Free Republic

There is this recurring narrative that SpaceX needs government funding to survive. Not only does SpaceX not rely on government contracts for the majority of it’s revenue, it’s actually saved the US government Billions of dollars by being far cheaper than the competition.

Tesla chief Elon Musk has called for the abolition of the European Union as a political entity and a return of national sovereignty to the continent in the wake of Brussels announcing a $140 million fine against his X social media platform for supposedly violating the bloc’s censorship law. “The EU should be abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries, so that governments can better represent their people,” Musk wrote on his X account on Saturday morning. It came after the unelected European Commission imposed a €120 million ($140 million) fine on X on Friday for allegedly breaching the Digital...

Iran's judiciary said on Saturday that two organisers of a marathon on Kish island were arrested for allowing unveiled women to compete in the race. "Two of the main organisers of the competition were arrested on warrants," the judiciary's Mizan Online website reported on Saturday, the day after the marathon took place. "One of those arrested is an official in the Kish free zone, and the other works for the private company that organised the race," it added. More than 5,000 people took part in Friday's race, according to local media, with images online showing a number of runners who...

Earlier this year, when Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began reporting on massive amounts of fraud in our social programs, the Democrats scoffed at him. They ran before any camera they could find to claim breathlessly that Musk was going to take away Social Security and leave Grandma out in the cold.That's not true, of course. Musk and DOGE were trying to not only save America from fiscal ruin, but to make these programs sustainable for the people who actually need and paid into them — the American taxpayers.Democrats, on the other hand, seem to view those programs...

Conservative political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos recently expressed regret for "mainstreaming homosexuality in the Republican Party" a decade ago, and claimed hidden homosexuality is rampant in conservative political circles. Yiannopoulos, who reached the peak of his fame around the 2016 presidential campaign as a provocative, outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, also claimed that therapy and his Christian faith have helped him move away from the homosexual addiction that once consumed his life. "I have to be honest with you, I bear some responsibility for this because it was me, 10 years ago — mainstreaming homosexuality in...

Earlier this month, over 400 Minnesota Department of Human Services employees accused Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz of being "100% responsible" for the massive fraud in Minnesota. I wrote at the time that the Minnesota Somali fraud scandal could take down Walz, and every day it looks even more likely. And what do you know, the scandal just got significantly worse for Walz and Rep. Ilhan Omar. Newly surfaced photographs show both Democrats smiling alongside Abdul Dahir Ibrahim, a Somali national and convicted fraudster who spent decades in America as an illegal immigrant before Immigration and Customs Enforcement recently arrested him....

An illegal immigrant previously charged with DUIs and had an outstanding 2023 deportation has been charged in connection with a deadly head-on collision that killed an 8-year-old California girl over the weekend, authorities said. Bryan Josue Alva-Rodriguez, 25, a Guatemalan citizen, was arraigned in the hospital, where he is being treated for his injuries, Wednesday on murder, vehicular manslaughter and DUI charges, according to California Highway Patrol.

The federal government said it would withhold Supplemental Nutrition Aid Program (SNAP) funds for states that do not report user data. The news came from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins earlier this week, following months of requests and investigations into instances of fraud within the program. Here’s what to know about the change to the nutrition program.The Announcement Rollins made the announcement on Dec. 2 during a White House cabinet meeting, saying that states that have not complied with the federal request have only a few days to fix the issue.The USDA secretary said the...

𝕏 just terminated the EU Commission's ad account The same EU Commission that fined 𝕏 for so-called “deceptive design” quietly logged into its dormant 𝕏 ads account and exploited an ad format - posting a link that deceives users into thinking it's a video, to artificially boost its own reach It had never been abused like this before

Having completed my first full day in Singapore, I continue to be impressed, as I believe all visitors are, by what a shiny, clean, well-organized place it is. One could say that this is because it’s a wealthy country. I would go in the other direction: It’s wealthy because it’s chosen to be a clean, bright, shiny place. Yesterday, we went to the Marina Bay complex, a major tourist attraction that has two massive indoor gardens and one of the biggest malls I’ve ever seen. To get there and back, we took the underground trains that are part of the...

