Free Republic

A progressive protest group has been flying an 8647 flag on federal land near the National Mall, aimed squarely at the President of the United States. The National Park Service called it a true threat and moved to shut it down. An Obama-appointed federal judge just told the government to leave it alone. On June 29, 2026, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss, appointed by Barack Obama, granted summary judgment to Accountability NOW USA and entered a permanent injunction against the Park Service and Interior officials. The order blocks the government from revoking the group’s demonstration permit or seizing and...

In a divided America, JD Vance sees Christianity as a unifying force. His new memoir, “Communion,” blames secularism for social strife and proposes faith as the solution. The book is not just a conversion narrative; it is an argument that a more Christian America would also be a more peaceful and tolerant one. “I do think in a very foundational sense the country is a Christian nation,” Vance tells me in an interview. Religious decline hasn’t removed social divisions, he says, but instead has deepened them: “I see antisemitism spreading ... You’re seeing an elevation of anti-Christian bias. You’re seeing...

A Delta Air Lines plane carrying 52 passengers and six crew members was hit by fireworks as it prepared to land at a Chicago airport on Saturday night. The flight from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport to Midway International Airport "reportedly made contact with a firework while on descent," a spokesperson for the airline told the BBC. "The flight safely landed and taxied to the gate," they added. There were no injuries and the incident was reported to aviation authorities. The aircraft was struck as millions across the United States celebrated the nation's 250th anniversary with fireworks - part of the annual...

UFC President Dana White could not overlook the break in the weather that allowed UFC Freedom 250 at the White House to proceed as planned. That Sunday, June 14, was uncertain as forecasts did not look promising. This was an outdoor event where fighters could step onto a canvas that, if wet from rain, may have proven hazardous. Moreover, if lightning struck near the event, it could have caused a 30-minute delay, with every subsequent strike furthering the time before resuming the action. This would have been a disaster not only for White, but for President Donald Trump, much to...

Explanation: What has happened to Saturn's moon Iapetus? Vast sections of this strange world are dark as coal, while others are as bright as snow. To help better understand this unusually tinted moon, in 2007 NASA directed the robotic Cassini spacecraft then orbiting Saturn to swoop within 2,000 kilometers. Pictured here, from about 75,000 kilometers out, is the hemisphere of Iapetus that is always trailing. A large impact crater seen in the south spans 500 kilometers and appears superposed on an older crater of similar size. The dark material is seen increasingly coating the easternmost part of Iapetus, darkening craters...

A 21-year-old socialist and unpaid former NYC Council intern who claimed she was axed after demanding she and her peers get paid $32 an hour with full health benefits — and plans to sue the Council — was born into wealth. Mina Farahmand — who willingly interned for free last year to help get fellow silver-spoon socialist Zohran Mamdani elected mayor – is the daughter of a prominent surgeon and grew up in a palatial six-bedroom, four-and-a-half-bathroom home on 30 acres in Colville, Wash. Her father, Mehrdad Farahmand, is a general-surgery specialist at Providence, the largest health care provider in...

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) arrested 10,000 people over a five-day period at the end of June, marking a major push by the agency tasked with carrying out the Trump administration's mass deportations agenda. The arrest numbers, obtained from a person familiar with the information who spoke anonymously to discuss data that has not been publicly released, come after the agency shifted its approach from high-profile arrest sweeps in major American cities to quieter ways to reach President Donald Trump's deportation goals. The figures indicate that while the administration is no longer cracking down on individual cities, the arrests continue...

U.S. policy used to jam up GPS. Now, those signals beam into your pocket.Shortly after the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000, a new type of Silicon Valley start-up began to crop up: companies specializing in GPS chips. At the time, GPS — the Global Positioning System, a constellation of satellites that provide location and time to receivers on Earth, courtesy of the American taxpayer — was still relatively niche for everyday people. This small handful of companies was founded on the basis of two gambles. One was that, like any other chip, GPS chips — at the time,...

A scathing report released on the Fourth of July says the National Museum of American History downplays the role of the founders while emphasizing social justice.In a broadside posted to its website just as Fourth of July fireworks were lighting up skies around the country on Saturday, the White House faulted the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for what it said was a failure to properly celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing that it had become a tool of political activism intent on denigrating the American story.The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack...

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s slain supreme leader, had seemed immovable for decades, a man whose authority had become so deeply woven into Iran’s political and religious life that imagining the country without him felt almost impossible. Now Tehran — the capital from which he ruled, where he was killed and which had shaped his life — is the center of his final journey, filled with mourners for funeral ceremonies taking place across several days, which are part farewell, part spectacle and part turning point. In the days leading up to the first public mourning, the city changed. First gradually, and...

