Free Republic

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) reacted to new reporting about then-President Joe Biden’s fitness by saying, “I don’t think it’s a new story that Joe Biden is a seasoned senior leader of our country, it was probably the most covered story of 2024, questions about his age.” Coons said, “I was surprised by what I saw the night of the debate. I hadn’t had a previous experience like that with President Biden. Ultimately, several weeks later, he decided to drop out. And, frankly, rather than looking back and re-litigating the timing...

The Democratic Party is finally saying the quiet part out loud: "Biden should not have run again." Revelations about President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up have returned to the national conversation ahead of next week's release of CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson's book, "Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again." Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a 2024 presidential campaign surrogate for President Joe Biden, and considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, acknowledged on Wednesday that Biden should not have run for a second term. And...

Last week I wrote about the concerns of a pair of North Korea analysts that something had changed in the tone of the rhetoric emanating from Kim Jong Un. Of course North Korea has a long history of belligerent talk and threats against the US but something about this seemed different and more urgent. Kim said he was giving up on reunification with South Korea. Instead, South Korea would now be considered the North’s top enemy.But it’s more than just empty rhetoric. Sometime over the past few days Kim ordered a monument meant to symbolize hope for reunification torn down.Kim...

The small South Caucasus nation of Georgia has become a multi-billion dollar hub for the international used car market. The vehicles are mostly sourced from the US, and many appear to be ending up in Russia. Equivalent in size to more than 40 football pitches, it hosts thousands of vehicles up for sale. He says that his company has responded to “a lot of demand for Western-produced vehicles”. Today the firm has 600 employees.

The U.S. State Department has determined and certified Cuba as a "not fully cooperating country" (NFCC) for not helping with counterterrorism efforts after the island nation failed to turn over at least 11 fugitives in 2024 to U.S. custody. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce made the announcement on Tuesday that the certification, which falls under Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act, will result in the prohibition on the sale or license for export of defense services to Cuba. "In 2024, the Cuban regime did not fully cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism," Bruce said in a statement....

Paint splattered on floors. Spray-painted messages and screeds covering walls. Furniture moved and overturned. Security cameras disabled. Fire extinguishers missing and entrances blocked by stacks of chairs. “We’ve got our work cut out for us,” a facilities manager at Portland State University said Thursday as he examined the destruction left behind after a three-day occupation by pro-Palestinian protesters in Millar Library.

Donald Trump once again works his magic. A group of white South Africans has been granted refugee status in the US The first group of white South Africans arrived in the United States on Monday, the State Department announced following the prioritization of the Afrikaner refugee resettlement program.State spokesperson Tammy Bruce argued in a statement that the group is vulnerable and facing unjust racial discrimination in South Africa, saying taking them in is an action to protect victims of racial discrimination. They thank Trump. They wave the American flag. This has democrats ablaze in outrage. Representative of the left, Al...

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange was among the mourners attending Pope Francis’s funeral in St. Peter’s Square, Vatican City, on Saturday. Pope Francis had been a supporter of Assange and had even suggested giving him asylum in the Vatican. “Now Julian is free, we have all come to Rome to express our family’s gratitude for the Pope’s support during Julian’s persecution. Our children and I had the honor of meeting Pope Francis in June 2023 to discuss how to free Julian from Belmarsh prison. Francis wrote to Julian in… pic.twitter.com/1B4iNp31Is — WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) April 26, 2025 “Now Julian is free, we...

Between 2022 and 2024, the U.S. saw a record 43 percent rise in “sheltered homelessness”—staying in some sort of emergency shelter, as opposed to living on the street. That is shocking enough on its own, but according to a new study, a contemporaneous spike in asylum seekers accounted for a stunning 60% of that increase. “Asylum seekers”—as referenced in the study—are all recent immigrants seeking residence in the U.S., regardless of their legal status. Unsheltered homelessness has been on the rise since 2015, but sheltered homelessness had declined by 12% from 2007 to 2022 before its sudden 43% spike between...

A total of 10 bodies have been found in rivers in the Portland, Oregon area since mid-April, two of which were found in May alone. The 10th body was found by authorities on Saturday on the Willamette River and was recovered at Portland's Cathedral Park, per KPTV. The identity of the person or the cause of death has yet to be released. Earlier in May, after the discovery of the eighth body, the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) said in a press releasethat the number of bodies recovered in a short time frame is "not unusual, though it is tragic."...

Poland's foreign minister says his country has evidence that Russia recruited people on the Telegram messaging service to carry out last year's massive shopping centre fire in Warsaw. Speaking to the BBC in an exclusive interview, Radek Sikorski said Moscow's actions were "completely unacceptable" and that a second Russian consulate in Poland had been closed as a result. His comments come after a Polish investigation concluded that the Marywilska shopping centre fire was orchestrated by Moscow's intelligence services. Russia denied its involvement, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accusing Poland of being "Russophobic".

