Free Republic

Liberal Americans who fled to Europe after President Donald Trump's re-election shared how the grass is not always greener on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. Wired Magazine released an article Thursday headlined "They Fled Trump’s America. Now They Regret It," speaking directly to those who sought "political refuge in the wake of Trump’s second term," but have since voiced frustration with Europe’s lower quality of life, the rise of right-wing politics in those countries, and a newfound appreciation for the cultural norms and niceties of American life. One account, from a woman nicknamed "Annie," said she was sold...

Poland has condemned a decision by the Lviv region in Ukraine to declare 2027 a year honouring the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which led the massacre of Poles during World War Two, and one of its leaders, Roman Shukhevych. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the decision “suicidal”, saying that it harms Ukraine by making it harder for the country’s friends to support it. Foreign minister Radosław Sikorski announced that the local official responsible for pushing through the commemorations in Lviv has been banned from entering Poland. While the UPA is still remembered positively by some in Ukraine for its...

Once it was agreed that there was such a thing as film noir, two questions remained: Which films are film noir and what makes a film noir... noir? The arguments have persisted since then: Is The Maltese Falcon the first actual film noir? What is the best film noir? Is it Double Indemnity? Out of the Past? Gun Crazy? Is Touch of Evil the last classic noir, and when did neo-noir begin? Can it be noir if it's in colour? Everybody has an opinion and if you have one, be prepared to have your intelligence questioned. But very few of...

Politico admitted on Thursday that they were scammed by the fake Wedgewood polls, as you can read in a story by Andrew Howard, "How a fake pollster may have moved some 2026 elections."Well, congratulations to Politico for that admission, but was this merely a modified limited hangout on their part? Of all the polls that Wedgewood Polls conducted, only ONE (Nebraska gubernatorial and Senate races) was valid. The rest were completely FAKE. So did Politico perform due diligence by checking the underlying data? Here is the partial admission by Politico, which does not mention the due diligence of fact-checking the...

Mel Brooks made sure he was going to be in the newest Spaceballs movie. During the Melrose Place panel at 90s Con moderated by PEOPLE executive editor Breanne L. Heldman at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, Conn., Sunday, Oct. 18, Daphne Zuniga shared what it was like working with Brooks, 100. “We filmed Spaceballs: The New One that Mel Brooks worked with the writers on. He’s a big influence in it. He filmed his part already before we shot. It was his idea: ‘You better film me now because I’m 100.’ So we did,” she said. “It opens April...

Did not expect to see this in my email. Greetings! I hope this message finds you well. There is a new study about the experiences of licensed clinicians providing end-of-life counseling to individuals seeking medical aid in dying (MAID) to help counselor educators and supervisors better understand their lived experience. This information can be used to inform the integration of end-of-life counseling and MAID-related competencies into existing counselor education programs. For this study, you are invited to describe your experiences providing end-of-life counseling and to assess how well your counselor education program aided in preparation. About the study: • One...

University of Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian now has access to new artificial intelligence software and insights thanks to an innovative Longhorns initiative. Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte divulged that information in an interview with Karoline Leonard of the Austin American-Statesman this week, noting that Texas' Bevo Lab AI platform is "the new wave." Conte also clarified previous comments he made that suggested Texas used the Bevo Lab insights during last week's 27-24 loss to Florida: According to Leonard, Bevo Lab will be available to coaches, trainers, nutritionists, student-athletes and analysts for every Longhorns sports team. The platform...

France has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe compared with the United States, although French civilians can legally own firearms for hunting, sport shooting, and certain other approved purposes.

A romantic camping getaway in the New Jersey woods allegedly turned into a nightmare when a Bergen County man burned his girlfriend and abandoned her in the wilderness, authorities say. Justin D. Martin, 36, of Saddle Brook, faces attempted murder and aggravated arson charges following the horrifying Oct. 15 attack in the Colliers Mills area of Plumsted township. According to court documents, the badly injured woman managed to find a worker in the woods and desperately begged him to call 911. The call came at 1:36 pm. She told the worker her boyfriend had tried to kill her and burn...

About 7,300 years ago, Kikai produced the Kikai-Akahoya eruption, a giant event that released an estimated 133 to 183 cubic kilometers of magma in dense rock equivalent. The eruption reshaped the landscape, sent ash across large parts of Japan and left behind a vast caldera south of Kyushu. Now, new seismic research suggests that the magma reservoir involved in that ancient eruption is not empty. It is being refilled.>Snip< One of the most important findings is that the magma under Kikai is probably not simply a leftover pocket from the eruption 7,300 years ago. Chemical studies of later volcanic rocks...

