Free Republic

Conservatives have yet to build the institutions, infrastructure, and legal capacity needed to counter lawfare before it destroys more lives. Lawfare grows more dangerous with every operation. This week’s disclosures about Jack Smith’s operation show how far that machinery reached. We already knew about Smith’s sweeping indictments of President Trump on flimsy charges and many of the operation’s other abuses, including the secret seizure of phone records from Republican lawmakers, the review of text messages involving 44 members of Congress, and subpoenas seeking records on at least 430 Republican individuals and entities. This week, we also found out that...

Cornrows are at the center of a controversy between the Baltimore Rock Opera Society and its former executive director. Kelly Carnes says the group terminated her contract as executive director two weeks after she started the job after she wore her hair in cornrows. A spokesperson for the Baltimore Rock Opera Society declined to comment and said it is focused on caring for their internal community. However, the group posted a statement on social media two weeks ago after backlash from a video posted on social media showing Carnes wearing cornrows. Carnes says the video was taken at a puppet...

Trump is the great magnetic north of our political metabolism. Harold Macmillan, prime minister of Great Britain from 1957 to 1963, was once asked by a journalist what was the most troubling problem he faced during his prime ministership. “Events, my dear boy, events,” was his reply. It was ever thus, of course. But in the great pudding of life, the currents of events seem to cluster more thickly in some moments than in others. I understand that every age is naturally inclined to exaggerate the importance and vividness of its own dramas. The incessant beat of our 24-hour news...

Military units will conduct a one-day voting stand-down in each election year. Service members can use the time to mail absentee ballots or vote in person. More than 418,000, or 23%, were NOT registered to vote in 2024, per the Federal Voting Assistance Program. Nearly three-quarters of active-duty members are eligible to vote absentee because they live more than 50 miles from their registered voting address.

This video from Doug In Exile discusses the launch of the new America.gov website, presented as a major administrative achievement for the Trump presidency. The video focuses on how this portal streamlines government services, such as applying for a passport or accessing veteran benefits, into one AI-powered, centralized digital location (0:15 - 3:30). Key themes and topics include: Digital Government Modernization: The video highlights how the site, which uses technology from partners like Gemini and Grok, aims to eliminate bureaucratic complexity and simplify voter identification processes (0:35 - 1:47, 5:35 - 6:35). Economic and Foreign Policy: The narrative pivots to...

To judge from many of the comments on this site, a substantial number of readers have difficulty understanding the sophisticated modes of thinking of the New York progressive. Looking at New York’s official progressive orthodoxy in action, these readers often see illogic and inconsistencies that seem to make no sense at all. And yet, despite the apparent internal contradictions, the New York progressives themselves generally achieve near or even complete unanimity as to many of the important policies that they seek to implement. How does this work? We need to take a deeper look. So I thought for today it...

Pubs are fertile ground for tall tales, with many claiming to be the oldest pub in England. What Is the Oldest Pub in England? | 7:58 | Historic England | 30.9K subscribers | 203,944 views | October 1, 2026

So here we are, with diesel at $6 a gallon. Listening to the political conversation, you could easily come away thinking this all started when Iran went to war. In fact, it didn’t. Iran supplied the shock, but we had already built the vulnerability, which is a key distinction. Yes, the war in the Middle East has disrupted oil flows and tightened global supplies. The Energy Information Administration says that tight global distillate supplies and elevated crude prices are pushing diesel prices higher. U.S. distillate inventories have fallen below their five-year range, while the loss of significant refining and petroleum-product...

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas sympathizers have insisted that we must understand the massacre in its historical context — that it did not happen in a vacuum. This much is true. To understand this context, we need to look back at a chapter of history that predates the state of Israel by two decades. That chapter is 1929. On Aug. 24, 1929, more than 3000 Muslim men armed with swords, axes and machetes marched through the ancient Jewish quarter of Hebron, then part of British Mandate Palestine. That Sabbath morning, they slaughtered 67 Jewish men, women and children, and wounded...

esterday was the eighty-sixth anniversary of the Vichy Statute, in which French authorities sealed the fate of the Jews in their jurisdiction. The Statut des Juifs was adopted by Marshal Pétain’s cabinet in the unoccupied zone in Vichy. This half of France still had a French government, and they published it in the Journal Officiel like any other statute. The statute defined a Jew: three grandparents “of the Jewish race,” or two if the spouse was Jewish. Neither conversion nor a baptismal certificate mattered since “Jew” was in the blood. The statute was drafted by Justice Minister Raphaël Alibert, and...

