Free Republic

The ink is dry. Hawaii has officially become the first state in the nation to impose a climate tax. It’s called the Green Fee. The name sounds harmless. The impact is anything but. Senate Bill 1396 is now law. It tacks on a 0.75% increase to the Transient Accommodations Tax. That means every hotel stay, every short-term rental, every cruise ship docking in the islands will now carry a new surcharge. The state expects this to rake in $100 million annually. This isn’t a symbolic gesture. It’s a full-scale revenue engine. The money will be funneled into climate resilience projects....

Rep. Kaohly Vang Her’s remarks on the Minnesota House floor have sparked intense debate. During a legislative session on MinnesotaCare eligibility for undocumented immigrants, she revealed that her family entered the United States illegally. Her stated that her father altered immigration paperwork to secure their entry, a revelation that immediately drew scrutiny. Her’s statement, “I am illegal in this country. My parents are illegal here in this country,” was intended to evoke empathy from lawmakers considering restrictions on state-funded healthcare for undocumented adults. She argued that her family’s ability to navigate the system was a matter of privilege rather than...

Leaked reports have surfaced, revealing that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ordered the LAPD to stand down during riots, overriding emergency protocols and blocking police from assisting federal officers. The allegations suggest that Bass ignored calls for reinforcements, preventing the LAPD’s Incident Commander from deploying aid to overwhelmed federal agents. The reports detail a direct intervention by Bass, bypassing established emergency response procedures. Instead of allowing law enforcement to act, she allegedly called the Incident Commander for a briefing, then instructed the Chief of Police on how to proceed, effectively taking control of operations. This move violated the City’s Emergency...

California’s high speed rail project is facing a financial reckoning after the Federal Railroad Administration declared it in default on $4 billion in federal grants. The latest report from the Department of Transportation exposes years of mismanagement, missed deadlines, and unrealistic ridership projections, raising serious doubts about whether the project will ever be completed. The numbers tell the story. The rail system was originally planned as an 800-mile network, connecting San Francisco to San Diego. Over time, the scope shrunk to 500 miles, then 171 miles, and now just 119 miles. The federal review describes the project as a Sisyphean...

Texas lawmakers are taking a stand against chemical-laden processed foods, pushing a bill that would require warning labels on snacks and soft drinks containing ingredients banned in other countries. Senate Bill 25, which passed unanimously in the state senate, is now awaiting Governor Greg Abbott’s signature. If signed into law, it would force food manufacturers to disclose whether their products contain substances deemed unsafe by regulators in Australia, Canada, the European Union, or the United Kingdom. The list of affected products is extensive. Skittles, M&M’s, Doritos, and Mountain Dew are among the brands that could soon carry labels warning consumers...

This summer, vast numbers of radical leftists that absolutely hate Donald Trump, vast numbers of protesters that are deeply angry about the war in the Middle East, vast numbers of people that are in this country illegally, and vast numbers of ultra-violent predatory criminals will cause chaos in the streets of major cities all over America. Unfortunately, even though the official start of summer is still nearly a month away, it appears that our upcoming “summer of chaos” is off to an early start. Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about. On Saturday, radical...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development has allocated $30 million toward a jobs program designed to help work-eligible households transition into employment. Despite the funding, nearly 50 percent of HUD-assisted households that qualify for work have no employed members, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the initiative. Federal officials launched the program with the expectation that it would increase workforce participation among low-income families receiving housing assistance. The plan included job training, placement services, and financial incentives aimed at encouraging employment. However, participation rates have remained shockingly low, with many recipients choosing not to engage in the program.

The Environmental Protection Agency is rolling back fuel economy incentives for start-stop technology, a system that automatically shuts off a car’s engine when stopped at a red light or in traffic. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the decision, calling the feature a “climate participation trophy” that drivers overwhelmingly dislike. The move marks a significant shift in federal policy, reversing regulations that encouraged automakers to include the system in new vehicles. Start-stop technology was introduced as part of Obama-era emissions rules, designed to reduce fuel consumption and lower carbon emissions. The system became widespread, with 65 percent of new cars featuring...

London has been thrown into chaos after a massive power outage crippled the city’s subway system. Commuters were left stranded as multiple Underground lines shut down, forcing thousands to seek alternative routes. The disruption, attributed to a failure in the National Grid, caused widespread delays and station closures, with Waterloo, Tottenham Court Road, and Holborn among the worst affected. The outage struck during the afternoon rush hour, bringing the city’s transport network to a standstill. Transport for London confirmed that the Bakerloo and Waterloo & City lines were completely suspended, while the Elizabeth, Jubilee, and Northern lines suffered severe delays....

