Free Republic

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Friday the US is barring all transactions with the International Criminal Court and told America’s allies he expects their help in reining in the “rogue” body. Rubio declared in a statement the US was moving to cripple the court’s economic reach for threatening to bring cases against American troops, border agents and politicians. “For decades now, both Republicans and Democrats have rejected the idea that the International Criminal Court has any power to prosecute American citizens, to prosecute military servicemembers, or political leaders because America never joined the court,” Rubio said in a video...

The European Union is financing a conference, #Disinfo2026, that delivers an extraordinary rebuke to the Trump administration by claiming the US is engaged in “foreign information manipulation and interference” (FIMI). EU DisinfoLab, a Brussels nonprofit, is holding its annual conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, which began yesterday and continues today. Its program lists a session titled “USA as a FIMI threat: acknowledge, adapt, push back,” and billed three Americans as speakers: Adam Fivenson of American University, the former CIA officer who writes as Alex Finley, and Emerson Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. The session description asked, “how...

Former-banker-turned-tiny-French-President Emmanuel Macron blasted what he called “American free speech” while speaking to reporters last week. Defending the European Union’s robust censorship policies, le petit fromage insisted that Europe’s speech-policing Digital Services Act should censor information that governments consider false “much more extensively, much faster, and much more forcefully.” Macron then did his Orwellian best to condemn free speech as oppression and praise censorship as liberation: “So-called American ‘free speech’—at least as it exists today and has been promoted by some people—is the opposite of free speech.” The terribly disliked French leader continued, “My freedom cannot mean that I am...

Barbara Boyd opens with diesel: as Ukraine’s strikes on Russian refineries tighten the world’s supply, President Trump threatened to halt U.S. diesel exports unless Europe released its emergency stocks, and the G7 agreed to release 100 million barrels. She presents it as the opening move of a 35-day economic offensive running into the midterms. The week of action includes Trump’s visit to the Peterbilt truck plant in Denton, Texas, where employee Sarah Renshaw credited tariffs for 1,000 new jobs; his Oklahoma rally; a White House luncheon with tech leaders on superintelligence; what the White House calls the largest steel plant...

Move was made to help bring down the soaring price of diesel and other fuels PARIS—The Group of Seven major economies agreed to release 100 million barrels of crude oil and fuel from their emergency stocks and not to restrict exports, aiming to bring down the soaring price of diesel and other fuels.On his Truth Social platform, President Trump said European nations agreed “to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel Oil. The process will begin immediately.” The G-7 statement said the reserve release would happen over four months.The announcement would seem to end the threat of a...

Donald Trump has demanded that Europe release emergency diesel reserves or risk being cut off from US supplies. Britain joined crisis talks with European allies on Thursday after the US president threatened to choke off diesel exports to France and Germany. Mr Trump is frustrated with the two EU powers, believing they have not met earlier pledges to release emergency oil and petrol supplies. His administration is calling for tens of millions of barrels of fuel to be unlocked to lower pump prices for motorists. A White House official said it was "in Europe's best interest to work with the...

All For Nothing: Euthanasia for Disabled Minors Returns to Europe: Woe to mankind! 1938: "This person who suffers a hereditary disease has a lifelong cost of 60,000 Reichsmarks to the National Community. Fellow German, that is your money as well." And so it has come to pass once again. Euthanasia, that starts with "consenting" adults (though God only knows how much this "consent" is fabricated each time by family members unwilling to help their relatives to the end), ends up swallowing everything. The first case in the Netherlands after the approval of the extension of the law happened this week:A...

Europe will release a “massive amount” of diesel fuel, President Trump announced Friday after pressuring allies to open their emergency reserves. “Europe has just agreed to release a massive amount of their heavily stocked Diesel,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The process will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” No details were immediately available about how many barrels of oil Europe will release and when they will hit the market. Trump’s statement followed an emergency G7 meeting, chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron, on the global energy situation. The Elysee Palace confirmed that Trump and Macron...

The non-profit company that publishes The European Conservative, which I founded in 2021, is now in the hands of the Hungarian state. Established in 2008 as an unfunded four-page newsletter, The European Conservative was started by members of the Center for European Renewal (CER), which organizes the annual Vanenburg meeting. Five editions were published over approximately two years and then it ceased for two years. So, in 2012, I volunteered to serve as editor-in-chief. I redesigned the publication, gave it a proper cover, added images, expanded its features and contributors (all of whom wrote for free), and established a social...

In a campaign speech, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz acknowledged that "the era of unconditional love that the US has shown to Europe since World War II are over. The generosity that every US president since Truman has shown toward Germany and our fellow European states has been ended by the cruelty of President Trump. Fortunately, the defensive shield from Russian aggression provided by US arms is no longer needed. The hundreds of billions that shield saved us permitted us to provide ample social welfare benefits that would otherwise not have been possible." Merz went on to mock Trump's "humiliation by...

Communist/socialist-inspired groups have been quickly winning converts and taking control of the Democratic Party, at both the national and local levels. Four U.S. communist groups have formed an alliance to take over the Democratic Party at every level. With a combined membership of more than 65,000 and significant financial backing from unions, foundations, and even some churches, the plan is credible and is already well under way. Three of the four groups involved — Communist Party USA (CPUSA), Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism (CCDS), and Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) — are loyal to Beijing, while the fourth...

The German federal prosecutor’s office recently announced that it indicted seven people for allegedly securing weapons for the Hamas terrorist organization, with the goal of launching terrorist attacks on the second remembrance date of the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. The indictment has catapulted the danger of Hamas’ network in Europe to Israeli, American and European installations and citizens into the spotlight. According to the prosecutor’s office, "All of the accused belong to the foreign terrorist organization Hamas. Some time ago, the organization’s military wing (the so-called Qassam Brigades) began establishing weapons depots in Europe. No later than July 2025,...

Cardinal: ‘Whoever has the children, has the future’ as Islam surges in Vienna Austrian Cardinal Christoph Schönborn responds to Islam becoming the predominant religion among students in Vienna's public schools amid a Christian demographic decline. An Austrian reporter recently asked Cardinal Christoph Schönborn whether it worried him that Islam is now the largest religion among Vienna’s schoolchildren. The retired archbishop of Vienna’s reply was brief: “Whoever has the children, has the future. That’s my simple answer.”The numbers behind the question are alarming for the capital city of historically Catholic Austria. In Vienna’s public compulsory schools for the 2025-26 schoolyear, Muslim...

In Canada, the punishment for being found trading with Israeli settlements is up to five years under the nation's Special Economic Measures Act. In the UK, the punishment is up to 10 years. Individuals or companies found trading with Israeli settlements could face up to three years in prison under the proposed Norwegian trade restrictions bill, expected by Norway's Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide to be passed in the fall. *** "The arguments have only become stronger because the situation in the West Bank has become even worse," Eide told the country's public broadcaster, the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK). "In...

Müller warns of an "internal apostasy" in the West in the face of the expansion of Islam Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller has warned that the expansion of Islam in Europe coincides with a profound identity crisis in the West, which is abandoning its Christian roots. “Muslims do not respect a weak Christianity that is ashamed of the Cross and reduces itself to a charitable organization or an environmental watchdog body,” stated the prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.Müller made these remarks in a prepared address for the Tavole di Assisi 2026, a gathering held on...

By Dean Weingarten | Contributing writerSeveral countries in eastern Europe have instituted shall issue concealed carry permit systems.Believe it or not, self-defense is making a comeback.Before World War One (WWI), people commonly carried concealed weapons through most of Europe. England had no gun control to speak of. Neither did France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, or the Scandinavian countries. Some countries required people to have weapons. Switzerland and Montenegro required firearms be kept at home or be owned as part of the defense plan for the nation. The Scandinavian countries had a long tradition of militia service. Finland, although under Russian rule, had...

Americans pay little attention to Europe, other than to sneer at the Euro-elites and bemoan the fecklessness of European leaders. I am guilty of both sins. Mea culpa. But I am also aware of the coming existential crisis facing Europe as a whole and the European Union quite specifically. It comes in several flavors, and all of them are bitter. First is the shock and embarrassment posed by the influx of 72,000 North African Muslim wannabe migrants into Ceuta, one of two tiny Spanish enclaves in Morocco, just miles away from the Spanish mainland near Gibraltar. The inability—or unwillingness—of the...

Commissioner Ana María Archila was scheduled to meet with Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations, at 2 United Nations Plaza. The meeting between Archila and Iravani was called off after the State Department—which was not informed ahead of time—met with the Mamdani administration to clarify acceptable conduct. Commissioner Archila allegedly did not inform Mayor Mamdani of the meeting; she was reprimanded for the move and directed to cancel the meeting. The development is a continuation of Commissioner Archila and the Mamdani administration’s ongoing use of public resources to advance an agenda that extends well beyond New York City. On...

During Henry’s Kissinger’s famous “Year of Europe” speech in 1973, the then Assistant for National Security affairs observed that, “our values, our goals, and our basic interests are most closely identified with those of Europe.” Indeed, while perhaps Kissinger’s remarks were accurate when taken in the context of Soviet repression and a shared continental commitment to containing the threat, the transatlantic consensus he described has since frayed. Have some East Asian countries moved to take Europe’s place as free speech protectors? Last September, five armed British police officers stood in London’s Heathrow airport, waiting for the arrival of Graham Linehan’s...

Footage circulating purporting to be from the North African desert shows what looks like an enormous column of sub-Saharan African men moving under escort. Some estimates put the number at a hundred thousand. Commentators claim Algerian military vehicles and personnel are shepherding them toward the coast. If the scale and direction prove accurate, Europe faces another deliberate pressure wave on top of the chaos already unfolding in Ceuta. Wait until they see what is comingI said early on Algeria with their best chums Iran and Russia would weaponise invasionHere are thousands of Sub Saharans beinv escorted across the desert by...