Free Republic

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) is calling for federal action against the NFL and NBC following Sunday’s explicit Super Bowl halftime show. In a post on X on Monday, Fine argued that the Spanish-language performance violated federal broadcast standards and should result in major penalties. “You can’t say the f-word on live TV,” Fine wrote.

In today’s Diary: - An invisible robo-navy - Meet the new 4-layer ocean tech stack - Introducing “Ghost sharks” - The only way to stop drug boats - Reversing America’s decline. Hey Rational Optimist, My friend and economist Tyler Cowen likes to frame the world in terms of what’s “overrated” and “underrated.” I love looking at innovation and technology through this lens. It helps you identify hidden edges you can take advantage of in markets, business and life. One criminally underrated frontier today is… the ocean. You’re reading this essay thanks to the ocean. The “cloud” is actually underwater. Over...

Border czar Tom Homan on Thursday said President Donald Trump has agreed with his proposal to conclude a federal immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota.

Guess what the main topic of debate at the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week is. It is what the Euro-elites consider the most concerning issue of the moment: “State violence in Minneapolis and the rule of law in the United States.”This is a typical example of seeing the speck in your brother’s eye while ignoring the beam in your own. The European Union is criticizing the rule of law in America, while there are indications that Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission has in the past two years actively tried to interfere in eight parliamentary and presidential elections on...

‼️I just spoke with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has asked me to add him as a cosponsor of the SAVE America Act We’re now at 45 Baby steps to SAVE America ‼️

I often make fun of the liberal mindset that prescribes that all the personal problems of people in our society can and must be solved by government taxing and spending and the creation of more and more “programs” of one sort and another. As I write on my “About” page: The central tenet of [the Manhattan] orthodoxy is that all personal problems of the people in society can be solved by government taxing and spending. The obvious corollary is that since all problems can be solved by taxing and spending, therefore they must be solved by taxing and spending, and...

A US Navy warship collided into a Navy supply vessel during a refuel operation, the US military's Southern Command confirmed to the BBC. Two people reported minor injuries during Wednesday's replenishment-at-sea operation, Southern Command said, and are in stable condition. ... The exact location of the crash between the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Truxtun and the Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply was not immediately clear. ... The exact location of the crash between the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Truxtun and the Supply-class fast combat support ship USNS Supply was not immediately clear. The USNS Supply ship has been...

A North Carolina celebrity sheriff who opposes Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) also lacks a basic grasp on the three branches of government – and which one he serves under. [...] Sheriff McFadden has made a name for himself by opposing ICE. Soon after taking over as the county’s top cop in 2018, McFadden announced he would no longer cooperate with the federal agency under the 287(g) program. This allows local law enforcement to receive funding to help with immigration enforcement.

@RepThomasMassie Yesterday in @JudiciaryGOP, @AGPamBondi hurled personal insults instead of answering my legitimate questions about major gaps and serious flaws in the Epstein Files Transparency Act document production.

Two stories about NGOs—the nongovernmental organizations that news reporters love to quote to smuggle their own views as someone else’s analysis—caught our eye this week. And not only for reasons of schadenfreude. The first concerns Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, which supports an isolationist U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Parsi previously founded and led the National Iranian American Council, or NIAC, which advocates friendlier U.S. policy toward the Tehran regime. ... The second story concerns Human Rights Watch, the watchdog captured long ago by anti-Israel obsessives. On Tuesday its “Israel/Palestine director” resigned, denouncing Human Rights Watch for...

Annually and increasingly, tens of thousands of people are leaving blue states because of politics. If you’re old enough, you’ll recall the 1961 Berlin crisis. I recall it subsequently, when schools taught real history. That crisis happened during the Cold War’s peak years. In brief, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev wanted the U.S. out of West Berlin. There were multiple reasons, but, chiefly, access to West Berlin allowed East Germans to escape communist rule. According to the National Archives, by 1961, as many as four million Germans had escaped East Germany using West Berlin. With tensions rising, and the hemorrhaging increasing,...

