Free Republic

CARACAS — A young employee's burgeoning career took a massive step forward this week, as a junior cartel member was excited to find out that he was already getting an opportunity to drive the boat. Luis Delgado, who had only been hired by the cartel two months ago, was notified by his supervisors that he had been promoted to boat driver for the upcoming shipment of narcotics to the United States. "This is the most amazing day of my life!" Delgado said after hearing the news. "I knew joining the cartel gave me a career with a lot of potential...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV Accepts Chinese (CCPA) Bishop Who Just Closed a ChurchThe Vatican announced the episcopal consecration of Monsignor Francesco Li Jianlin as the new bishop of the Prefecture of Xinxiang in Henan, China, on December 5.The liturgy was held at the church of Weihui and celebrated by Bishop Li Shan of Beijing. He heads the state-controlled Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association.Li Jianlin is the second bishop elected during the papal interregnum following the death of Pope Francis.The appointment was formally approved by Pope Leo XIV on August 11. It comes with the acceptance of the “resignation” of the underground...

WOODBRIDGE, VA — Local man Brian Cole Jr. reportedly had his invitation to the annual FBI Christmas Party rescinded after being arrested under suspicion that he was the January 6 Pipe Bomber. Federal agents raided Cole's home on Thursday after successfully linking him to the mysterious hooded suspect who had planted explosive devices at both the Democratic and Republican National Committee Headquarters on the eve of January 6, which sources confirmed was a big "no-no" for federal employees. "Cole was one of our best, but he violated his oath when he got caught," Special Agent Dylan Ravenslaw said during a...

NEW: Caught on a pool camera before President Trump's trilateral peace deal signing, Rep Darrell Issa is overheard discussing CA-40 redistricting, seeming to suggest Rep Young Kim should not run against Rep Ken Calvert. "Ken [Calvert] has nowhere else to go. She [Young Kim] does have a hard seat she could go to, and I know the administration would look favorably if she would do that. And then if she doesn't win, you know, she could go to the administration for two years. With Ken, we need him exactly where he is, and most of this district is or has...

Pro-life advocates have released shocking video evidence of a woman in severe pain being ejected from a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Chicago after a botched abortion. The video, captured at the Downtown (Near North) Chicago Planned Parenthood, Elizabeth Cohn Morris Clinic shows the young woman collapsed in the doorway, pleading for help after undergoing an abortion. The footage released by Coalition Life, a pro-life sidewalk counseling organization, shows a counselor helping the woman and directing emergency responders to her when they arrive on the scene. In the video, the woman tells Jacob, the sidewalk counselor, “They just threw me...

Live stream...

Explanation: Tonight, if you can see the stars of the Big Dipper, then you can find comet Lemmon in your evening sky. After sunset, look for the faint but extended comet above your northwestern horizon -- but below the handle of the famous celestial kitchen utensil of the north. It might be easier to see this visitor to the inner Solar System through your camera phone, which is better at picking up faint objects. Either way, look for a fuzzy green 'star' with a tail, though probably not so long a tail as in this impressive snapshot taken over Seč...

“War criminal!” exploded social media last Friday when the Washington Post released a purported “bombshell” revelation about Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. The paper alleged that Hegseth had ordered a second strike to kill drug smugglers belonging to a designated terrorist organization who had survived the first American attack on a Venezuelan boat on Sept. 2. The story was based on two anonymous sources who, if they indeed exist, claimed to have knowledge of the War Department’s workings on the matter. On Sunday, the Post’s story was contradicted by President Trump, who told reporters Hegseth had authorized no second strike....

A Calgary pastor was again arrested for refusing to apologize to a librarian under court order. Derek Reimer, who was arrested Wednesday, was on a year-long house arrest that would have ended this month. At court hearing last week to discuss the conditions of his sentence, Reimer was ordered to write an apology letter to library manager Shannon Slater, which he had until the end of the week write and submit. The pastor first appeared in court after a 2023 incident at a Calgary Public Library in Saddletowne, where the library was hosting a "Reading with Royalty" event, in which...

Minnesota is still reeling from the biggest fraud scandal in its history. A sprawling, stunning, almost unbelievable heist of federal money intended to feed hungry children during the pandemic. And at the center of the storm sits Aimee Bock – former schoolteacher, mom-of-two, and the woman federal prosecutors branded the mastermind of a $300million meals-for-kids scam. Bock is already convicted. She's already behind bars. And she's facing a sentence that could lock her away for most of the rest of her life. But her lawyer, Kenneth Udoibok, says she is nothing more than a scapegoat – the fall-girl for a...

