Free Republic

Peace through strength deters war, appeasement invites war, and letting an enemy build up unmolested makes wars longer, costs higher, and risks greater. Xi Jinping holds the titles of General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Chairman of the Central Military Commission, President of China, and Core Leader of the CCP. President Donald Trump used the title "President" when meeting with Xi last week, but in reality, his CCP tittles are what matter. Xi’s title as Core Leader elevates him to dictatorial power on a scale held previously only by Mao Zedong. The pomp and circumstance shown to President...

In mid-May, after extending the executive deadline, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani released his $124.7 billion Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Executive Budget. After warning that NYC faces a budget crisis of “historic magnitude” in late April, Mamdani now assures the 8.5 million residents of the Big Apple that the city is on “firm financial footing” after he “balanced the budget” “without raising property taxes” or “slashing services.” While it is certainly true that Mamdani did not slash services or raise property taxes even higher than they already are, it is ludicrous for him to declare that NYC’s budget is...

The Trump administration is considering tripling the amount some immigrants are fined if they miss court hearings and are later deported. According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the amount immigrants currently pay is not enough to cover the cost of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents locating, detaining and deporting them. The proposed change comes amid a sharp rise in people failing to appear for immigration court hearings, which experts say is a result of multiple factors, including fear of detention. "The move to 18K for in absentia orders, where it is not clear if the recipient...

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stood in front of a progressive conference on Tuesday and said exactly what Democrats think about the tens of millions of Americans who voted for President Trump. He wants to break them. VIDEO AT LINK................. He said Democrats had to beat them at the ballot box, then break their spirit. The remarks came during the 2026 CAP IDEAS Conference, hosted by the Center for American Progress and streamed online via Zoom. Jeffries, who would become Speaker of the House if Democrats retake the majority in November, used his session to frame the midterm election as...

As RedState reported, there was a mass shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego on Monday, just before noon Pacific time. Three people were killed, including a security guard at the mosque named Amin Abdullah, who reportedly "played a pivotal role" in saving lives. [Snip] Early on, San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl told reporters without going into too much detail that "There was definitely hate rhetoric involved" in the shootings. On Tuesday, however, some of the pages from the alleged manifesto of the shooters were shared in an X thread by San Diego activist Amy Reichert, and it...

An Illinois park executive is facing backlash after she was accused of using a taxpayer-funded credit card to help pay for an $800 helicopter rental for her daughter’s prom photoshoot. Quintina Brown, head of the Markham Park District outside Chicago, arranged for the helicopter to land at Roesner Park on May 8 so her 17-year-old daughter Quamyra could pose for pictures in front of it. The helicopter company gave an invoice to city attorney Kelly Krauchun that included a credit card number linked to Brown, according to WPSD. The invoice reportedly listed “Markham Parks” as the customer, used the park...

Actor Harrison Ford told graduates at Arizona State University (ASU) to “extend social justice” to clean up the environmental “mess” his generation left behind for them. The legendary “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” actor gave the commencement speech during a graduation ceremony on May 11, where he received an honorary Doctor of Arts and Humane Letters degree for his work in conservation. Ford’s background in fighting climate change was a significant theme throughout the speech as he warned students about the need for “cultural change” to prevent “mass extinction” caused by corruption and global warming. “Humanity is a part of...

Cambridge, Massachusetts, is the home of Harvard University. This was Cambridge last week: And this was Cambridge on Monday: A slew of liberal activists descended upon the Cambridge City Council in recent weeks to get the city to disable its gunshot detection devices, which help police pinpoint where gunshots are coming from to better respond to shootings. Police Commissioner Pauline Wells begged the council on Monday not to deactivate the devices, citing multiple recent cases where lives have been saved due to the system, but to no avail. More from the Harvard Crimson on April 30: In a presentation Wednesday,...

