Free Republic

The Minneapolis businesses that exploit illegal migrants should be compensated by ordinary Americans for economic losses amid the federal enforcement of popular immigration and civil rights laws, according to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.“They left us with economic ruin,” Walz complained after White House advisor Tom Homan said on Thursday that he is withdrawing most ICE officers after arresting more than 4,000 illegal migrants in Minneapolis. (snip) “Many Minnesota businesses – especially small businesses — are facing economic hardships that may prove insurmountable” because of the federal enforcement, said Matt Varilek, an economic development manager for Walz.

Annually and increasingly, tens of thousands of people are leaving blue states because of politics. If you’re old enough, you’ll recall the 1961 Berlin crisis. I recall it subsequently, when schools taught real history. That crisis happened during the Cold War’s peak years. In brief, Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev wanted the U.S. out of West Berlin. There were multiple reasons, but, chiefly, access to West Berlin allowed East Germans to escape communist rule. According to the National Archives, by 1961, as many as four million Germans had escaped East Germany using West Berlin. With tensions rising, and the hemorrhaging increasing,...

Democrats have proposed legislation to limit ICE’s use of facial recognition, but the proposals are unlikely to advance without bipartisan support. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer say they want to tack on restrictions to how ICE can use body camera footage, according to a letter sent to Republican leadership on Wednesday night. “Prohibit tracking, creating or maintaining databases of individuals participating in First Amendment activities,” the letter says. It’s unclear how the request for new limits on surveillance will affect ongoing negotiations with Republicans to pass a funding bill for the Department of Homeland...

A Long Beach mayoral candidate is drawing intense scrutiny after issuing what critics describe as a reckless and potentially dangerous call for gang involvement in opposing federal immigration enforcement. Rogelio Martinez, who is running for mayor of Long Beach, California, posted a statement urging local gang leaders to mobilize against Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of his push to make the city “ICE free.” In the message, Martinez explicitly called on gangs to organize and appear in person at City Hall, language that opponents say amounts to an invitation for confrontation with federal authorities. “I am calling every gang...

🚨WATCH: 'What we found was deeply concerning' Scott Dexter, a former Minnesota Department of Human Services investigator, testified to Congress that he spent nearly three decades conducting criminal and financial fraud investigations, including in the state’s Child Care Assistance Program before political pressure and bureaucratic hurdles brought meaningful investigations to a halt. After joining DHS in 2013 as part of a newly formed fraud unit, Dexter said his team focused on data-driven cases. “Our cases were not selected based on the name of the center, the owner, or the community it served,” Dexter told lawmakers. “They were selected based solely...

Good news, everybody: We’ve figured out why Democrat Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois is very concerned about AI deepfakes. It’s not because he believes that fake images generated by ChatGPT or Grok are going to confuse smart people, or even the average person. He’s like your dim, aged Uncle Dick from Springfield, who wants to ban high-speed internet because he doesn’t get why we can’t just stick to AOL after he spent long learning it. He doesn’t understand these socials medians things with the Facebookers and the Instantgrammars and whatnot. Why can’t he just stick to “Keyword: PBS?” On Wednesday,...

🚨 BREAKING: DNI TULSI GABBARD was just spotted at the Fulton County GA election site raided by the FBI involving likely 2020 election fraud — as ballots were seized and computers were examined WOW, this is getting serious! 🔥Tulsi plays no games. Liberals are terrified at this sight. EXPOSE THE FRAUD! Show the people, Trump was right! pic.twitter.com/c8ZihO2n7m— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 29, 2026

A federal judge in Oregon dismissed a Justice Department lawsuit seeking Oregon’s unredacted voter rolls on Monday in another setback to wide-ranging efforts by President Donald Trump’s administration to get detailed voter data from states. In a hearing, U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasubhai said he would dismiss the suit and issue a final written opinion in the coming days. The updated docket for the case showed that Oregon’s move to dismiss the case was granted. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield welcomed the move. “The court dismissed this case because the federal government never met the legal standard to get these...

Maryland governor Wes Moore (D.) declared he won't waste "a second" of his time finding his missing graduate thesis, which he now claims made him an expert on Hamas. Oxford University, meanwhile, refuses to confirm whether Moore was ever a doctoral candidate in 2006, a representation he made in the résumé he submitted that year to obtain a prestigious White House fellowship that jump-started his political career. "I am not going to spend a second of my time trying to dig up a paper that I wrote 20 some odd years ago because a blog, because a right-wing blog post...

