Free Republic

Warsaw officials are gloating that so-called “bandits, criminals, and thieves” will soon be tried in Poland. Donald Tusk on X. Péter Magyar’s incoming Tisza government is set to extradite two senior figures from Poland’s former conservative Law and Justice (PiS) administration who sought refuge in Hungary from leftist PM Donald Tusk’s pursuit of his rivals. It is no wonder that Tusk, a fellow member of the centrist-liberal European People’s Party, is so happy with Magyar’s victory. Orbán’s Defeat Sparks Gloating Across Europe’s EstablishmentJubilant reactions from EU figures reveal how pivotal Hungary had become in opposing further centralisation—but Patriots for Europe...

Argentina President Javier Milei recently had some sharp words for the political left. But his observation is backed by more than his experience. Research makes it clear that the various strains of leftism, from today’s American Democratic Party to Democratic Socialists to green radicals to the tens of millions of voters who are attracted to progressive candidates and policies, are fueled by an emotional crisis. We beg our brothers and sisters on the left to consider why they do what they do. Milei, a defender of laissez-faire economic policy, said he once “thought being on the left was a...

White House deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller on Tuesday accused the Democrat party of controlling its members through blackmail. Miller told Fox News host Jesse Watters Tuesday evening that “the real” takeaway from former California Rep. Eric Swalwell’s fall from grace is the Democrats’ blackmail regime. “Swalwell is a scumbag, he’s a terrible person, the worst of the worst the lowest of the low—the most dishonest,” Miller acknowledged. “The real story here is how the Democrat Party controls its members through blackmail!” The California Democrat suspended his campaign for governor Sunday and officially resigned from Congress Tuesday...

TPUSA's "Frontlines" reporter, Savanah Hernandez, an on-the-street journalist who documents happenings that draw left-wing agitators to demonstrate in the streets, appeared on FNC's "The Ingraham Angle" to discuss the violent and threatening atmosphere. "My friends, colleagues and I have been repeatedly attack, bloodied and beaten by the radical left-wing and they’ve only become more emboldened since the assassination of Charlie Kirk," Hernandez posted on X after the interview. LAURA INGRAHAM: What are anti-ICE activists hiding? Independent journalist Savanah Hernandez showed up in Minneapolis to try to find out. Oh, God. SAVANAH HERNANDEZ, TPUSA: I didn't even come here today to,...

Richard Schenk heads the Democracy Interference Observatory (DIO) at MCC Brussels, a project dedicated to tracking the ways in which European institutions, Brussels-funded networks and certain political actors intervene in national campaigns across the European Union. In recent months, the observatory has focused much of its work on Hungary. Two days before this weekend’s parliamentary elections, Schenk argues that Budapest has become the main laboratory for a new form of European political pressure: less visible than in previous years, more sophisticated and, above all, built on regulatory, financial, and media instruments. For him, Hungary is no longer simply a conflict...

Ed Martin makes the case for mercy in an age of lawfare and politicized justice. When the justice system becomes a political weapon, clemency stops being a “presidential privilege” and becomes one of the last guardrails against abuse. And that’s why the left is so scared. The second Trump starts issuing pardons, the media spin machine kicks into high gear. They treat his acts of clemency with the same tired bias they always do, suddenly acting like mercy itself is suspicious. What they never stop to ask is what mercy actually means when the justice system is no longer acting...

Wayne Allyn Root — businessman and ebullient, unapologetic conservative — wrote something the other day that caught my eye. Over an article about “The Great American National Divorce,” his headline blared: “Escape of the White People.” Describing the exodus of New Yorkers to Florida and Californians to Nevada, Root noted that interstate migration across America is speeding up. Why? Because Americans who are not die-hard leftists “can no longer live with radical, extreme, self-destructive, communist SUICIDE BOMBERS.” As Root repeatedly points out, Democrat-run states are destroying themselves. By electing “evil, communist madmen like LA Mayor Karen Bass, Chicago Mayor Brandon...

California’s In-Home Supportive Services Program is ripe for scams, experts say. California Governor Gavin Newsom is embroiled in a national fraud scandal. Thus far, much of the coverage has focused on alleged schemes related to unemployment insurance, hospice care, and food stamps. In this exclusive investigation, we shine a light on one of California’s largest initiatives: the In-Home Supportive Services Program, or IHSS, which pays family members and other individuals to provide home-based care for the elderly and disabled—at a cost of nearly $30 billion per year. On the surface, IHSS presents itself as an instrument of compassion, directing billions...

Earlier this week, the Trump administration took another step toward liberating the economy by rolling back a Biden-era rule that needlessly hampered oil and gas production. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said that, with this and several other deregulatory actions, the administration “is unleashing domestic energy and revising burdensome, unworkable Biden-era oil and natural gas policies.” That’s the good news. The bad news is that President Donald Trump has barely scratched the surface of the gargantuan administrative state, and other Trump policies are raising the cost of doing business, a report released today by the Competitive Enterprise Institute shows. In its...

