Free Republic

George Soros has been the go-to bogeyman for the American right — and right-wing leaders around the world — for years. The 95-year-old billionaire has funneled money into causes around the globe, supporting democratic endeavors, immigration efforts and criminal justice reform through his Open Society Foundations, which he founded in 1979. In the intervening decades, Soros, with his large network of progressive causes and opposition to strong-arm governments, has become the target of conspiracy theories in areas that range from Malaysia to his birth country of Hungary, where a so-called “Stop Soros” law made it illegal to aid undocumented immigrants...

Actor George Takei accused President Donald Trump and his allies of employing a Nazi playbook to exploit the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk. The Star Trek actor made his claim when sharing a Substack article on BlueSky with the headline, “Is Charlie Kirk Their Reichstag Moment?” “After Charlie Kirk’s murder, Trump and his allies wasted no time crafting an insidious and baseless narrative: that the left is violent, the right is under siege, and only they can restore order,” exclaimed Takei. “Sound familiar? The Nazis tried the same playbook.”

President Trump has begun a major escalation in his long-running efforts to stifle political opposition in the United States, using the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to make the baseless argument that Democratic organizations and protesters are part of a violent conspiracy against conservative values and the American way of life.

Bob Vylan made inflammatory remarks at Amsterdam concert after Kirk was gunned down at Utah universityControversial British punk-rap artist Bob Vylan appeared to revel in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, calling for the slain father of two to "rest in piss." "I want to dedicate this next one to an absolute piece of ---- of a human being," Vylan said at a concert in Amsterdam Saturday. Kirk, 31, was gunned down at Utah Valley University on Wednesday during a stop on his "American Comeback Tour." He was engaging in one of his signature debates with college students when a shot...

China is leading the world in industrial robots or programmable machines that are pioneering fast and cost-effective manufacturing. China currently holds over 50% of the world market share in industrial robots capable of assembly, production line handling, service tasks, machine feeding, palletizing, packaging, and more. Automation is fueling Chinese manufacturing in every sector from automotives to electronics. The advancement of AI will soon provide China with a cutting-edge ability to usher in a new era of humanoid robots that will become a portion of the future workforce. China installed around 290,000 new industrial robots in 2024, nearly twice as many...

Comedian Kathy Griffin revealed that she has downloaded the dating app Hinge in order to find herself a date, adding, “I have a lot of fear about men, the entire gender.” Griffin shared in a Monday Substack post that what “started out as a joke” between herself, singer Sia, and actress Nia Vardalos turned into her downloading the Hinge dating app and creating a profile. Why can’t I find a nice partner at a law firm or a semi-retired fireman?” the comedian asked

Abstract: The incidence of cancers has increased exponentially worldwide since the universal COVID-19 vaccination program began at the end of 2020. These cancers tend to present at an advanced stage, progress rapidly, and occur in younger patients. Additionally, some patients previously in remission have been reported to develop uncontrolled cancer relapses shortly after receiving a COVID-19 vaccination (usually a booster). The temporal association between these cancers and COVID-19 vaccination is undeniable. These observations have given rise to the term “turbo-cancers.” Although not a formally recognized oncologic classification, the term “turbo cancer” has gained traction among clinicians describing a pattern of...

This is the problem. Whitaker’s arrogance thinks that the US is so powerful that it can crush Russia without ever firing a shot and calling Putin “sick and twisted” when we started this war, and there were TWO peace deals which the WEST broke – not Russia. I have NEVER in my entire life witnessed such INCOMPETENT diplomacy. The Neocons have been instructing Trump to be strong and yield nothing to Putin, and he will fold. Peace is easy. Just HONOR the Minsk Agreement. But this is a war to destroy Russia, and Trump is a fool who is being...

I once considered pitching publishers a book called 101 Things That Are Now Suddenly Gay, cataloguing the increasing number of completely non-gay things that fanatical homos now claim are gay after all, from ball bearings to hovercraft, upon no rational basis whatsoever. Yet I have already been beaten to it by a temporary daily series from the pages of lefty U.K. newspaper The Guardian to celebrate this summer’s annual Gay Pride Month(s). This was called “My Unexpected Pride Icon” and was basically my old proposed book in short serial form—but taken seriously, not as a rainbow-mocking joke. ...

President Donald Trump’s admission last week that Iran had refused to abandon uranium enrichment—even after U.S.–Israeli strikes in June—exposes the harsh reality of Mideast power politics. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited Washington on Monday, ostensibly to discuss Gaza, but, according to a well-informed Israeli journalist, with the next steps on Iran topping his actual agenda. Trump now faces a pivotal choice: statesmanship in pursuit of U.S. interests or subservience to Israel’s radical government. The recent strikes were meant to cripple Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Instead, they proved the limits of coercion. Satellite imagery shows Iran rebuilding its bombed Fordow facility,...

