Free Republic

There is a collective sense of enough—no more faux tolerance in the name of imaginary leftist ills. It has been two weeks since Charlie Kirk was killed. Many, many words have been written and spoken about him and in reaction to his death. There have been many events, memorials, and eulogies, but also criminal acts. I’ve been reading and thinking, coming to a synthetic conclusion rather than reacting quickly. There is absolutely no excuse for killing Charlie Kirk. No one should be killed for their words. They might be shunned, or even arrested, but never killed. No matter how vile...

Attorney General Pam Bondi suggested that the government, in response to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, may start to target “hate speech.” In a podcast interview the AG stated that hate speech isn’t free speech and that her office may prosecute those who cross the line. Her comments outraged many on the right, who correctly see “hate speech” as a dubious concept engineered to suppress conservative views. It’s also an unconstitutional concept, as our laws recognize hate speech as free speech protected by the First Amendment. This was affirmed by Charlie Kirk himself. “Hate speech does not exist legally in...

A large part of me feels filthy comparing the two because Charlie Kirk doesn’t deserve for anyone to lump him into the same category as George Floyd. Even if we accept the central thesis of the Black Lives Matter movement — that George Floyd was murdered in a senseless act of police violence — the circumstances between the two were extraordinarily different, and no one should lose sight of why: George Floyd was convicted of eight separate crimes between 1997 and 2005 alone. (It’s unclear how many times he was arrested.) In 2007, he was sentenced to four years in...

Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, delivered a national address following her husband's assassination on Wednesday. Read the transcript below. ERIKA KIRK: Good evening, my name is Erika Kirk. Charlie Kirk is my husband. I first want to thank the local, state, and federal law enforcement who worked tirelessly to capture my husband's assassin so that he can be brought to justice. I want to thank the first responders who struggled heroically to save Charles's life and the police who acted bravely to make sure that there were no other victims on that terrible afternoon. I want...

CHARLIE KIRK This is difficult to even write: we lost an extraordinary human-being and patriot today, who was murdered by an assassin's bullet. But Charlie's legacy will never, ever be silence. He touched and influenced not a few or a few thousand, but hundreds of thousands. I knew Charlie well over many years. We were together during Salem radio KRLA events in LA, I had him on TV and radio, I attended a few of his TPUSA events, he was a fan of my books, etc. He was a delight. Always curious. Happy. Joyous. Social. Articulate. Brilliant. Strategic. And much...

President Donald Trump is not the first prominent American politician to demand that the federal government take partial control of Intel and other manufacturers of advanced computer chips. But it might surprise you to learn whose idea he has embraced. During debate over the CHIPS and Science Act, the 2022 bill that ultimately delivered $52 billion in subsidies to chipmakers, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) floated the very same idea that Trump is now pursuing: that the government ought to have a stake in those companies.

Actress and conservative influencer Brett Cooper was just profiled in a lengthy piece in The New York Times. Once a star at the Daily Wire, Cooper has now been signed to Fox News. I have bad news for right-wingers waiting for a young messiah for the culture, however. Brett Cooper is not coming to save you. In fact, she will do what every other conservative on TV and social media does—the same thing Cooper, although only 23, has been doing for years. She’s going to sit behind a microphone and react to liberalism. What Brett Cooper will not be being...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday said he was nominating economist E.J. Antoni as the new Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, ten days after firing the statistics agency's previous leader after a weak scorecard of the U.S. job market, accusing her without evidence of manipulating the figures. Antoni is currently the chief economist at the influential U.S. conservative think tank Heritage Foundation. "Our Economy is booming, and E.J. will ensure that the Numbers released are HONEST and ACCURATE," Trump said on Truth Social.

Many conservatives are celebrating a series of strong decisions from the Supreme Court, including the 6-3 U.S. v. Skrmetti decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on transgender procedures for minors. This is an incredible win, and full credit should be given to the culture warriors who fought tirelessly for this cause. Nevertheless, this temporary victory provides another opportunity to reflect on the nature and function of our current Supreme Court and our political regime more broadly. I have written recently about why the Supreme Court still poses a significant obstacle to national restoration even when it allegedly grants “wins” to conservatives. The...

In April 2025, Tucker Carlson invited Matt Walsh onto his podcast. The conversation covered everything from same-sex adoption and surrogacy to foreign policy isolationism. It is well worth listening to. But beyond the substance of the conversation, there was simply something powerful about a discussion between two men with such influence on the American Right—each man has an audience of several million subscribers on YouTube alone. In the age of digital media, each man far surpasses the reach of any legacy-news media personality. Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson could be fairly described as two of the most influential men in...

