Free Republic

Venezuelan authorities and pro-government armed groups have committed widespread abuses since the July 28, 2024 presidential elections that officials said Nicolás Maduro had won, despite substantial evidence to the contrary. The Venezuelan government has killed, tortured, detained, and forcefully disappeared people seeking democratic change and many others have fled the country. Governments should support accountability efforts for grave human rights violations in Venezuela, call on Venezuelan authorities to release people arbitrarily detained, disclose the whereabouts of those subjected to enforced disappearances, and expand access to international protection for Venezuelans fleeing repression. (Washington, DC) – Venezuelan authorities and pro-government armed groups...

Much of the 'Squad' member's wealth comes through her husband's winery and venture capital firm Rep. Ilhan Omar’s personal fortune exploded to upwards of $30 million in 2024, the Minnesota Democrat disclosed just months after telling the press it is "ridiculous" and "categorically false" to say she is worth millions of dollars.Omar reported in her latest financial disclosure that she and her husband, former political consultant Tim Mynett, accumulated a net worth at the end of 2024 ranging from at least $6 million to $30 million. Their wealth is derived almost entirely from the value of Mynett’s ownership stake in...

A Russian cargo ship that Ukraine claims was sent to Syria to collect weapons has sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, according to officials in Moscow. Two crew members are missing after an engine room explosion sank the Ursa Major between Spain and Algeria, the foreign ministry said. Fourteen other crew were rescued and taken to Spain. Ukraine's military intelligence claimed yesterday that the ship, previously called Sparta III, had been sent to Syria to remove weapons and military equipment after the fall of Bashar al Assad.

Embattled Rep. Ilhan Omar’s husband’s venture capital firm quietly scrubbed key officer details — including former Obama officials — as scrutiny grows over the family’s skyrocketing wealth, The Post has learned. Omar (D-MN) went from nearly broke to being worth up to $30 million in just a year — as a massive, up to $9 billion fraud scheme involving the Somali community in her district unfolded right under her nose in Minnesota. Close to 90 people have been charged so far, including at least three with direct ties to the lefty Squad member, though she has not been charged. It...

If the Somali fraudsters produced a Netflix special, the title would be “C.R.E.A.M.: Cash Rules Everything Around Minnesota.” And the center of this fraudulent universe might very well be Ilhan Omar. Once a woman with negative net worth is now listed as a multimillionaire in Congress. How coincidental that this multi‑billion‑dollar fraud scandal detonated in her own district. Back in 2019, Omar’s financial disclosure looked like the starter pack of a millennial fresh outta college: more debt than dollars. Fast forward to 2024, and her household reports a combined net worth between $6 million and $30 million — a 3,500...

Minnesota officials are being accused of knowing about the massive alleged fraud involving daycare centers for years, and one reporter exposed the issue nearly a year ago. In a social media post on Sunday, the X account Libs of TikTok referred to a report from January when a daycare center in Minneapolis, the Quality Learning Center, was said to have received around $8 million in tax dollars since 2019. “Between 2019 – 2023 they had NINETY FIVE violations leading to them being placed on a conditional license. They got their license back in 2024 and continued receiving taxpayer dollars. No...

Posted on December 27, 2025 by Bill Glahn in Crime, Illegal immigration, Judiciary Rule No. 4 I spent countless hours in 2025 sitting in the back of federal courtrooms in Minnesota observing two types of cases play out: illegal immigration and welfare fraud. The one thing that both had in common was the application of Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals Rule No. 4: “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” It’s a distillation of the Cloward-Piven “overwhelm the system” strategy. Federal bureaucracy was designed to handle a system where we had a few thousand illegal immigrants...

For the first time, a Wisconsin court has approved a subpoena to the massive Democrat fund-raising platform ActBlue, saying it owes an explanation to a Republican whose email identity was used to make liberal donations he did not authorize. “Something is not right,” Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad D. Schimel declared as he approved a limited demand for documents and opened a new front into a widening fund-raising probe begun earlier this year by Congress and 19 attorneys general. Schimel rejected ActBlue’s arguments that it was onerous to require it to comply a subpoena for third-party donations it processed...

When the people vote against democracy.The social media hashtag #NeverTrump first appeared in June 2015, days after Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy. For the balance of that year, social media derision attracted less attention than Trump himself, mostly due to the widespread belief that Trump’s campaign was self-extinguishing, which argued against pointless efforts to bring about an already inevitable defeat. In election cycles since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory, unlikely protest candidates for the GOP presidential nomination—Pat Robertson, Ron Paul, Herman Cain—had briefly surged in the polls, only to give way to a conventional politician who ended up as...