Christians are permitted to hate sin and death without explaining how they fit into some inscrutable providence of Almighty God.The flooding in Texas that has killed at least 100 people, including dozens of little girls at a Christian camp on the Guadalupe River, is the kind of catastrophe that causes people to question the existence of God. How could a loving God allow this to happen? How can a system of Christian belief in a God of justice and mercy be reconciled with such suffering and devastation and death?These questions aren’t new, of course. They regularly and understandably resurface at...

Lily Allen says she "can't remember" how many abortions she's had. On an episode of her podcast Miss Me?, the British singer, 40, shared that she used to "get pregnant all the time" and noted that she's had several abortions. "Abortions, I've had a few. But then again, I can't remember exactly how many...I think maybe like, I want to say four or five," Allen said as her co-host Miquita Oliver added that she's also had "about five." As she recalled one of her experiences, Allen said, "I remember once getting pregnant and the man paying for my abortion, and...

On the 10th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationally, supporters say they are secure but also wary and watchful.Could same-sex marriage be next?Gay Americans and their allies have much to celebrate on Thursday, the 10th anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court decision that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Same-sex marriage has, by almost every indication, become ingrained in everyday American life. Since the decision, there have been 591,000 same-sex marriages, and today, nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of the policy. Same-sex couples are staples in contemporary movies and television shows, and reside, often with their...

For the first time, mice born to two fathers have grown up and produced offspring, scientists in China have revealed. The researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University managed to insert two sperm cells - one from each father - into a mouse egg whose nucleus had been removed. A gene editing technique was then used to reprogram parts of the sperm DNA to allow an embryo to develop – a process called androgenesis. The embryo, featuring the genetic material from two fathers, was transferred to a female womb and allowed to grow to term. Finally, the resulting offspring (male) managed...

.. every objective metric, support for trans rights is worse now than it was six or seven years ago. And that’s not isolated to just trans issues. I think if you look across issues of gender right now, you have seen a regression. Marriage equality support is actually lower now than it was a couple of years ago in a recent poll. support that we saw for trans rights in 2016, 2017 — it was a mirage of support in some ways. Because I think, in the postmarriage world, there was a transfer of support from the L.G.B. to the...

Imagine going to the doctor and being told that the medication you’ve been taking for years is now illegal to prescribe to you. The doctor can give it to other people who are different from you — people experiencing depression, for example, or women going through menopause, or cancer patients — but it’s no longer allowed for people like you. ...news broke of a manager’s amendment to the budget that changed what was initially a ban on gender-affirming care for youth on Medicaid into a ban on adult transition care on Medicaid. A change to one line in the budget...

She is one half of a Trump-world power couple. But she’s on Team Elon. It’s gotten complicated. It was the three-word gavel-bang heard across Washington — the conversation-ender meant to cow colleagues and cabinet secretaries, deployed daily by a slight woman with a big job: “Elon wants this.” For months, Katie Miller, the all-purpose operative for the world’s richest man, had been entrusted to help execute Elon Musk’s merry rampage through the federal government, conveying his priorities, his vision, his likes and dislikes with the tacit force of an executive order. When she spoke, Ms. Miller implied to Trump acolytes...

Any use of nuclear weapons likely will result in immediate global escalation.Israel has lost the initiative. Clearly losing the war. Large numbers of Israelis have fled or are fleeing Israel. “The tribe” is migrating.United States is staking all of our might on defending what amounts to maybe a couple million core Israelis. A country dependent on massive American support while we bleed.More than two million Arabs live in tiny Israel amid a total of only about 9 million people.Iran’s allies are powerful, proximate, and easily resupply Iran. Such as China using the new rail system:The global center of mass —...

The power of principles and perseverance.The first Karate Kid movie was released in June 1984, and presently, the story lives on with the new release of Karate Kid: Legends. I recently re-watched The Karate Kid and The Karate Kid Part II with my own kids, and these films were just as good as I remembered. When I was growing up in the ’80s, these films instilled lessons that still resonate. So, in light of the Legends release, I thought it would be fun to pay homage to some classic takes from the originals and point out that Mister Miyagi’s lessons...

The Trump administration is open to arresting Supreme Court judges, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told it on Monday morning. “You guys arrested a Milwaukee County Circuit judge for allegedly helping illegal immigrants get away,” Fox News’s Peter Doocy asked Leavitt. “As you guys look at other judges, would you ever arrest somebody higher up on the judicial food chain, like a federal judge or even a Supreme Court justice?” “That’s a hypothetical question, again I defer you to the Department of Justice for individuals that they are looking at or individual cases. But let’s be clear about...