Free Republic

The Department of Education is poised to resume collections on defaulted federal student loans in May for the first time since 2020. While the first Trump administration paused referring federal student loans to collections in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the extended lapse has prompted Trump administration officials to worry that the federal student loan portfolio is "headed toward a fiscal cliff if we don't start repayment in collections," according to a senior department official. "The result has been that the federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow, and we've got a record number...

The best time to view the Lyrids this year will be early morning on April 22. The best time to observe the Lyrids is in the predawn hours when the shower’s radiant is at its highest in the sky. However, be mindful that as the morning progresses, the radiant will continue to climb, but so will the approaching sunrise and the brightening skies, which will hinder visibility. The shower is known for its luminous dust trains which can be observed for several seconds according to NASA. The Lyrids are associated with Comet Thatcher, a long-period comet that orbits the sun...

Americans are scrambling to obtain a state-issued REAL ID in order to travel by plane ahead of a federal deadline next month, which comes after states from coast to coast changed their laws surrounding driver's licenses to permit illegal immigrants to drive. Americans will need to obtain a REAL ID, which is a federally-compliant driver's license or other identification that meets higher standards than state-issued licenses, in order to easily travel by air, the Department of Homeland Security explains on its website. Only legal U.S. citizens or residents can obtain the identification card, while valid U.S. passports can also still...

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg recently gave $100,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) shortly after his plans to shake up the Democratic Party with new leadership angered party insiders. The news, which was first reported by Politico and Axios, was confirmed by Hogg in an X post on Friday, where he asserted that he wasn't "playing nice" by handing the six-figure donation over to the DCCC. "This is not me playing nice. It is demonstrating my commitment to winning back the house and making Hakeem Jeffries the Speaker, which is an absolute imperative," Hogg wrote...

NAEP test scores for America’s most vulnerable students have collapsed — and the timeline tells the story mainstream media won’t: the “Great Awokening” is failing the very kids it claimed it was trying to help.

Cornell University has invited Jew-bashing entertainer Kehlani to perform on campus May 7 — defending the move as just giving its students what they want. Kehlani has a music video that starts with, “Long live the Intifada” — an inflammatory phrase that critics say promotes violence against Israelis and Jews — shared a map online that eliminates the state of Israel and refused to condemn Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre. The invite to the multi-Grammy Award-nominated R&B artist comes after the Trump administration froze $1 billion in federal funding to the upstate Ivy League school amid a civil-rights...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen on Sunday repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether Kilmar Abrego Garcia was an MS-13 gangbanger as the Trump administration has alleged. Van Hollen (D-Md.), who met with Abrego Garcia in El Salvador on Thursday, accused President Trump of trying to change the subject on due process concerns, while he himself attempted to shift the discussion from MS-13. “What Donald Trump is trying to do here is change the subject,” Van Hollen told CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday when asked about Abrego Garcia’s alleged MS-13 ties. “The subject at hand is that he and his administration are...

In a landmark discovery, astronomers have confirmed the existence of a solitary stellar-mass black hole—an object with immense gravity, yet no visible companion, quietly roaming the depths of the Milky Way galaxy. Identified in the direction of the Sagittarius constellation, this black hole is believed to be around seven times more massive than our Sun and marks the first confirmed detection of a black hole not bound to another star. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal and led by Kailash C. Sahu and colleagues at the Space Telescope Science Institute, relied on more than a decade of high-precision data...

The Brooklyn woman accused of leaving a brick scrawled with a swastika and the word “Nazi” on a parked Tesla is a super-woke family therapist who was involved in criminal justice diversion programs — and blamed Elon Musk for her heinous actions as she was taken into custody. Natasha Cohen was released on her own recognizance following her arraignment on hate-crime charges Saturday night, according to prosecutors. Cohen, 46, has a private practice, working with children, adolescents and their families for more than two decades. She has advanced training in maternal mental health, according to an online profile, and currently...

Following Professor Scott Gerber’s vocal opposition to his school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, Ohio Northern University ordered campus police to yank him out of class and march him to the dean, who demanded Gerber’s immediate resignation. A judge decried the school’s apparent “callous disregard for due process,” but because Gerber had the courage to fight back in court, ONU took things even further — filing a federal lawsuit to shut him up. But Gerber is not having it. A longtime critic of ONU’s initiatives around DEI, Gerber’s objections made him a target of administrators, who launched an investigation into...

Wisconsin teen Nikita Casap, 17 years of age, is accused of killing his parents to get enough money to assassinate President Trump and overthrow the United States government. He allegedly worked with someone with a Ukrainian phone number and someone in Russia, according to an FBI affidavit. According to Law & Crime, Nikita Casap, 17, of Wisconsin, allegedly sent a series of direct messages to an individual with a Ukrainian phone number, who writes in Cyrillic, discussing going into “hiding” before relocating to Ukraine after carrying out the plot.

