Free Republic

Recent historic election victories appear to be putting wind in the sails of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which continues to widen its lead over the establishment and expand its support base. After two major first-place finishes this month in the local elections in Saxony-Anhalt and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the anti-mass migration AfD has seen its lead over the supposedly centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz grow to its largest in history. According to the first national survey after Sunday’s elections, the AfD has seen its support rise to 29.5 per cent, a record high recorded by...

A total of 781 migrants arrived in 10 small boats on Wednesday, the highest number for a single day so far this year, Home Office figures show. So far this year 18,565 people have made the Channel crossing, which is 42% lower than the same period in 2025 when 32,188 had crossed in small boats. The government said its "progress this year in tackling small boats is indisputable" but it needed to "push further and harder in order to eradicate this vile trade". French authorities reported on Thursday that a man had died after having a cardiac arrest while people...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told a local television news station in Shreveport, Louisiana, this week that President Donald Trump needs to bring the war in Iran “to a resolution.” “It’s been a priority and an objective of every administration, for nearly 50 years, to ensure that Iran didn’t have a nuclear capability. Now that’s done. Operation Epic Fury was an epic success,” Johnson said dutifully, later adding: The world is safer because of it. But now we’ve got to bring that to a resolution. And the Strait of Hormuz not being open affects commerce. It directly affects gas prices...

Polls continue to dole out depressing numbers for Republicans, with several Senate races defying earlier predictions and Democrats radically outperforming how then-Vice President Kamala Harris fared against President Donald Trump in 2024. The polling numbers for Trump and the GOP have been brutal as his second term has progressed, with Americans’ views on his handling of the economy and immigration — topics on which he had previously outpolled Democrats — taking a dive. The president’s war in Iran has been another issue dragging down his polling, specifically because of its impact on gas prices. Several recent polls have had shocking...

Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) has taken direct aim at President Donald Trump and his immigration crackdown in a new re-election ad, warning that the Hispanic voters who helped return him to the White House in 2024 now feel “betrayed.” The congresswoman, who endorsed Trump in 2024 and urged Hispanic voters to back him, delivered the unusually direct message to the president as she campaigns for another term in her Miami-area district. “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful...

The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major loss in his quest to restrict the use of mail-in ballots just weeks before the midterm elections. Lawyers for Trump had asked the Supreme Court to allow his executive order allowing US Postal Service rules allowing the government to 'check' mail-in ballots against a central repository of registered voters in each state - and reject ballots from voters not listed in the database. The appeal was the third time the Trump administration asked the high court to intervene - in a sign of its outsize interest in the matter. Critics have...

President Trump said Friday he would permit Chinese automakers to move manufacturing to the U.S. over the protest of American automakers. “If China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I’d be OK with it,” the president told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham on “The Ingraham Angle.” “Japan does it, but they hire our people,” he continued. “The big thing is they hire our people.” The president’s comment comes ahead of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Washington, D.C., in two weeks. The Chinese leader is expected to bring a large business delegation with him...

Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon publicly announced his resignation on X late Monday over concerns that AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade." A lot of people have expressed opinions about his point of view, leading to more than 110 million views of the message in less than 24 hours, perhaps helped along by X algorithms that boost messages critical of owner Elon Musk's AI rivals, Anthropic and OpenAI. But the real problem isn't the models themselves, but the companies who carelessly unleash them on the world and don't take any responsibility for what their products do...

Former President George W. Bush warned that Americans risk forgetting a critical lesson of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks if the United States turns inward and ignores threats developing overseas. "Our nation occasionally goes through isolationist periods, where the attitude is, 'Well, we've got too many problems at home. Therefore, who cares about what happens overseas?'" Bush said Wednesday, according to CBS News. "Which really means to me they just don't pay attention to the lessons of 9/11, because what happens overseas matters to our national security at home." Bush delivered the warning at his presidential library in Dallas...

Stocks dropped Thursday after U.S. oil prices topped $100 a barrel, amid growing fears of higher inflation from a prolonged war in the Middle East. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 315 points, or 0.6%. The S&P 500 fell 0.5%, while the Nasdaq Composite slid 0.5% too. Higher oil prices continued to weigh on sentiment, as the war between the U.S. and Iran stretched into a seventh month. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for October jumped above $100 per barrel. Futures for the international benchmark Brent crude for November delivery spiked above $105 a barrel. The jump in oil prices...

