Free Republic

The hemp industry is gearing up for a lobbying effort following a provision in the recent government funding package meant to stop the sale of intoxicating hemp products but could inadvertently destroy a legitimate $28 billion industry and kill 300,000 American jobs. The new ban tucked into the spending bill prohibits products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container and is aimed at stopping the sale of intoxicating products often sold in gas stations and convenience stores. While the spending bill was still in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to remove the language,...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continually touts her fundraising as a grass-roots effort that relies on small donations from regular people — but her campaign coffers are stuffed with big contributions from celebrities, wealthy activists and executives, a Post review found. Even many of AOC’s small-dollar contributions are larger than meets the eye, under an accounting loophole that lets big donors masquerade as little ones. Among the bold-faced names whose identities are buried inside her lengthy Federal Election Commission reports are Jane Fonda, the actress and activist has given $8,300 to the socialist lawmaker and “Squad” member over the years, including $500...

"I want to tell my comrades that with our president who constantly lies, steals money. Well, it it's a bad idea to to fight with the Russians."

An 11-year-old boy was killed in a road rage incident in Henderson, Nevada, after two drivers got into a heated exchange along the freeway and one fired into the other vehicle, according to police. "We lost a life today that we didn't have to lose," Henderson Police Department Chief Reggie Rader said during a press conference on Friday. At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Friday, two vehicles in traffic began "jockeying for positions trying to pass each other on the congested freeway," police said during a press conference on Friday. One of the vehicles tried to pass on the shoulder of...

DMV employee getting paid $3,000 per illegal she took commercial drivers license tests for “Took commercial driver's license, or CDL, written exams — each time she'd use disguises, sunglasses and surgical masks to look like a different person taking the exam” “She'd split a $1,500 to $3,000 payment for each bogus test with accomplices in the DMV” Now imagine similar scams like this taking place in every county in every state in America

An immigrant who was arrested after a Milwaukee judge allegedly helped him dodge federal agents has been deported. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, pleaded guilty in September to illegally reentering the United States after he reached a deal with prosecutors. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security tweeted Friday afternoon that he has now been deported. The tweet did not say whether he was transported back to his native Mexico or some other destination. The Associated Press sent an email message to his attorney, Martin Pruhs, seeking more details but he did not immediately respond. Flores-Ruiz is at the center of a case...

It has been almost 20 years since Shelby Steele published the best-known of his five books on race, “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.” A lot has happened since. In 2006 “we hadn’t had President Obama, Ferguson, Trump, George Floyd, DEI, Black Lives Matter, President Biden,” Mr. Steele says. “We also hadn’t had Oct. 7.” Mr. Steele, 79, is one of America’s foremost black conservative thinkers, recently retired as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He is still hard at work, on a film made by his son, Eli Steele,...

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -With the United States absent from the U.N. annual international climate summit for the first time in three decades, China is stepping into the limelight as a leader in the fight against global warming. Its country pavilion dominates the entrance hall of the sprawling COP30 conference grounds in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem, executives from its biggest clean energy companies are presenting their visions for a green future to large audiences in English, and its diplomats are working behind the scenes to ensure constructive talks. Those were Washington's roles, but they now reside with Beijing. China’s transformation...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — The Vatican on Saturday returned 62 artifacts to Indigenous peoples from Canada as part of the Catholic Church’s reckoning with its role in helping suppress Indigenous culture in the Americas. Pope Leo XIV gave the artifacts, including an iconic Inuit kayak, and supporting documentation to a delegation of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops during an audience. According to a joint statement from the Vatican and Canadian church, the pieces were a gift and a “concrete sign of dialogue, respect and fraternity.” The items were part of the Vatican Museum’s ethnographic collection, known as the Anima...

Department of Justice leadership directed federal prosecutors to give them examples by Friday of hurdles they have encountered with judges when working on cases about attacks on law enforcement and Antifa.... The areas were laid out in a bulleted list and included assaults on law enforcement, obstruction of immigration authorities, investigations into certain "domestic terror organizations, such as Antifa" or "interstate threats, doxxing, and/or hoaxes...." "Courts exist to apply the law, not invent policy from the bench," the spokesperson said. "The Department is committed to strengthening our litigation posture at every level so we can better defend public safety initiatives...

A left-wing group behind the massive "No Kings" protests targeting President Donald Trump and his administration launched its largest primary undertaking: targeting Senate Democrats who joined Republicans to reopen the government. "This is no longer about them - it’s about us. We’re done waiting for Democrats to find their spine," Ezra Levin, co-founder and co-executive director of Indivisible, said in a Monday press release. "We can’t afford a weak and cowardly Democratic Party... The protests are supported by dozens of left-wing and liberal groups, with Indivisible, the 50501 movement and the No Kings Organization, itself, identified as the top organizers...