The Trump administration has begun pressuring colleges by withholding federal funds, looking to revoke their tax-exempt status, and demanding greater accountability from private universities. Citing the rise of anti‑Semitic protests, incidents, and violence toward Jewish students since October 7th, the explosive expansion of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs, and the use of racist affirmative action programs in admissions. Universities and much of the media immediately denounced what they call an unwarranted crackdown on private institutions— (where was the outcry when the Biden Administration targeted Christian colleges?). This defensive posture conveniently ignores how many elite private universities have, for years,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — As controversy swirls over the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Democrat politicians have joined together to call for an individual court hearing for everyone on earth to prove that they aren't American citizens. According to Democrats, every human on planet Earth has the right to an individual court hearing following due process to prove that they aren't American citizens. "There's no way for us to know that all people on Earth aren't Americans if they don't have access to a fair American trial, which in this case means an individual court hearing with a sympathetic federal judge,"...

AUGUSTA, ME — The state of Maine has recently continued its struggle for equity by suing the federal government to allow Sasquatch to continue competing in women's sports. According to Governor Janet Mills, Maine will "always be a safe place" for Sasquatch to play women's volleyball or any other women's sport his enormous mammalian heart desires. "Deep inside Sasquatch's hulking muscles and furry coat is a little girl who just wants to play," said Mills. "We in Maine will never kowtow to the federal government's argument that 'sometimes Sasquatch rips girls' limbs off, creating an unsafe environment.' Sasquatch has not...

Starting in 2016, how many of us heard the phrase “bash the fash” or “punch a Nazi” somewhere? I know I heard it or saw it all over the place. Those who espoused such things argued that this kind of thing was acceptable because the threat was so dire. They had every right to resort to violence in the face of what they argued was violence. Of course, no one actually did anything to hurt them, but it didn’t matter because they’d already rationalized it in their minds. Most of those who said it were big on talk, short on...

Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez faced blowback from conservatives on social media this week after they accused her of putting on a fake accent at a rally. The progressive New York congresswoman held a rally in Nampa, Idaho, with Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, on Monday where she reportedly drew over 12,000 people and caught the attention of conservatives with one particular clip where she was accused of deliberately changing her tone of voice. “Oh look, AOC is doing the interchangeable accents to fit the demographic she’s in front of,” conservative influencer account Gunther Eagleman wrote on X....

copacetic adjective co·​pa·​cet·​ic ˌkō-pə-ˈse-tik variants or less commonly copasetic or copesetic Synonyms of copacetic : very satisfactory And his smile told him that everything was copacetic. —Robert Bloch Did you know? If you’re living the life of Riley, strolling along easy street, or wallowing in hog heaven, your circumstances may be described as copacetic. A word of obscure origin, copacetic has for over a century satisfied those who’ve had a hankering to describe that which is hunky-dory or otherwise completely satisfactory. (If "of obscure origin" leaves you feeling less than copacetic, the note here will undoubtedly remedy that.) Life isn’t...

CAMBRIDGE, MA — In a beautiful ceremony today, Harvard University bestowed an honorary degree to the pro-Hamas activist Cody Balmer, who firebombed Governor Josh Shapiro's home. Though Balmer was being held without bail due to nearly murdering an entire family for being Jewish, Harvard administrators took it upon themselves to travel to the prison for the ceremony. "This man represents everything Harvard is about," said Harvard president Alan Garber. "All of us at Harvard were simply blown away when we read about Cody's courageous stand against the scourge of Zionism. It's so inspiring to meet a man who believes so...

SACRAMENTO, CA — In a landmark initiative praised by advocates as a sign of tremendous progress for the handicapped community, the state of California mandated that homeowners install wheelchair ramps on all porches for disabled burglars. Officials said it wasn't right for handicapped criminals to be denied access to a majority of homes throughout the state, making it a priority to make sure disabled burglars would be able to get into every house. "Who are we to deny an intruder access based on their disability?" asked Governor Gavin Newsom at a press conference announcing the mandate. "The days of ableist...

President Trump has come out and said the "Maryland man" was a MS-13 terrorist gang-banger, an illegal alien from El Salvador, and was given an order to be deported, and that the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that the courts cannot interfere with the Executive Branch foreign policy decisions. Marco Rubio has said the same thing. Stephen Miller has said the same thing. The President of El Salvador has basically said the same thing and that this man is not going to come back to the United States. The media keeps saying this terrorist gang-banger is a "Maryland man" (basically a...