When news broke that the FBI had finally arrested a suspect who placed pipe bombs at RNC and DNC headquarters in January 2021, I offered this prediction: "this will turn out to be unrelated to the J6 riot or law enforcement and intelligence agencies, but will be a rando nutcase anarchist." I could have also predicted that the Protection Racket Media would attempt to make the perp into a right-wing MAGA nutcase who voted for Donald Trump. I didn't have "pretend he's a white guy" on my Bingo card, but you can't win 'em all. Otherwise, my predictions have held...

There has been another unprovoked stabbing on the Charlotte, North Carolina, commuter light rail system. We saw the tragic death of Iryna Zarutska last August in just such an event, but this latest incident is different in two ways: The victim is still alive, although in critical but stable condition, at least as of this writing, and the alleged attacker is an illegal alien, who has been deported at least once and entered the United States illegally again. When will we have had enough of this? Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy weighed in on his official X account:Apparently, the death...

For the first time, the Supreme Court will directly confront the legality of Donald Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship. The politics around the case are loud and predictable. But the constitutional question at the center of it is much quieter, and far more consequential: Can any president, Republican or Democrat, unilaterally reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment? After reviewing the Court’s recent decisions and the skepticism justices have already shown toward this executive order, it’s clear that the conservative majority may not be willing to hand the White House a power this sweeping. In fact, the justices most hostile to broad...

One of the more bizarre artifacts of the Israel-Hamas War—which Hamas started just over two years ago, when it attacked, murdered, and kidnapped more than 1,000 Israeli civilians—is the exposure of the rabid and rampant antisemitism among the Irish, especially Irish Catholics. One might expect that Catholics—whose popes have denounced antisemitism off and on since the sixth century and have clearly and repeatedly condemned it since the 1930s—would be understanding of the Jewish people’s plight and willing to listen to Pope Pius XI’s admonition that “Antisemitism is inadmissible. Spiritually, we are all Semites.” In the case of many Irish Catholics,...

Vladimir Putin has told the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, that Russia is ready to continue “uninterrupted” shipments of oil to India, signalling a defiant stance to the US as the two leaders met in Delhi and affirmed that their ties were “resilient to external pressure”. The statement, made on Friday after the annual India-Russia summit, appeared to be directed at western countries – particularly the US – that have attempted to pressure New Delhi into scaling back its ties to Moscow. The US president, Donald Trump, in August imposed an additional 25% import tariff on India over its purchase...

A new White House policy document formalizes President Trump’s long-held contempt for Europe’s leaders. It made clear that the continent now stands at a strategic crossroads.The Trump administration has not exactly kept its low regard for Europe secret. President Trump has long portrayed European allies as freeloaders that fail to pay enough for their own security and argued that the European Union was “formed to screw the United States.”Now, that hostility is official White House policy.The Trump administration issued a national security strategy paper this week that called for European nations to take “primary responsibility” for their own defense, indicating...

WASHINGTON – This Cyber Monday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is announcing the holiday deal of a lifetime for all illegal aliens still in the United States: Use the CBP Home App, and you will receive a free flight home for the holidays and a $1,000 gift. “The CBP Home App offers those in this country illegally a fantastic gift this holiday season: a free flight home, a $1,000 gift, and the potential opportunity to return to America the right, legal way,” said Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. “Your choice is simple: Choose self-deportation and reap the rewards, or stay...

Abortion, religion, and race were the three intractable constitutional law conundrums of the second half of the 20th century. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, the justices of the Warren and Burger Supreme Courts felt compelled to step in and resolve them, though their constitutional warrant so to do was anything but clear. As readers of this magazine are well aware, for decades American society has been roiled by what we are slowly coming to see as the Supreme Court’s unwarranted judicial audacity—if not impudence, arrogance, and illegitimacy. Since Richard Nixon’s campaign in 1968, Republicans have been seeking to...

THE CRACKED POT A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on the end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots of full of water in his master’s house. Of...

The European Commission transferred more than 500 million euros to mass migration catalyst organizations Save the Children, Development Alternatives Incorporated, Catholic Relief Services, and Mercy Corps between 2021 and 2024, according to a response to a recent inquiry filed by AfD MEP Petr Bystron.For decades, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been darlings of the American Deep State and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).In 2024, the aforementioned NGOs received $1.7 billion from the U.S. government alone. After President Donald Trump decapitated USAID, many NGOs are now struggling to survive (see here, here, here, and here).“Why does the EU finance American...