Free Republic

Eleven years after the death of Ferguson, Missouri, teen Michael Brown sparked national protests over police brutality, the man who accompanied Brown on that fateful day in August of 2014 is dead. Dorian Johnson, 33, was shot and killed around 8:30 a.m. Sunday morning in an apartment complex less than a mile from where the incident between himself and Brown, who were black, and then-Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white, played out.Dorian Johnson you mean the kid that lied until he got in front of the FBI then had to tell the truth about hands up don't shoot?...

If you’ve never seen HBO’s “Succession,” I highly recommend it. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I found it to be a fascinating blend of fine writing, interpersonal drama, and cutthroat, high-stakes corporate maneuvering. The series was reportedly based on Rupert Murdoch, his family, and his News Corp.-Fox News empire.Murdoch’s family has no shortage of its own theatrics, as we have written about, but on Monday, many questions about the future of the conglomerate were answered:The Murdoch family on Monday resolved the legal battle over control of its media empire, which includes Fox Corp. and News Corp, the company...

It was one of the most horrific stories of the entire Israel-Hamas conflict, or any conflict. Back in late May, a retired Green Beret named Anthony Aguilar, who had been working with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), claimed that he witnessed an incident of such shocking heartlessness and inhumanity that it seemed destined to be remembered as one of the most cruel war crimes in the entire history of the world. There was just one catch: it has now been definitively established that not a word of it was true.Aguilar said that while he was working with the GHF, he...

Jeff had this earlier today, but it’s a long time coming for some groups. The Justice Department is mulling banning gun ownership for those who identify as transgender. It goes beyond the horrific mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis that occurred on August 27, where two kids were shot and killed, with another 17 injured. Since 2020, 40 percent of mass shooters, or would-be mass shooters, have been identified as transgender or suspected of being one. If those clamoring for government to “do something,” this is a good first step: A DOJ source told the Daily Wire that...

Louis XIV declared, "I am the state." The motto of today's Democratic Party should be "Democracy is us." Supporting anything we oppose is a threat to democracy. On the other hand, opposing anything we support is anti-democratic. According to democracy's self-appointed champions, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's deportation of criminal aliens, President Trump's campaign against urban crime, congressional districts that reflect reality, ballot ID laws, cutting the bureaucracy, opposition to racial quotas and protecting women's sports and privacy all are existential threats to democracy.

Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, in a hearing on Wednesday, told the room: The notion that rights don't come from laws, and don't come from the government, but come from the Creator... That's what the Iranian government believes... So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.

The expansion of this influential formation, which is accused of harboring extremist ideologies, will have an impact on any future peace deal Over the last several weeks, Russia’s 51st Combined Arms Army has achieved a penetration of the Ukrainian defenses northeast of Pokrovsk, seeking to isolate the Ukrainian forces defending the city. To seal off the penetration, Ukrainian forces committed a large number of formations, spearheaded by the 1st “Azov” National Guard Corps. While the results of fighting are still uncertain at the time of this writing, the presence of an entire “Azov” Corps and its sister Corps in the...

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Tianjin presented the West with a striking image: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Chinese President Xi Jinping together, projecting a rare display of camaraderie among the three major world powers.“Always a delight to meet President Putin!” Modi wrote in a social media post.The move was welcomed by Russia and China, who are actively challenging the United States’ position atop the global order.Xi proposed “a multipolar world” with a new SCO development bank, parallel to Western global institutions. This threatens to hurt the influence of the international order based on...

Volodymyr Zelensky has, quite bravely, been playing the part of a military commander, but he’s never had a workable strategy for winning or even ending the war. Donald Trump’s pragmatism is forcing Zelensky to face reality, which may ultimately save Ukraine from having Russia seize it inch by inch in the coming years.In the Age of Chivalry, bravery won wars. At the Battle of St. Jacob an der Birs in 1444, Swiss freedom fighters suicidally fought a much larger French invading force, outnumbered 20-to-1, resisting down to the last man. This persuaded the French to stop waging war on the...

Last week a judge in Miami ordered the shut down of the detention site known as Alligator Alcatraz. U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams entered a preliminary injunction to prevent the installation of any additional industrial-style lighting and any site expansion. Her ruling further prevents “bringing any additional persons ... who were not already being detained at the site at the time of this order.”...Within 60 days, “and once the population attrition allows for safe implementation of this Order,” the facility must also remove “all generators, gas, sewage, and other waste and waste receptacles that were installed to support this...

On Monday August 25, 2025 The New York Times published a lengthy piece entitled,“How China Influences Elections in America’s Biggest City” with the subtitle: “The Chinese consulate in Manhattan has mobilized community groups to defeat candidates who don’t fall in line with the authoritarian state.”Though it’s ostensibly a story just on New York City, the reporting is not confined to matters there. Both a Democrat U.S. congresswoman on a sensitive committee and New York’s Democrat Governor get a looking-at. And while Governor Hochul may not be your governor or mine, she clearly has a seat of national influence, and at...

