Free Republic

The Justice Department has backed off a dubious claim about President Nicolás Maduro that the Trump administration promoted last year in laying the groundwork to remove him from power in Venezuela: accusing him of leading a drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles. That claim traces back to a 2020 grand jury indictment of Mr. Maduro drafted by the Justice Department. In July 2025, copying language from it, the Treasury Department designated Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization. In November, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and President Trump’s national security adviser, ordered the State Department to do...

The Strategic Necessity of Taking Out MaduroWhat looked like another endless war was instead a clean Monroe Doctrine strike—neutralizing Maduro, securing U.S. interests, and leaving without a quagmire.I’ll be honest. When I woke up in the early hours of January 3, 2026, and briefly checked my news feed, I was alarmed when I saw that America had its elite military forces on the ground in Venezuela. You see, as a veteran of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the primary reasons I supported Donald Trump in 2024 was that he would end our entanglement in what I call...

Daniel Osorio, Andean Capital Advisors president and founder, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, what's next for the country, impact on the global oil industry and cryptocurrency, and more. Every Venezuelan with the exception of a few thousand people are ecstatic:Andean's Daniel Osorio | 9:27CNBC Television | 3.31M subscribers | 2,019 views | January 6, 2026

A suspected arson attack has caused a widespread power cut in Berlin since Saturday. Authorities said on Sunday that it was a result of a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists". Around 45,000 households were left without electricity in southwest Berlin after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire, which authorities have described as a politically motivated attack by far-left extremists. Though power has been restored in some areas, thousands could be left without power until Thursday after what authorities say was a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists”. The blaze erupted on a cable bridge over the Teltow...

The big news in 2025 for the climate scare was that all of a sudden this scare wasn’t such big news any more. We’re talking here about something that all of the right people had agreed for decades was an “existential” threat to humanity. It was supposedly the single most important thing that we all needed to focus on and transform our lives to stop. We only had ten years to “save the planet”; or maybe it was only five. If we failed, we would shortly be inundated by sea level rise, or maybe devastated by floods and droughts, or...

End of transcript beginning at 24:48: "Our old systems were based on a masculine value system. Femininity was valued and it was respected, but it mostly played out in the private sphere. Public life was dominated by men and masculine values. Whether or not there is an important contribution that feminine values can make in reshaping our large institutions still remains to be seen. We are still very early in that experiment. But if you want to diagnose why our cultural decline seems to be speeding up and also understand where it began, look at gender. Our culture and our...

ANDERSON —One suspect is in the hospital, and three others are in custody after police say a home invasion led to a shooting in Anderson on Sunday. According to the Anderson Police Department, officers responded to 712 Lonsvale Drive around 12:44 p.m. on January 4 for a reported shooting. According to investigators, four suspects kicked in the rear door of the residence and forced their way inside. During the break-in, one of the occupants inside the home shot and wounded one of the intruders. The suspects fled the scene immediately after the shooting. Anderson Police later located and arrested three...

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Jury selection is underway in the trial of former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officer Adrian Gonzales, one of the first officers on the scene of the Robb Elementary mass shooting. What we know: Jury selection is taking place in Corpus Christi. Gonzales faces 29 felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child, and has pleaded not guilty. The charges are classified as state jail felonies, the lowest level of felony under Texas law. If convicted, Gonzales could face between six months and two years in prison. Gonzales is the first police officer in Texas...

