Free Republic

President Donald Trump is pressing ahead with a sweeping effort to reshape the nation’s election system, relying on executive actions, agency shakeups and pressure on Congress after courts blocked some of his earlier initiatives. Critics, particularly Democrats, have described the strategy as “death by a thousand cuts,” arguing that the administration is gradually reshaping election policy hrough multiple fronts instead of one sweeping overhaul. Last week, Trump gutted the little-known Election Assistance Commission, a move that drew concern from election officials who warned it could weaken cybersecurity support for state and local election offices. The commission overhaul is only one...

This past spring, Blue America suffered yet another critical blow without much in the way of comment: Standard Oil of New Jersey fled the state for Texas.AdvertisementOf course, it’s not called Standard Oil anymore. Following several takeovers and mergers, it’s now known as ExxonMobil. But it’s still the same company founded nearly a century and a half ago as the jewel in the crown of John D. Rockefeller’s industrial empire. And now it’s gone.On March 10 of this year, the company’s board voted unanimously to make the move. The decision was put to a shareholder vote on May 27. No...

A few weeks ago, I reviewed Eric Metaxas’s bestselling book Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World. Since then, it has remained on the New York Times bestselling list and is currently ranked number two in nonfiction behind Maggie Haberman’s TDS offering, Regime Change.One would have thought a book published during the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence would be stocked and displayed prominently at Barnes & Noble. Instead, during his frequent appearances on Steve Bannon’s War Room program, the author testifies that the nation’s leading storefront bookseller doesn’t typically have copies on...

President Trump spoke to the nation last night about serious problems with American elections. You could watch the speech live on Fox News, Newsmax, C-SPAN, and PBS. ABC, NBC, and CNN refused to air the speech on their live broadcasts, while CBS and MSNBC managed to air just a little bit before abandoning it to spout their own opinions (including what they laughably call “fact checks”). That’s the state of America today. It was a good speech but ended (I thought) weakly. Had the networks (some of which still have a free gig on the public airways) run the speech,...

Iran has told its citizens to turn off their air conditioning during peak hours as the country's power grid came under strain amid US strikes. Tehran's energy ministry said that the power restrictions were necessary 'to help ensure a stable electricity supply in the southern provinces, which are currently facing extreme heat and attacks on electricity supply facilities.' Temperatures in the capital were expected to hit triple digits Friday, with highs of 102F on Saturday and Sunday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cih-Dnvh9p0

Ghana has recorded 14 arrests linked to false news and offensive speech in less than 16 months, nearly double the number documented during the previous administration’s entire eight-year tenure, according to the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA). The rise has triggered a sharp debate in one of West Africa’s most stable democracies over whether authorities are simply enforcing long-standing laws in a new digital environment, or edging into a more restrictive approach to public speech. The controversy carries added political weight because President John Mahama, while in opposition in 2022, warned that using state power to intimidate dissent was...

Lampedusa Migrant Production: The Gospel According to PR StuntsAgain, Lampedusa serves a Vatican backdrop for a media driven message where visuals overshadowed the realities of illegal migration reality.More Production than PilgrimageThe papal immigration road show is on the move again, as Leo hopscotched from the Canary Islands to beleaguered Lampedusa Island peddling his globalist sentimentalist slop, “this is a place where gestures speak louder than words. But for gestures to be human, they need a heart.” Lampedusa, the Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea is Europe’s primary entry point for illegal migrants crossing from North Africa. It tees up poignantly...

Bottoms 51, Jackson 44

Iranian strikes on Friday hit a power and water desalination plant in Kuwait, damaging one of the key sources of drinking water in the small desert nation. It’s the latest attack on essential infrastructure across the Middle East that have exposed extreme vulnerabilities in one of the world’s driest regions, which relies almost exclusively on technology to produce freshwater that sustains cities, hotels, industry and some agriculture. In Kuwait, about 90% of drinking water comes from desalination, along with roughly 86% in Oman and about 70% in Saudi Arabia. The process removes salt from seawater, most commonly by pushing it...

