Free Republic

Washington (AP) — After the raucous rainbow-hued festivities of Saturday’s parade, the final day of World Pride 2025 in the nation’s capital kicked off on a more downbeat note.Thousands gathered under grey skies Sunday morning at the Lincoln Memorial for a rally and protest march, as the community gathers its strength for a looming fight under President Donald Trump’s second administration. “This is not just a party,” Ashley Smith, board president of Capital Pride Alliance. “This is a rally for our lives.”Smith acknowledged that international attendance numbers for the bi-annual World Pride were measurably down, with many potential attendees avoiding...

When the guns fall silent in Ukraine – and they will, sooner or later – Western officials will rush to declare a new era of European security. There will be speeches about victory, resilience, the defense of democracy. But beneath the rhetoric, something far more consequential will already be taking shape: the emergence of Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO, regardless of whether Article 5 ever formally applies.

Sometime in the Twenties, Józef Piłsudski quipped that the “most beloved state” of the Polish people is indecision. Almost exactly a century on, the modern nation’s founding father has never been more right, with last week’s presidential election resulting in an almost literal dead heat. Though the conservative Karol Nawrocki finally carried the day, the populist Law and Justice Party (PiS) candidate only defeated Rafał Trzaskowski, the liberal mayor of Warsaw, by just 1.78% of the vote, with less than 370,000 ballots separating the two men in a country of 37 million. Since Nawrocki’s win, commentators of all stripes have...

Standing in a town square, quietly holding a sign, two people were arrested by police Thursday in Brussels, Belgium. The offending message? “Children are never born in the wrong body.” Lois McLatchie Miller, a senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom International, and Chris Elston, a Canadian advocate for children who goes by the nickname “Billboard Chris,” said they were in police custody for several hours before having their signs confiscated. According to Elston, they were initially told they were being charged with disturbing the peace, but were eventually let go. The arrest is just the latest instance of...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) praised Ukraine’s weekend drone attack on Russia, calling its government and armed forces “ever-resourceful” while warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing for more war. “The ever-resourceful Ukraine used creative drone warfare tactics to successfully attack Russian bombers and military assets used to kill Ukrainian citizens and destroy their country,” Graham said on the social platform X on Sunday reacting to the Ukraine attack. Ukraine hit Russian bases across the vast country in the recent attack, including in the regions of Irkutsk and Amur, which are thousands of miles from the Russian-Ukraine border. The attack...

Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, has urged Washington’s chief negotiator with Moscow, Steve Witkoff, to consult European leaders before placing trust in Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. Witkoff has been part of U.S. delegations leading talks with Moscow and Kyiv since February, after Trump tasked members of his administration to help negotiate an end to Russia’s three-year war in Ukraine. However, he has faced criticism from Kyiv for peddling Russian narratives, including a suggestion to hand over four partially occupied eastern Ukrainian regions to Moscow. In March, Witkoff said that Putin has no intention to “take all of...

The democratic will of the Hungarian people to clamp down on the proliferation of LGBTQ+ ideology should be punished by the European Commission, a group of 16 EU countries demanded on Wednesday. In response to recent legislation passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government to ban Pride parades in Hungary, over half of fellow European Union member states signed an open letter demanding that Budapest reverse course or face punishment from Brussels. The “declaration” was signed by the countries of Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden. […]...

Satellite images have revealed how Moscow is bulking up its military presence on the Finnish border - in a chilling echo of pictures taken of Russian bases before Putin launched his war in Ukraine. Moscow is building troop accommodation, aircraft deployment infrastructure and refurbishing old facilities at key military bases, analysts have said, in a sign it is seeking to reinforce its capabilities in the border region. The pictures, which were obtained by Swedish broadcaster SVT from Planet Labs, suggest there has been activity at four locations inside Russia - Kamenka, Petrozavodsk, Severomorsk-2, and Olenya. In Kamenka, which is around...

The majority of EU countries — including France and Germany — want the European Commission to crack down on Hungary over Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s plan to ban upcoming Pride celebrations in Budapest, according to a joint statement seen by POLITICO. (snip) Another EU official said momentum was building in capitals to use the nuclear option — stripping Hungary of its voting rights in the European Council via so-called Article 7 proceedings. In order to do so, a four-fifths majority of EU countries would first need to vote that Budapest has violated the EU treaty. Then, 26 countries (all EU...

Finally, some good news this week about lawmakers. The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, signed into law a bill that decriminalizes HIV. Specifically, the bill repeals an old law that made it a crime to “knowingly transfer or attempt to transfer” HIV to another individual.

