Free Republic

Occasionally I hear credentialed professionals with prestigious titles whine about the so-called “war on expertise.” It really bothers people who see themselves as “experts” that a growing share of society ignores them. A psychologist might intuit something revealing from the lack of self-confidence plaguing our “expert” class. If all the fancy degrees, voluminous curricula vitae, and lofty career positions have failed to instill a resilient modicum of self-esteem, then perhaps all those things are not the true measures of a person’s worth. “Experts” do not like to be challenged. They say things such as, “I have a PhD in this,”...

Whether you like President Trump or not, his supporters are being subjected to an unfair prosecution before a seemingly biased judge. he lust for political vengeance against anyone who provided assistance to Donald Trump in the 2020 election is still in full swing in Wisconsin, as evidenced by an ongoing abusive criminal prosecution that has now reached the state supreme court with motions over possible misconduct by the trial judge and a request for two biased members of the high court to recuse themselves from the case. Not to be outdone by discredited Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, Wisconsin Attorney General...

"If you are feeling dumb today, just remember, there are real people who believe Iran is winning." —Cam Higby on "X". Terminally Depressed on CNN. You probably wonder what the end of this war will look like. It won’t look like V-J Day in Times Square, 1945, with sailors kissing girls they met five seconds ago. Our country is way too divided and disturbed with politically-inflected mental illness for love to bloom in the streets like it did then. If you happen to catch the glum crew on CNN you will detect that they really want this operation to fail...

A photo taken on October 25, 2025, shows the controlled demolition of the second of the cooling towers of the decommissioned nuclear power plant Gundremmingen in Gundremmingen, southern Germany. KARL-JOSEF HILDENBRAND / AFP. To simultaneously obliterate Germany’s nuclear sector and to cut off energy ties with Russia wasn’t simply foolish—it was self-sabotage of the highest and most unforgivable order. Europe is once again readying itself for the bitter pill of mass inflation. International energy markets are facing one-in-a-generation levels of disarray following the launch, by the United States and Israel, of Operation Epic Fury against Iran. At the time of...

"The Democrats are betting on failure.” That’s how National Review’s Noah Rothman characterizes the Democratic Party’s response to the U.S.-Israeli attacks on the terrorist regime that controls Iran. But Rothman has it only half right. Democrats aren’t just betting on failure in Iran. They are trying to engineer it. And not just in Iran, but at home as well, where they are actively trying to undermine the economy. Because, you see, the midterms are coming up, and to Democrats, what matters isn’t the well-being of Americans or ridding the world of its chief terrorist threat. The only thing that matters...

According to a 160-page interim staff report released on Feb. 3, 2026, nonpublic documents produced to the House Judiciary Committee under subpoena reveal that the European Commission successfully pressured social media platforms to change their global content moderation rules, directly harming American online speech in the U.S. The report suggests that the European Commission has been working for a decade to censor speech. The European Commission says platforms have already changed their systems and interfaces under the DSA. The law requires easier reporting of illegal content, priority handling for “trusted flaggers,” and statements of reasons for moderation decisions, as well...

Every illegal vote cancels an American citizen’s vote. And the left loves it. t’s just crazy how difficult it has been to get Congress to care about secure, legitimate elections in the United States. For the record, elections in America are conducive to mass fraud. Although Democrats and Establishment Republicans say stupid and fundamentally dishonest things, such as “America’s elections have never been more secure,” American citizens know they are lying. Although voters in national elections must be U.S. citizens, there’s no requirement to provide documentary proof. Just this week, the FBI arrested an illegal alien from Mauritania living in...

The right’s unwillingness to mount a coherent defense against racist anti-white animus encourages the left to keep it up. The leading academics who write about “white privilege,” (left to right) Ta-Nehisi Coates, Robin DiAngelo, and Ibram X. Kendi. (Profile images via Wikimedia Commons) One of the most important but least mentioned developments over the last 10 to 12 years has been the growth in respectability of anti-white hate. In an era when criticism of various identities has become a firing offense, we might have gone one of two ways. We could have tried to be fair about it and mandated...

If you were to ask legacy media or many prominent Democrats, they’d tell you that young men are getting radicalized. Yes, many young men are isolated and pessimistic about their futures. Some are falling down content rabbit holes that normalize misogyny and antisemitism. But while men are listening to provocateurs such as Nick Fuentes to cope with their low societal cachet, young women are getting radicalized too. There’s evidence that men have actually stayed relatively stable, while women have lurched left with the widespread adoption of social media and the collapse of marriage. Most concerningly, a new study shows that...

The new interim staff report on Minnesota’s fraud describes criminal activity that was enabled by a horrifying pattern of spineless government incompetence and systemic failure. Some say Minnesota is just the tip of the iceberg. Best guess? Government, both state and federal, is rife with it. According to the March 4, 2026 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report, “The Cost of Doing Nothing: How Tim Walz and Keith Ellison Fueled Minnesota’s Fraud Explosion,” there was a massive failure in “governance and oversight” that allowed “known fraud and criminal schemes to flourish,” even as resources were diverted away from...