Leaked Signal chats allegedly link Minnesota officials to a coordinated anti-ICE network accused of obstructing federal enforcement, sparking calls for investigations as evidence spreads nationwide.

Some of us are old enough to remember Matthew Lesko, the lanky, fast-talking late-night TV pitchman who promised people free government money to those who bought his books. There are, Lesko said in one of his countless ads decades ago, “15,000 programs you can use to get a better job, get an education, or start your own business. Those who know about the programs are the ones who get the money!” Lesko was right about how easy it is to get taxpayer money. What Lesko didn’t say is that it’s easy to do even when it violates the law —...

It’s last call for San Francisco’s government hooch. A COVID-era program that guzzled $5 million of taxpayer money annually to serve booze to homeless alcoholics will finally shutter this year, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie exclusively told The California Post. “For years, San Francisco was spending $5 million a year to provide alcohol to people who were struggling with homelessness and addiction — it doesn’t make sense, and we’re ending it,” Lurie said. The taxpayer tipple, called the Managed Alcohol Program (MAP), was created by the San Francisco Department of Public Health in April 2020, when the city began housing...

Two years ago, Zakia Khan and her son Ahsan Ijaz hosted an NYPD promotion ceremony for the first Pakistani inspector in the New York City police department. After an Imam recited a prayer and everyone, including NYPD personnel, rose and put their hands on their hearts for the Pakistani national anthem, hailing Pakistan as the ‘citadel of Islam’ in the “shadow of Allah.” Last year, Khan pleaded guilty to a $68 million Medicaid fraud scheme involving her adult day care centers, which had been the sponsors of the NYPD event, and earlier this year more members of the Muslim fraud...

Newly-minted Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger was compared to a 'Bond villain' after enacting far-left policies on her first day in office despite campaigning as a moderate Democrat. Spanberger, a former Congresswoman and CIA officer, stormed to a blowout victory over sitting Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears in a momentum boost for Democrats. However, many conservatives have been horrified by some of Spanberger's first week executive orders, which includes reducing cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Spanberger campaigned on the order.

California must return more than $1 billion to the federal government after an audit by Dr Oz (CMS) and his team uncovered federal dollars being spent on healthcare for illegal immigrants. We are teaming up to combat healthcare fraud so the money can be used for American citizens who need it!

Last Wednesday, January 14, 2026, in a little-noticed Supreme Court decision, Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the 7-2 majority opinion in Michael J. Bost et al., Petitioners v. Illinois State Board of Elections, et al. That case saw Illinois Congressman Michael Bost challenge an Illinois State Board of Elections rule that “requires election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked or certified no later than election day and received within two weeks of election day.” Remarkably, the decision reversed the trend, which has predominated since 2020, of federal and state courts denying standing to petitioners who argue that state board of...

Federal prosecutors have charged a Maryland man with orchestrating a years-long theft scheme inside the U.S. House of Representatives, alleging he stole hundreds of government-issued cell phones and sold them for personal profit. The findings of this case were revealed by the Department of Justice on Monday. Christopher Southerland, 43, of Glen Burnie, was arrested Friday after a federal indictment was unsealed in U.S. District Court, according to U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. Authorities said the stolen devices were worth more than $150,000. According to the indictment, Southerland worked as a system administrator for the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The state of Minnesota and the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul are suing the federal government to stop an enforcement surge by Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an ICE officer.The state and cities filed a lawsuit in federal court on Monday, along with a request for a temporary restraining order to halt the enforcement action or limit the operation.The Department of Homeland Security says it’s surging more than 2,000 immigration officers into Minnesota, and that it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the city since the...

Then-Special Counsel Jack Smith's office approved paying $20,000 in 2023 to a confidential human source for information in the controversial FBI investigation code-named Arctic Frost that probed efforts by President Donald Trump and his followers to contest the 2020 election results, according to documents obtained by Just the News. The revelation is included in a tranche of new memos that FBI Director Kash Patel turned over to Congress this week that provide more clarity on the tactics and scope of the inquiry that agents and prosecutors used to try to build a case that Trump, his lawyers and allies had...

Special counsel's testimony contradicts Supreme Court precedent on protected political speech, constitutional experts argueFor years, some of us have argued that President Donald Trump's January 6th speech was protected under the First Amendment and that any prosecution would collapse under governing precedent, including Brandenburg v. Ohio. I was regularly attacked as an apologist for my criticism of Special Counsel Jack Smith's "war on free speech." I wrote about his history of ignoring such constitutional protections in his efforts to prosecute targets at any cost. I also wrote about how Smith's second indictment (which the Post supported) was a direct assault...