A new law went into effect in Colorado earlier this month requiring health warning labels on gas stoves, similar to those placed on cigarette packages. It’s one example of multiple efforts, primarily in blue states, to stop consumers from using gas-powered appliances in their homes. After a Biden administration official in 2023 alluded to the possibility of a ban on gas stoves in the name of public health, legacy media outlets produced a number of “fact checks” insisting the Biden administration wasn’t going to ban gas stoves. They claimed the whole idea was just a "right-wing conspiracy." Conveniently, most of...

The Pavlovian Left goes berserk at the mere prospect of each new Trump initiative. Its escalating reactive venom and hysteria are calibrated to the success of Trump's latest policy. Yet the new hard-left Democratic Party offers no counter-agenda to explain its furor. Still less do Democrats attempt bipartisan efforts to craft shared legislation. Take foreign policy. Democratic senators trashed the recent Trump-Putin Alaskan summit as a failure. Then they became depressed when, just days later, an entourage of European leaders and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suddenly flew to the White House. The Euros praised Trump for offering some sort of...

Maxwell said she never saw President Donald Trump or former President Bill Clinton receive massages or act inappropriately.The Department of Justice released transcripts and audio recordings from its interview with Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell, in which she said the convicted sex offender did not keep a client list.TODD BLANCHE: So there's been a lot of conversations about whether Mr. Epstein maintained, like, a list of people, like a book of famous people that he knew. Like a, it's called a black book or a client list or a list.Did you know of the existence of any such list?GHISLAINE MAXWELL:...

The state of Texas is generating considerable buzz ahead of the 2026 midterm elections regarding its efforts to redraw the state’s congressional districts. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate race is starting to turn heads on the Republican side, as incumbent Republican senator John Cornyn faces a tightly contested primary challenge from Attorney General Ken Paxton, which could turn a non-competitive race into a Democrat pickup.Indeed, primary voting is less than a year away, and Paxton has led Cornyn in more polls than not, which conventional wisdom suggests will make this race come down to the wire. Paxton's strength comes from his...

Hamas has apparently accepted the terms of a ceasefire deal similar to one that was proposed last month but never put in place. The deal would free some remaining hostages in exchange for more than 200 Palestinian prisoners.In a statement, Hamas said it had accepted the new proposal presented on Sunday by Qatar and Egypt.Basem Naim, a senior member of Hamas’ political bureau, said on social media, “The movement has accepted the new proposal from the mediators. We pray that God extinguishes the fires of this war on our people.”Two Israeli officials told CNN that Israel had received the Hamas...

Citizens of a democratic state have the ability to part the clouds of lies and propaganda that cloud a lazy, compromised media.Winston Churchill is famed for his adamant and courageous opposition to appeasement. What is not as well known is that Churchill also praised appeasement in strong terms: “Appeasement from strength is magnanimous and noble, and might be the surest and perhaps the only way to world peace.”One must, however, discern the difference between that and appeasement from weakness and fear, which, he declared, “is alike futile and fatal.”The pride of tyrannies is legendary. They regularly require human sacrifice...

Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews on Wednesday's "Morning Joe" said Democrats are falling into a trap by denying the rising crime in Washington, D.C. "Trump looks at the city visually like a real estate agent," Matthews told co-host Mika Brzezinski. "He wants to beautify the city like he's doing at the White House with that ridiculous ballroom he's putting in and getting rid of the Rose Garden. That's Trump work. But I think it shows strength. I agree with you. I think this is a strength move against the big cities who are in a difficult situation on crime." "The...

In 2025, Germany faces a demographic and economic paradox: more and more citizens—especially young, qualified ones—are leaving the country, while the government and much of the economic establishment insist on the need to attract up to 400,000 net immigrants per year to sustain the labor market. The trend is not new, but it is alarming. Between January and April alone, 93,000 Germans left their country for destinations abroad. If the pace continues, the year could end with a historic record for emigration, surpassing the 296,986 cases of 2024. And contrary to the stereotype of the retiree heading for warmer climates,...

Recognition of Palestine as a state has become popular among some members of the United Nations. French president Macron and others like him should be aware that a state is more than a wish your heart makes. An analogy to the Palestinian State scheme is Rumpelstiltskin spinning gold from straw. Yasser Arafat created the name “Palestinian” in 1964 for the newly formed Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). It was renamed Palestine in 1998. There has never been a Palestinian nation, a Palestinian civilization, a Palestinian culture, or a Palestinian language. There has never been a Palestinian state governed by Arabs until...