Free Republic

By the time the Pilsen Food Pantry opened on a recent morning, Ulysses Moreno had been there for two hours — with a line of people behind him that snaked around the corner. “This is a lifeline for me,” said Mr. Moreno, 39. He had lost his construction job a few days earlier, and with three teenagers at home, he wanted to make sure he could stock up. “Our food budget doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.” A few miles away, on Chicago’s glitzy Magnificent Mile, luxury hotels are bustling. Jewelry stores and designer boutiques do brisk business....

On Oct. 9, 2009, President Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for what the Norwegian Nobel Committee called “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”

Washington — American farmers are having a tough year, in no small part because of President Donald Trump’s trade war. Now, the White House is gearing up to extend them a multi-billion-dollar bailout, sources tell CNN. Surging costs and foreign retaliation from tariffs have hurt the US agriculture industry — as have immigration-related labor shortages and plummeting commodity prices. Farm production expenses are estimated to reach $467.4 billion in 2025, according to the Agriculture Department, up $12 billion from last year. Farm bankruptcies rose in the first half of the year to the highest level since 2021, according to US...

Taylor Swift’s new album “The Life of a Showgirl” is barely three days old, and already woke killjoys are tearing it apart, finding offensive lyrics where there are none. Overly online social media critics of Swift apparently instantaneously decided the new album is rife with racism and homophobia, as well as secret messages of support for the patriarchy, eugenics, and Donald Trump. Forensic “investigations” have uncovered “dog-whistles,” but only woke detectives themselves are capable of hearing them. Either Swift is a covert alt-right influencer, or her young critics have been taught to see oppression everywhere, including where it quite clearly...

Shocking Statements From Putin🗣️😮New Massive Strike On Energy Sector💥⚡️Military Summary 2025.10.03

The line between church and state was nowhere to be found at Sunday's service, which drew masses of Charlie Kirk followers. A capacity crowd filled Glendale’s State Farm Stadium on Sunday, with thousands of people shut out of the 63,000-seat venue and directed to overflow seating at the nearby Desert Diamond Arena. Then, in both venues, they sat through a more than five-hour marathon of unapologetic Christian nationalism in honor of Charlie Kirk, the Arizona-based right-wing activist who was murdered on Sept. 10 at a college event in Utah. Christian nationalism is both a political and religious ideology that seeks...

Heavy metal icons Gwar staged a mock beheading of Elon Musk and murdered President Trump during their performance at this weekend’s Riot Fest, with critics slamming the band for “normalizing violence.” Shocking video shows the chainsaw-wielding Musk mannequin, dressed in sunglasses, a baseball cap, a black “D.O.G.E.” t-shirt, matching black jeans and a jacket being decapitated by a member of the band mid-show at the Chicago rock festival. To cheers from the crowd, the mannequin’s head comes flying off with a slice of the costumed band member’s sword, sending a jet of fake blood spurting into the air. Gwar —...

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...