Free Republic

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have unveiled a new spending bill totaling at least $174 billion that could get a vote in the House of Representatives as early as this week. It’s a significant step toward avoiding another government shutdown come Jan. 30, the deadline congressional leaders set after ending the recent 43-day shutdown — the longest in U.S. history — in November. The legislation released on Monday is a package of three of the 12 annual spending bills that Congress is charged with passing: commerce, justice, science and related agencies; energy and water development and related agencies; and interior, environment...

The largest DHS operation ever is happening right now in Minnesota. @POTUS Trump and @Sec_Noem have rallied DHS law enforcement personnel to keep Americans safe and ERADICATE fraud. We’re not leaving until the problem is solved.

In 1993, while on tour in Mexico with a Cuban ballet troupe, Cubans Ariel Serrano and his wife Wilmian Hernandez bought one-way tickets and boarded a plane to Miami... Nearly 32 years since that pivotal day—Serrano and Hernandez will again board a plane, their dreams having expanded infinitely beyond what they could ever have imagined. This time the destination is London, where they will sit in the plush scarlet seats at The Royal Opera House and watch their son Francisco, 28, a soloist with The Royal Ballet, perform his first lead role The school they initially established to train their...

The article link-click goes to a post titled "Scots, Wha Hae wi' Wallace Bled (Custom Piano Recording) - Salute to The Donald" from about three hours after the state-sanctioned homicide of Ashli Babbitt. Lyrics are from a poem by Scottish national poet Robbie Burns, deliberately framing it as a speech by Robert the Bruce before the Battle of Bannockburn (1314) in which the Scots beat the pants off the English troops of King Edward II who at 15,000–20,000 heavily outnumbered the Scots at 5,000–7,000. (It goes to a centuries old Scottish tune, "Hey Tuttie Tattie", "Onomatopoeia" for the sound of...

Tim Walz wants a third term. Donald Trump and Mike Lindell want to beat him. Minnesota has been the white whale for Republicans in the Trump era. And 2026 could be the year they finally break through — if President Donald Trump and one of the most prolific peddlers of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election don’t sink their chances. Republicans are growing optimistic about their chances of unseating Democratic Gov. Tim Walz next year, as he seeks a historic third term. But Trump’s increasingly caustic attacks on Walz and disparagement of Minnesota’s Somali community — and MyPillow CEO Mike...

President Donald Trump announced that the “interim authorities” in charge of Venezuela would be giving between 30 and 50 million “Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil” to the United States. In a post on Truth Social, Trump explained that the oil would “be sold at its Market Price,” and that Trump would ensure the money from the sales would be “used to benefit the people of Venezuela” and the U.S. “I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States...

Lindsey Graham: “Who is in charge of Venezuela? Donald J. Trump. If you defy him, what happened to Maduro is going to happen to you”

[Catholic Caucus] The heresy of Modernism continues to grow. None of our Church leaders seem to careIt seems as if the current hierarchy regards the Second Vatican Council as having somehow tacitly 'repealed' on the sly our Church's settled 1907 dogma condemning Modernism as a heresy.First of all, what is the heresy of Modernism? It’s important to understand that this essay refers to the formally declared heresy of Modernism—not “modernism” in the artistic, cultural, political, or purely philosophical usages of the word. Modernism in Catholic theological doctrine, however, is indeed a heresy—a heresy that progressive-minded Catholics often dally with, and...

Orthodox Christmas will be observed on January 7, by millions of Christians across Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. While much of the world celebrates Christmas on December 25, Orthodox Christians follow a different liturgical calendar, making their celebration fall 13 days later... The difference in dates arises from the use of two calendars. Most Western Christian churches follow the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 to correct inaccuracies in the older Julian calendar. This reform fixed the date of Christmas as December 25. However, many Orthodox churches chose not to adopt the Gregorian calendar for...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) stunning decision to drop his reelection bid is raising speculation that Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) may run for the seat, thrilling members of her party at a time when they find themselves ensnared in a growing political scandal over widespread fraud. The New York Times reported that Walz and Klobuchar met on Sunday, a day before Walz officially announced his move to forgo a run for a third term. A source close to Klobuchar told NewsNation she was “considering it” but hadn’t made a final decision yet. A potential Klobuchar gubernatorial bid is seen as...

Tim Walz’s DHS fabricated records, had zero internal controls, and employees ignored oversight on more than $400 MILLION in grants. The fraud and corruption continues.

