Free Republic

MONTGOMERY, Ala. —President Trump in his first term proved a windfall for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the antiracism nonprofit famed for its courtroom wins against the Ku Klux Klan decades ago. In 2017, the same year Trump took office and a white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., turned violent, annual contributions and grants to SPLC surged from $50 million to more than $130 million and have remained above $100 million nearly every year since.

Nigel Farage said the ‘Unite the Kingdom’ rally should be treated no differently from the pro-Palestinian march, calling the police measures “two-tier justice.” Mounted police officers look on as a Union Jack flag is displayed during a ‘Unite the Kingdom‘ march, in central London on September 13, 2025. CARLOS JASSO / AFP. London is preparing for one of the largest and most complex policing operations in recent years as tens of thousands are expected to attend two major demonstrations taking place on the same day in the capital. The Metropolitan Police confirmed that live facial recognition (LFR) technology will be...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — Fourteen people were arrested and millions of dollars in stolen items were recovered from a retail theft scheme after undercover detectives infiltrated the operation, Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister announced in a news conference Wednesday. Last week, the sheriff’s office served several search warrants, including one at a home in Lutz, which was identified as the base of the multi-state operation. The home’s garage was packed floor-to-ceiling with stolen items, which were grouped together and arranged like a makeshift store. Chronister said “customers” would request certain items, and the group behind the scheme would take them...

Pete Hegseth’s last-minute decision to cancel the deployment of 4,000 troops to Poland caught Pentagon staff and European allies by surprise — the latest example of an abrupt personnel move from the Defense secretary that blindsided both sides of the Atlantic. It wasn’t clear exactly why Hegseth issued the order, according to three defense officials familiar with the matter. President Donald Trump has repeatedly expressed anger and frustration with European allies for their failure to help with the Iran war, although Trump has labeled Poland a “model ally” for its high defense spending. The decision was even more surprising because...

Incredibly, despite the wars, the constant dangers, the disruption of reservists' lives, Israel has GDP per capita of about 69,000, TA Stock Market up about 20% since January, on top of 50% last year, shekel is strengthened against the dollar, big defense and high-tech deals with other countries. Debt to GDP ratio is 70%. Etc. Etc. Allying not just with UAE, but also with Greece and Cyprus. Transcript linked below video.

Media Netanyahu Says Israel Will Sue New York Times, Nick Kristof for 'Blood Libel' Rape Article: Times Takes More Heat for Relying on Widely Discredited Source In its statement, Israel notes that Kristof's piece 'received the backing of the newspaper' Benjamin Netanyahu (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images), Nicholas Kristof (Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Concordia Summit) Adam Kredo May 14, 2026 The pressure on the New York Times intensified Thursday after Israel announced it will sue the newspaper over opinion writer Nicholas Kristof's article alleging garish "sexual violence" by Israeli troops against Palestinian detainees. While a Times spokesman defended Kristof a second time,...

A new animated version of “Animal Farm” is facing a strong wave of negative reviews after its release, with critics giving it a very low score on Rotten Tomatoes... The film, released in 2026, is an updated adaptation of George Orwell’s classic novella about power, control, and political corruption. It was directed by Andy Serkis and written by Nicholas Stoller. The voice cast includes well-known actors such as Seth Rogen, Steve Buscemi, Glenn Close, Woody Harrelson, Kieran Culkin, and others... Some critics were especially harsh in their comments. One review described the film as a poor viewing experience, saying it...

US President Donald Trump has indicated that an agreement with China for 200 Boeing commercial aircraft could rise to 750, if the planemaker does a “good job”. President Trump was speaking to reporters on Air Force One as he left China following an official state visit to meet with President Xi in Beijing. The US president first announced that he had secured an order from China for 200 Boeing aircraft on May 14, 2026, but his latest comments went much further. Speaking on May 15, 2026, President Trump said: “We made a lot of great trade deals, including over 200...

Jay Jones, the Virginia attorney general who fantasized about executing a Republican colleague and wished death on his children, has not developed a reputation for thoughtful reflection. So perhaps it’s unsurprising that, in his typographically-challenged frenzy to salvage Virginia Democrats’ gerrymandering efforts, he has accidentally made a case to the U.S. Supreme Court against the months-long “election season” that his fellow Democrats prize. The only thing that could make the cosmic irony sweeter would be the Supreme Court taking Jones up on his request to interpret the Constitution as mandating a single Election Day. The Virginia Constitution requires constitutional referendums,...

AKRON, Ohio (WJW) – Two people are dead after a small aircraft crashed into an Akron residence on Thursday afternoon. VIDEOS AT LINK..... The crash happened in the 2200 block of Canterbury Circle around 3:45 p.m. Crews responded to reports of heavy black smoke coming from the building. “We got a call that residents saw a plane going down into the house. We got more calls that people heard explosions and we arrived to heavy smoke coming out of the house,” District Chief Sierjie Lash said. The Ohio State Highway Patrol confirmed that the two people aboard the aircraft died...