Christian camp IdRaHaJe in Colorado refuses to comply with progressive gender ideology policies and faces potential shutdown.A Christian camp that has been running for more than 70 years may lose its license for not complying with Colorado’s new LGBT mandates for sex-specific facilities.IdRaHaJe, a cherished Christian camp in Colorado, faces potential shutdown after its refusal to comply with the state’s gender ideology policies.Nestled in the scenic mountains of Bailey, a town 30 miles southwest of Denver with less than 10,000 residents, IdRaHaJe has been serving children ages six to 17 since its founding in 1948 through various programs, such as...

Russia is going after TV series Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, and the Harry Potter franchise in an effort to purge what it claims is the promotion of "childfree ideology." The development comes months after Russia passed a bill banning what state-run news wires describe as the "public propaganda of the ideas of voluntarily choosing not to have children." It comes as Russia grapples with a dwindling birth rate and as President Vladimir Putin scrambles to encourage women to have children.

The European Union has stepped in to provide Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty an infusion of millions of dollars to keep functioning as the international broadcaster battles the Trump administration to release funds Congress has already designated for it. "We are grateful for the emergency funding to help keep Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty afloat," the network's president, Steve Capus, said in a statement from Brussels, where he has been meeting with European officials. "Radio Liberty's survival remains at risk as long as these funds are withheld," Capus said, referring to $75 million held back by the Trump administration. Radio Free Europe...

Most probably do. So much of our K-12 is conducted at a dumb level, where students and teachers know little. So how's that working out for everyone when suddenly there's a know-it-all machine in the classroom?? The AI is just dripping with factual information. Is each bit true or false or what? Who knows? Teachers are supposed to referee such questions, but the typical teacher has no idea what the AI is talking about. You can't fix this overnight. You have to start educating students and future teachers from the first grade onward. All the best that has been known...

Kyiv will not meet Vladimir Putin's request for Ukraine to withdraw troops from its four partially occupied regions, Volodymyr Zelensky has said. The Ukrainian leader said "it's our land," in a briefing to reporters on Monday, according to The Kyiv Independent on the day when the Russian president and U.S. President Donald Trump held a much-touted phone call. Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of humanitarian group Hope for Ukraine, told Newsweek Putin's ceasefire demands, which include Ukrainian forces leaving all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, were "impossible to meet." Newsweek has contacted the Kremlin for comment. Why It Matters In...

Defending Education is taking parental rights to court, suing the state of Colorado over its outrageous and arguably unconstitutional new groomer law. You might remember the recently passed Colorado legislation to fund castration of “trans” kids with taxpayer dollars and in spite of parents' wishes, to mandate pro-trans policies in schools, to criminalize “deadnaming,” and to take supposed “misgendering” into account in custody cases. Defending Education, an organization that stands for parents and against woke indoctrination in schools, is suing the Democrat-run state over the extremely harmful legislation. Colorado Parent Advocacy Network, Protect Kids Colorado, Do No Harm, and Dr....

In 1984, you could be tortured in Room 101 for believing that 2 + 2 = 4. Likewise, in Colorado you can be set upon by law enforcement for calling someone by the name their parents gave them or even for referring to them with factually correct pronouns. Leftist Governor Jared Polis has signed into law House Bill 1312: The law expands the state’s antidiscrimination laws, which apply to settings like workplaces and schools, to include provisions related to using a person’s chosen name and referring to them how they wish. “Antidiscrimination” is the Liberalese euphemism for government-imposed discrimination benefiting...

In what the FBI is calling an “intentional act of terrorism,” an explosive device inside a car was detonated on Saturday outside the American Reproductive Centers fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California. The explosion, felt more than a mile away from the blast site, killed one person and injured four others, and is being referred to as the “largest bombing ever investigated in Southern California.” Los Angeles FBI field office assistant director Akil Davis said at a news conference on Sunday that the suspect is believed to be 25-year-old Guy Edward Bartkus, whom law enforcement said had “stated in writings...

The decoration of a Falklands War landing craft in rainbow colours to celebrate Pride has sparked uproar among veterans, who called it “entirely inappropriate” and said, “Our Falklands dead will be turning in their graves.” The Telegraph has more. "Foxtrot 8, which landed Royal Marine and Parachute Regiment soldiers on the South Atlantic archipelago, has been coated in a rainbow vinyl wrap. Portsmouth Historic Quarter, which owns it, commissioned the decoration to mark the 25th anniversary of the ban on homosexuality within the Armed Forces being lifted. But the decoration has been criticised as disrespectful by veterans. A retired senior...

A school board in Colorado cannot remove sexually explicit, profane, and “transgender” books from school libraries because the school board is conservative, according to a federal judge touted as the first openly lesbian judge west of the Mississippi. The ACLU’s Colorado chapter filed a suit on behalf of two minors, the NAACP Wyoming State Area Conference, and the Authors Guild, claiming that the school district engaged in viewpoint discrimination when removing the books. The judge granted a preliminary injunction in March, forcing the Elizabeth School District (in Elizabeth, a suburb southeast of Denver) to restore the books. Judge Charlotte Sweeney...