R&B legend Stevie Wonder is suing to evict his ex-fiancée from his Studio City home she’s been living in rent-free for nearly four decades. The Motown icon filed a lawsuit against former flame Carmen Efferson in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, after she cursed out his legal representatives and refused access to the home for a property tax inspection, the complaint says. Efferson allegedly refused to vacate the home on Oak Glen Drive when the singer’s legal reps tried to get her out of his home, which she has been living in since July 1988 per an oral agreement,...

Explanation: This Rosetta spacecraft selfie was snapped on October 7th, 2014. At the time the comet-chasing spacecraft was about 472 million kilometers from planet Earth, but only 16 kilometers from the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Looming beyond the spacecraft near the top of the frame, dust and gas stream away from the comet's curious double-lobed nucleus. Bright sunlight glints off one of Rosetta's 14 meter long solar arrays. In fact, two exposures, one short and one long, were combined to record the dramatic high contrast scene using the CIVA camera system on Rosetta's still-attached Philae lander. Its chosen primary landing...

Netflix released a documentary about the legendary late comedian last week. But what I remember most about him is something he said in a 2018 tweet: ‘How could a man be a cynic? It is a sin.’I’ve long believed that to understand a society, a culture, its people, there’s no better place to look than comedians. Comedy is a medium that does its best to defy performative opinions. It lives and dies on the instant feedback of a raucous chorus of laughter, the desperate silence of a failed punch line. There’s no room for ambiguity. Something is funny or it...

Hillary Clinton may no longer be the most influential voice in the Democratic Party, but she remains a member in good standing of the party establishment. So when she expresses support for expanding the number of justices on the Supreme Court, it tells us that what was once a radical idea has gone mainstream. “We should seriously look at expanding the court while the Democrats are in power,” Clinton said on a recent podcast. “You know, it used to be that you’d have one justice for each circuit. We now have 13 circuits, we should have 13 justices.” Adding four...

Some drivers who are caught speeding make some of the most outlandish excuses when they face the cops. One woman in Florida was flustered when a deputy asked why she was driving 90 miles per hour and she tells him that she was late to visiting her mom who has cancer. The driver didn't have a license, though, which led deputies to search her vehicle. And that's when they found many things that she didn't want them to know about. (snip) Bodycam footage shows a deputy asking [Tosha] Cisco why she was driving 90 miles per hour in a 50-mph...

It’s surprising that it’s gotten to this point. The warning signs have been obvious for weeks. A soccer match between PSG and Lyon recently was moved from Sunday to Monday, at the direction of French authorities. If the NFL won’t do the prudent thing and move the game to London, the powers-that-be in Paris should direct the NFL to bump Steelers-Saints to Monday, too. There’s no reason to wait. They should make the move now.

A growing number of Minnesota Democrats are speaking out against U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar’s upcoming appearance at an event featuring controversial far-left Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker. Democratic state Sen. Omar Fateh is organizing the sold-out event, the first in a new conversation series called “I’m the Host Now,” in Minneapolis on Monday. A description on Eventbrite says the discussion will focus on Minneapolis, politics and the community. “I am honored to be able to share space alongside two fearless champions for our people who fight for us and the future that we want to build,” Fateh said...

In this episode, your window reveals a timelapse of one of the most dramatic urban evolutions in human history. For over two millennia, Rome was shaped by political revolutions, wars, plagues, the rise and fall of empires, and a continuous cycle of destruction and renewal. Among its most dramatic chapters is the era of the Domus Aurea. After the Great Fire of Rome in 64 AD, Emperor Nero seized vast areas across the Palatine, Esquiline, and Caelian hills to build his sprawling Golden House, complete with an enormous artificial lake at its heart. Just a few years later, that same...

Bad actors should be prosecuted to the limit of the law and regulators should require banks to publicly disclose the reason for debanking.A few days ago, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency issued a report confirming that the nine largest banks in the country engaged in debanking thousands of people based on their political or religious beliefs. This is at best outrageous, and at worst, illegal — and clearly it needs to be addressed quickly and firmly. For about a five-year period, these large banks engaged in debanking (closing customers’ account and preventing them from access to bank...

The legal eagles defending embattled “Squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar from prison or deportation include former President Biden’s “autopen” personal attorney and the white-shoe lawyer who quarterbacked both of President Trump’s impeachments. The Somalia-born Omar’s defense duo boasts impressive lefty legal pedigrees, but neither specializes in immigration law — raising questions about whether the Minnesota Democrat is more concerned about her husband’s alleged $30 million fraudulent windfall than she is about her immigration status. Amy Jeffress, a partner at boutique DC firm Hecker Fink, became Biden’s personal attorney in 2025, succeeding longtime confidant Bob Bauer. She represented the gaffe-prone former president...