Free Republic

“You have to have gone to college to say something that stupid." Dennis Prager would often respond to callers on his national radio show with that line when they said something so bereft of common sense that the only explanation for it had to be four or more years of brainwashing from radical professors. During his years as a graduate student in international affairs at Columbia University, where his professors believed such inane things as the belief that there is no difference between men and women and that the Soviet Union and the United States were morally equivalent during the...

Even some of Donald Trump’s own supporters have admitted they are underwhelmed by the president’s self-hyped Great American State Fair in D.C. Trump’s 16-day spectacle on the National Mall, which opened on June 25, was intended to showcase all 50 states as the centerpiece of the Trump administration’s celebration of America’s 250th anniversary. But several states led by Democratic governors have boycotted the event, while others have opted out due to the high cost to taxpayers or have not been able to secure businesses willing to sponsor a booth. Several musicians also pulled out of planned performances over concerns that...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Philadelphia ​from enforcing a new city law that would have prohibited federal law enforcement agents ‌from wearing masks, ruling the city cannot dictate how they conduct operations amid a national debate over masked immigration agents carrying out arrests. U.S. District Judge Chad Kenney, at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, issued a ​preliminary injunction, opens new tab barring Philadelphia from enforcing key provisions of the law against federal officers ​before they are scheduled to take effect on Tuesday. Philadelphia’s mask ban was enacted ⁠earlier this year as part of a larger “ICE...

SHELTER ISLAND, NY — George Soros and his family have been on a property buying spree, scooping up homes and prime parcels of land in an idyllic Hamptons enclave, angering local residents who worry the billionaire land grab is already upending the tight-knit community, The Post has learned. The family now control nearly 120 acres of property on Shelter Island, which is only accessible by ferry, making the Soroses — billionaire Hungarian-American investor George, 95, his sons Alex, 40, and Gregory, 38 — the largest private landowner in the community. The 18 properties they have bought were purchased through myriad...

For those impervious to the siren call of socialism, its activities in the world seem like the truth according to Hegel, “a bacchanalian whirl in which no member is not drunk.” The sitting New York Democrats that Mamdani’s new squad just defeated are pretty far left. But they are the soul of moderation compared to the newcomers. Darializa Avila Chevalier, who will be the Democratic candidate for New York’s 13th district, wants to abolish prisons, abolish ICE, abolish borders and defund the police. She thinks “all deportations are wrong” and has called the United States an “effing disgrace.” “I forgot...

OLIVIA SLEDZIK VIVIDLY remembers clutching her phone in bed at midnight, crying and desperately searching the Internet for reassurance. "Do other people feel like this?" she wondered. "Why do I feel so scared?" Sledzik, who is 35 and lives in Rhode Island, was terrified of getting pregnant and having a baby—and during that late-night doomscroll a few years ago, she felt alone in her fear. This wasn't your run-of-the-mill "I'm anxious about becoming a parent" fear; it felt insurmountable. For a long time, Sledzik assumed she'd have kids. After she graduated from college, though, she began having second thoughts—in large...

Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has announced she and her department are leaving Elon Musk's X platform. Explaining her decision in what seemingly will be her last post on X, Nandy said the platform "isn't healthy for our democracy or our communities and I don't want to support it". "A platform originally designed for free speech and expression now favours abuse and misinformation over meaningful debate," she wrote. The culture department becomes the second government department to stop using X after the attorney general's office, while several MPs also left the platform earlier this year over reports its AI tool was...

Several leading European nations now accept that ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz will need to pay fees to Iran and Oman, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday.The possibility of service fees following the US and Israeli war with Iran is now reportedly viewed by some EU countries as unavoidable. Some Gulf Arab officials are said to also privately share this view, though it may not reflect their governments' official positions. The type and amount of fees that nations would accept remains unclear. The US and Gulf Arab countries maintain that Iran and Oman cannot impose any charges for...

GILBERT, AZ — An Arizona toddler was found breathing inside a Gilbert hospital morgue after being declared dead hours earlier by an Arizona doctor, according to police records. A police report and body camera video reviewed by the ABC15 Investigators show that two Gilbert police officers saw signs of life multiple times, but the toddler was still taken to the hospital’s “cold room,” which is also considered to be the morgue. One officer wrote in the police report that the baby was pronounced dead “in error” by the Mercy Gilbert doctor even after a tense exchange about a pulse possibly...

ASPEN, COLORADO — Billionaire Peter Thiel stunned a largely liberal audience Tuesday at the Aspen Institute's Ideas Festival with a warning that democratic socialists are taking over the Democratic Party. During a panel discussion about the direction of humanity, Thiel lamented the cultural, technological and economic "stagnation" that has taken place in recent years, something he considered to be "very destabilizing" in the long term. He argued that the "haywire" effects of that stagnation trickled into politics. "My generation was the first one where things felt really stuck," Thiel said. "I think millennials are doing less well than their boomer...