WARSAW, Poland (AP) – A massive fire that destroyed a large shopping center in Warsaw last year was the result of arson ordered by Russian intelligence services, Polish officials said Sunday on the eve of the one-year anniversary of the blaze. The fire broke out May 12, 2024, in the Marywilska 44 shopping that housed some 1,400 shops and service points. Many of the vendors were from Vietnam, and it inflicted tragedy on many in Warsaw’s Vietnamese community. “We now know for certain that the massive fire on Marywilska was the result of arson commissioned by Russian services,” Prime Minister...

Grand Old Popey. Pope Leo XIV was an active voter who participated in several Republican primaries in recent years and voted in the most recent presidential election, according to a report. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, pulled the lever in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014, and 2016, the Washington Free Beacon reported, citing election records. The Dolton, Illinois, born pontifex also voted in general elections in 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2024, the report stated.

Under the news radar, two ugly power grabs from a pair of would-be Marxist dictators were announced yesterday from South America. From socialist Venezuela: CARACAS (Reuters) -Maria Corina Machado, one of the favorites to win the Venezuelan opposition's nomination for president in an October primary, has been barred from holding public office for 15 years, the country's controller general said in a letter. Machado, a 55-year-old industrial engineer and former lawmaker, is leading polling for the 13-candidate primary, convened to select a unity candidate to face socialist President Nicolas Maduro in a 2024 election. A previous ban placed on her...

Venezuela’s opposition candidate trounced President Nicolás Maduro in last week’s election, according to election tallies that show the opposition’s Edmundo González received more than double the votes of Maduro. A Washington Post review, published Sunday, analyzed more than 23,000 precinct-level tally sheets collected by the opposition. It found Maduro received about 30 percent of the vote (3,131,103 votes) compared to 67 percent for González (6,901,845 votes), further fueling doubts over Maduro’s declared victory in the race. The tally sheets analyzed by the Post represented 79 percent of the voting tables from the July 28 election. The outlet noted that even...

Former President Joe Biden told the far-left BBC waiting to drop out of the 2024 presidential race until just a few months before Election Day made no difference to the outcome. “I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” Biden answered when asked if he’d waited too long to withdraw. “We left at a time when [trails off] we had a good candidate. She was fully funded. And what happened was, I had become—what we had set out to do, no one told me to do, we’d become so successful, our agenda was hard to say ‘I wanna stop now.’” He rambled...

Houthi terrorists got a lucky shot at Israel on Sunday with a missile strike near Ben Gurion Airport, wounding four — and the IDF wasted no time in striking back at prime Houthi-held real estate in Yemen. Details are still a bit thin, but the videos are... explosive. Reports vary — between 30 IAF jets and up to 50 in a joint operation with the U.S. — but either way, it was big. Sorting out the discrepancy during a breaking story isn’t easy, and not even the official statements are much help. A just-released statement from Israeli Prime Minister Bibi...

A former State Department budget analyst has pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $650,000 from the agency over a two-year span, according to the US Attorney’s Office in Washington, DC. Levita Almuete Ferrer, 64, of Maryland, admitted to abusing her signature authority over a State Department checking account between March 2022 and April 2024 in her capacity as a senior budget analyst in the department’s Office of the Chief of Protocol. She wrote 60 checks to herself and three checks to someone else she had a personal relationship with, prosecutors said. She printed and signed each check before depositing all...

Watch the historic moment the sea drone takes down an aerial target. DRAMATIC footage shows the moment Ukraine claimed the historic downing of a Russian M-8 military helicopter off the coast of occupied Crimea by a missile-firing sea drone. Kyiv's military intelligence announced the strike in the Black Sea with a Magura V5 and included a clip of the historic moment. In the black-and-white footage taken from the sea drone, bursts of water can be seen around the drone launching into the air as Vladimir Putin's chopper attacked. Viewers can quickly spot the Russian aircraft in the top right-hand corner...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) is continuing his anti-Trump crusade, stoking 2024 election denial during an appearance on a far-left podcast. “The enemies allegedly stole U.S. data. The leak came through Elon Musk Starlink,” the host said, asking Swalwell to talk about election integrity in the upcoming elections in 2026 and 2028, given that — she says — people are concerned about the security of the 2024 presidential election. Immediately, Swalwell played into the fears, rattling on about Elon Musk and suggesting there was malfeasance on his part in the 2024 elections. “Elon Musk has done nothing in the last five...