Big Creek Lake is a 3,600-acre man-made reservoir that holds 17 billion gallons of water and serves as the main source of drinking water for Mobile, Alabama, and other nearby municipalities, producing roughly 60 million gallons of potable water a day. Apparently, someone wanted to blow up the dam holding it all back. Divers conducting a routine repair at the dam hemming in the lake, which is also called the Converse Reservoir, discovered an explosive device hidden under water on Tuesday, according to Alabama's largest water utility, the Mobile Area Water and Sewer System. Following the discovery of an apparent...

The trend that we are seeing is a very positive one. People are seeking tradition...It's a learning lesson for a lot of pastors I talk to. If you are not creating an environment where the people that come to your church can find holiness and meaning and be elevated, you're not doing your job. There was a time in the nineties where people were hungry for a personal encounter with God, and Evangelicalism I think offers that better than some Catholicism circles. Maybe that's to be debated, but times change and needs an appetites change. And I could tell you...

Roughly 8% of the more than 3,000 people enrolled in the often-criticized electronic monitoring system in Cook County are missing, according to the chief judge. In other words: 243 people are missing. “Transparency is not optional — it is a core obligation of this office,” Chief Judge Charles Beach II said in a statement. “The public has a right to know how this program operates, what the data shows and what we are doing every day to make it stronger." Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, a frequent critic of electronic monitoring, issued a statement Wednesday saying she welcomes...

On Tuesday, I stood before the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and spoke my truth as a trans woman, a taxpayer, a daughter, a sister, a wife and a member of this community. I watched as three supervisors voted to erase the celebration and visibility of people like me. In a 3-2 decision, Supervisors Garry Bredefeld, Nathan Magsig and Buddy Mendes voted to bar the Fresno County Public Library from participating in the Fresno Rainbow Pride Parade and Festival, as well as from celebrating Pride Month entirely.

The owner of a healthcare software company was convicted of massive Medicare fraud on Thursday, the Department of Justice said, ending what Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche called "one of the most egregious fraud schemes in Florida history." HealthSplash owner and CEO Brett Blackman, 42, and co-conspirators "aggressively targeted hundreds of thousands of Medicare beneficiaries to get them to accept medically unnecessary" products including orthotic braces, according to a DOJ news release. Blackman and his co-conspirators used Power Mobility Doctor Rx, LLC, or DMERx, a platform acquired by HealthSplash in 2017, to coordinate illegal kickbacks with telemedicine doctors and pharmacies...

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito had some choice words for their Supreme Court colleagues on Thursday over their “remarkable” decision “undermin[ing]” the court’s historic Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The stinging rebukes came in an order the high court handed down to temporarily pause an appellate court ruling that halted a Biden-era FDA rule allowing the mailing of mifepristone to women without an in-person doctor visit. In agreeing to halt the policy, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the FDA’s “progressive relaxation of mifepristone’s guardrails likely lacked a basis in data and scientific literature,” and noted...

Stephen Colbert's 11-year run as host of "The Late Show" will end on May 21. That its untimely end was announced mere weeks before the Trump-loyalist Ellison family finalized their CBS-Paramount takeover led many to believe it was a move to appease Trump, while the network claimed Colbert's late-night program was losing around $40 million a year - a figure that led friendly rival Jimmy Kimmel to quip, "Not a snowball's chance in hell that's accurate." Snip... Well, whatever the reason, Colbert is out in a week. And so, for his final weeks, the funnyman has welcomed an assortment of...

Former Vice President Kamala was dragged online for her laundry list of progressive “bad ideas” she wants to bring to the table at what she’s dubbed a “No Bad Idea Brainstorm” for Democrats. Harris said during a Wednesday night livestream on the “Win with Black Women” podcast that Democrats need “an expanded playbook” and need to consider radical positions ahead of the 2026 Midterm elections — including abolishing the Electoral College and packing the Supreme Court. “Look, this is a moment where there are no bad ideas, a no bad idea brainstorm is what I’d like to call it,” Harris...

Jewish groups in the Bay Area of California are protesting a judge’s removal of a local Jewish district attorney from a case involving pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protesters accused of vandalizing the office of Stanford University’s president. The district attorney, Jeff Rosen, was disqualified from retrying a felony case against five protesters after the judge ruled that Rosen had crossed a legal line when suggesting in a campaign message that the protest was antisemitic. “Rosen is allowed to take a strong stance against crime in the community, against antisemitism. But caution and care need to be taken when utilizing active litigation in...

Bodycam footage has done something the media absolutely never wanted to happen. It’s shown the public what cops are really dealing with. Violent, armed suspects.