Free Republic

PHOENIX — Downtown Phoenix became the center of conservative politics Thursday night as Turning Point USA kicked off Americafest 2025 at the Phoenix Convention Center, marking the first time the annual event has been held since the assassination of its founder, Charlie Kirk.Each December, Americafest draws thousands of attendees from across the country along with prominent conservative figures. This year, Kirk’s absence loomed large over the opening night of the conference, which he created as a celebration of the work done by his nonprofit organization.Despite that loss, the message from the stage was clear: the mission Kirk started will continue.The...

Former Fox News host and author Steve Hilton jumped into the lead in California’s jungle primary for governor, in which the two top candidates from both parties will advance to the general election. The new poll from FM3, commissioned by the moderate Democratic Party group California Issues Forum, has Hilton with a one-point lead over Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R) and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who are both tied at 17%. Hilton and Bianco finishing first and second in the primary would mean two Republicans advance to the general election, and a Republican would run California for the first...

It took me several minutes to stop laughing long enough to share this. Tough talk, Sandy. As reported by Fox News, the question was prompted by a recent poll that showed AOC edging out Vance in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is incorporating Gen Z messaging and viral jabs at Vice President J.D. Vance into her playbook as she builds momentum for a 2028 presidential run, a Republican political strategist has claimed. The strategist's comments came after the New York Democrat used meme-style language and mocked Vance on Dec. 17 over a poll and declared she would 'stomp him'...

The other day R. Bruce Dold, the great Pulitzer Prize winning editor of the Chicago Tribune, died. And our friend Cory Franklin wrote a beautiful column about Bruce. At the church there were many people there, people I knew, former colleagues at the Tribune who loved and respected Bruce. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were not there for Bruce alone, but that we also were mourning journalism itself. At least Chicago journalism, the Chicago newspapers. I’m not trying to redo Dr. Franklin’s great work about Bruce, but I did add an editor’s note explaining that while he...

Should we trust the research published by professors? The scholars who write books and papers have impressive degrees and teach at respected universities, and their work has to undergo rigorous scrutiny before it can be published, so the answer would seem to be that we should. The safeguards against deception and fraud appear strong. Decades ago, they were strong, but that’s not true today. In recent years, deception and fraud have been proven in quite a few instances. Some of the guilty professors have admitted their wrongdoing, one even confessing that he didn’t have the patience for rigor. Clearly, academic...

Michelea Ponce , the woman who filmed herself harassing an elderly Target employee for wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt, has officially been fired from her job.

VIDEOFulton County prosecutor Fani Willis was just investigated by the Georgia State Senate for her handling of the nothngburger case (encouraged by the Biden Regime) against President Donald Trump including charges that her and her boyfriend, Nathan Wade, used the prosecution expenses as a piggy bank for grift including going on expensive cruises together. While watching her meltdowns during that state senate hearing, it is interesting to recall how journalist and FAILED author Michael Isikoff vehemently defended her against the corruption charges in early 2024. Of course, Isikoff had a big financial stake in convincing the public of Fani's integrity...

It’s a race to the moon – again. Yesterday (18) was a historic day for American space exploration, as the new NASA administrator, the businessman, pilot and astronaut Jared Isaacman, was confirmed by the US Senate, and Donald J. Trump signed an important Executive Order ENSURING AMERICAN SPACE SUPERIORITY. Isaacman has had an unusual trajectory, having been appointed, discarded in the context of the fight between Donald J. Trump and SpaceX’s Elon Musk, and successfully re-appointed. CBS News reported: “The Senate confirmed billionaire Jared Isaacman to be NASA administrator on Wednesday in a 67 to 30 vote after he was...

16-year-old Andrew Meismer was stabbed to death at a Texas school by his 18-year-old classmate Aundre Matthews on Wednesday morning. Matthews allegedly has a history at the school that includes violent altercations. The Harris County DA’s office on Friday charged Matthews with murder after he fatally stabbed Meismer with scissors during a fight at Ross S. Sterling High School. Meismer was airlifted to a hospital on Wednesday, but he died from his injuries. Goose Creek Superintendent Dr. Randal O’Brien addressed the fatal stabbing. “After careful consideration, the administration decided that the best way to serve our students and faculty in...

🚨 BREAKING: Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirms he is ENDING the NGO foreign aid industrial complex 🔥 "Foreign aid should be used for the purpose of furthering the national interest. That doesn't mean we don't care about human rights. That doesn't mean we don't care about starvation. That doesn't mean we don't care about hunger. That doesn't mean we don't care about humanitarian need." "What it does mean, however, is that even foreign aid, which is NOT charity - it is an act of the US taxpayer." "The United States' and the taxpayer money should be spent in furtherance...