Canada’s national debt has reached a point where the entire Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenue is now being used to cover interest payments. Every dollar collected from GST is funneled directly to bondholders, leaving nothing for essential government services. The numbers are staggering. In the last fiscal year, $55 billion was collected in GST, and $55 billion was paid out in interest on government debt. The Bank of Canada holds 20 percent of these bonds, meaning it is effectively paying itself interest on the debt it owns. This raises serious concerns about the sustainability of Canada’s fiscal policy. When...

Are we about to see Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy sitting across from each other at a negotiating table in Turkey? It looks like that could actually happen this week. If both leaders really do show up, there will be peace negotiations in Turkey starting on Thursday. But will these negotiations lead to peace, or will they lead to World War 3? Western leaders were threatening to hit Russia with a new round of very harsh sanctions if the Russians did not agree to a 30 day ceasefire beginning on March 12th. In response, Russian President...

Will we soon witness the world’s first nuclear war? Following nuclear-armed India’s attack on nuclear-armed Pakistan, media outlets all over the globe quickly published stories about the possibility of nuclear war. In fact, this morning the main headline on the Drudge Report was “WORLD HOLDS BREATH” in all capital letters. Yes, it is entirely possible that a nuclear war could erupt between India and Pakistan. But will someone else use nuclear weapons first? In the Middle East, a showdown is looming between Israel and Iran. We know that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, and there are some experts that are convinced...

California drivers could soon face gas prices soaring to $8.43 per gallon, a staggering 75% increase from current levels. The looming crisis stems from the shutdown of two major in-state refineries, which together account for 20% of California’s gasoline production. The Phillips 66 refinery in Los Angeles is set to close by the end of 2025, followed by the Valero refinery in Benicia, which will halt operations in April 2026. These closures will create a gasoline deficit ranging from 6.6 million to 13.1 million gallons per day, according to an analysis by USC Professor Michael Mische. The impact will extend...

They came dressed like locals, silent in their movements, but armed with calculated cruelty. In a narrow valley near Pahalgam, surrounded by pine forests and mountain air, gunmen ambushed a group of unsuspecting tourists. Twenty-six lives ended in seconds. Seventeen more lay injured, many of them critically. Among the dead were families on vacation, one guide, and a visitor from Nepal. The attackers used body cameras, suggesting a motive far beyond chaos. This was designed for replay, for narrative, for fear. Pahalgam, once a pocket of calm in Indian-controlled Kashmir, has become the scene of its bloodiest assault in years....

These days, if you dare to suggest that the United States is a Christian nation or that it should be a Christian nation, you are likely to get viciously attacked. There are many voices on the left that have convinced themselves that America has never been a Christian nation and that it will never be a Christian nation. But in our system of government matters of law are not settled by what intellectuals on the left think. Rather, in our system of government matters of law are settled by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken...

More than 100 countries around the world have a national ID card. Now the United States has one too. Starting on May 7th, you will be asked to show a REAL ID card if you want to fly on an airplane. Once authorities have established that precedent, it is just a matter of time before a REAL ID card is required for all sorts of other things. Being forced to “show your papers” in order to exercise basic freedoms goes against everything that this nation is supposed to represent. Unfortunately, that is precisely what is about to happen once we...

The goal of the healthcare industry in the United States is to take as much money away from you as possible. I truly wish that I was exaggerating, but I am not. Can you guess which nation spends the highest percentage of GDP on healthcare? Without looking it up, you probably already know that it is us. Gigantic pharmaceutical corporations and massively bloated health insurance companies are raking in colossal mountains of cash, and yet the quality of the healthcare that we receive in return is rather quite poor. People living in Albania, Panama and Kuwait have higher life expectancy...

Well, isn’t this fun? News that President Trump had decided to pause some of the tariffs that he recently unveiled for 90 days sent stock prices soaring. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up more than 2,900 points on Wednesday, and that is very good news. But not that much has actually changed, and the global trade war is still officially on. In fact, President Trump just hiked the tariff rate on Chinese imports to 125 percent… President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was authorizing a 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs to all countries except China, on which he...

Over the past few years, there has been a tremendous amount of buzz about an imminent “reset” of the global economy. Well, what we are currently witnessing may not look like what they were anticipating, but a “reset” of the global economy is definitely here. Trillions of dollars were invested to set up the global supply chains that we have today. I have always argued that we should have never allowed ourselves to become so dependent on goods that are made elsewhere, and making more things in this country is a goal that every administration should pursue. Unfortunately, you can’t...

The European Union has just made a major move in trade policy that could reshape the auto industry in the U.S. They’ve slashed the tax on American-made cars from 12.5% to a mere 2.5%, effectively matching the U.S. tariff on European-made vehicles. This is a game changer, especially for automakers like Honda, who will now have a huge advantage in the EU market. For companies like Honda, manufacturing cars in the U.S. accomplishes two things. First, they avoid the 12.5% tariff on cars sold within the U.S., making their products cheaper domestically. Second, they can ship those same cars to...