Free Republic

"Real Time" host Bill Maher said Monday that the Democratic Party needs to "tell celebrities to shut the (expletive) up" if it wants to win elections in the future. Maher told the California Post that Hollywood is holding the party back from achieving its goals. "Hollywood [is] sort of the epicenter of the woke left. I don’t think they’re doing the Democratic Party any favors," he told the outlet. "I think if Democrats want to win elections in the future, job one, tell the celebrities to ‘Just shut the (expletive) up. You’re not helping. You don’t strike people in most...

Alex Pretti had been injured in a scuffle with federal agents in Minneapolis just one week before he was shot dead, it has emerged. Pretti, 37, was left with a broken rib after being tackled by a group of officers during a protest against Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, a source told CNN. The alleged assault occurred after Pretti stopped his car after seeing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers chasing a family on foot, the insider said. Pretti allegedly began shouting and blowing a whistle, and was then tackled to the ground by five agents. The source claimed one officer...

U.S. President Donald Trump's ambassador to Canada is warning of consequences to the continental defence pact if Canada does not move forward with the purchase of 88 F-35 fighter jets. "NORAD would have to be altered," U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra told CBC News in an exclusive interview at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona. He says the United States would likely need to purchase more of the advanced fighter aircraft for its own air force, and would fly them more often into Canadian airspace to address threats approaching the U.S. "If Canada is no longer going to provide...

Curry says its "absurd" to judge the reality hit by today's standards.Netflix’s documentary re-examining the legacy of America’s Next Top Model is drawing early criticism from one famous former contestant: Adrianne Curry. The upcoming three-part series — Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model — features the show’s former producers and judges, including Tyra Banks, re-examining the long-running reality hit and reflecting on the show’s many controversies. But Curry, who won the show’s debut season in 2003, posted on social media that she declined to take part in the documentary and finds judging the show by current standards “absurd.” “I...

Check this out. $33,000 - $100,000 in scholarships offered to illegals only. American born and raised boys like mine need not apply. My kids are struggling to find money and are paying big bucks for their higher education. Meanwhile, any illegal who is older than sixteen and arrived prior to 2020 can apply for this money. The "partner college" list is locked behind a password, so I don't know which ones are accepting illegals. Man, this really grinds my gears. The founder is Don Graham of Graham Holdings. Other Board Members include former Secretary of Commerce under G.W. Bush, Carlos...

"GO ICE," the teacher at West Chicago’s Gary Elementary School, posted on Facebook last week. Shortly after the post was made, activists in the predominantly Hispanic community quickly began sharing the post and calling for action to be taken against the teacher, who Fox News Digital is not naming due to safety concerns. -snip Activists began circulating a flyer online, with a Change.org petition, calling for the employee's job and for students to stay home from school in protest, saying, "the casual way in which he publicly promoted the actions of ICE in our area is inappropriate and unsuitable for...

A person was shot in an incident involving U.S. Border Patrol in Arizona on Tuesday, according to a Pima County Sheriff's Department spokesperson. The individual, who has not been identified, was shot in southern Pima County near milepost 15 of West Arivaca Road at around 7:30 a.m., according to a news release from the Santa Rita Fire District. The fire department said it transported the person in critical condition. The circumstances leading to the incident were not immediately clear. There is no information whether anyone from law enforcement was injured in the incident. The Department of Homeland Security did not...

Graham Nash, Neal Schon, Tom Morello and other rock stars took to social media to react to a Border Patrol agent fatally shooting 37-year-old Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday. You can see their reactions below. What Happened to Alex Pretti? On Saturday, federal agents in Minneapolis fatally shot killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse who appeared to be using his phone to record U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. Videos show agents pinning Pretti to the ground and hitting him, and one officer leaving with what appears to be a gun. These videos appear to contradict claims...

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio (RNS) — “We have orders of deportation,” said a volunteer in a raised voice, posing as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent and pounding on the sanctuary door. “What you’re doing is harboring.” Inside the sanctuary, hundreds of trainees blocked the large wooden double doors. One called out, “We’re exercising our First Amendment right to freedom of worship.” The handful of faux ICE agents moved to a different entryway. As they pried open the side door to the sanctuary, some trainees held up phones to record the encounter while others blew whistles. The scenario was part of a...

A patient paused mid-thought in my Manhattan office the other day and apologized: “I know I’m saying this as a white guy.” The comment felt out of place, so I asked him what he meant. When his explanation still didn’t fit, I asked what being a white guy had to do with the situation at all. He admitted it had nothing to do with it. He was describing a routine scheduling issue at work. There was no racial dimension and no colleague’s identity involved.

One of the more disturbing things to come out of the radical left’s anti-ICE behavior is the realization of how many people who are tasked with protecting people during their most vulnerable and critical moments, healthcare workers, fantasize about harming those they disagree with politically. The Gateway Pundit reported on two nurses, one from Ohio and a labor and delivery nurse from Florida, who publicly wished that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, pregnant with her second child, would suffer a traumatic birth injury. On Sunday, another nurse posted on social media that he would let MAGA supporters suffer and...

When actual Native Americans call out the state’s silly mascot bans, you know progressives have lost their way. The Native American Guardian Association last week called barring indigenous school mascots “the dumbest law of all time” and vowed to take its case against the state Board of Regents all the way to the US Supreme Court. NAGA believes identities like “the Massapequa Chiefs” promote respect for Native American culture and values: You don’t name your team for something you hold in contempt.

The pre-AI world is gone. Estimates suggest that already, as many as one in eight kids personally knows someone who has been the target of a deepfake photo or video, with numbers rising to one in four who have seen a sexualized deepfake of someone they recognize, either a friend or a celebrity. This is a real problem and it’s one that lawmakers are suddenly waking up to. In the 1980s, when I was a kid, it was a picture of a missing child on a milk carton from across the country that encapsulated parental fears. In 2026, it’s an...

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has released a cockpit simulation of the fatal 2025 collision between a passenger jet and a US military helicopter near Ronald Reagan Washington National airport. That incident on the night of 29 January 2025 killed 67 people, including all 64 aboard an MHIRJ CRJ700 operated by PSA Airlines, a subsidiary of American Airlines, that was on final approach to land. The remaining three victims were crew aboard a US Army Sikorsky UH-60L Black Hawk operating in a formerly active helicopter route along the Potomac River. During a 27 January public hearing, NTSB officials...

Is the Francis era continuing in Leo’s interreligious appointments?Pope Leo XIV has appointed 19 new consultors to the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, a move that broadly confirms the trajectory of nominations established under Pope Francis.The Holy See announced the appointments on Monday, naming clerics, religious sisters, and lay academics from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas to advise the dicastery in its work.The consultors come from a wide range of theological, cultural, and institutional backgrounds and include figures already prominent in synodal processes, interreligious initiatives, and Catholic social movements.Among those appointed is Emilce Cuda, secretary of the Pontifical Commission for...

A growing number of Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as many Trump administration officials defend federal officers’ actions. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have all said there needs to be a thorough probe into Saturday's fatal shooting of Pretti, a U.S. citizen, by Border Patrol. Administration officials overseeing immigration enforcement may soon face public scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats alike. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...

The president told 'New York' magazine he feels "the same as I did 40 years ago" in a new interview about his aging“I hate to waste a lot of time on this, but if you’re going to write a bad story about my health, I’m going to sue the ass off of New York magazine," he said. "There will be a time when you can write that story, maybe in two years, three years, five years — five years, no one is going to care, I guess. Go ahead and sit down.” Speculation about Trump's health has run rampant in...

Minnesota’s Post-Assimilation RealityOur country requires a common culture.What is unfolding in Minnesota cannot be understood without first confronting a difficult truth: some cultures arrive intact. They do not dissolve on contact with modern society, nor do they gently adapt—they replicate.Somali society is organized around the clan. Loyalty is not abstract, nor is it civic. It is biological and binding. The individual exists only insofar as he serves the group. Protection, marriage, honor, silence, and punishment are governed by this code. Obligations flow inward, sanctions flow downward. The clan precedes the individual and outlives him.This structure is pre-modern, but it is...

Explanation: Rising over a frozen valley in the Tatra Mountains, the familiar stars and nebulas of Orion dominate this wide-field nightscape. The featured deep photo was taken in southern Poland's highest mountain range last month, where dark skies and alpine terrain combined to reveal both Earth's rugged beauty and the structure of our galaxy. Above the snowy mountains, Orion's bright belt stars anchor a region of glowing interstellar clouds. The Great Orion Nebula, a vast stellar nursery visible even to the unaided eye, shines near the center of the scene. Surrounding it is the enormous arc of Barnard's Loop, a...

The man who incited a mob to surround teenage girls simply for taking a photo with ICE, while threatening them and attempting to doxx them, has been identified as Mark Holodnak, the Democrat Committee Treasurer for Arizona District 12.