PHOENIX, AZ — Attendees at Turning Point's AmFest 2025 event experienced an awkward moment last night, as Tucker Carlson interrupted his own speech for an evening prayer to Mecca. Onlookers were startled as Tucker halted a lengthy speech on cancel culture and looked at his phone. "Ope! Looks like it's that time again!" said Tucker to the confused audience as he rolled out an ornate prayer rug and began to kneel. "It's time to pray. That's important, obviously, and we're going to pray together, clearly. I mean, seriously, obviously. Why wouldn't we? HAHAHAHAHA!" Sources said Carlson then began chanting in...

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem late Thursday night paused the Diversity Visa Program, saying it allowed the Brown University shooting suspect to enter the U.S. and receive a green card. In an X post, Noem said the suspected shooter, Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, "entered the United States through the diversity lottery immigrant visa program (DV1) in 2017 and was granted a green card," adding, "This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country." Noem said she was acting at President Donald Trump's direction and ordered U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to halt processing tied to the program...

Now that Congress has passed a law – not a flimsy resolution, but a law – mandating that the Trump administration release all its files on Jeffrey Epstein, here’s what we know, and what we still need to know. The basic elements of Epstein’s crimes were established back in 2006 by the Palm Beach Police, who began investigating the previous year after a woman reported that he had paid her 14-year-old stepdaughter for a massage. Over the next 13 months, the police gathered sworn statements from dozens of witnesses, including five underage girls who said they’d been paid $200 to...

The suspect tied to both the Brown University mass shooting and the killing of an MIT professor has been found dead inside a storage unit with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. During a Thursday night press conference in Rhode Island, officials confirmed that 48-year-old suspect Claudio Manuel Neves-Valente was found deceased in Salem, New Hampshire. Authorities revealed they traced Valente to a self-storage facility where robots, canine units, and a SWAT team entered the building and conducted a comprehensive sweep. He was found dead inside, along with a satchel and two firearms. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said a key...

The attorney general of Minnesota has identified the culprits responsible for all the car thefts in his state. And the culprit is the car manufacturers of course.

An officer was shot in Welland, Ont., on Friday morning while Niagara police were responding to reports of gunfire. "The officer has been transported to hospital as a precaution to assess injuries, which are not believed to be life-threatening," said Niagara Regional Police Service on X. A man continues to be "contained" in a building, Const. Richard Hingley told reporters at about noon ET on Friday. The incident appeared to begin over a fence dispute, Hingley said. In the morning, City of Welland bylaw officers went to the property to address "an enormous fence" that was blocking traffic sightlines, he...

BUCHAREST, Romania -- American rapper Wiz Khalifa was sentenced by a court in Romania on Thursday to nine months in jail for drug possession, more than a year after he took part in a music festival in the Eastern European country. Khalifa was stopped by Romanian police in July 2024 after allegedly smoking cannabis on stage at the Beach, Please! Festival in Costinesti, a coastal resort in Constanta County. Prosecutors said the rapper, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis, and that he consumed some on stage. The Constanta...

The federal government will launch a new gun buyback scheme in response to the Bondi beach terror attack in what Anthony Albanese says will be the biggest collection of weapons since the Port Arthur massacre nearly three decades ago. It comes as New South Wales announced a suite of gun control measures including capping the number of firearms most recreational shooters can hold at four. Costs for the buyback, which is expected to see hundreds of thousands of weapons destroyed, will be split between the federal government and the states, the prime minister said on Friday. States and territories will...

Global data centers dealmaking surged to hit another record high this year, driven by a rush to build out the infrastructure required for energy-intensive AI workloads. That surge came even as investors grew increasingly wary of inflated artificial intelligence valuations and the financing underpinning the rapid expansion of data centers. Global stocks sold off in November as worries of an AI-fueled bubble persisted. But S&P Global reported that more than $61 billion has flowed into the data center market this year, up slightly from $60.8 billion last year, amid what it called a “global construction frenzy.” A surge in debt...

A Milwaukee jury has convicted the pro-migration judge who smuggled an illegal migrant out of her courtroom and away from waiting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan now faces up to five years in jail for obstructing an official proceeding when she escorted illegal migrant Eduardo Flores Ruiz out of her courtroom. Flores Ruiz had already been deported and so faced jail for sneaking back into the United States. It took just six hours for the jury to agree on the verdict after Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Brown Watzka summed up the evidence by saying,...