Free Republic

America’s immigration debate usually revolves around the same stuff. Things like how many people are flooding in. What happens to US wages? What does it mean for housing, schools, crime, the border, and the economy? But immigration doesn’t stop being an issue just because somebody got here and feels all cozy now. Because immigrants build lives here, and many of them become citizens. And citizens vote, donate, organize, run companies, influence institutions, and help decide which policies the country follows next. So if we’re going to have a serious chat about immigration, then the political beliefs immigrants bring into the...

Washington homeowners could face tens of thousands of dollars in costs to convert natural-gas homes to electric after the Washington Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved initiative designed to protect natural gas as an energy option. The Building Industry Association of Washington has estimated that converting an existing natural-gas home to all-electric can cost approximately $40,000, depending on the home and upgrades required. Conversion can involve replacing gas furnaces and water heaters, installing electric appliances, and upgrading electrical panels and wiring. The court’s ruling does not itself require homeowners to convert to electricity. Rather, it eliminates Initiative 2066, which restricted...

UCLA’s top official has condemned a 9/11 event hosted by the college featuring a range of controversial speakers — including the defense lawyer for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The school’s chancellor, Julio Frenk, said in exclusive remarks to the California Post that he supported longtime UCLA professor Judea Pearl, who tore into the university for hosting the lawyer representing the jihadist behind the execution of his journalist son, journalist Daniel Pearl. “Judea Pearl is a deeply valued member of the UCLA community, and I have profound respect for him, for the memory of his son Daniel, and for his...

Today, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York ruled that the State of New York may not impose strict liability on energy companies for their alleged contributions to global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2024, New York enacted the “Climate Change Superfund Act,” which purported to impose billions of dollars on domestic and foreign energy companies that extract fossil fuels or refine crude oil. A coalition of states and trade organizations sued, alleging that the Act is preempted by the federal Clean Air Act and by the federal foreign affairs power, and that the Act violates the...

It’s snowing in August. Police executed the “largest cocaine seizure” in decades this week when they seized 580 pounds of the cartel-tied drugs stashed in a Long Island City storage unit, officials announced Friday. Nelson Salcedo, of Englewood, New Jersey, was arrested in the middle of moving the alleged $10 million in coke Wednesday in what cops say is tied to a wide-reaching drug trafficking scheme. “This was a massive shipment of narcotics, tied to an interstate trafficking network with connections across the country, including in New York and New Jersey. And because of the work of the investigators standing...

Well, for a movement we were told was just an “idea,” a massive swath of Antifa sure seems to have developed one helluva IT department. The public image of Antifa has always been this loosey-goosey street-level chaos, complete with black clothes, masks, pool noodles, broken windows, fights with cops, and somebody always setting something on fire. But those who pay even the slightest bit of attention know there’s a lot more to this very coordinated, highly funded network of anti-American storm troopers. And one of the biggest things they need are places to communicate without being easily tracked. They need...

WASHINGTON — Trump administration-funded researchers and independent collaborators found a startling correlation between proponents of a transgender ideology and left-wing violence, according to a new report obtained by The Post and set to be released Wednesday. The new study from researchers at Rutgers University, the right-leaning Manhattan Institute and Network Contagion Research Institute found that those normalizing transgender beliefs were more likely to be supportive of political violence. Respondents were quizzed about six potential targets of political violence for the study: “killing Charlie Kirk, killing Donald Trump, killing Brian Thompson, arson of ICE buildings, damaging wealthy people’s property, and violence...

“We’re only cooked if we accept it.” —Blaine Holt on “X” They don’t call economics the dismal science for nothing. It has been noted — since Thomas Carlyle minted the term in 1849 (objecting to the emancipation of black slaves on Britain’s colonial sugar plantations as a harm to productivity) — that attempts to manage the billion-footed transactions of human beings always find a way to bite back. But how can this creature we call society not try to regulate its affairs, with evils and hazards lurking in all we do, everywhere and always? And so, you get politics, the...

Like the cuckoo bird who lays its eggs in other birds’ nests, Colorado’s leftward lurch began some 20 or so years ago and has accelerated steadily ever since, fueled by disaffected cuckoo birds from California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and other assorted pockets of liberal mania, who laid their eggs liberally across their newly usurped state. To be fair, several formerly conservative states have suffered this fate to varying degrees, but Coloradan transplants have transformed the state with a vengeance. For example, in the 2020 national election, Proposition 115 would have “prohibited abortions in Colorado beyond 22 weeks,...

Microsoft employees donated over $2 Million to Democrats so far in 2026, 80% of all political donations. This from the company which studies "Pronouns in Software".

