Free Republic

Washington state officials are refusing to investigate daycare providers that reportedly received hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies after reporters found little evidence that children were being cared for at some locations. According to a report from The Center Square, over the past six months, its reporters visited roughly three dozen daycare providers that had received large state and federal subsidy payments intended to support childcare for lower-income families, but only a small number appeared to have children present. [embedded tweet] In one case, a daycare listed at a West Seattle address received more than $229,000 between July...

Donald Trump says the US is reinstating its blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz, beginning "immediately" In a post on Truth Social, he says the US will be the "guardian" of the vital waterway and impose a 20% charge on all cargo shipped to pay for the cost of "safety and security" - how this will work in practice is unclear, writes our White House reporter

FRiends, it is my sad duty today to let everyone know of Mike Kehoe's passing. He was a friend and a loyal member of Free Republic. We had dinner when I visited Florida and he was a great guy, gracious, and lived up to his FR reputation in every way. Please say a prayer for his grieving widow, Jonna. He will be missed by many here, including me.

[Catholic Caucus] The New InquisitionThat Cardinal Fernández leads the DDF is a tragedy that borders on terror.The question of whether there is a crisis in the Catholic Church hinges on a slew of facts and their interpretations. The argument that the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the oldest department in the Roman Curia—tasked with identifying and stomping out heresy since 1542—has itself been compromised is among the most persuasive. Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, the current prefect for the Dicastery, initially appointed by Pope Francis, is case in point.Fernández, author of multiple erotically-charged and, frankly, creepy books, reigns supreme...

President Trump on Sunday shared a video calling for “hardcore communist ********” to be deported, notably naming New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D). Conservative pundit Michael Savage’s 49-minute-long video, which he posted on July 4, claims that democratic socialist candidates running as Democrats have been turning the U.S. into a socialist country through, for example, the launch of “free” programs. Savage claimed the country was turning into Cambodia under the dictator Pol Pot. “That is exactly what Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists will do to you,” Savage said. “Forget the smirks, forget the smiles, forget the bull— that it’s...

Kalshi‘s predictions are based on people betting on the outcome of a race, not on the opinions of voters in Maine. It’s just another way for money to influence our politics.Unfortunately CNN as well as CNBC recently made lucrative deals with Kalshi and are allowing it to influence their reporting. Guess it saves them he cost of polling regular Americans who don’t have the time or money to constantly bet on things.

You may remember the whole world going nuts in late May when the Free Palestine keffiyists, over 400 in this performative episode of catch-me-if-you-can posed heroism, staged yet another virtue-signalling flotilla to Gaza – Greta Thunberg mysteriously absent this time – bearing their token "humanitarian aid" of six tins of tuna and a few bags of potato chips. Once again, they were apprehended by the Israelis and treated like the maritime scofflaws they were. The sight of activists handcuffed and kneeling, and being mocked by National Security Minister Ben Gvir caused a global seizure of horror and near-universal condemnation. Turkey,...

“We’ll become the guardian of the strait. Maybe we’ll become the guardian angel of the strait, and we should be reimbursed for that,” he said. “When we do that we’re going to be reimbursed because the other nations are very wealthy, they’re on our side, and we can’t be expected to do that for nothing unlike we had for many years.” “We guarded the strait for 50 years, and we never got paid for it,” he added. “We guarded it for nothing.” U.S. Central Command (Centcom) announced Sunday that it “completed a new wave of offensive strikes against Iran” and...

VIDEO AT LINK............. Sara and Tiana Samson have committed no crime, and neither have their parents. Swedish prosecutors said so themselves. Yet three and a half years after social workers pulled the two Romanian girls out of a classroom in Hässleholm, the Swedish state still refuses to give them back, and the reason it has offered the world is that their family went to church too often. On Friday, that scandal arrived on American soil. A crowd of Romanian-Americans gathered outside the Swedish Embassy in Washington to stand with Daniel and Bianca Samson, the Christian parents who have been separated...

A Kansas couple allegedly left their six children, including two infants, in a hot car while they dined at a fast food chain on one of the most scorching days of the year, according to reports and authorities. Temperatures climbed near the triple digits in the city on Wednesday, with a heat index of over 100 degrees. Emergency responders evaluated the children on the scene. It’s unclear if any of them suffered heat-related illnesses. The kids were later brought into protective custody, the outlet reported. Chad Scoville from the Salina Fire Department warned that children are more vulnerable to the...