January 6th was terrifying for many Americans. After all, they saw it on television. But what did they really see? Did they know what actually unfolded that day? Did they even ask? Trump is the Jan. 6 President, proclaims the New York Times’ Editorial Board. And the text: What I learned, living through these events as a former Democrat, is that the New York Times Editorial Board is lying through its teeth. Or maybe they aren’t lying. Maybe they really do believe it. They exist inside the Doomsday Cult of the Left, after all, along with all of those high-minded...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s daughter admitted there was “enough truth” to the alleged billion-dollar fraud scandal plaguing the North Star State — as she opened up about her father’s abrupt decision to drop his bid for a third term. Hope Walz appeared on “One Hour Detours” with host John O’Sullivan just hours after her dad announced he was bowing out of the 2026 governor’s race “to kind of get that target off of Minnesota.” “I think there was enough truth to the fraud claim,” the 25-year-old said. However, she then whined that President Trump and his supporters had twisted and...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(1/6/26)[Prayer]A New Study For A New Year: PersonalitiesGenesis 3:8-248 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And he said, Who told thee that...

Shares of Versant Media Group, home to channels such as USA Network and CNBC, slumped 13% in its market debut after its spinoff from Comcast, underscoring investor skepticism around traditional TV businesses in the streaming era. The spinoff is Comcast’s response to shifting market dynamics in the media industry, as streaming pressures traditional cable TV viewership, prompting media companies to rethink their ownership of legacy networks. The separation will allow Comcast to focus on its streaming, film and TV assets while shedding its declining cable networks division – once a core part of the company’s business. Comcast first announced plans...

President Trump has made clear he wants to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry so he can use the cash to make the country great again — but the sector is in shambles after decades of plunder, talent flight and negligence as a result of socialist rule. After capturing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro over the weekend, Trump vowed that US companies would soon tap into the nation’s rich oil reserves, which Caracas says hold about 303 billion barrels worth of petrol, roughly 17% of the world’s supply. Production has plummeted since hitting a high in 1997 — and the country produced just...

6 January 2026 Tuesday after Epiphany Sunday St. André Bessette - Amesbury, MAReadings at MassThe readings shown here are for places where the Epiphany is celebrated on Sunday 4 January.If you are celebrating the Epiphany on Tuesday 6 January this year then these are not the right readings. To see the right readings, you need to set this web site to use your own local calendar. On this web page, find the list of dates. After the last date there is a heading which says “Calendar Used”. Click on the calendar name below this heading, and choose your local...

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All the US Department of Homeland Security had to do this week was push out a tweet rife with explosive allegations against Hilton Hotels to set the Internet ablaze. On Monday (US time), the official DHS account on X fumed in all-caps, “NO ROOM AT THE INN!” The American federal department went on to call out the notable Hilton Hotels banner, accusing it of launching a “coordinated campaign” in Minneapolis against immigration authorities. Per the DHS’ side of the account, a Hilton Hotels-affiliated establishment refused service to law enforcement agents when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers tried to book...

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Anyone else notice this in their local news coverage? Maybe I see it more because there is a large Hispanic and especially Venezuelan population in Miami. But the Venezuelan diaspora is VERY HAPPY with President Trump for booting Maduro. *THE MEDIA REFUSES TO REPORT THIS FACT* Instead, the "journalists" say stuff like "The Venezuelans have hope for the future of their homeland..." But nothing about how they praise Trump.

Three things were said in the aftermath of the remarkable"Operation Absolute Resolve," mounted by the American military, which resulted in the arrest in Venezuela and removal to a Brooklyn jail of dictator Nicholas Maduro and his wife in the early morning hours of Saturday which deserve particular attention. During the press conference that morning, after President Donald Trump had announced the stunning success of the American military’s actions, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said: "President Trump doesn’t play games." In the course of the press conference that followed, President Trump declared at one point, simply but directly: "Life is a...

Walz, who has governed the North Star State since 2019 and presided over the devastating George Floyd riots, was relatively unknown before Harris announced him as her vice presidential nominee in August 2024. He was instantly praised (by journalists) as the paragon of Midwestern charm and “modern masculinity.” Alas, the national spotlight quickly exposed Walz as a bumbling fabulist with a bizarre penchant for fabulous gesticulations on the stump. He lied about serving in combat and being in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre. He disgraced himself on the debate stage next to J.D. Vance. Walz’s exit from the 2026...