Longtime Democratic pundit James Carville is firing back at recent jabs from a socialist candidate running to unseat a mainstream Democratic congressman in Tuesday's primary elections in Florida. After Oliver Larkin told Fox News this past weekend that "it may be time" for Carville "to take a back seat, to people with fresh ideas," the strategist who first gained national attention as one of the masterminds behind former President Bill Clinton's 1992 White House victory shot back. Referring to Larkin, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Carville told Fox News Digital he "has the attribute...

The New York Attorney General’s Office has directed the Steuben County Sheriff’s Office and 11 other law enforcement agencies to end agreements that allow local officers to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Chief Deputy Attorney General for Social Justice Meghan Faux informed Sheriff James Allard that new provisions in the state budget prohibit local governments and police agencies from entering, renewing or extending agreements under which their employees perform immigration enforcement duties. The legislation, called the Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, affects Steuben County’s agreement with ICE under Section 287(g) of the federal Immigration and Nationality Act. The program...

Far-left political influencer Hasan Piker sparked heated backlash over the weekend after addressing a group of college students wearing an outfit resembling the wardrobe of former communist dictator Mao Zedong.

Below is my column on the rise of Antifa deniers in Washington. Once embraced and even marketed on the left, Antifa has become the group that must not be named as political violence rises across the country. It does not matter that radicals identify as Antifa, coordinate protests, carry Antifa flags, wear signature clothing, and espouse the same ideas from the “Antifa handbook.” There have even been people elected as Antifa representatives. Yet, the current spin is to pretend that they do not exist as a single organization to deflect the debate over violence on the left. Even with the...

WASHINGTON (VINnews) – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent disclosed publicly for the first time Thursday that he was the target of an alleged assassination plot just hours after being sworn into office. Speaking at a State Department ministerial on political terrorism, Bessent said he was the subject of an alleged assassination attempt “two hours after being sworn into my job,” adding that the case demonstrates that politically motivated violence remains a real threat. Federal prosecutors have charged Ryan Michael English, 24, of Massachusetts, in connection with the alleged plot. According to the Justice Department, English traveled to the U.S. Capitol on...

If you are attending the parade in the Champs-Elyséés, don't forget to wear your QR code - Liberté, égalité, cybersecurité! A pioneering example of the extension of "online safety" to real life. In hopes of deferring my next trip to Comaland, I am trying hard to comply with my doctors' instructions to eschew the Internet and commune with the birds and flowers. But some news insists on breaking through. I learn from my pal Dan Wootton, for example, that, of three Mark Steyn Show guests, one has been brutally murdered, another subjected to (so far) less fatal political violence, and...

A 21-year-old Augusta woman has been arrested after Columbia County investigators say she targeted two homes displaying Donald Trump signs by slashing tires, vandalizing property, dumping trash in a yard and leaving threatening letters warning one homeowner to “get ready for so much worse.” Armani Faith Obregon is charged with terroristic threats and acts, unlawful dumping and two counts of second-degree criminal damage to property following a series of incidents that unfolded over several days in late June in a Martinez neighborhood. According to investigators, the alleged campaign began on June 28, when two neighboring homes were targeted in the...

A Southern California man has admitted to doxing an Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorney, the agency announced Monday. Gregory John Curcio, 68, pleaded guilty last month in federal court to one count of violating the protection of individuals performing certain official duties, ICE also said in making the announcement. In February 2025, Curcio, of Santa Monica, identified his victim as an ICE agent in a Facebook post, in which he also posted her home address and urged followers to “swat” her – a dangerous practice where someone places a fake emergency call to law enforcement or emergency responders to prompt...

Hundreds of masked white supremacists descended on the nation’s capital, proudly waving Confederate flags during the 250th Independence Day celebration. The demonstrators were seen wearing hats emblazoned with the logo for the Patriot Front — a white nationalist group founded by Thomas Rousseau after the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, according to George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. Counterprotester Heather Heyer was infamously killed at that rally when a madman plowed into her and several others. Members of the group were snapped riding the DC Metro Saturday. In one shot, a black woman sitting on the train...

Over the years, I’ve had many different social media conversations with people who are leftists. Not political conversations (I avoid open social media discussion of politics with leftists), but rather many other topics. I have found a common pattern; they seem to have a remarkable lack of self-esteem, because they often seek only sympathy or praise, and they share an insatiable desire to be miserable. There is no desire to have a conversation or intellectual debate. Although there are many examples, I will limit myself to three (chronologically widely spaced) in this article. I should preface this with some background;...