessed repeatedly? Each and every activity of the Left, from the minuscule to the monumental, in one way or another, is undertaken to diminish the status, strength, and sovereignty of America. Whether it's attempting to flood...

GOP candidates for Tuesday’s elections are trapped between Trump’s demands for fealty and voters who want independence.HAMILTON, N.J. — The most revealing element of next week’s election is that President Donald Trump is all but ensuring defeat for Republicans, and his party is doing next to nothing about it.The mere fact of his election last year handed Democrats a powerful turnout lever in blue-leaning New Jersey and Virginia, but Trump has further undermined GOP hopes in the two states with his conduct and has seemingly abandoned California Republicans.There are his explicit actions: The DOGE layoffs and government shutdown reductions-in-force hit...

The lapse in benefits could be temporary if the Trump administration complies with a recent court order requiring them to use emergency money to fund SNAP. The impact of the food aid lapse will sweep across red and blue states alike: Just over half of all SNAP recipients live in states that backed Trump in last year’s election.More than two dozen Democratic state officials — including those in California, Massachusetts, Kansas and Kentucky — sued the Trump administration over the lapse in benefits in a separate lawsuit that is still pending a formal decision. Republican officials have pointed the blame...

~3 minutesTurning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk predicted his own assassination in chilling text messages to friend and former colleague Candace Owens — years before he was assassinated in Utah.Owens posted screengrabs of a text exchange from April 6, 2018 on her podcast in which the person she identifies as Kirk predicted he would be killed because of his work with Turning Point USA.“If I tell you the true prophecy I know in my gut it’s really sad,” Kirk wrote, adding, “But I hope its wrong.”Candace Owens shared the sadly prophetic texts on an episode of her podcast on Monday,...

President Trump said on Friday that he’s yet to make a final decision on launching a military attack on Venezuela, but President Nicolás Maduro is not waiting around while taking the US leader’s word on it. Maduro is reportedly urgently reaching out to Russia, China, and Iran for any possible military aid, including defense items which may have already been negotiated or are in the works. The Washington Post says it’s obtained internal documents showing such recent and high-stakes requests. “Amid a buildup of American forces in the Caribbean, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro is reaching out to Russia, China and...

Former Vice-President and unsuccessful Democrat nominee for president in 2024 Kamala Harris wants the voting age to be lowered from 18 years-old to six-years old. "Look, the children of today fear that climate change will wipe out their future," she said. "They will be the biggest victims of the catastrophic damage done by global warming. They should have a voice in choosing who will be making climate policy. The only way this can be accomplished is to enable them to cast ballots for the Democratic Party." "By the age of six most children are in school and learning to read,"...

Oct. 31 (UPI) -- A pair of reptile wranglers in Australia came to the rescue of a yellow-tailed whip snake that found its way into a resident's backyard swimming pool and was unable to slither out. Sunshine Coast Snake Catchers 24/7 said on social media that Stuart McKenzie and another rescuer, named Howdy, responded to a Coolum property where a snake was spotted in a pool.

The Bible teaches not only that we can gain eternal life by placing our trust in Jesus Christ, but that we can know it with certainty. If you aren’t yet living in the assurance of God’s promises about your future, today’s episode is perfect for you! Video is 25:34 mins long.

Elon Musk insisted in a three-hour-plus marathon interview with Joe Rogan that there would have “never been another real election” in the United States if President Donald Trump lost in 2024. Musk joined Rogan on The Joe Rogan Experience on Friday for a lengthy chat that touched on everything from his relationship to Trump to the 3I/ATLAS comet. The X owner argued Trump saved elections in the United States with his focus on securing the southern border. While once a close ally of Trump’s and working with DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), Trump and Musk have had a rocky road...

What do the following all have in common? Ilhan Omar Pramila Jayapal Zohran Mamdani Rashida Tlaib They're all foreign born and they all hate America. In the past immigrants came to this country with only the promise of opportunity. They were not promised economic support, SNAP or food stamps. They toiled long and hard. They assimilated into the American fabric. My parents were part of that. Now an alarming trend is ongoing. It is the election of foreign born to government. Foreigners are coming here solely for the freedom and the economic support. Worse, they refuse to assimilate. Some, as...

