Free Republic

Communist societies have a long history of imprisoning political dissidents in psychiatric wards. One of the more insidious features of Marxism’s manipulation of language is its stigmatization of opposing points of view as some form of mental disorder. Opposition to “gay marriage” is said to be a “sign” of homophobia. Distrusting Islamic terrorists who celebrate 9/11 and shout, “Death to America,” is a “symptom” of Islamophobia. Wanting the federal government to secure our borders and enforce existing immigration law “reveals” underlying xenophobia. Not wanting biological men to force their way into ladies’ locker-rooms and showers suggests that a person “suffers”...

April 20 will mark the 60th birthday of Gao Zhisheng, the man many have called “the bravest lawyer in China” who has been missing since 2017 – presumably imprisoned and possibly dead at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. The CCP has denied any knowledge of Gao’s whereabouts for the past seven years, with party officials insisting that they had nothing to do with his disappearance. But given Gao’s status as one of the most outspoken and effective critics of the CCP and the fact that he has already suffered multiple imprisonments and extensive torture, these claims seem dubious...

There is much to learn from Paul Johnson's history of the 20th century, not least the appalling truth about the "Republican" camp during the Spanish Civil War; some unpalatable facts about FDR and his "vanity … compounded by an astonishing naivety"; and, most importantly, the many ways in which the autocrats of the left (Lenin, Stalin, Mao, etc…) and of the right (Hitler, Mussolini, Pétain, etc…) inspired, complemented, and even conspired with, one another. Much of what we have learned turns out to be myths. What explains the rise of rightist fascism, and how does it differ from leftist communism?...

Rep. Bennie Thompson (D. Miss.), who chaired the House J6 Committee, introduced legislation that calls for President Donald Trump to lose his Secret Service protection if he’s convicted and sent to prison. Thompson fully understands that there is a strong likelihood that the current Manhattan hush money trial or the upcoming Georgia RICO trial, both of which are open partisan lawfare rather than justice, will see at least one felony conviction and prison sentence for Trump. In other words, this legislation is an almost explicit call for Trump’s assassination. It’s been apparent since the get-go that the myriad criminal actions...

CNN — In a sweeping win for climate and environmental advocates, the Biden administration on Friday finalized a rule to ban fossil fuel drilling on nearly half of the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, alongside other major conservation actions. The Interior Department will block oil drilling on over 13 million acres in the Western Arctic, including about 40% of the land of the NPR-A – a remote area that is home to protected animal species including polar bears and caribou. The reserve is more than 23 million acres of public land and an underground emergency oil supply for the US...

Katherine Maher has a golden résumé, with stints and affiliations at UNICEF, the Atlantic Council, the World Economic Forum, the State Department, Stanford University, and the Council on Foreign Relations. She was chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation. And, as of last month, she is CEO of National Public Radio. Mere weeks into this new role, Maher has stepped into controversy. Long-time NPR senior editor Uri Berliner published a scathing indictment of the self-professed “public” media service’s ideological capture. Rather than address the substance of these criticisms—which will ring true to anyone who has listened to...

WASHINGTON, April 18 (Reuters) - Donald Trump said on Thursday the survival of Ukraine is important to the United States, a shift in tone days before the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives is due to vote on a $61 billion aid package.

HIALEAH GARDENS, FL—On the 63rd anniversary of the tragic Bay of Pigs invasion, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law requiring school instruction on the history and evils of communism beginning in the 2026-2027 school year. "We're gonna tell the truth about communism in the state of Florida. We're gonna tell the truth about the evils of communism," DeSantis said at a Wednesday morning press conference. "We're gonna tell the truth about the unprecedented death toll of the 20th century at the hands of communist tyranny—100 million killed at the hands of communist regimes spreading from China to the...

“Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul.” -Mao Zedong.Mao Zedong took over China with a strategy that will sadly feel unsettlingly familiar to us. Because he was able to mobilize hundreds of millions of people to comply, often enthusiastically, with his catastrophic programs, an adequate name for that strategy would be the politics of compliance. Understanding the basic premises and mechanisms of the politics of compliance is necessary for us today because these same methods are being used maliciously on us, thus require resisting, and because familiarity with these tactics at least partially inoculates...

Famously 'woke' Bank of America has been on the hot seat among a group of state attorneys general, who've demanded information about whom it debanks and why, charging that they target conservatives and faith communities. According to Fox News: Over a dozen Republican attorneys general are warning a major U.S. bank against alleged practices of "de-banking" certain customers because of their religious or political views. In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, along with 14 of his Republican colleagues told Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan that the company "appears to be...