Hugh Pinneo had just gotten home from high school and was dozing on the couch when his mother’s screams jolted him awake. “I think there’s a dog drowning in the pond!” she shouted. Pinneo, 18, rushed to a window and saw a dog struggling to stay afloat on the partially frozen pond behind their home in Chesapeake, Virginia. The top of the dog’s head was covered in ice as he flailed in the pond, which is about 20 feet deep. Pinneo, a senior at Grassfield High School, threw on a jacket and shoes, and ran outside. “My instinct kicked...

Who is Tucker Carlson? Even among the modern breed of American far-Right pundits, competing to be the loudest and most extreme voice on an oversaturated digital scene, he stands out as an oddity. Whatever you think of him, he isn’t predictable. He opposes abortion and immigration; his views on race have included describing Iraqis as “primitive monkeys”. Yet he has repeatedly given airtime to anti-Semitic guests, and seemed to implicate Israel in the murder of Charlie Kirk – hardly normal for even hardline conservatives. Nor is his decrying of the destruction of Gaza. Watching Carlson, or listening to his ultra-popular...

Chaos and fury erupted Monday in New York City’s affluent Upper East Side as residents packed a public meeting in protest of a planned homeless shelter they said "reeks of a for-profit intent." The women's shelter, which was converted from a men’s center after massive public pushback, is slated to open around April and will accommodate up to 250 women. At a Community Board 8 Manhattan meeting hosted by Housing Solutions of New York (HSNY), opponents sounded alarms over the shelter’s proximity to schools and daycare centers. Residents also accused city officials of deliberately rushing the process to limit community...

12 February 2026 Thursday of week 5 in Ordinary Time St. Eulalia Parish, Coudersport, PA Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First reading1 Kings 11:4-13For the sake of my servant David, I will leave you one tribeWhen Solomon grew old his wives swayed his heart to other gods; and his heart was not wholly with the Lord his God as his father David’s had been. Solomon became a follower of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians, and of Milcom, the Ammonite abomination. He did what was displeasing to the Lord, and was not a wholehearted follower of the Lord,...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Nebraska’s Republican secretary of state will turn over sensitive information on every registered voter in the state to the U.S. Justice Department on Thursday after Nebraska’s highest court rejected a legal effort to block the move. Secretary of State Bob Evnen told The Associated Press that the Nebraska Supreme Court denied the injunction Wednesday. Last week, a state judge dismissed the lawsuit filed by government watchdog Common Cause, which sought to stop the release of voter information, including dates of birth, addresses and partial Social Security numbers, to the federal government. “This case threatens the unprecedented...

With Britain on the brink of civil war, engulfed in growing anarchy, it is encouraging to hear three voices exposing the enemies of civilization and attempting to reverse the current decline by appealing to morality and reason. In periods of civilizational stress, the defining intellectuals are rarely those who echo prevailing orthodoxies. Rather, they are individuals insisting on the legitimacy of first principles when those principles have become unfashionable or even dangerous to articulate. In contemporary Britain, Natasha Hausdorff, Douglas Murray, and Matt Goodwin exemplify this truth-seeking, altruistic calling. Each operates within a distinct professional domain—law, cultural criticism, and political...

An Irishman who overstayed his 90-day tourist visa more than 15 years ago has been held in a Texas immigration detention facility for nearly five months rather than be deported, despite calling it a form of “torture.” Seamus Culleton, who is married to an American woman, told Irish media that he has a valid US work permit and a pending green card application when he was suddenly picked up by agents in Boston, where he runs a construction company. He was cuffed and eventually flown more than 2,000 miles from home to a camp facility at Fort Bliss Army base...

‼️ Wow Meloni goes hardcore in Italy by using the Navy to block migrant boats from landing. Proposed legislation was agreed by ministers yesterday. She isn’t bowing to the pressure of the UN or the ECHR, she’s protecting Italy and delivering her election promise.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Human-caused climate change had an important impact on the recent ferocious wildfires that engulfed parts of Chile and Argentina’s Patagonia region, making the extremely high-risk conditions that led to widespread burning up to three times more likely than in a world without global warming, a team of researchers warned on Wednesday. The hot, dry and gusty weather that fed last month’s deadly wildfires in central and southern Chile was made around 200% more likely by human-made greenhouse gas emissions while the high-fire-risk conditions that fueled the blazes still racing through southern Argentina were made 150%...