Free Republic

Japan respects its culture, protects its borders, and actually carries its own weight, unlike most of our so-called allies. | While the West obsesses over identity politics and open borders, Japan is proving that pride and stability still work. Maybe the rest of the world should start taking notes...

She wore the metallic, see-through design by Christian Cowan to Variety’s Power of Women event.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is torching his own party as the federal shutdown threatens to cut off food assistance for millions — and he’s warning Democrats are playing a dangerous political game. The Pennsylvania Democrat blasted his colleagues Tuesday as officials from 25 states and Washington, D.C., sued President Donald Trump’s administration over the suspension of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding. The USDA has refused to dip into a roughly $5 billion reserve to cover November benefits, saying “contingency funds are not legally available to cover regular benefits.” States that pay upfront won’t be reimbursed. Democrats and advocacy groups insist...

Behind a large glass wall, a worker in full protective gear watches as hundreds of tiny glass bottles whizz by every minute, sterilized, filled and packaged by a ballet of robotic arms. Inside each ampule is the substance at the heart of the geopolitical strife between the United States and China: fentanyl, the deadly opioid set to be top of the agenda when Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping meet Thursday. NBC News got exclusive access to the headquarters of Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceutical, the largest producer of the drug in China, and indeed Asia, at its sprawling complex in the...

An Alabama man was arrested this week for allegedly planning attacks on synagogues in Alabama and surrounding states as well as public figures. Jeremy Wayne Shoemaker, 33, of Needham, Alabama, was arrested on Monday after the FBI and local agencies were alerted of “credible threats of violence” he made to local synagogues, the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office announced in a post on Facebook. During his arrest, law enforcement also seized “weapons, more than a suitcase full of ammo, body armor and other items related to the plans of violence” in Shoemaker’s possession, the office said. Following an investigation, the Clark...

Parents, please show this movie to your teenagers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFy_Ezt0r-4

Will SNAP benefits not be issued in November due to the government shutdown? My cleaning lady, a cancer survivor receiving SNAP (she desperately needs it) just asked me, and I don't know. Does any FReeper definitively know?

First off, I want to be told how I am wrong. For many decades, when there was a surplus to the Social Security contributions this money was moved to the general fund and spent. In place of this spent money are $2.7 trillion of U.S. Treasury Notes in the Social Security Trust Fund Reserve. To redeem these treasury notes that merely represent the spent surplus Social Security contributions new money must be collect from taxpayers or federal deficit spending exercised. The $2.7 trillion of U.S. Treasury Notes cannot be used to demonstrate the solvency of Social Security which is often...

[H/T Grey_Whiskers]On X.com Cleta Mitchell @CletaMitchell Alright, kids. Here it is. Released today by the FBI, nearly 200 pages of formerly classified FBI documents, posted today on the House Judiciary Committee website and proves that the "state law cases" with the fake criminal charges against Pres Trump, Trump lawyers, Trump electors...and supporters were NOT state initiated AT ALL. These were ALL proxies for the feds...the BIDEN feds.... The FBI with the blessing of the Biden DOJ and no doubt the Biden White House initiated and conducted the entire investigation of hundreds and hundreds of RNC, Trump campaign employees, consultants, lawyers,...

A truck hauling rhesus monkeys, described as “aggressive” and initially reported to be infected with various pathogens (e.g., hepatitis C, herpes, and COVID), overturned on Interstate 59 in Mississippi.

In the early, early morning Tuesday, in the aftermath of Game 3, Blue Jays manager John Schneider was quick to remind reporters that the defending champion Dodgers “didn’t win the World Series, they won a game.”

Anybody experiencing problems with Youtube videos not playing?

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell — long known for his hot temper — had a conniption over the popularity of CNN political commentator Scott Jennings, who frequently advances pro-Trump and conservative viewpoints in panel discussions. In a lengthy monologue, an irate O’Donnell railed against one of his network’s primary competitors for employing somebody with different viewpoints. “And now CNN eagerly pays a Trump supporter to lie on CNN every day and night for Donald Trump. CNN did this during the first Trump presidential campaign and presidency. CNN regularly paid Trump supporters to lie about Trump on CNN,” O’Donnell ranted. “But the...

Thomas Lukaszuk, a former deputy premier of Alberta who circulated a petition to make it official policy for the province to stay in Canada, says it has more than 456,000 signatures. The final tally is far greater than the required 294,000 signatures to initiate a possible referendum in Alberta. The "Forever Canadian" petition started as a counter to separatists who want a referendum on Alberta independence and asks: "Do you agree that Alberta should remain within Canada?" "The number of signatures don't surprise me because I know that the vast majority of Albertans are proud Canadians," Lukaszuk told reporters on...

Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio on Tuesday warned that a bubble could be forming around megacap technology in the U.S. amid the artificial intelligence boom, but said that it may not end until the Federal Reserve reverses its current easy policies.“There’s a lot of bubble stuff going on,” Dalio told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an exclusive interview from the Future Investment Institute in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. “But bubbles don’t pop, really, until they are popped by tightness of monetary policy and so on.”Added Dalio, “We’re going to be more likely to ease rates than to tighten rates.”

Climate deniers use scientific aesthetics to reinforce and legitimize their message. At the same time, their main opponents, the climate activists, are portrayed as emotional and irrational. This has been demonstrated by researchers from the Universities of Gothenburg and Amsterdam, who have studied how climate deniers communicate online. "Disinformation is not just about incorrect facts, but about how these facts look and feel. In today's digital media landscape, messages are spread through images, memes and visual narratives that influence us in an instant, before we even have time to think. By understanding the aesthetic logic behind climate denial, we can...

Am I the only one whose font size has shrunk to miniscule on 2 different devices? And nothing seems to fix it in my settings or my account settings. The forum is useless to me like this. Bracing for finger pointing and ridicule.

Germany’s globalist political class is once again talking about going to war with Russia. Officials in Berlin have suggested that Europe should “prepare for conflict,” a statement that’s raised alarms across the continent. But while Germany rattles sabers, another European Union member is already at war, not with Moscow, but with its own citizens.Romania, one of NATO’s key Eastern members, has quietly constructed an enormous internal surveillance system under the banner of “national security.”Documents obtained under Romania’s Freedom of Information law reveal that from the 2024 presidential elections through September 2025, the country’s Supreme Court issued 2,843 national security warrants....

We are so screwed. It's over, babe. Everyone who died, died.Name one thing that isn't fouling up. You can't do it.We're all losing our jobs and the shutdown is going to cause riots and nobody will make it.We're all gonna die!!!!

The commercial features an “expert” interrupting a white Danish couple as they flirt with each other. He explains to them that the history of war in Denmark introduced foreign DNA into their gene pool which “protected them from disease”. He then compares their relationship to inbreeding and suggests they find new partners with more “exotic” genetics. The woman then smiles as if she’s intrigued by the idea.