I do NOT want Americans to go hungry just because the Radical Democrats refuse to do the right thing and REOPEN THE GOVERNMENT. Therefore, I have instructed our lawyers to ask the Court to clarify how we can legally fund SNAP as soon as possible. It is already delayed enough due to the Democrats keeping the Government closed through the monthly payment date and, even if we get immediate guidance, it will unfortunately be delayed while States get the money out. If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the...

Text messages allegedly offering voters $100 to support Democrat candidates in New Hanover County. The North Carolina Republican Party is demanding an investigation into what appears to be a cash-for-votes operation in New Hanover County. Text messages allegedly offered voters $100 to cast ballots for three Democrat candidates in Wilmington’s City Council race. If confirmed, this would mark one of the most blatant examples of election corruption in recent state history—and it mirrors a scandal that erupted in Gary, Indiana. In that 2023 case, Democrat precinct officials and campaign workers were charged with voter fraud after investigators discovered a coordinated...

Yavapai County Superior Court Judge Pro Tempore Kristyne Schaaf-Olson has resigned in disgrace after being caught urinating in public while heavily intoxicated in Prescott, Arizona. The incident unfolded in the early hours of October 4, around 1:30 a.m., when witnesses alerted police to the 42-year-old judge squatting in shrubbery with her pants down.

The scandals engulfing the Democratic Senate hopeful expose a rift between the state’s provincial and national identities Since I moved to Maine half a decade ago, I’ve found that my friends in other places don’t really keep up with the comings and goings of Maine life. For me, that’s kind of the point of living here: It’s nice being out of the way, and to hear my friends muse wistfully, “I’ve always wanted to visit Maine.” These are attempts to solicit invitations to come stay with us in Vacationland, and they’re about as close as my friends to the west...

As Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, then head of Ukraine’s state-owned national power company Ukrenergo, was scrambling to keep the lights on.Somehow, he succeeded and continued to do so every year, earning the respect of energy executives worldwide by ensuring the country was able to withstand Russian missile and drone strikes on its power grid and avoid catastrophic blackouts — until he was abruptly forced to resign in 2024, that is.Kudrytskyi’s dismissal was decried by many in the energy industry and also prompted alarm in Brussels. At the time, Kudrytskyi told POLITICO...

As a young person deeply engaged in politics, I am often asked why my generation is elevating figures like Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, in New York. People across the political spectrum want to understand how a candidate who openly advances antisemitic rhetoric has gained traction among young voters.To me, Mamdani’s popularity is unsurprising – it reflects how my generation has been raised, educated, and conditioned to think.The reality is that when teachers support Mamdani and when teachers unions endorse him – as they have – students are not far behind. The New York State United Teachers and the United...

Ukrainian special forces have launched a counter-offensive in Pokrovsk using US-made Black Hawk helicopters. The goal of the operation was to reopen supply lines in the besieged city, which has held out for more than a year against a Russian offensive but now appears on the brink of capture. Video provided to The Economist showed a team of 11 soldiers fanning out across a field after climbing down from a Black Hawk helicopter. Gen Kyrylo Budanov, the Ukrainian intelligence chief, was reported to be personally leading the operation from a nearby location, in a sign of its potential significance. Russian...

We have to start counting from 1 again... ======================================================== Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: * While most estimates place the current human population at around 8.2 billion, a study suggests we might be vastly underrepresenting rural areas. * By analyzing 300 rural dam projects across 35 countries, researchers from Aalto University in Finland found discrepancies among these independent population counts and other population data gathered between 1975 and 2010. * Such underreporting could have consequences in terms of resource allocation within a country, but other experts remain skeptical that decades of population counting could be off...

Positive results continue to emerge from the Trump administration’s ongoing experiment in tightening the labor market for truck drivers. As we highlighted last week, trucking spot rates are rising for legal American drivers. Now, in an especially stunning turn of events (and an entertaining one, for industry watchers), the American Trucking Association is admitting that, actually, there never was a labor shortage. “What we have in the United States is a quality problem around drivers, much more so than an absolute number,” says one official. “There’s never been a lack of people with [licenses]... what we lack is the number...