A new study by “progressive” think tank Groundwork Collaborative shows that junk fees and annoyance costs add up to $166 billion per year; here’s a rough breakdown, from USA Today: Here’s how much the ‘annoyance economy’ costs consumers[snip] Junk fees: $90 billion a year Phone scams: $25.4 billion Calls with health insurance administrators: $21.6 billion Waiting for medical services: $19.4 billion Robocalls: $8 billion Waiting for government services: $1.6 billion I get ticked off at this stuff too, but this is a junk report. Some of these things are just made up numbers, such as calls with health insurance administrators,...

merica is alone among the nations in having a Second Amendment. The Founders were among the wisest men—informed by wise women—of any age. They well understood human nature, particularly its dark side, and understood that a disarmed people are not free--can never be free—but are subjects. The Second Amendment was not written to allow sport shooting, target practice, hunting, even primarily protection from criminals. It was written to ensure that should government become tyrannical, Americans could rise against it and restore liberty. Democrats scream bloody murder when anyone speaks that fundamental truth, yet it was one of history’s most famous...

The cranky Vermont senator who believes billionaires should be abolished wants to legislate them out of existence. It’s too bad that he doesn’t understand that one billionaire is more valuable than a thousand Bernie Sanders. “Billionaires should not exist,” Sanders, who identifies as a socialist, raged in 2019 during his previous attempt to hit the wealthy with an additional tax that punished them for their success. That effort, the New York Times reported, was “particularly aggressive in how it would erode the fortunes of billionaires” and “would cut in half the wealth of the typical billionaire after 15 years, according...

Major victories feel great, but they aren’t the same thing as winning a war. On Monday night, the Supreme Court reinstated an injunction that prevented “schools from ‘misleading’ parents about their children’s gender presentation at school and their social transitioning efforts.” A dozen years ago, that sentence wouldn’t have made any sense. But here’s what some parents today have faced when their children go to school. Whether from in-school indoctrination or social contagion, some students begin to believe their sex isn’t accurate. A boy claims to be a girl. A girl claims to be one of the dozens of genders...

It looks as if the long romance between the Democrats and one of the worst governments of the 21st century is at last coming to a close. For nearly fifty years, there has existed a very strange dynamic between the Democrats and the Islamic Republic of Iran. While we don’t know the exact details of the relationship, it exists and has led to some bizarre twists in policy over the years. Jimmy Carter’s treatment of Iran was all of a piece with his backwoods Wilsonianism. More states shed democracy in favor of totalitarianism during the Carter administration than at any...

Lucy Biggers was once a devoted acolyte of the climate cult, affiliated with “activists” like AOC and Greta Thunberg. Then Covid happened, and, to give credit where it’s due, Biggers saw through the lunacy, wondering how in the world the people were expected to get to zero carbon emissions—the stated goal of the climate cult—if the oppressive lockdowns and forced quarantines only resulted in a (roughly) 5% decrease over the year? (That 5% number was offered by Biggers, though don’t take it as fact because I actually don’t know myself what the numbers are.) Like many others, Biggers was depressed,...

Editors say the decision raises serious questions about press freedom and readers’ access to primary sources. J. D. Vance delivering his speech at the Munich Security Conference in 2025 THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP. A Belgian online news outlet has been reprimanded by the country’s press ethics body after publishing the full text of a speech by U.S. vice president J.D. Vance, sparking debate about censorship and media freedom. The controversy stems from a speech delivered on February 14th, 2025, at the Munich Security Conference, a major annual gathering of Western political and military leaders. Speaking the day after a deadly...

How Trump Derangement turned feminist icons into mullah defenders. For decades, the American Left’s loudest voices on women’s issues styled themselves as fearless guardians of peace and equality. They chained themselves to fences at nuclear bases, waved “No Nukes” signs during the Reagan years, and lectured the rest of us about the patriarchy while demanding the Equal Rights Amendment and unfettered abortion. Jane Fonda, the original celebrity activist, was at the forefront—Vietnam-era traitor turned fitness-video feminist turned Trump-hating scold. These women claimed moral high ground on nuclear proliferation and women’s rights. Then Donald Trump happened. The moment Trump descended the...

One thing unites the three great powers: all stand in increasingly strained relations with Brussels and the leading capitals of the European Union. The European Union is steering purposefully toward the introduction of Eurobonds. At the preparatory EU summit at Alden Biesen Castle in Belgium, numerous signs suggest that the multi-billion-euro Draghi plan could soon be set in motion. At the same time, geopolitically, a possible Russian comeback is emerging as fresh trouble for Brussels. The ability to analyze mistakes and rationally weigh realistic courses of action belongs, in evolutionary terms, to our conditio humana. Experience teaches us: those who...

It never fails. President Trump takes decisive action, and leftists everywhere call him “Hitler” and demand that he be removed from office. He snatches narco-terrorist dictator Nicolás Maduro from his Caracas compound in the middle of the night, and Democrats clutch their pearls and speak about the inviolability of Venezuelan sovereignty (while conveniently ignoring that over 3% of Venezuela’s population illegally entered the United States during Joe Biden’s puppet-presidency). He quarantines the waters around communist Cuba, and America’s growing collective of idiotic socialists blame Cuban poverty on American aggression (while conveniently ignoring that communism delivers abject poverty wherever it exists)....