The mother of a transgender high school athlete publicly trashed California’s policy allowing girls to share the first place podium if they came in second. AB Hernandez came in first at three events during Saturday’s California Interscholastic Federation’s Southern Section championship final: long jump, high jump and triple jump. Despite that, girls who came in second were allowed to share the podium due to a new California policy, per Fox News. Trans athlete AB Hernandez won first place in the high jump, long jump and triple jump at the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Southern Section finals on Saturday. So too...

Enjoy! Politics in America will never be the same again!..................

Zohran Mamdani’s “apology tour” to quell the business community’s outrage over his bizarre social media posting targeting fellow business leader Ken Griffin didn’t include much apologizing, The Post has learned. In fact, Griffin’s name and Mamdani’s “creepy” stunt — where he stood outside the Citadel chief’s penthouse to brag about taxing the rich — never came up in the confabs Monday with two of the biggest CEOs on Mamdani’s agenda, Jamie Dimon, the chief of mega bank JP Morgan and David Solomon, the CEO of investment banking giant Goldman Sachs. Don’t blame our Marxist mayor for ignoring the obvious —...

From the Dayton, Ohio, suburbs to boardrooms in Dallas, the employees fueling AT&T’s next wave of growth aren’t fresh-faced college graduates with expensive four-year degrees. They’re skilled, blue-collar workers ready to get their hands dirty — and AT&T can’t find enough of them. “We need people who know how to actually work with electricity. We need people who understand photonics. We need people who can go into folks’ homes and connect this infrastructure to make it work right,” AT&T CEO John Stankey told CNBC during a recent interview from the company’s Dallas headquarters. “We find that we’ve got to go...

A 75-year-old Indiana woman died after she flew into a rage over her Tim Hortons order, took a swing at the manager and ripped out a chunk of her hair in the brawl that followed. Anita Grayson stormed into the Tim Hortons in Fort Wayne — about 120 miles outside Indianapolis — just after 8 a.m. on May 13, and berated a 17-year-old female worker when she was upset about her drive-thru order, according to the Fort Wayne Police Department. Surveillance footage released by the department captured Grayson pointing and shouting at the worker as the coffeehouse’s 20-year-old shift manager...

A millionaire anti-war activist who organized the high-profile “humanitarian aid” convoy to Cuba in March has ties to Hamas and the Iranian regime. The aid flotilla to Cuba attracted much attention as it included Ilhan Omar’s daughter Isra Hirsi and leftist streamer Hasan Piker — who both sung the praises of the ailing Communist ‘paradise’ after their trip. It was organized by Medea Benjamin, president of the Arc of Justice Foundation, a charity with $51 million at its disposal. Benjamin, 73, made at least seven trips to Gaza between 2009 and 2012 where she met with Hamas officials, including the...

In my last post, I evaluated the tradition that the apostle Thomas ministered in India. While the evidence for Thomas in India is not as strong as for Peter and Paul in Rome, it is at least probable that he founded the church in India. But did Thomas die as a martyr? THE ACTS OF THOMASThe Acts of Thomas (c. AD 200-220) is the earliest literary account of the martyrdom of Thomas in India. It begins with the apostles in Jerusalem dividing up the world for missions. According to lot, Thomas was assigned to go to India, but he reluctantly...

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp is term-limited, opening up the governorship and creating crowded primaries on both sides. President Donald Trump has endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, but he and wealthy businessman Rick Jackson advanced to a primary runoff on the GOP side. On the Democratic side,... (See the site for nice graphics and results)

In my recent book The Fate of the Apostles, I examine the evidence the apostles of Jesus died as martyrs. Because the evidence is early and consistent, there is widespread agreement that Peter, Paul, and both James died as martyrs. But scholars are much more divided over the tradition surrounding “doubting” Thomas. Did he really make it to India, as tradition suggests, and die there as a martyr? The Eastern Church has consistently held that Thomas ministered in India. Alphonse Mingana notes: It is the constant tradition of the Eastern Church that the Apostle Thomas evangelized India, and there is...

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A fine tradition that started in 2010. Long may it continue!