Free Republic

Here in Germany, thousands of demonstrators have gathered in the western city of Giessen to protest against the founding meeting of the far-right Alternative for Germany's new youth wing. 6-thousand police are standing by. Generation Deutschland, as the new group is expected to be called, replaces the AfD's previous association, which was confirmed by the courts as right wing extremist. The changes aim to allow the AfD to exert more control over it's youth movement. Video SummaryIn Gießen, Germany, thousands protested against the founding meeting of the AfD's new youth wing, "Generation Deutschland," which replaces the previous youth organization officially...

Shutdown debate misses the fact that illegals already get taxpayer-funded healthcare through other pathwaysAmid yet another government shutdown, the finger-pointing on Capitol Hill has intensified. Although the primary disagreement between the parties concerns the fate of pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies, another healthcare-related dispute has consumed the headlines. Would the Democrats’ budget really give healthcare benefits to illegal immigrants? The allegation is valid, but this small dispute distracts from a broader truth: Illegal immigrants already access public health benefits through a variety of pathways, most of which will continue regardless of how the shutdown ends.The current dispute is driven largely by confusion...

A Chicago Public Schools (CPS) policy allows illegal immigrant students excused absences if they or their family members are afraid of federal immigration enforcement activities in the area. A document called Chicago Public Schools’ Attendance Coding for Safety Concerns Related to Federal Representative Activity, obtained by education watchdog Defending Education, affirms that illegal immigrant students can be marked as “excused” if a parent conveys to the school that they fear federal immigration authorities. Immigration enforcement actions are dubbed “federal representative-related procedures” in the school’s policy, which was reaffirmed by the school board in February. “If a parent/guardian reports an absence...

Black Friday spending surged this year to new highs, fueled by record-breaking online spending that reached $11.8 billion on Black Friday alone, according to market data. Online sales made on Black Friday made up about 10% of total sales for the month of November, more than $111 billion dollars, according to Adobe Analytics’s report on holiday shopping trends. This represents a 9.1% increase in online sales compared to last year. Adobe tracks over 1 trillion U.S. retail site visits.

West Yorkshire Police arrested a British business owner over a picture he posted on social media of himself holding a gun in the United States. IT contractor Jon Richelieu-Booth told the Yorkshire Post that in August, he posted a picture on the networking site LinkedIn of himself holding a shotgun at a friend’s homestead in Florida. He was visited by local police, who warned him about the post and told him to be “careful” about what he says online and “how it makes people feel.” Eleven days after the post, West Yorkshire Police officers returned and arrested Richelieu-Booth over allegedly...

As the federal government shutdown drags into its fourth week, the axe is poised to fall on Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards loaded with Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds, better known as food stamps. Come Nov. 1, millions of low-income families—42 million SNAP recipients nationwide—face the prospect of empty cards and bare pantries, barring an unlikely last-minute deal in Congress.This has created three unfortunate realizations. First, many honest people facing tough circumstances may be denied needed resources. Second, U.S. citizens who are obviously scamming the welfare system are promising on social media to steal what they want from grocery...

New satellite imagery shows China testing its landing barges, which analysts say appear tailor-made for an invasion of Taiwan. Among these new vessels are landing docks, more advanced amphibious assault ships, and specialized landing barges analysts have dubbed Shui Qiao, or "water bridges," that appear purpose-built for a potential beach landing in an attack on Taiwan. Satellite imagery shared by open-source analyst Brady Africk on X showed three of China’s so-called Shui Qiang landing barges off the coast of Ningbo in Zhejiang province on November 20. A separate photo captured by European Space Agency satellites and reviewed by Newsweek shows...

Russia launched its largest barrage of drones and missiles in a month across Ukraine, killing at least three people, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday, as a Kyiv delegation heads to the United States for fresh peace talks.A flurry of diplomacy is taking place after a plan put forward by US President Donald Trump triggered alarm in Kyiv, as the original draft heavily favored Russia.The talks will be led from the Ukrainian side by Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, who Zelensky appointed following the resignation of his top aide on Friday. The Ukrainian...

The "Handala" Iranian hacker group claims it successfully breached the vehicle of a "senior Israeli nuclear scientist," revealed his identity, and left a bouquet of flowers inside the car. In a post published on Handala’s Telegram channels and X account, they wrote: "By now, you have surely felt it, the subtle shift in the air around you. The moment when an ordinary day becomes… wrong." "The first $10,000 required for deep-field infiltration and extraction of classified intelligence has been deployed. Funds are moving. People are moving. Shadows are moving. All in directions you never anticipated. "Your identity, once buried behind...

Black Friday retail sales growth picked up this year, Mastercard said Saturday, as shoppers shook off economic uncertainty and weak sentiment. Why it matters: The consumer remains the engine of the U.S. economy, and a strong start to the holiday season will be reassuring to those who questioned whether tariffs and a soft labor market might crimp demand. By the numbers: Friday's retail sales excluding autos rose 4.1%, Mastercard SpendingPulse said in a statement. That's stronger than last year's 3.4% growth. Online sales rose 10.4%; in-store sales rose 1.7%. The data are not adjusted for inflation. Demand was strongest for...