The potential spread of massive water and electricity-consuming data centers into Florida has sparked fierce opposition from thousands of residents and drawn dividing lines between its most powerful politicians. But, experts say, the projects popping up in Miami-Dade are unlike those that grab headlines for fouling drinking water and driving up power bills — for now. The best example yet of Florida’s pushback against the spread of data centers may have been Thursday’s Palm Beach County Commission meeting, where officials gave a firm no to a proposed project called “Project Tango” that would have placed a data center using as...

ROCKFORD, IL — Local man Curt Jennings said he was carefully holding off on forming any opinions about a new movie until political commentators informed him whether it is woke or epically based. Jennings steadfastly refused to even watch the trailer of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey until his preferred online personalities issued a definitive ruling on the film. "Some of my friends are all saying it's good, but is it based?" said Jennings. "What if I enjoyed the movie, only to later discover that it is not based? What if it is, in fact, woke? Can you imagine? I, for...

Arson attacks, vandalism and other acts of sabotage are increasingly disrupting Germany's rail network, with investigators linking several incidents to far-left extremists. Deutsche Bahn, Germany’s state-owned railway operator, appears to be facing a growing sabotage problem. According to a leaked internal report, the company recorded around 2,200 cases of sabotage targeting railway infrastructure during the first six months of 2026, a 7% increase compared with the same period last year. The incidents include arson, vandalism, and theft that causes significant damage to railway infrastructure and disrupts train services, costing taxpayers increasing amounts to repair each year. The latest incident occurred...

Last month and early this month, Camilla Alhassan shared a series of videos alleging, without providing evidence, that the president sacrificed 32 cows as part of a ritual to help him win the 2024 general election. The 43-year-old also alleged that a government initiative to distribute sanitary pads to recent flood victims was an attempt to conceal what she claimed he had done. The judge turned down an appeal for a lighter punishment, ruling that a custodial sentence would discourage similar conduct. Prosecutors had argued that Alhassan, who has more than 70,000 followers on TikTok, had made a series of...

It’s no secret that JD Vance has lost the confidence of many Jewish Republicans, who have taken issue with the vice president’s reprimanding of Israeli officials, indulgence of anti-Israel conspiracy theories and silence on Tucker Carlson, the prominent pundit who has turned against Israel. But Vance is still thought by many to be US President Donald Trump’s likeliest successor at the top of the party’s ticket in 2028, leaving the GOP’s Jewish supporters with the question of whom to back when Trump’s second term ends. “The overwhelming majority of American Jewish MAGA voters, donors, and policymakers are enthusiastically supporting a...

Direct YouTube Link: Secretary Rubio delivers opening remarks at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political TerrorismA whole industry grew up in our countries around the study of extremism. We have think tanks and fellowships and journals and consultancies, with the unspoken understanding among them that the only kind of political violence that was a true threat to our system – I’m sorry – that only one kind of political violence was a true threat to the system. A bomb planted by a neo-Nazi group was a nefarious and murderous act of evil. It is. But a bomb planted by...

Once again it is time to get silly!

After calling the Big Apple home for almost 90 years, Marvel Comics is moving out of New York City. And heading to Hollywood. The relocation was revealed to staff at a town hall Thursday at Marvel’s New York office in Midtown, where employees were informed that its publishing division will be pulling up stakes and transferring operations to Burbank, California, the current headquarters of Marvel Studios and corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company. The development is accompanied by a changing of the guard at the top. Stephen Wacker, a respected veteran comics editor who also earned an Emmy nomination for...

A tiny village is taking a stand against its own government as it faces the threat of being overrun by migrants. The couple hundred residents of Piddington, Oxfordshire, in the United Kingdom, voted July 4 for independence against the United Kingdom in a bid against authorities who are seeking to flood the area with illegal male migrants. The vote to separate passed in an overwhelming 96 percent majority. At the heart of the problem for Piddington is the Home Office’s (the UK equivalent of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) June 26 decision to relocate almost 4,000 migrants to three...

The combination of anti-Semitism and violence on the left deamands attention. It is a toxic brew. Democrat Washington Rep. Adam Smith provides a recent example in connection with his vote against aid to Israel this week. Matthew Shea reports at Jewish Insider (links in original): Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, indicated he voted to cut off military aid to Israel in part because of sustained personal threats against his family and his staff, part of what he described as a violent and relentless campaign of intimidation by far-left anti-Israel activists. Smith voted...