French government ministers expressed their worries on Monday over ​the impact of the victory of far-right ‌party Alternative for Germany in the Saxony-Anhalt state election on Sunday. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) party surged into ​first place in the Saxony-Anhalt state elections, ​exit polls showed, putting a far-right ⁠party within reach of power at the ​state level for the first time since World ​War Two. "It clearly sends out a very, very worrying signal," French Finance Minister Roland Lescure told RTL ​radio. "This shows that we face a ​major challenge in the face of a populist wave ‌which ⁠is spreading...

Donald Trump revealed a potential uniform for the US Space Force that has people comparing the service's new look to classic science fiction movies. The newest wing of the American military has been mocked in the past for the futuristic nature of their uniforms. However, many were taken aback when Trump posted a new 'Service Dress Uniform' for the force titled 'Next Generation' which directly references the 1997 film Starship Troopers. The design is inspired, according to the photo description, 'by the discipline and functionality of the starship trooper uniform modernized for the guardians of the space domain.' The color...

Fox News anchor Bret Baier undercut President Donald Trump’s baseless claim that the U.S. “totally” controls the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which 20% of the world’s oil flows. On Tuesday, Trump spoke with reporters and addressed the strait, which Iran effectively closed after the U.S. and Israel launched the current war on the country in February. But somehow, the president insisted the U.S. has it all under control. “We totally control the Strait of Hormuz,” he said, reality be damned. “We have control over it. Nobody else. Only us. Our navy is unbelievable, and things are going...

Mitch McConnell has missed 38 Senate votes since his June 12 fall. If absent Monday, it will be his 39th missed vote, extending his absence beyond six weeks.The United States Senate is set to convene on Monday, July 27, for a key vote to appoint Donald Trump's nominee Walter Clayton as the new Director of National Intelligence. But the lingering question remains on the Republican Party camp: will Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell be present for Monday's roll call at the Senate? McConnell remains hospitalized at the George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC undergoing rehabilitation after his treatment, according to...

Iran has been accused of smuggling spies into the UK disguised as small boat migrants crossing the English Channel. UK authorities are said to have discovered individuals linked to Tehran's intelligence agencies among asylum seekers arriving in Britain by using face recognition technology fitted to drones and surveillance watchtowers. It is also understood that the routes used to traffic migrants are operated and 'owned' by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The Daily Mail reported in March how asylum seekers ostensibly fleeing the war in Iran had arrived in France to cross the Channel to the UK. Dozens were said...

I've never met Rupert Lowe and, judging from his latest comments this weekend, I'd say it's unlikely that's going to change. According to the leader of Restore Britain (we've got Reform and Restore; I'm looking forward to Replace and, even better, Retire) for a period in my life I wanted to destroy all that's good about Britain, create a dependency culture and, for good measure, sterilise the untermenschen. The MP for Great Yarmouth has not been looking into my soul and excavating its darkest secrets. He has, rather, been sounding off about one of the most bizarre conspiracy theories to...

The Labour Government has been accused of trying to block a report on migrant crimes from being released. The Ministry of Justice has launched legal action to prevent the publication of crime statistics by nationality. The Information Commissioner’s Office has ordered the department to release conviction data from between 2018 and 2024, which the department is now appealing. The Centre of Migration Control (CMC), a think tank, requested data on violence, sexual offences, drugs, arson, criminal damage, weapons, theft, and robbery under the Freedom of Information Act. The Ministry of Justice has argued that the data would be too expensive,...

Over the summer months, 5 million people will visit London, with its free museums and galleries, massive events featuring the biggest names in music and sport, and everything Britain’s capital city has to offer. And, as new figures released today show, they’ll be able to do so knowing London is one of the safest cities of its size in the world. On social media, a dark blizzard of disinformation – much of it coordinated and amplified by extreme groups and hostile foreign actors – has seen bots and trolls depict London as a “lawless” city where crime goes unpunished and...

Elon Musk denied that he supports the “far right” in a new interview with The Economist, countering the interviewer’s claims by saying he backs “normal people” who are mislabeled by the media. “You support not just the populist right, but the far right — in fact, very fringe parties in some countries,” said editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes in the sit-down interview. “No, I support the normal people. What you call the far right, falsely,” Musk declared. “Here are the principles, and tell me, which of these sound terrible. That we should have secure borders? That we should have safe cities?...

With the pointless war of choice in Iran going poorly, the Trump administration has declared a virtual war on the international criminal court (ICC). Secretary of state, Marco Rubio, vowed on Monday to “dismantle” the court as a supposed threat to US sovereignty. His rationale is laced with sophistry. The administration’s real goal is to secure impunity for war crimes, even those committed on the territory of ICC member states. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed and a video posted on X, Rubio conjures up a dystopia in which local American officials such as police officers or border patrol agents...