Free Republic

FIRST ON FOX: Former President Barack Obama once declared that his presidential center would be a "gift" to Chicago, but taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars in hidden costs related to the beleaguered project. A Fox News Digital investigation shows taxpayers are now stuck footing the bill for surging public infrastructure costs required to support the project — and no government agency can provide an accounting of the total public cost, despite months of queries and FOIA requests. "Illinois Republicans saw this coming a mile away. Now, right on cue, Illinois Democrats are leaving taxpayers...

Three elderly men, including two military veterans, were found apparently beaten to death with hammers in the basement of a suspected Detroit drug den, police said. The bodies of US Marine Corps vets Mark Barnett, 65, and Norman Hamlin, 66, were recovered along with the body of William Barrett 72, in the basement of Hamlin’s home on Edsel Street, Detroit police said. Although Assistant Police Chief Charles Fitzgerald refused to divulge specifics about the grisly scene, he said that all three men were killed by “blunt force trauma,” with at least one of them sustaining additional stab wounds, WDIV Local...

Mike Huckabee's analogies regarding land rights and defense, specifically his suggestion that if a people like the Irish can defend their land, they can keep it—have been viewed as a significant rhetorical own goal that complicates the very pro-Israel stance he intended to defend. Critics and media analysts have highlighted several major ramifications of this logic and analysts have noted the internal contradiction in Huckabee's argument. By shifting the justification from a divine mandate (the Promised Land) to a right of conquest/defense media commentators pointed out that the Irish analogy is particularly fraught. If land ownership is determined solely by...

A baby-faced 11-year-old accused of executing his adoptive father after he took away his Nintendo Switch was hauled into court in handcuffs on Thursday. Clayton Dietz is being charged as an adult with criminal homicide after he shot his father dead in his bed on Jan. 13 — the child’s birthday — in Duncannon, Pa., north of Harrisburg. The bespectacled boy, surrounded by probation officers, appeared to be tripping over himself as he walked into the Perry County Courthouse for a hearing Thursday afternoon, shocking video from WHP shows. Clayton, who was adopted in 2018, shot 42-year-old Douglas Dietz with...

An accused pervert charged with grooming young girls in California has been linked to an extremist cult that wants to destroy civilization. Bryant Gonzalez from Downey, LA County, has been allegedly tied to “764,” an online network of creeps trying to tear apart society through the corruption and exploitation of minors. The network’s goals include social unrest and the downfall of the current world order, including the United States, according to the FBI. Gonzalez, 24, was busted in his hometown on Thursday and accused of sickening crimes against young girls aged 11 and 15. He allegedly groomed one of his...

It’s a fashion felony. A scantily-clad Texas woman was slapped with cuffs after allegedly smashing her BMW into a fire hydrant while drunk. The suspected boozy driver — donning black fishnet tights, leather underwear and a skin-tight motorcycle jacket — is seen in wild photos shared by the Harris County Constable Precinct 4 on Friday. The motorist, who has not been publicly identified, is also wearing open-toe slippers, with her large upper leg tattoo on full display, as she speaks to an officer, the pics show. Other images showed the banged-up SUV with a busted bumper, flat tires and deployed...

Iranian police officers are gang-raping imprisoned female protesters and then cutting out their uteruses to cover up the horrific torture – before shipping their lifeless bodies home to their families, according to a shocking new report. Prisoners suspected of participating in the nationwide anti-regime demonstrations that shook the nation last month are being terrorized, raped, and slaughtered daily by groups of militant police officers behind bars, an Iranian source told News Nation. “I am most worried about the people who got arrested,” the source, who witnessed the massacre of protesters, said. “They are raping men and women in jail. They...

Gov. JB Pritzker is demanding President Trump refund the state of Illinois more than $8 billion after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his sweeping reciprocal tariffs Friday. The court ruled 6-3 that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, does not authorize the president to impose tariffs. Now businesses are pressing the Trump administration to issue tariff refunds, and Gov. Pritzker has joined in their call. In a letter to Mr. Trump that Pritzker shared publicly, he wrote, "Your tariff taxes wreaked havoc on farmers, enraged our allies, and sent grocery prices through the roof. This morning, your...

Los Angeles Fire Department officials tried to run damage control for Mayor Karen Bass before releasing findings on how the city handled the devastating Palisades fire, according to a bombshell report. An unsigned, confidential memo flagrantly admits fire officials’ goal before releasing an October after-action report on the blaze was to protect Bass and others from a backlash, the Los Angeles Times first reported. “It’s our goal to prepare and protect Mayor Bass, the City, and the LAFD from reputational harm associated with the upcoming public release of its AARR, through a comprehensive strategy that includes risk assessment, proactive and...

“The Real History of Slavery” by Matt Walsh (Dropped Feb 18, 2026 – 1.5–2 hours of straight fire) 🔥 THE MAIN RED PILL (in one sentence) Slavery wasn’t America’s “unique sin.” It was humanity’s default setting for thousands of years — every race, every continent did it on a massive scale. America got the tiny scraps… then helped end it. 📊 THE NUMBERS THAT BLOW UP THE LIE • Africans shipped across the Atlantic: ~12.5 million • Only 3% (≈ 472,000) ever landed in what became the USA • Most went to Brazil (5.4 million) and Caribbean sugar hellholes 🩸...