U.S. — The Transportation Security Administration announced on Thursday that it had officially placed the entire Democratic Party on the No Fly List. After several Democratic Party members declared that America deserved the 9/11 attacks and Western civilization should be eradicated, TSA leaders stated that they were left with no choice but to add the entire party to the list. "These people are clearly too violent and unstable to be allowed on commercial jetliners," said TSA official Matthew Kingsley. "At the TSA, we believe that crashing planes into skyscrapers to murder thousands of innocent people is bad. While Democrats' supporters...

Former Dem political darling Calla Walsh attended attended the funeral for slain Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Saturday, declaring that he was the “greatest anti-imperialist leader” in a propaganda video while covering up in a hijab and traditional garb. Walsh, 22, who has been previously arrested for antisemitic vandalism in the US, spoke with Iran’s PressTV to talk about her attendance at Khamenei’s funeral over the weekend, where she hailed him as a heroic figure standing up to America and Israel. “He was a leader to all people of the world who struggle against imperialism, arrogance, against Zionism, against genocide,”...

President Trump has tried to scale back anti-discrimination regulations that date back decades. Federal agencies have heeded his call.When Kenni Miller started as a shift manager in his local Sheetz convenience store in Altoona, Pa., he felt something that he rarely had as a Black man in the workplace.He felt trusted. He felt appreciated. When he was fired a few weeks later, in the summer of 2020 after a background check, Mr. Miller, then 27, was devastated. A nonviolent, felony drug conviction from his teenage years had never caused him to be denied a job before. And he already proved...

Most people think a civil war starts with a gunshot. It doesn't. It starts the moment half the country concludes the rules of the game have been permanently rigged against them — and that there is no legitimate way to change that. We may be closer to that moment than most people realize. And I can show you exactly how we get there — step by step.

Screencap of Twitter/X video. Winston Marshall is the former banjo player for the folk rock band Mumford & Sons. In 2021, Marshall faced down a cancel culture campaign for simply reading a book about Antifa by the journalist Andy Ngo. Since then, he has become more politically active and an advocate for free speech. In a recent video, Marshall wished the United States a happy 250th birthday and provided a fun history lesson about the banjo, which he describes as a uniquely American instrument. He begins with a hilarious quote from iconic American writer Mark Twain: “A gentleman is a...

BRUSSELS—When NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte took office in 2024, his biggest challenge was getting the alliance’s European members to spend more on defense. Now, with tens of billions of new dollars pouring into the continent’s militaries, the problem is how to quickly turn that money into potent weapons and more capable armed forces. “A year ago was all about promises” of additional spending, Rutte told The Wall Street Journal ahead of the planned North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in Ankara, Turkey, this week. This year “it’s about delivery,” he said. It is a high-stakes race, with the allies caught between...

WASHINGTON—A growing number of GOP lawmakers have little incentive to come to work or toe the party line, putting critical legislation in danger as Republicans lurch toward the midterms. Some are privately calling it the zombie Congress. GOP leaders are increasingly concerned that members will lose motivation to show up, or may break with the party if they do, potentially stalling or killing some bills, according to lawmakers and aides. While the Senate has been the main focus of GOP cracks, the House is also facing an uncertain summer and fall, with attendance issues and a renewed sense of independence...

On paper, the US constitution is a thing of beauty. But the would-be emperor in Washington has revealed its great weaknessAmerica’s big birthday has come at a bad time. On Saturday it will be a divided nation that marks 250 years since 13 North American colonies declared their independence from the Great Britain of George III. Many will be anxious that the republic they established that day is fragile – not least because of the would-be emperor in the White House.Some will console themselves that hope and angst have always been intertwined in the American story. From the very start,...

I’ve been writing about whiskey for nearly a decade and drinking it for much longer. I’m quite familiar with WhistlePig, Old Overholt, Jack Daniel’s and Stranahan’s. But High Bank, Lost Woods, The Notch Nantucket and O.K.I.? A few of those I know by name but couldn’t tell you a thing about their liquid. And yet, all of those distilleries and producers just won big at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition (SFWSC). Founded in 2000, the SFWSC is the longest-running spirits competition in North America and the largest of its kind. Judges award Bronze, Silver and Gold medals throughout a...

Lukashenko said Caracas can always count on Minsk, calling bilateral ties ideologically resilient, as Maduro remains detained in New York since January 3.MINSK – Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko marked Venezuela’s Independence Day on Sunday by congratulating Acting President Delcy Rodriguez and making explicit what Minsk’s position is on Nicolas Maduro’s detention: it wants the Venezuelan president home as soon as possible.“We welcome the consistent efforts of the government headed by you to preserve peace, constitutional order and the earliest possible return to the homeland of President Nicolas Maduro Moros and his wife Cilia Flores,” the congratulatory message read, as quoted...