Free Republic

As someone who looks at culture and politics regularly, I often write about problems and, on occasion, proffer solutions. Sometimes the solutions are relatively straightforward and obvious, like suggesting to the GOP that if they don’t pass the SAVE Act and bring about something resembling honest elections, they’re going to get their asses handed to them in November. Others, I recognize, are far more complex than my 30,000-foot take on the issue. This is most certainly the case when I suggested the government should get out of the wealth redistribution business. Knowing that there are thousands of programs handing out...

t's not easy being a Cuban agent of subversion in the Western hemisphere these days. Not only is Cuba out of money and falling apart, the glory days of the medical missionaries and the embassy wine parties with the elites abroad while the locals suffer back home are now all drying up. According to the Associated Press: QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — Ecuador declared Cuba’s ambassador, Basilio Antonio Gutiérrez, and his diplomatic staff “persona non grata” on Wednesday and gave them 48 hours to leave the South American country. Ecuador’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that the...

3 SOLDIERS DIED TODAY. NOT FOR OIL. NOT FOR LAND. FOR THE CHILDREN. March 1, 2026. 11:47 AM. The Pentagon confirmed: 3 American service members killed in action. 5 more wounded. The first casualties of Operation Epic Fury. The media will use their deaths to question the war. We will use their sacrifice to tell you WHY this war is being fought. ⚡ WHAT HAPPENED IN THE LAST 24 HOURS While every camera on Earth pointed at Tehran — the real operation happened in silence. — Interpol arrested 7 people across 4 European countries. France. Germany. Austria. Belgium. All connected...

Canada said on Monday it plans to provide assistance to Cuba while the island grapples with fuel shortages after Washington moved to choke off Cuba's oil supplies. Washington has escalated a pressure campaign against the Communist-run island and long-time U.S. foe in recent weeks. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has moved to block all oil from reaching Cuba, including that from ally Venezuela, pushing up prices for food and transportation and prompting severe fuel shortages and hours of blackouts. "We are preparing a plan to assist. We are not prepared at this point to provide any further details of an...

China has seeded the West with thousands of agents pushing propaganda, engaging in espionage, fomenting protests, and silencing domestic dissent. In 2023, the FBI arrested two Chinese-Americans, Lu Jianwang and Chen Jinping, for operating a Chinese police station in Manhattan. Chen pleaded guilty and faces up to five years in prison for acting as a Chinese agent, while Lu, who has connections to Chinese authorities, pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He faces 20 years for obstruction of justice. According to the Department of Justice (DoJ), the police station was established to monitor and intimidate Chinese dissidents in the...

If people have property when they die, who should inherit it? You can't take it with you. Increased inequality reduces government's concern for the general welfare. The public owns all natural resources in common and no one deserves more than an equal share of their fruits. The Alaskan oil dividend could be a model here. Inheritance reform would not eliminate billionaires; it would only eliminate hereditary billionaires.

Marco Rubio considers it an "overused term" while Friedrich Merz thinks it "no longer exists". But while the US Secretary of State and German chancellor may not believe in the relevance of the rules-based international order, the concept — and its potential collapse — has been at the forefront of global geopolitics of late. The phrase caught the global attention in January after a rare speech, from Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, in which a world leader tackled the often unspoken concept head on. "We knew the story of the rules-based international order was partially false, that the strongest would...

“But let’s not miss the fact that we have coordinated, well-funded, and I think insurgencies or terrorist organizations, however you want to call it, literally trying to prevent legal laws from being enforced in the United States.”U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Rodney Scott testifying before Congress on February 10, 2026. The man speaks truth.The mainstream media continues to push the narrative that all we are seeing are “peaceful protests”. Most conservative commentators remain content to ridicule participants in the ongoing anti – ICE actions around the country and dismiss them with derogatory comments and sarcasm. No one, it...

The aggressive push for socialism in America is not just a policy debate. It is a direct assault on the American founding and the prosperity it created. Under the guise of “progress,” bloated liberals are imposing a compulsory, state-led ideology and economy that mirrors failed socialist experiments of the past. In 1988, I escaped the crushing weight of communism in Romania, trading a life of state-mandated silence for the promise of American liberty. As a political refugee, America gave me the soil to rebuild my life from nothing. But today, America’s foundation is shaking. I look at the country that...

Their revolution could soon be coming to an end. January 3, 2026. Caracas. 2:47 AM. The helicopters had come in low over the Caribbean, running dark. The Delta Force operators on board were well-rehearsed. By 3:29 AM, it was over. Thirty-two Cuban bodyguards lay dead in the compound. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores were in flex cuffs, hustled onto a transport aircraft bound for New York. At Mar-a-Lago, President Trump watched the operation unfold in real time with his national security team. It was January 3—exactly 36 years to the day since American forces had extracted military dictator Manuel...