American soldiers fighting in Vietnam armed with WWII German MP40s? Sounds ridiculous, but it's absolutely true. One special forces unit used a few old MP40s on operations obtained via the CIA - the famous MACV-SOG. Well, as those of you who have followed this channel for many years will know that I have made a video about this very subject though in the case of German World War II weapons from the perspective of their use by North Vietnam and the VietCong rather than by the Americans. Then I came upon this photograph taken in the mid 1960s in Vietnam,...

Bruce Springsteen can seemingly offer “No Surrender” from his TDS. Announced this week, his 2026 “Land of Hope and Dreams” tour starts symbolically in Minneapolis, ground zero for the anti-ICE wine-mom rebellion against federal law enforcement. “We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair — the cavalry is coming,” The Boss crowed in a promotional video that dropped Tuesday. The cavalry he’s promising is a Boomer “No Kings” protest. But instead of being gratis, like most demonstrations, one will have to pay through the nose to get into arena doors. Don’t believe me? Springsteen has...

President Trump kicked off a campaign rally in Georgia with a fiery defense of his tariff policy, arguing he has the “right,” as president, to set them. The Supreme Court could rule as soon as Friday on the legality of Trump’s tariff agenda. “I have to wait for this decision. I’ve been waiting forever, forever, and the language is clear that I have the right to do it as President, I have the right to put tariffs on for national security,” Trump said. He argued the tariffs against countries like China and Canada were targeting nations that have “ripped us...

A nonprofit executive accused of stealing $132,000 in public money to fund her lavish lifestyle is being held behind bars. Amy Knox, who was COO of Harm Reduction Coalition of San Diego, pleaded not guilty to allegedly stealing cash for plastic surgeries, credit card bills and luxury vacations to Hawaii and Disneyland. The 45-year-old faces six felony counts of fraud and misappropriation and faces up to seven years in prison. Late Wednesday Knox pleaded not guilty to the charges in San Diego State Supreme Court. Her bail was set at $200,000. On Thursday she remanded in custody at the Las...

Steven Spielberg, phone home! The legendary “E.T.” director and California resident has moved to Manhattan amid a billionaire exodus from the Golden State — as voters eye a controversial wealth tax. But the move, first reported by the LA Times, allegedly had nothing to do with the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act. “Steven’s move to the East Coast is both long-planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren,” spokeswoman Terry Press said. Press did not answer queries about Spielberg’s stance on the proposed tax, which would slap a one-time...

Live Science reports that excavations at an ancient farming village near Eilsleben in northern Germany have uncovered intriguing new evidence about interactions between the region's preexisting hunter-gatherers and Europe's earliest farmers. Archaeologists believe the site served as a kind of frontier outpost for the first wave of Neolithic agriculturists who migrated to central Europe from Anatolia and established the site around 5375 b.c. Recent fieldwork has uncovered houses, burials, pits, and cultural material belonging to the so-called Neolithic Linear Pottery culture, or LBK. However, archaeologists were also surprised by the presence of patently Mesolithic objects, including a deer skull headdress,...

California’s oldest state park, Big Basin Redwoods, is expanding this week with the addition of 153 acres, a forested stretch intended to help the park recover after a devastating 2020 wildfire. The land, with a colorful history along Highway 236 in the Santa Cruz Mountains, is adjacent to where park officials are planning to rebuild the park’s burned-up headquarters. As such, it will partially serve as the new gateway to the park. Big Basin officials envision people coming to the new property, after stopping at the planned park store, café and visitor center nearby, and taking a quick hike amid...

California officials blasted the Trump administration’s plans to launch a full-sale investigation into unemployment fraud as ”purely political” — and blamed lost money on the feds. The US Department of Labor intends to send a “strike team” to dig into COVID-19 pandemic-era fraud involving California’s Employment Development Department, The Post exclusively reported Wednesday. California is believed to have lost as much as tens of billions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment payouts. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer said the Biden administration “turned a blind eye” to stolen money and vowed to fully examine the scope of theft that occurred early in the...

The UK is blocking President Trump from using its military air bases for a possible attack on Iran — because the lefty government believes such strikes could violate international law and doesn’t want Britain implicated, according to a new report. Trump has already hit back by slamming the UK prime minister’s plan to resolve a long-running dispute over a strategically crucial chain of islands in the Indian Ocean. The White House is drawing up plans for a possible military strike on Iran that involves the use of the Royal Air Force base Fairford in England — which is a forward...

Islamists try to show dominance, and the left is going along, except that they picked the wrong issue. ell, that escalated quickly. Islamists are trying to show dominance, and the left is going along, except that they picked the wrong issue. These days, events happen so quickly, it's hard to keep up, but you would have to be living under a rock not to have heard of the left in their red/green alliance stumble into one of the worst 90/10 issues of all time. Along with blaring the call to prayer (noise ordinances, what noise ordinances?), one of New York...