Gov. Kathy Hochul is getting ripped over a cringe Lunar New Year video she shot at the request of an alleged Chinese agent, with rival Rep. Elise Stefanik blasting the Democrat as “compromised.” Hochul shot the awkward clip for China’s New York consulate back in 2021 when she was still lieutenant governor as she wished viewers “xin nian kuai le” — or Happy New Year, the newly resurfaced footage shows. “Footage HERE of the video Kathy Hochul so ‘obediently’ filmed for the Chinese Communist Party after her Chinese Communist spy coaxed her into it,” Stefanik posted on X on Thursday...

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Trump v. Slaughter, the case challenging limitations on the President's ability to remove members of the Federal Trade Commission. In resolving this question, the Court will consider whether to narrow or overrule Humphrey's Executor. Perhaps to aid in the Court's deliberations, today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided the combined cases of Harris v. Bessent and Wilcox v. Trump, concerning the limitations on removal of members of the Merit System Protection Board and National Labor Relations Board. In Harris, a divided panel concluded that the President...

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration blame the EU and migration for what they say is imminent, total cultural unraveling in Europe. The explosive claim is made in the U.S. National Security Strategy, which notes Europe has economic problems, but says they are "eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure" within the next 20 years. "The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition,...

President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated his decision to permit U.S. automakers to manufacture so-called "tiny cars." "I have just approved TINY CARS to be built in America. Manufacturers have long wanted to do this, just like they are so successfully built in other countries," Trump posted on Truth Social. "They can be propelled by gasoline, electric, or hybrid. These cars of the very near future are inexpensive, safe, fuel efficient and, quite simply, AMAZING!!! START BUILDING THEM NOW! Thank you to the DOJ and the Departments of Transportation and Environment." So-called "tiny cars" are popular in Japan and other...

A Brazilian Harvard Law School professor who pleaded guilty last month to illegally firing an air rifle outside a Boston-area synagogue — and told police he was “hunting rats” — has agreed to leave the US following his arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement this week. Carlos Portugal Gouvea, 43, copped Nov. 13 to a single charge of illegal use of the air rifle in connection with the Oct. 2 incident outside of Brookline’s Temple Beth Zion, which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. The scholar was arrested by ICE Boston Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO)...

Daily Readings from the USCCBAs Jesus passed by, two blind men followed him, crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” Matthew 9:27Picture these two men for a moment. Just before this passage, Jesus had cured a leper, healed a Roman centurion’s servant, restored Peter’s mother-in-law to health, made a paralytic walk, and stopped a woman’s years-long hemorrhages. He had cast out demons, freeing people from their oppression, and even raised a twelve-year-old girl from the dead. This context is crucial as we imagine these two blind men crying out, “Son of David, have pity on us!” Word was...

or over a decade at this shingle, we've reported on the industrial-scale gang-rape afflicting almost every town up and down the spine of England, most recently on a special edition of The Mark Steyn Show. The stories are all different, and yet in their most salient aspect all the same: In every town the girls are doubly violated - sodomised by their Pakistani Muslim clan-rapists, and then further assaulted by a whitey-white officialdom that is, as a practical matter, on the same side as the rape-gangs. The politicians, the social workers, the media, the coppers, all of them. In a...

A notebook detailed alleged attack plans against University of Delaware police, including multiple references to "martyrdom."A Delaware man has been charged with illegally possessing a machine gun after authorities uncovered a weapons cache and a handwritten manifesto referencing a University of Delaware police station and officer, according to a Dec. 1 release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.Luqmaan Khan, 25, was arrested Nov. 24 after New Castle County Police officers found him parked illegally in Canby Park West late at night. Officers stopped his vehicle and, after he resisted arrest, searched the car. Inside, they found a modified Glock handgun with...

Conservatives interested in higher-education reform often ask themselves where things went wrong. Answers usually range from the radicalism of the 1960s to the rise of social media or the triumph of critical theories in various departments and then the university as a whole. True, but the problem lies deeper, as well. Few are willing to trace today’s ills to the rise of the Progressive University or, what is the same thing, the making of higher education in the image of the modern research university. The modern research university is a source of pride among modern peoples. Commercials for universities during...

There is a way of proving - I mean logically, bulletproof proving - that Israel was not committing genocide in Gaza. And as I came up with that, I realized that the same method can also be used to either debunk or support most similar accusations of systemic, large scale crimes. I've written before about the falsifiability audit I've developed for my Derechology philosophy framework. Briefly, it says that if a load-bearing assumption of an argument is false, then the entire argument is false. The assumption can be explicit or, more often, implicit. Identifying those hidden assumptions is not always...