The old politics is gone – and it’s not coming back. ‘Historic local elections’ are three words you don’t often see next to each other. But last night was surely the exception. While many of the counts are only really getting started, the picture is already crystal clear: the two-party cartel that has squatted over British politics for 100 years is crumbling – and Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform UK is the party rising from the rubble. There’s the Runcorn by-election, a Labour safe seat snatched by Reform by six votes – the first time a Faragist party has won a...

The coalition campaign in this election has been shocking - incompetent, flatfooted, timid, incoherent and today we saw Liberals (in Australia the major conservative party is called the Liberal Party) ...... If the coalition draws the wrong lesson ..... it risks being destroyed ....... and already I do hear fake autopsies being written like this today by the Prime Minister: "The Liberal Party has become more and more right wing under Peter Dutton ,,,,," In fact Dutton isn't of the hard right or certainly hasn't shown it ....... he isn't even offering bigger tax cuts than Labor (the governing party)...

It's always nice returning to North Idaho from the California Bay Area. It only takes a few minutes to spot some great bumper and window stickers in Idaho! The two below were at the Fred Meyer (aka, Kroger) store. I was shopping for Baby Back Ribs and some good rub and sauce. Baby Back Ribs are on sale for $5.49 / pound! Got two 3.5 pound racks.

The United Kingdom has been in managed decline since 2008. The dismal performance of the British economy -- characterized by slow growth, low productivity, and stagnant wages -- has been the subject of much analysis in recent years. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has highlighted that the UK's recovery from the 2008 financial crisis has been the slowest on record, even weaker than the recovery following the Great Depression in the 1930s and the early 1920s slump. The authors have spent part of their careers in Singapore and have written extensively on the city-state’s economic growth since its independence....

Are we seeing the end of global leftism? Probably not. For one thing, politics is sort of a fuzzy spectrum; there will always be a left and a right, although things are a little more complicated than that. But there is a reason the Overton Window is a thing, and it can't go all the way to one side or another, and there will always be people and systems to the left and to the right of that window. But modern leftist politics, defined by socialism and its fuzzy-headed cousin "progressivism" (which may be taken to mean "progress on the...

The more often Americans attend virtually any Christian denomination, as well as Jewish services, the more likely they are to adopt conservative political views, according to a recent statistical analysis. “The more Democrats go to church, the more they look like Republicans,” states the study. “Being politically liberal and being highly religious are just not compatible,” wrote Ryan Burge, an associate professor of Political Science at Eastern Illinois University and research director for Faith Counts. “Among white people who never attend: 45% are liberal. Among weekly+ attenders: 11% are liberal. That same pattern is there for every single racial group.”...

It’s a curious peculiar hallmark of our political moment as conservatives that adhering to principles—steadfastly examining issues through the lens of conservatism and first principles—is now treated as heresy by self proclaimed conservatives, while ideological flexibility and indifference are paraded as virtues. This peculiar attack invariably comes from the populists, those sartorial magicians who don the garments of conservatism when it suits them, only to cast them off the moment they conflict with the “current thing.” These are the ideological chameleons, the political reincarnations of those high school kids who reinvented themselves annually to fit in with whatever clique was...

Pope Francis has appointed a new bishop to a Texas-based diocese who will replace a theologically conservative critic of the pontiff who was removed from office last year. The Catholic Diocese of Tyler announced last Friday that Francis appointed the Most Rev. Gregory Kelly, auxiliary bishop of Dallas, to lead the regional body. Kelly will fill the vacancy left after Francis removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland, the former head of the diocese who had criticized the pontiff for some of his policies on LGBT issues and overall doctrine. “I am grateful to the Holy Father for this surprising pre-Christmas gift,...

When I first started reading the works of Russell Amos Augustine Kirk in the fall of 1989, that most joyously fateful of seasons, I had no idea I would wind up three decades later having spent much of my adult life reading him, writing about him, and holding a position named in his honor. At the age of fifty, I happily and proudly stand in his shadow. Of all of the things I have learned about him, though, nothing has impressed me more than the man’s charity, his saint-like dedication to all around him: the poor; the lonely; the disabled;...

People are out and about, smiling at each other. It’s been true since the morning after the election, the results of which defied every prediction. Who doesn’t like to see the smug elites who have ruled the world for five awful years taken down a peg? More than that, there are hints of a return to sanity. Mainstream advertisers are suddenly returning to X, putting their economic interest above their tribalist loyalties. The editor of pro-lockdowns Scientific American, which had long blessed totalitarian measures as true science, has resigned. The attempt to pillage InfoWars and give it to The Onion...