Free Republic

Taxpayers are yet again helping fund disruptive activism in Los Angeles — this time the radicals planning to chaos across the city and county for Saturday’s “No Kings” protests, which organizers claim will be the biggest yet. One the leading groups participating in the event is the Liberty Hill Foundation, a social justice nonprofit that receives $14 million in Los Angeles city funding for tenant outreach and housing programs. Public filings show the group has donated tens of thousands of dollars to the ACLU of Southern California, raising further questions about taxpayer-supported organizations being used for radical political advocacy. ACLU...

Senate Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against the SAVE Act, arguing that requiring Americans to prove their identity with a photo ID when they go to the polls to vote — even when the ID itself is given away for free — prevents eligible voters from casting ballots. They contend proving citizenship would make voting harder for millions who lack ready access to birth certificates or passports, supposedly disenfranchising black and Hispanic Americans. Yet democracies all over the globe, both in the wealthy West and in the developing world, enforce similar rules. Every country in Africa, for example, requires...

There are four categories. You are in one of them. Nobody asked which one you'd like. I am the CEO of Perplexity. My company is worth $20 billion. I am 31 years old. Last week I said losing your job to AI could be a "glorious" thing. I said it at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference. On a podcast. In front of an audience of people who build the tools. Everyone nodded. I said: "The reality is most people don't enjoy their jobs." I have had one job. I have had it for three years. It made me a billionaire. I...

San Francisco is restoring eighth-grade algebra after more than a decade, with the San Francisco Board of Education voting 4-3 Tuesday night to approve the change, reversing a controversial policy that had eliminated the course in middle schools in the name of equity. The vote follows years of debate over academic rigor, access and declining outcomes, as families increasingly pushed the district to expand advanced coursework options. "Families want to see a public school system that offers rigorous coursework. This is absolutely an instructional strategy," school board President Phil Kim said, according to The New York Times. "But it’s also...

“ Today at the Board of Supervisors, we recognized for the first time, Eid al-Fitr. Eid al-Fitr known as the Festival of Breaking the Fast, marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan—a time observed by Muslims around the world through fasting, prayer, reflection, and acts of charity. It is a time that emphasizes compassion, gratitude, and a deep sense of community....”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom teared up Wednesday when announcing an expansion of the state’s Service Corps geared at recruiting young men. “Forgive me, this is embarrassing,” he said, as his eyes welled. “All the noise, we just need to turn off. Listen to this, this is it,” he continued while wiping tears off his face. “We’re all just sitting there, screaming and yelling at each other, everybody’s getting at each other’s throats, trying to tear everybody down, and how are we going to get out of this? This is it,” he went on. The governor’s teary showcase was in response...

One of humanity’s oldest and deadliest killers is staging a modern-day comeback. The so-called “white plague” reclaimed its title as the world’s deadliest infectious disease in 2023 after being briefly overtaken by COVID-19 during the first three years of the pandemic. And the US isn’t immune. While the country still has one of the lowest rates globally, cases have been climbing steadily since 2020 — reversing three decades of decline. Just this week, in fact, the man accused of murdering 18-year-old Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman failed to show up for a detention hearing because he’s being treated for tuberculosis....

A Los Angeles jury found Wednesday that Meta’s Instagram and Google’s YouTube harmed a young user with features designed to hook kids — in a bombshell verdict that “shakes Big Tech’s predatory business model to its core.” The high-profile case involved a 20-year-old woman who claimed she became dangerously obsessed with the apps at a young age because they were deliberately built to be addictive, using features like infinite scroll and autoplay. The tech giants were found liable for $3 million in damages. The multi-million-dollar judgment is likely to grow, as the jury of seven women and five men will...

Roughly 800 teenagers took over a $4.8 million Texas mansion rented on Airbnb – sparking brawls and gunshots that turned the quiet getaway into a chaotic, pop-up frenzy. Property owner Kishore Karlapudi claimed he was duped by the rowdy youngsters who booked the multi-million dollar home under the guise of a small gathering before advertising the party across social media on Saturday night in Celina, Texas. “Somebody booked it, saying they needed the property for a party of seven people,” owner Kishore Karlapudi told KDFW. Karlapudi claimed the teens destroyed furniture and appliances inside the home, moving everything into the...

ocky Mountain high, Colorado,” sang John Denver, AKA Henry Duetschendorf Jr. in 1972. Those were heady days for Colorado. Ski resorts, the Rockies, natural beauty aplenty and the promise of new beginnings enticed many, including me, to move to Colorado. My stay on the west slope was brief, and over the years, Colorado has descended from a more-or-less business-friendly and affordable state to a Democrat People’s Republic, increasingly crowded and hostile to civil liberties and prosperity. I occasionally travel to Colorado Springs for service on my recumbent trike and bike at the best recumbent shop in this part of the...