Greenland said on Tuesday that it had asked, along with Denmark, for a speedy meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio after US President Donald Trump renewed claims on the Arctic island. "The objective of the meeting is to discuss the significant statements made by the United States about Greenland," a Danish autonomous territory, Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt wrote in a Facebook post. "It has so far not been possible for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio to meet with the Greenlandic government, despite the fact that the Greenlandic and Danish governments have requested a meeting at the ministerial...

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a Christian father seeking to have his kindergarten-aged child removed from classroom lessons teaching LGBT ideology, as litigation continues. In a Dec. 30 opinion authored by Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV, the United States Court for the District of Massachusetts sided with the father, identified as “Alan L.,” in his litigation against Lexington Public Schools over its inclusion of LGBT-related material in the kindergarten curriculum. The plaintiff, a father of a kindergarten student, alleges that the school district violated his “sincere and deeply held” religious beliefs as a “committed, practicing Christian” by...

Europe's leaders boldly confronted Donald Trump on Tuesday night after his administration threatened to use the US military to seize Greenland. A joint statement from leaders including Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy vowed to defend Greenland's 'territorial integrity' - following days of escalating tensions between the US and NATO ally Denmark. It comes as Trump and his top advisers explore plans including purchasing the Danish territory or taking charge of its defense, according to a senior administration official. The White House said that 'utilising the US military is always an option'...

Iran’s protest slogans have shifted from reformist appeals in the 2009 Green Movement demonstrations to more prominent calls to reinstate the monarchy ousted in 1979, transcending Tehran's central political divide between moderates and hardliners. In 2009, many demonstrators chanted “Ya Hossein, Mir Hossein,” framing a disputed election in the language of religious legitimacy and around Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister who challenged the vote. Sixteen years later, clips shared from protests and even holiday gatherings at historic sites suggest that a growing share of Iran’s street chant repertoire has shifted to a different refrain: “This is the last...

A study of the genomes of Italians who have reached the age of 100 has found that they carry a higher proportion of genetic material from the ancestral group known as Western Hunter-Gatherers than the rest of the population, according to a Phys.org report. Researchers led by Stefania Sarno and Vincenzo Iannuzzi of the University of Bologna analyzed the genes of 333 Italian centenarians and 690 healthy adults around the age of 50. These genomes were then compared to more than 100 ancient genomes from four ancestral groups: Western Hunter-Gatherers, Neolithic Anatolian farmers, Bronze Age nomads, and ancient groups from...

A unanimous decision by a federal appeals court will allow Yakima Union Gospel Mission to continue its faith-based hiring practices. The decision, issued Tuesday by the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, agreed with the organization's lawsuit challenging a state anti-discrimination law that would affect the mission’s hiring of employees to non-ministerial positions. State law forbids hiring practices based on sexual orientation, with some exceptions for religious organizations. In its ruling, the court cited the religious freedoms outlined in the First Amendment in allowing Union Gospel Mission to require its employees to agree with and live out its Christian beliefs...

Black cherry (Prunus serotina), the largest of the native cherries and the only one of commercial value, is found throughout the Eastern United States. It is also known as wild black cherry, rum cherry, and mountain black cherry. Large, high-quality trees suited for furniture wood or veneer are found in large numbers in a more restricted commercial range on the Allegheny Plateau of Pennsylvania, New York, and West Virginia

Let me say this as plainly as I know how: this is not about oil. It’s not about drugs. It’s not about terrorism. It’s not even about communism, Marxism, or socialism alone. It’s about all of it—at the same time. And for the first time in my lifetime, we have a president who is not reacting, not managing decline, not trying to “stabilize” a collapsing system—but playing to win. I’ve never seen this before. Donald Trump has been saying America First his entire life—not as a slogan, but as a worldview. And whether you like his style or not, you...

• Commitment comes at 'coalition of willing' gathering • Security protocols 'as strong as anyone has ever seen,' Witkoff says • Guarantees would enter into force after ceasefire • Question mark hangs over Russian response The United States for the first time on Tuesday backed a broad coalition of Ukraine's allies vowing to provide security guarantees that leaders said would include binding commitments to support the country if Russia attacks again. The pledge came at a summit in Paris of the "coalition of the willing" of mainly European nations to firm up guarantees to reassure Kyiv in the event of...