SPECIAL SERIES: Religious Liberty Around The World. In deteriorating health and 78 years old, Jimmy Lai is not likely to survive the 20-year prison sentence that Hong Kong’s kangaroo court handed him on Jan. 9. The Chinese Communist Party has ensured that the voice of this prominent media mogul and ardent defender of democracy will never be publicly heard from again, on anything. It accomplished this by distorting the territory’s formerly celebrated judicial system and rule of law. Over a thousand democracy defenders have been imprisoned since Hong Kong’s draconian national security law was imposed in 2020 and, as a...

North Korea is executing schoolchildren for watching South Korean TV shows and listening to K-Pop, including Netflix’s hit series “Squid Game,” according to Amnesty International. Escapees told the human rights group that teenagers and even middle school students have been publicly executed, sent to labor camps or subjected to brutal public humiliations for consuming foreign media banned by the regime. The accounts are based on 25 in-depth interviews conducted in 2025 with North Koreans who fled the country between 2012 and 2020, the organization said. Most were between ages 15 and 25 when they escaped. One interviewee said people, including...

Let's see how things are going in the communist utopia of New York, a month after Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor. Nearly two weeks after a massive winter storm hit the Big Apple, mountains of garbage line the still snow-covered streets (but not around Gracie Mansion, of course), and at least a dozen homeless people have frozen to death after Mamdani refused to force them into warming shelters despite the bitter cold. There were also blackouts, which is great when it's freezing outside.Oh, and the number of antisemitic incidents in the city has skyrocketed, and Mamdani...

Taiwan will use a range of joint intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance methods, as well as intelligence-sharing, to "grasp" China's possible intentions, says its defence minister.Taiwan is monitoring what it called "abnormal" changes to China's military leadership after its most senior general was put under investigation, and will not lower its guard as the threat level remains high, the defence minister said on Monday (Jan 26). China announced on Saturday that Zhang Youxia, second-in-command under President Xi Jinping as vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission, and another senior officer, Liu Zhenli, were under investigation ⁠for suspected serious violations of discipline and...

GENEVA, Jan 30 (Reuters) - The U.N. chief has told states that the organisation is at risk of "imminent financial collapse", citing unpaid fees and a budget rule that forces the global body to return unspent money, according to a letter seen by Reuters on Friday. "The crisis is deepening, threatening programme delivery and risking financial collapse. And the situation will deteriorate further in the near future." The U.N. is facing a cash crisis as the world body's largest contributor - the United States - has slashed voluntary funding to U.N. agencies and refused to make mandatory payments to the...

The Most Socialist System in America Is the One Feeding Us—and It’s FailingAmerica loves to debate socialism. We argue about universal healthcare, guaranteed income, student loan forgiveness, and government dependency. We pride ourselves on our rugged independence and belief in free markets. We warn that socialism destroys innovation, freedom, and personal responsibility. But here’s the uncomfortable truth most Americans never stop to consider: the most centrally planned, government-dependent, subsidy-driven system in the United States isn’t medicine, housing, or energy—it’s food.Our food system is not a free market. It is not capitalism in any recognizable form. It is a government-engineered economy...

The United States officially left the World Health Organization on Thursday after a year of warnings that doing so would hurt public health in the U.S. and globally, saying its decision reflected failures in the U.N. health agency’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic. President Donald Trump gave notice that the U.S. would quit the organization on the first day of his presidency in 2025, via an executive order. According to a press release from the U.S. Health and State Departments, the U.S. will only work with the WHO in a limited fashion in order to effectuate the withdrawal. […] The...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday fired off another warning to the government of Cuba as the close ally of Venezuela braces for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as Venezuela’s leader.Cuba, a major beneficiary of Venezuelan oil, has now been cut off from those shipments as U.S. forces continue to seize tankers in an effort to control the production, refining and global distribution of the country’s oil products.Trump said on social media that Cuba long lived off Venezuelan oil and money and had offered security in return, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!”“THERE WILL BE...

State officials are preparing to take the land and legacy of a farmer for the crime of water “violations.” “The state wants people to think I’m an outlaw,” says Bob Greiff. “They don’t want people to know the true story.”(Photo by Ray Aguirre)The government is preparing to take the private land and legacy of an 85-year-old farmer for the crime of irrigation. Why? He watered his crops without regulatory approval. “I didn’t use a drop past my legal rights, but because I put it on the wrong field, I’m a criminal and the state wants to take everything I have,”...

How Does Society Readjust its Direction in Case of Deviation from its Law? "If an instrument of governing is dictatorial, as in political systems in the world today, the society's vigilance towards deviation from law will have only one way to gain readjustment. That is violence, which means revolution against the instrument of governing. This violence or revolution, even if it is an expression of the feeling of the society against deviation, is not carried out by the whole society. It is undertaken only by those who have the initiative and boldness to proclaim the will of the society." The...