US President Donald Trump has said the UK must follow America's hard line on immigration or 'you're not going to have a country left'. He praised his own immigration policies, claiming he had reduced people entering the US illegally to 'zero', adding the UK must 'take [migrants] back immediately'. Speaking to GB News, he called for Keir Starmer's government to deploy the military to tackle the small boats problem in a wide-ranging interview that also saw him threaten again to sue the BBC for up to $5 billion. It comes after the BBC sent a personal apology to the US...

When two dating apps, Blued and Finka, disappeared from the Apple AppStore in China on November 11, a whole world threatened to disappear. The apps are two of the most popular among China’s LGBT+ community. Blued had been downloaded tens of millions of times, according to the BBC. In taking them down, the authorities removed two major LGBT+ spaces, leaving little in their place. Apple said it removed the apps “based on an order from the Cyberspace Administration of China”. Evidence of hardening attitudes towards the LGBT+ community in China has been increasing for some time. Before targeting Blued and...

A Democrat congressman was pictured looking at sexually explicit photographs while on a plane - in full view of a disgusted passenger. California Rep. Brad Sherman, 71, was seen in images circulating social media ogling images of scantily-clad women on his iPad while sat on a flight. An X user who first shared the images of Sherman on the aircraft wrote in a post seen by millions: 'Why did California Congressman Brad Sherman feel it was appropriate to look at porn on his iPad during a flight today?' 'His district deserves better representation than this!!' The social media post featured...

Not long ago Ford boldly declared that soon, 40% of its production would be all-electric. The F-150 Lightning was going to be the vanguard of that revolution. It was going to be the world beater, the very model of electric—EV—glory. Alas, it was not to be. The conventionally powered F-150 has long been the most popular truck in America, the standard by which others were judged and the best selling. Unfortunately for Ford, the F-150 Lightning isn’t any of those things. According to AutoBlog.com, Ford has lost $13 billion on its EVs since 2023, and surely more than that before....

Several thousand Boeing machinists in the Midwest who assemble military aircraft and weapons voted Thursday to approve a new contract, ending a three-month strike that saw them reject four earlier offers from the company. The breakthrough five-year labor agreement includes a 24% wage hike across the life of the contract and a $6,000 signing bonus, according to the union representing the 3,200 workers who walked off the job on Aug. 4. “We’re proud of what our members have fought for together and are ready to get back to building the world’s most advanced military aircraft,” the International Association of Machinists...

Teriomas Tremice Johnson, 31, is accused of leaving her three children in a Pontiac, Michigan, apartment that did not have running water and was littered with human waste and rotten food. Now, the father of Johnson's 9-year-old daughter is speaking out after the child and her siblings were found living in what authorities call "deplorable condition." "I stayed there for hours. I was determined not to leave until I came back with my daughter," said Julian Gary. "This was going on for a while, and I'm sick of it. I'm tired of having to chase to protect my daughter." Gary...

Press release – Calls for Scottish Government to reject extreme abortion up to birth plans 14 November 2025 – A review of abortion law in Scotland commissioned by the Scottish Government, and undertaken by a group chaired by a former trustee of the UK’s largest abortion provider, has recommended that Scotland scrap the 24-week time limit and allow abortions on social grounds, including for sex-selective purposes, right up to birth. In Scotland, 98% of the 18,710 abortions performed in 2024 were done so under section 1(1)(a) of the Abortion Act, which is interpreted by abortion providers to allow abortions to...

A member of the Communist Party USA was elected this month to the Ithaca Common Council in New York on the Democratic and Working Families Party lines, defeating an independent candidate in a two-way race for the city’s Ward 5 seat. A November 7 People’s World report shared by the Communist Party USA confirmed that Hannah Shvets, a Cornell University student elected November 4 as an Alderperson, is a member of the organization’s Ithaca club. The report added that she also ran with support from the Democratic Socialists of America and its student affiliate, the Young Democratic Socialists of America,...

China’s economy continues to drag as fresh October data shows weakening momentum across consumer spending, industrial output and fixed-asset investment. The latest numbers point to one of the steepest investment declines China has seen in decades, raising new concerns about the durability of Beijing’s recovery hopes and what the slowdown means for global markets. China’s October Data Shows Broad Softening Across the EconomyNew figures from the National Bureau of Statistics reveal that key engines of China’s economy decelerated again in October.Retail and Production Lose Momentum• Retail sales rose 2.9 percent year over year in October. This is down from the...