A father and his 22-year-old son were killed when their small plane apparently flew into a developing storm on their way home from a St. Louis Cardinals game, with investigators saying the aircraft appeared to make a last-minute turn before spiraling down into a rural Illinois tree line. The pilot, 48, and his son took off from St. Louis Regional Airport in Bethalto late Thursday and were headed to Siloam Springs Municipal Airport in Arkansas when the plane crashed near Waterloo, Illinois, the Monroe County Sheriff's Department in Illinois said in a press release. The father and son have been...

A naked man was arrested over the weekend in Portland, Oregon, after he attempted to kidnap a 7-year-old girl from her mother at a waterfront park, according to police. Shortly before 7 p.m. on Saturday, Portland Police received reports of a naked man running around Tom McCall Waterfront Park, with one of the callers saying the man had attempted to punch them in the head. But police said all officers were busy responding to other calls and were not available at the time. About 12 minutes later, another caller reported that the suspect had grabbed a young girl and attempted...

The Presbyterian Church USA bled nearly 130 congregations and over 26,000 members in 2025, according to estimates released amid their latest General Assembly. The theologically and politically progressive denomination lost 26,845 members between 2024 and 2025, according to a report from The Christian Post. Its membership now stands at 1,019,003 people as of the end of 2025.

A federal judge in California has blocked the Trump administration’s push to attach anti-DEI strings to federal grant money. The court ruled this week that the executive branch overstepped its constitutional authority by imposing the conditions on a group of West Coast cities and counties. U.S. District Judge William Orrick granted a preliminary injunction Thursday barring the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and the Interior from enforcing the contested conditions against 11 local governments, concluding in a 68-page order that the restrictions likely run afoul of both the separation-of-powers doctrine and the Administrative Procedure Act. “What defendants seek to do...

CCTV captures civilians taking cover during Russian strike on Sumy in Ukraine CCTV footage from the Ukrainian city of Sumy captured the moment visitors at a local coffee shop scrambled for cover during a Russian air strike. The video shows customers rushing toward a safe place after the explosion of a Russian guided glide bomb shatters.

A cryptic gold symbol has been popping up across Las Vegas, leaving residents and tourists puzzled over its mysterious meaning.The emblem - accompanied by the date July 16 -has been plastered across digital billboards throughout Sin City.Popular locations, including Park MGM, Fontainebleau Las Vegas, and Circa Resort & Casino, have displayed the symbol, leaving the city buzzing with speculation over what the mark could mean.>>>'That’s the date the aliens are going to invade Las Vegas. They’ll eat the hockey players first,' one person joked on X.>>>Many believe the symbol is connected to Nevada’s hockey team, the Golden Knights, as the...

A huge fire tore through a bar in Thailand's capital Bangkok late on Sunday, killing at least 28 people and leaving 25 critically injured. The blaze started near the stage of the bar in the popular Chatuchak district, then spread rapidly, cutting power and engulfing the room with smoke, eyewitnesses say. Footage posted online shows panicked customers screaming as they fled – some with their clothes on fire – through the flame-enveloped front door of Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao. Firefighters, who arrived at the scene just after midnight, quickly extinguished the fire. They found the bodies of most of...

According to Israeli media, Israel has killed no fewer than 2,561 of the around 3,000 terrorists who crossed from Gaza into Israel on October 7. About 1,000 of these were killed in traditional combat with the IDF. The remainder got their one-way trip to Hell courtesy of a secretive unit called Nili. Nili was formed shortly after the October 7 attack and given the mission of tracking down every single terrorist who invaded Israel on October 7. The name Nili is an acronym for a biblical phrase (1 Samuel 15:29) that translates as “the Eternal One of Israel will not...

Cooper 48, Whatley 44

A man on pretrial release in a felony retail theft case that he picked up while already on pretrial release for another shoplifting charge disappeared from the Cook County chief judge’s electronic monitoring program for 11 days before authorities found him again — in the back yard of Gov. JB Pritzker’s Gold Coast mansion, court records show. Those records also indicate that, despite Chief Judge Charles Beach’s public pledge that “major violations” of the court’s electronic monitoring program would be brought before a judge within 24 hours, 10-time convicted felon Dwayne Milton began violating the terms of his release almost...