Former President Donald J. Trump has returned to X (formerly Twitter) with a string of posts made just after noon on Monday. The 2024 Republican presidential nominee had largely been absent from the social platform since the then-sitting President’s account was suspended on January 8, 2021, by the company’s former ownership under Jack Dorsey.Since his suspension over three years ago, the former Republican President founded his own social media company, Truth Social, which went public earlier this year—earning Trump billions. Over the past two years, an exclusivity agreement with Truth Social had largely kept Trump from other social media platforms....

The EU warns Elon Musk about tonight’s Donald Trump livestream on X. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton says the EU will watch for “spillovers” that violate the Digital Services Act, such as “content that may incite violence, hate and racism in conjunction with major political - or societal - events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.”

Emergency workers in Trinidad and Tobago are racing to clean up a massive oil spill after a mystery vessel ran aground near the Caribbean island, casting a pall over Carnival tourism. The spill was "not under control" as of Sunday, said Prime Minister Keith Rowley, who added that the country is grappling with a national emergency. The mystery vessel capsized Wednesday in waters off the Caribbean island, having made no emergency calls, with no sign of crew, and no clear sign of ownership.

WEST (Credit: CEA-IRFM). A new record in fusion has been achieved using a device internally clad in tungsten, a development that could set the pace for helping make fusion energy viable at the commercial scale. Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) facility, reports that the device was able to sustain hot fusion plasma nearing temperatures of 50 million degrees Celsius for a record-breaking six minutes. Relying on 1.15 gigajoules of power, the latest achievement saw a 15% increase in energy, as well as twice the density of previous experiments. The new milestone was set using...

Guatemala inaugurated leftist President Bernardo Arévalo in the early morning hours of Monday following a series of delays, squabbles, and confusion in Congress. The inauguration was scheduled to take place on Sunday. Arévalo, who succeeded conservative President Alejandro Giammattei, began his term vowing to “rescue” Guatemala from corruption as his political party, the Semilla Movement, faces an investigation by the Guatemalan Prosecutor’s Office that resulted in the party’s disqualification from politics in November. As a result, its recently-inaugurated lawmakers took office on Sunday as independents.

Clash Report: Chad ends military cooperation with France and strengthens ties with Türkiye, giving France until January 31 to withdraw its troops. This shift highlights France’s declining influence in Africa, while Türkiye continues to expand its presence, providing Chad with military training and defense technology. Since 2003, Türkiye has opened 44 embassies across Africa, making cooperation with the continent a strategic priority in its foreign policy. ✍️ @beholdisraelchannel

A former British soldier has been arrested for allegedly helping Russia assassinate Ukrainian politicians in exchange for money, intelligence officials said. Ross David Cutmore was detained by Ukraine’s state security service in October after he was accused of importing and doling out weapons that were used in the slayings of three prominent Ukrainians, the Kyiv Independent reported. Months after he arrived, he allegedly quit the job and started acting as a spy for the Kremlin. He later provided the weapons used to murder politician, Andriy Parubiy, as well as activists, Demian Hanul and Iryna Farion, officials alleged. Cutmore, who had...

The FBI has launched an urgent manhunt for an Iranian secret intelligence official accused of plotting to assassinate Trump administration officials. Federal agents say Majid Dastjani Farahani has been trying to recruit allies in the country to murder current and former US government officials as revenge for the US assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. In an urgent notice on Friday, the FBI office in Miami asked for information on Farahani, who is said to speak Spanish and frequently move between Iran and Venezuela, where the ruling regime is friendly with Iran.

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is seeking Majid Dastjani Farahani, a 41-year-old Iranian national and intelligence agent, accused of orchestrating assassination plots against US officials. "Majid Dastjani Farahani, an Iranian intelligence officer, is wanted for questioning in connection with the recruitment of individuals for various operations in the United States, to include lethal targeting of current and former United States Government officials as revenge for the killing of IRGC-QF Commander Qasem Soleimani," it said in a report on March 5. Soleimani was killed in 2020 in Baghdad by an American airstrike. He was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary...

The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford and three warships have been sent to the Caribbean, where they are joining a dozen Navy warships already off the coast of Venezuela, in an unprecedented show of military force. President Trump and his administration are taking aim at the administration of Nicolas Maduro, over his alleged role in the drug trade which presents a national security threat to the United States. It’s clear that if the US succeeds in destabilizing and displacing President Maduro’s regime, it would be a blow to the region’s drug traffickers. What is less known is that it would...

2008: "Crimea is not disputed territory of Ukraine, and the issues of Russian speakers are internal issues of Ukraine." 2013: "Russia certainly doesn't plan to send troops into Ukraine." 2014: "After the annexation of Crimea, Russia doesn't plan to further divide Ukraine." 2019: "It's nonsense that Russia plans to attack anyone in future." 2022: "Russia's Special Military Operation does not involve the occupation of Ukrainian territories," and "Russia has acquired new territories during the Special Military Operation." 2023: "The conflict in Ukraine is not a territorial conflict—we have plenty of own territories." 2024: "Anyone who wants Russia to give up...