Until the U.K.’s political and cultural elite can defend confidently what it means to be British, the nation will sacrifice women’s safety, Jewish security, and core liberal principles such as free speech. In Britain, March meant Ramadan. My local supermarket advised me to “Make this holy month meaningful” and offered “everything you need for Iftar, Suhoor, and beyond,” including a range of halal foods. At televised Premiership football matches, play stopped to allow Muslim players to break their fast. Days before Eid, Muslims gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to pray in public. The Mayor of London, Sir Sadiq Khan, hailed...

The Democrats have done their best to hide the data, but it is possible to use available information to extrapolate just how bad illegal alien crime is. The Democrats have done their best to hide the data, but it is possible to use available information to extrapolate just how bad illegal alien crime is. Every day, all over America, illegal aliens, legal immigrants, and naturalized Americans from a rogue’s list of countries to our South and from the Middle East kill, rape, rob, and defraud us, almost with impunity. Yet, if you try to prove it by citing reliable government...

In New York State, the annual budget is due by April 1. Here we are on April 7, and no budget has yet emerged. Word is that the Governor and legislative leaders are hidden away behind closed doors hammering out the details. Word also is that somewhere in this “budget” process, the seemingly unrelated matter of the deadlines of the Climate Act (for starters, 70% of electricity from “renewables” by 2030) are about to get extended. When the Climate Act (officially “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act,” or CLCPA) was enacted back in 2019, the deadlines, beginning in 2030, seemed...

Europe bets on California’s Gavin Newsom as a strategic counterweight to the Trump agenda. Donald Trump’s opposition to climate policy and mass immigration is putting massive pressure on Europe. There, preparations are underway to support California governor Gavin Newsom. He is expected, as the 48th president, to prevent a continuation of Trump’s policies. America remains a country of high social mobility and upward opportunity -- something we no longer see on today’s European continent. It may sound kitschy to many Europeans, yet America's vibrant economic centers, high geographic mobility, and the flexibility of its people still create the conditions for...

When intrepid young journalist Nick Shirley made his way to Minneapolis’s now notorious “Quality Learing Center,” he found not just a local scam, but also a too perfect metaphor for today’s Democratic Party. Operating behind the false front of a legitimate political party, Democrats have fashioned nothing more than a money laundering operation that exploits the anxieties of its base to empower and enrich its friends and allies. Although the seeds were planted long ago, those seeds have borne their dark fruit thanks to at least three helpful federal interventions and a major shift in newsroom zeitgeist. Exploiting migrants,...

Democrats can rebrand candidates, but they cannot hide a long record of condescension toward the very working-class voters they now need to win back. After failing to win Congress and the presidency in 2024, the Democrats conducted an internal postmortem of what went wrong. While they predictably did not divulge the full results, everyone knew what they had found. Their obsessions with the low side of 30/70 issues had especially alienated Democrats from white middle- and working-class voters. Yet middle-class whites still comprise about 40–50 percent of the population and are perhaps overrepresented in voter turnout. Democrats realize that their...

Explaining the decline of the Roman Empire in The Story of Civilization, Will Durant wrote: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself within.” The same could become true of the European Union (EU) in the 21st century. Postmodern illusions of a benign and righteous multiculturalism are allowing Islamist ideology—which has no reservations about its supremacist ambitions—to spread its roots with unprecedented virulence. Consider how a guilt-shame complex fostered by leftist academia in institutions, the media, and the public is eroding the Judeo-Christian ethos. Christmas is no longer Christmas but some silly secular celebration like...

The inmates are taking over the asylum, and the psychiatrists think it’s just wonderful. This, followed by this, may be one of the sharpest takedowns of the lunatic left-wing fringe mindset you’ll ever encounter. Melanie Phillips doesn’t dance around the issue — she goes straight for the jugular vein of the self-delusion that defines the modern left. Phillips teaches a masterclass in Left-Wing Victimology. It all begins with a neat little circle of vanity. Blue-haired leftists in Minneapolis, or Brooklyn, or San Francisco, or London, or Brussels tell themselves, “I’m liberal because I’m a good person; I’m a good person...

We reported some time ago on New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to create a “Department of Community Safety.” This is the initiative that gets characterized misleadingly as simply a plan to replace cops with social workers. It is much more than that. It is much more frightening than that. It is the ultimate fulfillment of the leftist vision of abolishing the police and substituting for them a cadre of individuals who will be empowered to forge the new society Mamdani and his Marxist supporters envision. The first step in this effort has been the creation of something called...

Those who wield power over life and liberty should share, at least proportionally, in the price of being wrong. Dr. Thomas Sowell, the renowned economist and social theorist, once observed: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” His insight highlights a fundamental disparity in governance. Politicians, bureaucrats, and judges routinely issue rulings and enact policies that carry enormous ripple effects on society -- yet they are insulated from the human and financial costs incurred when...

There’s nothing really new in the uproar surrounding the loss of a USAF F-15E Strike Eagle over Iran this past weekend. Media hysteria over the downing of a single U.S. aircraft has become a commonplace schtick in coverage of American wars over the past three decades. During WW II, the U.S. lost over 23,000 planes in combat. I kid you not, playmates: 23,000+ – and that’s only combat losses. Overall losses, including accidents, amounted to 65,164. The media talking heads would have had to be carried out in straitjackets if they’d been active at the time. Losses dropped sharply following...