Free Republic

I haven't been here in a long time because something changed with the front resolution or whatever and now it's super tiny and even though I have my settings on maximum font and display there is no way to comfortably browse this site anymore but I miss it so I'm reaching out to find out if anything can be done.

On July 7, the European Parliament voted 414-224 to open a formal review of whether a small pan-European political alliance called Europe of Sovereign Nations (ESN) still qualifies for EU registration and EU funding. Brussels insists this is a routine compliance matter. It is not. It is the first time in the history of the EU’s party-financing regime that this mechanism has been aimed at a party of the populist right, and everyone involved knows exactly which national party it is really about: Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD). You would be forgiven for never having heard of ESN. It is...

They put a bug on my computer that has a 500GB appetite for free space. My computer is 469GB. By the time I was made aware of what's happening my free space was down to ~5GB. MS released a patch, but it requires ~6GB to install and run. By the time I was made aware of the patch, my free space was down to ~2GB. I tried to download the patch several times but it aborted each time for lack of space. I deleted programs and files but as soon as I did, the bug ate the free space. Now,...

A video is going viral from a small seaside town in Italy’s Marche region, and it’s easy to see why. The clip shows a foreigner blocking traffic in the middle of the street while behaving erratically. That’s when Giuseppe Barboni strolled into the scene with a gelato cone in hand. Barboni isn’t exactly some random passerby. He’s a major player in Italy’s luxury services sector, was named to the Forbes Top 100, and is reportedly running for mayor in San Benedetto del Tronto. Barboni tried talking to the man while calmly finishing his ice cream. From what can be heard...

This is the second part of a two-part analysis that examines a specific historical claim: that the decades-long push of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) inside the Democrat Party follows the same “boring from within” logic the Bolsheviks used against the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks in 1917—a small, disciplined vanguard using a broader coalition’s legitimacy and infrastructure to gain position, growing more candid about maximalist goals as it consolidates power, with no intention of remaining merely one faction among many. Part I examined the Bolshevik precedent, the DSA parallel, and what is genuinely similar between the two. This part discusses...

Tennessee has the worst quality of life in the country, according to CNBC, which gave the Volunteer State an F for quality of life in its annual ranking of the best states for businesses. Why it matters: State leaders often pride themselves on making Tennessee as business-friendly as possible, but CNBC's closely watched rankings highlight some reasons businesses might stay away. How it works: Multiple variables were considered when scoring states on their quality of life, including crime rates, the availability of affordable child care and paid leave policies. CNBC also considered "inclusiveness in state laws, including protections against discrimination...

Saint Lucia has long sold travelers a picture of Caribbean paradise: volcanic peaks rising dramatically above turquoise water, rainforest-covered mountains, secluded beaches and luxury resorts built for romantic escapes. That image has not disappeared, but Americans considering a visit now have a more serious safety warning to weigh before booking their trip. The U.S. State Department raised its travel advisory for Saint Lucia to Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution on July 10, 2026. Officials added crime as a formal risk indicator after reporting that foreign visitors have been victims of armed robbery, assault, burglary and rape. In some cases, American...

America's allies are stronger, its rivals weaker, and the global balance has shifted. With a whimper rather than a bang, the world has become a different place than it was in January 2021, when Donald Trump left office. Almost everything we are now told about the global status quo is mistaken—largely because critics focus on what Trump says rather than on what he does. Rather, the Left—and some on the Right—are furious whenever Trump tweets, says, or does something that offends their delicate sense of taste, tradition, and decorum. Their outrage leads them to ignore whether this “Art of the...

ALBANY — Gov. Kathy Hochul is once again stamping her feet, accusing federal immigration authorities of overreach for allegedly planning to expand detention facilities in upstate New York. In a letter to US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Hochul is demanding answers from ICE about a rumored lease on a warehouse in the Hudson Valley near Newburgh, as well as plans to expand detention capacity at federal facilities in Rochester and Batavia. “New Yorkers, like all Americans, deserve honest answers about what their federal government is doing in their communities. And I demand your department provide that transparency,”...

A man's 'dream property' in Oregon turned into a nightmare after he found more than 50,000 tires dumped on his land. Khanh Tran, a soon-to-be father, purchased a 1.2-acre property in April where he hired contractors to build his new home in Portland, according to KATU. Tran had agreed to remove a small pile of about 50 tires on the land, but when he returned in June with a contractor, the pile had become an ocean of rubber. Footage showed stacks of tires in mountains several feet high that the homeowner estimates are anywhere between 50,000 and 75,000. 'It was...

If you are paying any attention, you will have noticed by now that all of the energy in the Democratic Party at the moment comes from the faction calling itself the Democratic Socialists of America. As I reported in this post on June 24, DSA candidates had just won primaries for three safe-Democrat congressional seats in New York City, as well as eight safe-Democrat state legislative seats in the state, six in New York City plus one in Buffalo. In a ninth race in Syracuse that was still too close to call on June 24, the DSA candidate has since...

Americans are some of the most mobile people on Earth: They move homes about three times more often than ­Europeans. As a recent report shows, that mobility is a problem for New York’s rising socialist movement. A new Citizens Budget Committee report found that New York’s share of millionaires, those earning more than a million dollars a year, declined more than any other state since 2010. The state went from having 12.7% of all millionaires in the nation to 8.7%. Worse yet, in the more recent years, the state’s highest earners have been leaving much faster than its lowest earners....

According to a Pew survey, 44% of American Muslims recently surveyed expressed a favorable opinion of Hamas. The United States designated Hamas a foreign terrorist organization long before it killed 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, raped women, burned families alive, tortured civilians, and kidnapped children and elderly grandparents. Its leaders have repeatedly declared that Israel should cease to exist. Yet nearly half of Muslim Americans surveyed said they view the group favorably. Many Muslim Americans have publicly condemned terrorism while backing the rights of Palestinians. But 44% support is significant. Imagine if a comparable percentage of any other religious...

“Legal immigration… in many ways, is actually worse than illegal immigration” for ordinary Americans, Rep. Riley Moore (R-WV) told Breitbart News Saturday. Politically, “I think the tide is turning, and you know, as I’m speaking with my colleagues, and more and more are starting to voice the concerns around this” legalized inflow, Moore told host Matthew Boyle.

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Sam Neill, the genre-spanning New Zealand actor best known for his starring role in the “Jurassic Park” movies, has died, his family said Monday. He was 78. “Sam was surrounded by family and passed with the dignity that has characterized his whole life,” the family said in a statement on Instagram. “The loss was sudden and unexpected but blessed by the fact that Sam remained cancer free,” the family said in the statement, which did not specify a cause of death. Neill, who died in Sydney, had announced in April that he was cancer-free after several years of treatment for...

Just one of many JD Vance memes making the rounds. AI generated but pretty funny.

@JamesOKeefeIII Regardless of what you think of him, this will always be one of the most powerful speeches in the history of the Senate. Back in 2018 when this happened, friends of mine who were not political teared up after watching this.

Last week, the Television Academy announced its 78th Emmy nominations, and Taylor Sheridan's entire slate got the reception you'd give a telemarketer. “Landman,” Paramount+'s flagship drama with Billy Bob Thornton and Sam Elliott, walked away with nothing. “The Madison,” led by Michelle Pfeiffer and Kurt Russell, got nothing either. Sheridan's grand total across two of the most watched shows on television: one nomination, for stunt coordination on “Tulsa King.” Meanwhile Ryan Murphy's “All's Fair,” a show even its own network calls critically panned, picked up two nods. I coached high school track and field for years. If a kid runs...