2024’s “known wolves” carry badges and/or act under the color of law. “It needs to be said, and it needs to be said loudly, the FBI is the 2024 equivalent of the 1984 Soviet-era KGB, now FSB.” — Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse American Thinker and The Conservative Treehouse share many of the same readers, so you may well be familiar with Sundance’s meticulous work over the years, documenting our known-knowns and our known-unknowns. He’s not much for the flights of fancy attendant to unknown-unknowns, so that’s a big part of what makes him such compelling reading. He’s a connect-the-dots...

As we saw this week, the mob closed O'Hare Airport and travelers had to get out of their cars or miss their flights. Was this a "test run" for the convention? Probably so. Add Midway Airport plus local freeways and moving around the city will be a nightmare. Add to this the shooting, and who in the world wants to go to the convention? The convention hall is going to look like a fortress, and who knows what will break out on the floor? The Squad will be there and that's a formula for madness. My point is that this...

The future of Cuba and the trajectory of communism are under threat, with citizens fighting back against the regime. Protesters are taking to the streets amid an ongoing economic crisis, making their concerns heard. Cuba’s communist leadership is facing a fierce backlash that has not been seen since similar protests in July 2021. Since the 2021 protests, it is estimated that nearly 500,000 Cubans have sought refuge in the United States. In this Sky News Digital Originals, we explore whether Cuba’s communist leadership could be about to tumble. “The Cuban regime knows the Cuban people are getting smarter and they're...

Let’s face it: Central planning of the economy hasn’t worked out so well in many places where it has been tried (e.g., Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, etc.). But then, here in New York, we are so much smarter than the dolts who fell on their faces in those backwaters. With utter confidence in our genius, we have embarked upon the total centrally-directed transformation of the economy into “net zero” utopia, via the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019. But that project is barely getting under way. It will be a few years before we have enough feedback...

<p>The Pope told reporters that he has 'human relationship' with the former dictator of communist Cuba while encouraging 'exploratory dialogues' with the oppressive regime.</p><p>VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis expressed his fraternity with the former communist leader of Cuba Raul Castro in a Monday interview, telling journalists that he had a “human relationship” with the murderous dictator.</p>

As Brazil rapidly descends into authoritarianism, courting the favor of the world’s worst dictatorship (Chinese Communists), meanwhile, journalist Michael Shellenberger warns Americans that we, too, are heading down Brazil’s path. From allegedly aiming to criminalize “lying” to threatening to arrest those who exposed the country’s increasingly tyrannical judiciary, Brazil’s government under President Lula is trying to turn itself into a perfect Orwellian dystopia. That’s exactly why Shellenberger, who wrote the Twitter Files that exposed the corruption, is so concerned. Brazil might be more rapid in crushing rights and freedoms, but the US government is also blatantly violating rights while pandering...

By its 2019 Climate Act, New York has officially embarked on a great energy transition to Net Zero by 2050, with statutorily-dictated interim mandates along the way. The first of those mandates is 70% “emissions-free” electricity by 2030, only 6 years from now. This is far and away the biggest government-directed project that the State of New York has ever undertaken. However, to date, relative to this project there exists no environmental impact statement, no feasibility study, no prototype, and no demonstration project to show how this can be done, let alone any detailed cost analysis to show how much...

It is the most spectacular trial ever held in Vietnam, befitting one of the greatest bank frauds the world has ever seen. Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old property developer stands accused of looting one of Vietnam's largest banks over a period of 11 years. The numbers involved are dizzying. Truong My Lan is charged with taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. Prosecutors say $27bn may never be recovered. The habitually secretive communist authorities have been uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail...

This is a video about the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, a state that lasted for half a century and epitomised an isolationist and quasi-xenophobic foreign policy. While today Albania is open to the world and nominally democratic, despite its issues with corruption, in the mid to late 20th century it was ruled by a paranoid tyrant akin only to North Korea's Kim Il Sung - this video intends to shed some light on this relatively unknown period of European history and specifically the life and disposition of one of the most brutal dictators Europe has ever seen. There's so...

Some stunning courage from Musk in standing up to, undermining, and even mocking Brazil's pettiest tyrant judge. Given all the cowardice we see, it was a thing of beauty seeing someone standing up to the sleazy little tyrants who want to shut down free speech. Which is what we see from Elon Musk, who literally vowed to defy a Brazilian Supreme Court Chief Justice's demand that he secretly ban certain prominent Brazilians from his site 'X,' formerly known as Twitter, or face criminal charges. According to the Associated Press: RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice...