Free Republic

“Farm security is national security,” declared U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins, as she unveiled a sweeping National Farm Security Action Plan at a press conference on July 8, 2025. Flanked by Trump adviser Peter Navarro, several governors, and key Cabinet officials, Rollins rolled out the most aggressive federal effort in decades to curb foreign ownership of U.S. farmland and shield the agricultural sector from national-security threats, particularly those posed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).The USDA’s announcement follows a February 2025 directive from President Trump, who ordered the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS)...

America finally decided to take its own side in the fight for civilization by canceling the concert tour visa for a ridiculous British punk/rap duo called Bob Vylan – get it? It’s like “Bob Dylan,” except “Vylan,” which sounds like “villain.” That’s the cleverest thing about them. They are basically Milli Vanilli with tattoos, worse music, and less originality – though, having heard snippets of their gawdawful racket, if I were them, I’d cop to plagiarism like the OG Milli Vanilli rather than take the blame for creating the sonic atrocities they call songs. It’s bad even for metal rap,...

Iran’s foreign minister will head to Moscow late Sunday night to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of U.S. strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities. The Daily Telegraph reports Abbas Araghchi confirmed Iran “reserves all options to defend its security, its interests, its people…All options are on the table” while applauding Russia as “a friend of Iran.” The report notes Araghchi said he will speak to Iran’s key ally on how to proceed. “We always consult with each other,” he added in a press conference in Istanbul. The trip comes after President Donald Trump announced Saturday evening U.S....

A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to stop Harvard University from hosting foreign nationals on student visas. US District Judge Allison Burroughs’s preliminary injunction extends a temporary block she issued last month, which prevented the Trump administration from revoking the Ivy League school’s Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) certification. The certification allows Harvard to host roughly 7,000 international students – about 27% of the school’s total enrollment. The injunction will remain in effect until the underlying case is decided, the Obama-appointed judge ruled. The ruling marks another legal victory for the Cambridge, Massachusetts school as...

GENEVA (AP) – Iran´s foreign minister arrived Friday for talks with top European diplomats in Geneva about the crisis that centers on concerns about his country´s nuclear program, a week after the long-simmering dispute erupted into war between Israel and Iran. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived at a hotel in the Swiss city for a meeting with his counterparts from France, Germany and the U.K. and the European Union´s foreign policy chief. It is the first face-to-face meeting between Western and Iranian officials since the start of the conflict.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin says it is possible a foreign adversary was behind the anti-ICE riots that spread across Los Angeles last week. "We are seeing indications that this is likely a foreign adversary, McLaughlin said on the Tuesday edition of the "Just the News, No Noise" TV show." But I'm not going to get ahead of the FBI." Protests and riots broke out across Los Angeles in response to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents' arrests of illegal migrants. In response to the protests, President Donald Trump deployed 2,000 California National Guard members to the city,...

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who is up for reelection this year, garnered backlash Tuesday after vetoing a bill aimed at preventing China from buying up land next to strategic assets, such as military bases. Arizona state Senate Majority Leader Janae Shamp said the "politically motivated veto" was "utterly insane," blaming Hobbs for being "an obstructionist against safeguarding our citizens from threats." However, Hobbs said the bill, S.B. 1109, was "ineffective at counter-espionage" and did not "directly protect" American military assets in the state. Chinese investment in land near military bases has become an increasing concern for national security hawks....

The State Department has told U.S. embassies and consulates to expand vetting for all visa applicants who wish to come to Harvard University, including visitors as well as students, according to an email obtained by CBS News. In an internal email dated May 29 and sent by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's office to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts, consular officers were told that this "additional vetting" applies to anyone wanting a visa to come to Harvard for "any purpose." That includes current or prospective students, faculty, employees, contractors, guest speakers and even tourists, per the email. The email...

WASHINGTON — The State Department is broadening its review of visa holders at Harvard University beyond the foreign student population, a senior official told The Post on Thursday. The comprehensive investigation will consider F-1 visas for foreign students, B-1 visas for business-related visitors and B-2 visas for tourism, the State Department official confirmed. The probe will also focus on possible threats to security or abuses of the visa system. The wider review was first reported by Fox News after Secretary of State Marco Rubio had announced visa revocations for foreign officials or persons censoring Americans and some Chinese students. Foreign...

Universities and colleges across the country can thank Harvard for this latest development. If federal courts won't allow the Department of Homeland Security to deal directly with Harvard on compliance for the Student Education Visa Program (SEVP), the administration can simply make it more difficult for everyone instead. That seems to be the case today, although this may have accelerated a project that would have started soon anyway. After a federal court issued a stay that allows Harvard to continue enrolling foreign students, the Trump administration paused the entire program. Embassies and consulates have been ordered to stop conducting necessary...

Reality check: Trump has singled out ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform, for federal scrutiny of possible illegal foreign contributions. ActBlue has admitted to more than 200 such questionable donations. Democrats fear that they’re being targeted for political retaliation, and that a probe could force ActBlue to shut down. But AP’s Brian Slodysko and Steve Peoples sifted through Trump’s records and found that he got 1,600 similarly maybe-problematic contributions since 2020 — many through WinRed, Republicans’ answer to ActBlue. The response: The White House didn’t specifically address the AP’s findings, but said House Republicans had “uncovered specific evidence of potentially unlawful...

President Donald Trump on Sunday blasted Harvard’s secrecy when it comes to the university’s large number of students from foreign countries. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said: “Why isn’t Harvard saying that almost 31% of their students are from FOREIGN LANDS, and yet those countries, some not at all friendly to the United States, pay NOTHING toward their student’s education, nor do they ever intend to. Nobody told us that! “We want to know who those foreign students are, a reasonable request since we give Harvard BILLIONS OF DOLLARS, but Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming. We want those names...

A South American gang with many illegal alien members that cropped up to rival the infamous Tren de Aragua is victimizing vulnerable rural Americans, warns crime expert Robert Charles. “I’ve read some of the public accounts that suggest that this offshoot group is trying to distinguish itself by being more violent,” Charles, who was formerly an assistant secretary of state at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, said of Anti-Tren. With the recent charges against almost 20 accused members of the gang by the Trump Justice Department, the new threat has garnered more attention,...

Vice President JD Vance fired back at Joe Biden's new criticism of the infamous Oval Office meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, dismissing the former commander-in-chief's foreign policy as a "total disaster." "I think it's rich for Joe Biden to comment on anything that we’re doing when it comes to Russia and Ukraine," Vance on Thursday told Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on "The Story." "Under Biden’s administration, Russia launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine… I wish Joe Biden the best. I don't really care what he has to say about American foreign policy because so much of what he...

Democrats on Thursday were bracing for a sustained attack on their fundraising operation by Republicans, as President Donald Trump targets ActBlue. Trump plans to direct Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the major online donation platform for what the administration cast as “unlawful ‘straw donor’ and foreign contributions to American elections” in a presidential memorandum on Thursday. “President Trump is taking action to address malign actors and foreign nationals who seek to illegally influence American elections, undermining the integrity of our electoral process,” a fact sheet detailing the memo obtained by POLITICO states. “ActBlue has become notorious for its lax...

April 24, 2025 MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY THE ATTORNEY GENERAL THE COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT SUBJECT: Investigation into Unlawful “Straw Donor” and Foreign Contributions in American Elections Federal law (52 U.S.C. 30121 and 30122) strictly prohibits making political contributions in the name of another person, as well as contributions by foreign nationals. Notwithstanding these laws designed to protect American democracy, press reports and investigations by congressional committees have generated extremely troubling evidence that online fundraising platforms have been willing participants in schemes to launder excessive and prohibited contributions to political candidates and committees. Specifically, these reports raise...

HARRIS FIGHT FUND Over the last few months, Republicans have escalated their attacks on an unlikely target: ActBlue, the platform Kamala Harris and many Democrats use to receive campaign contributions. In the next hour or so, Donald Trump himself is expected to sign a "presidential memorandum" asking his Attorney General to perform some kind of investigation into ActBlue. Let's be clear on what this is about: Donald Trump wants to make it harder for people like you to contribute to Democratic candidates so it's easier for billionaires like Elon Musk to buy elections.

Over the past two decades, a reclusive Swiss billionaire has poured more than $800 million into left-wing causes across America, and now states are fighting back. Hansjörg Wyss, 89, a Swiss national with an estimated net worth of roughly five billion dollars, has quietly become one of the most influential donors on the American left. He has spent more than $800 million bankrolling hundreds of left-wing causes across the United States, donating millions to climate change groups, abortion activists, and the Clinton Foundation. Information about him is sparse, but his sister once wrote that Wyss seeks to “(re)interpret the American...

Putting partisan politics far above patriotism (if he has any), top Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin is outright threatening vengeance on foreign leaders who work with the Trump administration. Yes, he washes it through rhetoric about fighting “authoritarianism in our country,” but that’s simply cover for goonish threats. Raskin (D-Md.) issued it on the “Pod Save America” podcast, after progressive host Tommy Vietor cited (surely left-wing) Latin America experts as urging Democrats to warn off “any foreign government that participates in the extraordinary rendition of American citizens.” Reality check: No one is proposing any “extraordinary rendition of American citizens.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing President Trump’s administration in federal court for targeting international students who had their legal status revoked. “The consequences of Defendants’ unilateral and unlawful termination are dire. The termination puts students out of lawful student status. Plaintiffs and the class face immigration detention and deportation. Plaintiffs and the class face severe financial and academic hardship. Further, Plaintiffs and the class are not able to obtain their degrees and work pursuant to the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program after graduation,” ACLU’s lawyers wrote in the class action lawsuit filed in New Hampshire. “Indeed, Defendants’...