CNN is set to lay off staffers this week as boss Mark Thompson presses ahead with a sweeping digital overhaul — with deeper cuts looming as a potential merger reshapes the network’s future. The Warner Bros. Discovery-owned outlet is set to cut “a few dozen” staffers as it moves to modernize its 3,000-plus global workforce, according to the Status newsletter. The cuts are expected to hit roles not tied to growth areas, marking CNN’s latest move away from its cable roots and toward a digital-first future, Status reported. The move follows a prior round of cuts under Thompson, who eliminated...

The explosion comes amid a spike in gas prices driven by uncertainty over the global oil supply because of the Iran war. The refinery has about 770 employees and can process about 435,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Valero's website. The plant refines heavy sour crude oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Images and video posted online show a large plume of smoke and flames billowing out from the refinery. Some residents reported hearing a loud boom and seeing their windows shake.

The Department of Education (ED) just took a big step closer to shutting down. The Trump administration announced on Thursday an interagency agreement between the ED and the Treasury to move student lending operations to the Treasury, which will "assume operational responsibility for collecting on defaulted Federal student loan debt and provide operational support to ED’s efforts to return borrowers to repayment," the ED said in a release. "I think we've been very clear about this last week that this is a multiphase process," Nicholas Kent, Undersecretary of Education, told Fox News Digital on Monday. Throughout the 2024 campaign, then-candidate...

Coastal Florida towns are playing hot potato with spring breakers who use social media to organize “takeovers” of gatherings by drunken flash mobs, leading to violence and mass arrests. Cops locked down Daytona Beach this week after a string of shootings and a beach “takeover” that ended in a mass stampede of high-school and college students fleeing for their lives. That single “takeover” resulted in 133 arrests and prompted authorities to turn the entire beach into a party quarantine zone, with doubled fines for citations and strict limits on gathering sizes, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Daytona had...

I'm wondering if there is a way to program the news in Free Republic in specific ways. Can you create your own feed? Have a feed of just good news? Or have a feed that excludes topics that you hate. Is there anyway control this or are we at the mercy of whoever posts what they post. I know there are trends in the news, for example, Epstein or trans gender topics, but sometimes you have had enough of a subject to the point of not wanting to even see the headlines... because these posts will show up. So if...

3,000 Jewish children vanished from the face of Nazi-occupied Europe. They weren't deported. They weren't found in concentration camps. They simply evaporated. And the most unlikely place on earth became the perfect hiding spot: a small Protestant village in the heart of occupied France, where pastors and farmers transformed their homes, barns, and schools into underground sanctuaries. But here's the detail that will make you question everything you know about World War II. These children weren't hidden in secret basements or distant forests. They walked the streets. They attended classes. They played in public squares. And the Nazis, with all...

The results were not what they wanted and are what’s going viral. As it turns out, those “Western circles” were right all along. According to the data they shared, the average score came in around 73, with a median just under 70. More than half of participants actually scored below 70. These are numbers that are way below the average.

Republicans cheered “colorblind” meritocracy—but in practice, affirmative action shifted opportunity from white voters to Asians, leaving the party’s base unprotected. This is part one of a three-part series examining the Republican Party’s race-neutral ‘colorblind’ strategy and its effects on its core voters.For decades, white Americans have voted Republican in large numbers. They donate, they volunteer, they show up in midterms. They defend the Constitution, talk about free speech, wave the flag without embarrassment. They are, by every measurable standard, the party’s backbone. And yet, if you look closely, something strange has happened. The Republican Party has built an entire political...

Cesar Chavez is disappearing across California. Statues are coming down, street names are being stripped, and murals are being covered up in a rapid-fire backlash against the once-revered labor leader, as officials move to distance public spaces from a legacy now under scrutiny. In San Fernando, a statue of Cesar Chavez was removed Thursday, while at Santa Ana College, murals and other campus imagery bearing his likeness have been covered. In Fresno, city leaders unanimously voted to strip Chavez’s name from a major boulevard, restoring its original designation, a dramatic reversal of a tribute that once symbolized pride in the...

WASHINGTON — Education Secretary Linda McMahon is sending a letter to 43 million Americans with student loans — about 9 million of whom are in default — to notify them that the Treasury Department is taking over debt collection, The Post has learned. The letter describes the transfer of responsibilities as a way to protect taxpayers by improving the efficiency of the collection process — after loan repayments were paused through much of the Biden administration, with borrowers protected from delinquency through September 2024. “For too long, Americans have shouldered the consequences of poor leadership and persistent mismanagement of our...