Several non-governmental organisations in Spain are urging undocumented migrants to register in a final push for ​a special mass regularisation process that has attracted around a million people in just a few weeks and ‌is set to end on Tuesday. In the final hours before the deadline, NGOs were stepping up efforts to contact and advise migrants still trying to gather the documents required to apply for a one-year residence permit, in a country where around 840,000 people work off the books and it can take ​more than a year to obtain legal status. Rights groups CEAR and Cepaim urged...

The 2026 FIFA World Cup is taking place in venues across the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The trinational hosting arrangement, once sold with the feel-good slogan “United as One,” commenced amid genuine tensions over trade, borders, immigration enforcement, and the looming USMCA review. The event presents an important and highly visible opportunity to display the pragmatic realism that forms the basis of President Trump's foreign policy: sovereign nations pursuing their own interests from positions of strength and forging practical cooperation without illusions of borderless globalism or one-sided concessions. President Trump’s America First doctrine has never meant isolation. It means...

There’s no denying that President Donald Trump has a vise-like hold over the current Republican Party. Time and again, he has shown an uncanny talent to chuck chaos at even bipartisan bills, like the one House Speaker Mike Johnson sent to the White House on Monday only to be met with “yawn” from his fellow Republican Trump. At the same time, it now looks like Trump and Johnson may end up lashing an annual must-pass, traditionally bipartisan defense bill to a Trump pet project that would make it harder for Americans to vote in this fall’s elections—and force lawmakers to...

A University of Tennessee professor will receive $1.9 million to settle a lawsuit accusing the school of violating her constitutional rights after officials sought to discipline her over social media posts criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Knox News reported Monday that the University of Tennessee System Board of Trustees approved a $1.9 million settlement for former professor Tamar Shirinian after she called Kirk, who was assassinated Sept. 10 during his "American Comeback Tour" at Utah Valley University, a "disgusting psychopath." Shirinian was put on administrative leave following a social media post where she had said in part, "The world is...

Democrat Socialists of America (DSA) congressional candidate Melat Kiros believes there must be an “immediate pathway” to citizenship for “every single” illegal alien. Kiros unseated 15-term Democrat Rep. Diana DeGette in Colorado’s First Congressional District primary on Tuesday, signaling that the socialist takeover of the Democratic Party spans far beyond the borders of New York. She holds a range of radical views and is of the thinking that there must be an “immediate pathway” to citizenship for illegal aliens residing in the country. “Abolishing ICE is just one step, right?” she said during an interview. “Democrats have been in power...

Pope Leo will not be celebrating the United States' 250th birthday; instead, he will visit a poverty-stricken migrant island on July 4. The first American pontiff has been deeply critical of Donald Trump's immigration agenda and war against Iran, culminating in an unprecedented public falling-out with the president. On the day that marks the United States' independence from Britain, Leo XIV will visit the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, the gateway for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe's shores. His decision appears to be a deliberate but subtle rebuke of the Trump administration as the president pushes on with...

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to protect women's and girls' sports is making waves across the pond, too. Author J.K. Rowling, a staunch defender of women's rights in the face of radical trans activism, even took the BBC to task for its shameful coverage of the ruling.

Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger's efforts to enact a sweeping gun-control agenda have been placed on hold by courts in June, while the state Legislature pushed back the effective date of another law. Since Thursday, judges in Lancaster County and Washington County issued preliminary injunctions preventing enforcement of a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms, while Spanberger had to request that the state Legislature delay the effective date of a ban on carrying such firearms. The National Rifle Association trumpeted their legal success in a Monday evening post on X. "The NRA's world-class legal team delivered a clear, powerful argument demonstrating...

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) is considering moving its military bases’ operational systems in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to Israel in order to increase their distance from further Iranian missile and drone attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported last Thursday. The US Navy may revamp its base in Bahrain, which has suffered severe damage since late February up until the recent US-Iran ceasefire. Bahrain has been home to the US Navy’s central forces in the Middle East for over 50 years. One option is to establish a new base in the Negev big enough to hold the American...

Ukrainian troops will receive cash bonuses for capturing or destroying enemy personnel under the first stage of a sweeping overhaul of the Defense Forces, the Ministry of Defense announced on June 29. The awards stem from the Cabinet of Ministers Resolution, which launched an experimental project introducing additional payments for combat results, according to the ministry. The ministry described the measure as part of the first stage of the Defense Forces’ transformation. It framed the payments as a way to reward front-line service members for confirmed action against enemy personnel. The ministry set two award levels: roughly $2,200 for taking...