Multiple sources confirmed to Denver7 Investigates that Walter Huling, 31, was the driver of the Toyota Matrix that caused the fatal crash Monday. Court documents show he was out on parole The man who caused a fatal crash Monday along Highway 83 near Franktown was on parole and had a lengthy criminal record dating back to at least 2013, Denver7 Investigates learned. Multiple sources close to the investigation confirmed to Denver7 Investigates that Walter Huling, 31, was the man driving a stolen Toyota Matrix hatchback when he lost control and slammed into a Ford sedan in the oncoming lane. Huling...

Russian forces have surrounded the embattled Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk and control 70% of it, President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday, but Kyiv's top general said Ukraine was pushing back hard and that fighting was raging in the city centre. Moscow has been trying to take full control of Pokrovsk, which Russians call by its Soviet-era name of Krasnoarmeysk, since mid-2024 as part of its push to take the whole of the wider Donbas industrial region. Instead of mounting a full frontal assault on the city, which used to be home to over 60,000 people and be an important logistics...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Saturday said that the airspace “above and surrounding” Venezuela should be considered as “closed in its entirety,” an assertion that raised more questions about the U.S. pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. His government accused Trump of making a ”colonial threat” and seeking to undermine the South American country’s sovereignty.The White House did not respond to questions about what Trump posted on his Truth Social platform, and it was unclear whether he was announcing a new policy or simply reinforcing the messaging around his campaign against Maduro, which has involved...

This is a positive development for Ukraine.A political earthquake just hit Ukraine.Andriy Yermak—the chief of staff and right-hand man of Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky—resigned on Friday after anticorruption watchdogs raided his home and office. Such investigations have heated up in Ukraine the last few weeks but until now haven’t burned anyone nearly as prominent as Yermak, whose political power arguably rivaled that of the president himself.Assuming you’ve read my article on Yermak from October, you can probably guess that I consider this a salutary development. Depending on how Zelensky handles the crisis, Yermak’s ouster could signal a beginning of the...

The release of a 28-point plan last week to end the war in Ukraine has generated heaps of commentary—and controversy. Part of that is outstanding questions over its authorship, which Reuters reported on Wednesday drew from a Russian paper submitted to the Trump Administration last month. Following a diplomatic scramble from Ukraine and Europe this week, a 19-point plan far more favorable to Kyiv has been developed. But unfortunately the revised plan, based on a European counter-proposal, stands no chance of being accepted by Moscow. The stakes are enormous. If the peace talks fall apart, a war that has claimed...

The Optional Practical Training program must be reformed—or ended outright.For too long, many Republicans have confined their criticisms of mass migration to illegal immigration. But the truth is that our entire legal immigration system is broken—and the consequences for Americans have been nothing short of disastrous.The Optional Practical Training (OPT) program is a clear example of the urgent need for reform.Recent reports have outlined the Trump Administration’s plans to overhaul or end OPT. As I noted in a letter to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and USCIS Director Joseph Edlow earlier this month, this is welcome news. It would represent a...

...We don’t have good fidelity on who any of them are." The 29-year-old Afghan man suspected of shooting two National Guardsmen yesterday in Washington, D.C., was “clean on all checks,” a senior U.S. official told CNN. The official told CNN that “the US government had been doing continuous, annual vetting of individuals since the Afghans’ arrival in the US, especially in the wake of the failed terror plot disrupted before the election last year in Oklahoma, which involved an Afghan evacuee.” But a senior intelligence official told Public, “There wasn’t adequate screening done,” of Afghan evacuees. “We don’t have good...

A harrowing US podcast documents a community’s struggle against immigration raids – and warns us about herd mentalityEarlier this year, the Trump administration reversed the convention that nobody would be snatched by immigration and customs enforcement, or ICE, by a school, church or hospital. Since then, teachers have reported classrooms a third empty, as parents are too scared to send their kids in – volunteers walk them there and back.In the Rogers Park area of Chicago, a group of citizens are organising to resist such immigration raids. Sometimes, it’s simple non-violent tactics, such as slowing officers down by walking in...

The Democrats’ latest con job is blaming President Donald Trump for former President Joe Biden’s legacy inflation and claiming that Zohran Mamdani-style socialism will solve the “affordability problem” rather than make it far worse. If the Ocasio-Cortez-Sanders-Jeffries crowd gets away with this propaganda, the next “red wave” to wash over America will be a Marxist-controlled Congress in 2026. Without question, families continue to feel the sting of Biden’s high prices — at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and in their monthly rent. Lower-income families feel it most, because they devote almost one-third of their budgets to food and...

In Massachusetts, Gov. Healey boasted about blocking two gas pipelines. That’s embarrassing now.Speaking in Indiana on July 29, 2025, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Lee Zeldin, and Energy Secretary, Chris Wright, detailed moves to repeal the 2009 Obama-Biden ‘endangerment’ finding, used to justify much of their climate agenda.The politically-driven effort to force a transition from traditional power to wind, solar and battery has produced an energy crisis in blue America. Progressive-led states are beset by increasing electricity rates and declining reliability. Although their leaders uniformly blame President Trump, the costs have become so high that some on the left are finally...