Free Republic

You’re arguing with psychosis. They’re screaming about things that aren’t there. The first task of defeating political opponents is to understand who they are. What is it that Democrats think they’re doing? And what they think they’re doing in 2026 amounts to a relentless ritual hallucination in the service of an institutional status quo. They’re making up a fake world in their heads to protect their paychecks: in media, in academia, in government, in the results-not-required world of the nonprofit organization. If you doubt that, go read the opinion pages of The New York Times, the agenda-setting newsletter of the...

Without Obama, Trump would never have become president, and that’s true both literally and figuratively.Over the weekend, Barack Obama appeared at a campaign rally for Democrats in Ohio and managed to make some headlines by ridiculing President Trump’s design skills. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president quipped. The crowd, of course, loved it. The media did too. Republicans responded with some mockery of their own, pointing out that Obama has little room to talk about design preferences, given the architectural monstrosity that is his presidential library in Chicago. All things...

A University of California Merced professor of history and critical race and ethnic studies recently called for the “dezionization” of the UC system. Sean Malloy, who according to his faculty page researches “colonialism, war, white supremacy, and the critical study of Zionism,” writes in the Ethnic Studies Council at UC Substack that Zionism is a “driving force behind many of the external and internal threats to the UC and its faculty, staff, and students.” “Dezionization entails not only ending the UC’s complicity in the genocidal actions of the Israeli state (which would include divestment and the end of formal research...

I get tired of Democrats claiming to be on the “right side of history” when both their past and their present are so utterly sordid and destructive. So, if you are a Democrat, let me tell you about MY side of history and YOUR side of history. My side of history is Cato the Elder, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Irving Babbitt and William F. Buckley. Your side of history is Thomas Hobbes, Karl Marx, Josef Stalin, Mao’s Little Red Book and Noam Chomsky. My side of history is George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Ronald...

And what to do about it.Via DataRepublican, we have learned that a group of Democratic governors, retired military and intelligence officers, and former USAID “color revolution” specialists, have for some time been plotting to pull off a color revolution in the United States. Or, to put it more precisely, they have been conspiring to overthrow the constitutionally elected government of the United States, and to replace the Constitution with something completely different.THE ILLEGITIMACY PLAYBOOK / THE DEMOCRACY FILES: A PRIMER ... There’s a lot of data, including videos, recordings, transcripts of Signal chats, etc., but the gist is this: If...

Bukele announces that El Salvador is launching a military operation in Haiti against the gangs.The goal is to free 4 Salvadoran citizens kidnapped by the Haitian gangs. Bukele threatens that El Salvador will eradicate the Haitian gangs if they hurt the kidnapped men:“To the gang leaders and gang members holding our four compatriots hostage in Haiti:Our kidnapped men are not combatants. They are aviation technicians who are part of our mission in Haiti, within the framework of an international mission. Our mission consists only of pilots and technical personnel, whose primary job is to carry out medical evacuations and save...

It just doesn’t fit....The list of reasons for football fans of a certain age to intensely dislike the National Football League in 2026 is a long one. I miss when defenses were allowed to tackle quarterbacks, for example. Google it, young fans. I swear it was legal! We’re not far from the day when linebackers will need to get the QB to sign a consent form before a pass can be disrupted in any way. I kid, but I don’t.I’ve had a theory for years that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is a plant by Big Soccer, sent to destroy actual...

President Donald Trump is approaching the midpoint of his second term, so it’s a good time to evaluate what he has accomplished on immigration issues. On the National Question (immigration and national identity), Trump’s achievements over the past two years are quite impressive. Trump solved the border crisis so decisively, the public has practically forgotten it was ever a problem. The border is under control, few cross it illegally, and catch-and-release has been terminated. In August, the Trump administration announced that 3 million illegal aliens had left the country since Jan. 2025: 985,000 were removed and 2.2 million self-deported. That...

Given what is going on in France....video at link.

Specimen: Western, educated, well-meaning. Habitat: universities, NGOs, quality newspapers, dinner parties where the wine is good and the opinions are better. Status: abundant.The useful idiot is not exactly stupid. This is the first and most important thing to understand. Stupidity would be a defense. The more precise diagnosis is what we in Poland call pół-inteligent – the half-wit. Not the bottom of the intelligence distribution, which is too obviously lost to be useful. Not the genuine top, which tends to develop the inconvenient habit of following arguments wherever they actually lead. The sweet spot: smart enough to absorb a complex...

Packers killing Cowboys. Ten years in a roll, it's getting boring. Go Pack Go!

You may have come across this recent story of Agatha Christie in the 21st century. A University of Wyoming student was arrested after police say she tried to poison a colleague, then attempted to flee to China when officers questioned her. Aili Wang, 32, was questioned by campus police after surveillance cameras set up by a coworker experiencing medical symptoms allegedly caught her rinsing his mug with liquid from her own cup on Oct. 1, according to a University of Wyoming police affidavit, which added that she was seen on camera “taking photos and manipulating notebooks.” Wang didn’t get along...

I wouldn’t have taken a more than average interest in Christopher Columbus if ill-informed and sometimes ill-intentioned people hadn’t made it necessary. Fairfax County, Virginia, where I’ve lived for more than thirty-five years, abolished Columbus Day in 2020 as a paid holiday, but schools are closed today anyway – to celebrate “Indigenous Peoples’ Day.” The state legislature did the same for all of Virginia, as have other states, in effect replacing our Western Christian heritage with – frankly – they know not what. Now, Columbus, like all of us, was an imperfect human being. But unlike most of us, he...

Hold onto your smartphones, folks, because Aaron Sorkin has done it again! The Social Reckoning is not merely a movie. It is a cinematic detonation! An absolute tour de force! From the dynamic opening scene to the breathless climax, this pulse-pounding masterpiece delivers non-stop excitement, razor-sharp edge, and heart-stopping thrills that will keep you glued to the very edge of your seat. It is, quite simply, one helluva thrill ride! A powerful, provocative, pulse-pounding look at the world we live in -- and the world we helped create. There are films you watch, films you enjoy, and then there are...

This loss of spiritedness—what the Greeks called θυμός—has had a far-reaching and depressive effect on the civilizations of the West.It would have been hard to improve the backdrop for Marco Rubio’s foreign policy address on October 7 in Athens, Greece. Standing on the Pnyx with the ruins of the Parthenon rising up behind him, the Secretary of State delivered a speech that won almost universal plaudits. Let me toss my vote in with the overwhelming majority and affirm that Rubio’s speech was simply splendid: robust, heartfelt, honest, masculine, and true. Is it still permissible to praise such a public performance...

The Bamiyan Buddhas: Giants of the Silk Road, Gone But Not Forgotten For nearly 1,500 years, the Bamiyan Buddhas stood watch over the Silk Road. Carved into the sandstone cliffs of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley in the 6th century, these monumental statues — one rising about 55 meters tall, the other 38 — were among the largest standing Buddhas in the world. They gazed out across a crossroads of civilizations, where merchants, monks, pilgrims, and conquerors once passed between East and West.

My sources are telling me Talarico is in a mental health facility. His campaign has stopped actively planning events in the vital homestretch of the campaign.More at link.