Max Verstappen has tasted victory for the first time in 2026, beating Kimi Antonelli to win a dramatic Gulf Air Grand Prix at Sepang International Circuit in Malaysia. In a race that started nearly two hours later than scheduled, Verstappen overcame rain, software issues, two Safety Car periods and a chaotic opening to beat the championship leader by 2.3s, claiming his first grand prix victory since Abu Dhabi last year and delivering RBPT Ford its maiden win as a power unit supplier. Antonelli drove a strong race to take the runner-up spot, leading early after the race finally got underway...

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Josh Hawley Preaches

Al Qaeda called for copycat attacks on Americans and Israeli airliners in a vile post referencing 9/11 and praising the Dubai flight hijacker — whose social media accounts shared photos of one of the terror group’s leaders. The call appeared to come Friday in the latest edition of al-Bayan, a weekly publication launched in July by pro-Al Qaeda supporters, which invoked both the Sept. 11 attacks and Wednesday’s attempted takeover of Flydubai Flight FZ1073. “The war isn’t over yet — planes carrying Zionists, Americans and all the other infidels fighting against Islam are still hovering in the skies and can...

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For nearly two decades, Lesney Products ruled the world's pockets and playrooms. Born in a bombed-out London pub garage after the war, this British firm turned die-cast metal into pure childhood gold, selling hundreds of millions of tiny cars under the Matchbox name and building a monopoly so complete that "Matchbox" became the generic word for toy car itself, the way "Hoover" meant vacuum cleaner. Their factories in Hackney and Kentish Town ran round the clock, their sales curves only pointed skyward, and their executives believed, with total conviction, that no one could ever touch them. Then in 1968 an...

President Donald Trump said he doesn’t care what the polls and the “fake news” are showing: he is confident the Republicans are going to shock the world — and the Democrats, in particular — and perform much better than expected in the 2026 midterm elections. The president struck an optimistic tone while rallying for the GOP in Vandalia, Ohio on Saturday evening. He said Republicans will be just fine, as long as conservatives don’t stay at home on Election Day. “They’re in for a big surprise. It’s very simple: You gotta get out and vote. You gotta get out. You...

The ancient city of Phaselis, a short distance from Antalya, is picturesquely poised between the Mediterranean and the hills of Lycia. Phaselis: Between Mountains and Sea | 7:11 Scenic Routes to the Past | 62.5K subscribers | 21,635 views | September 18, 2026 Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:07 Central Harbor 2:04 Main street and agoras 4:47 Theater 6:26 Gate of Hadrian

Feelings are valued, they’re celebrated, more than rational thought is. People with deeply emotional political feelings are certain they have winning arguments. Let’s engage them. You hate Trump so, so much? Well, that settles it. And you feel that criminals shouldn’t languish behind bars, even after committing two or however many crimes? Oh, your feelings reflect true justice. In your heart, you believe that about 15 million people (twice the population of New Jersey) living in the U.S. illegally deserve sanctuaries from immigration enforcement, ones defended by street protestors. . . and they should be given benefits not available to...

AC/DC welcomed a special guest onstage for the final show of their Power Up Tour. During their concert Friday (Oct. 2) at New Jersey's MetLife Stadium, the iconic Australian rockers brought out Dave Grohl to join them for "Highway to Hell." "Hey everybody, we got something to tell you. You better listen up close now. A very good friend of ours asked us today if he could come up and join us on the stage for 'Highway for Hell.' And we said, 'Yes Dave, you can.' David Grohl!" AC/DC's Brian Johnson told the roaring audience as he hugged the Foo...