Free Republic

Could the former First Lady of the United States eventually become the next commissioner of the WNBA? There have been rumblings throughout this season about WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert stepping away at the end of the year. Well, she confirmed this Friday that she'll be retiring on Dec. 31. "Over the years, it has been amazing to watch WNBA players thrive and lead the massive cultural surge around women's sports," Engelbert said in a statement. "I retire knowing we have built something bigger, stronger and more enduring than we could have imagined. I am grateful to the WNBA and NBA...

With a cast of characters including a former prime minister, some of the richest executives in France and Germany, Paris' biggest-ever corporate crime trial continued this week with 37 defendants in the dock. France's largest-ever corporate corruption trial resumed in Paris this week with more drama than your average Mexican soap opera. The case offered further tales of illicit backroom dealing, a €5 million divorce settlement tab picked up by French taxpayers and allegations that a former French prime minister accepted bribes in connection with a string of acquisitions made by the state-owned French oil conglomerate Elf Aquitane in the...

The Department of Justice announced Thursday that it is creating a task force to take a fresh look at drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations linked to Hezbollah after an investigative report last month claimed that the Obama administration turned a blind eye to such activities to preserve the Iran nuclear deal. The task force, dubbed the Hezbollah Financing and Narcoterrorism Team (HFNT), will begin its work by reviewing investigations stemming from Project Cassandra, a campaign led by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) targeting the Lebanese terror group’s actions. According to a Politico report published last month, officials with the Obama Justice...

Given that he deliberately allowed Iran to flood America with deadly drugs and grow its nuclear program, it’s easy to argue that he is. As Barack Obama slowly fades from the landscape, let’s consider how he has helped to destroy Western civilization, especially the United States of America. He did this via his fealty to Iran, which allowed unchecked, deadly drug trafficking into America while giving Iran the time, space, and funds to develop its nuclear weapons. The Obama Administration killed hundreds of thousands of Americans by allowing the Iran-founded and funded terrorist organization Hezbollah to operate in the Western...

RICHMOND, Va. — Barack Obama Elementary School will not open this week due to mold, and students will temporarily relocate to Clark Springs Elementary School while remediation continues. Richmond Public Schools Superintendent Jason Kamras said in a message to families Monday that teachers and staff setting up classrooms discovered "additional areas of mold growth (for example, behind bulletin board paper)," prompting the district to send everyone home for additional cleaning and testing. "All of this is realistically going to take several days. So we will not be returning to the Obama building this week. Our goal is to do so...

TRUMP IS OUR PRESIDENT NOW!

“. . . it’s subversion and nothing about it is accidental. it’s a well worn playbook to use the democratic institutions of a high trust state to destroy a civilization.” —El Gato Malo on Substack An eerie quiet masks the panic rising among the many players in the long-running train of crimes carried out under color-of-law against the people of the this country that goes roughly under the clunky name of The Grand Conspiracy. What is Joe DiGenova up to, exactly, in the Southern District of Florida, with its several grand juries grinding away? Indictments will fly, for sure, but...

Earlier this summer, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that 50 organizations would no longer receive grants for the teen pregnancy prevention program (TPP), including Planned Parenthood. A federal judge has now blocked that change, though the organizations won't begin receiving funding again yet. Key Takeaways: * In June, over 50 organizations, including Planned Parenthood, were informed that they would no longer receive TPP grants due to the inclusion of "sexually explicit" content in their program materials. * Planned Parenthood and other groups have been criticized for including age-inappropriate, graphic sexual content in their sexual education programs....

This is Grammy-winning artist Pras Michel shaking hands with Barack Obama in 2012. Just officially reported to prison to begin a 14-year federal sentence after prosecutors proved he helped funnel millions in illegal foreign money into Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.The operation: Prosecutors proved Michel accepted more than $100 million from Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho in a covert influence scheme tied to influencing U.S. elections. The laundering network: Michel used straw donors to secretly route foreign cash into Obama’s 2012 campaign, bypassing federal election laws designed to prevent foreign influence in American elections. The verdict: A federal jury convicted him...

El-Sayed won despite performing poorly among black primary voters. His coalition skewed younger, whiter, college-educated and progressive. In Detroit, Michigan's largest majority-black city, El-Sayed's opponent won more than 60 percent of the Democrat Senate vote. That may work in a Democrat primary. But will it work in November? Enter Obama. During the 2024 presidential campaign, Obama visited a Kamala Harris campaign office in Pittsburgh and said he wanted to "speak some truths." He complained that enthusiasm for Harris was weaker than when he ran and said the problem "seems to be more pronounced with the brothers." Obama said: "You're coming...

Ward Churchill, the former University of Colorado professor whose writings and outspoken political views ignited a national debate over academic freedom and free speech, has died. His former lawyer says Churchill died of a stroke. ... Churchill was a longtime professor of ethnic studies at CU Boulder. He became a nationally controversial figure in higher education after an essay he wrote that referred to some of the victims of the 9/11 attacks as "little Eichmanns," a characterization that prompted widespread condemnation and made Churchill a national figure. The controversy soon expanded beyond his writings about the 9/11 attacks. In 2005,...

An attorney celebrated by the Obama White House for campaigning against violence toward women is now facing nine criminal charges over an alleged yearlong campaign of abuse and intimidation against his girlfriend. You cannot make this up. Cody McDavis, 32, the 6-foot-8 former University of Northern Colorado basketball standout who later earned a law degree from UCLA and joined the firm Vedder Price, was charged on July 20 with six felony counts and three misdemeanors. Prosecutors in Los Angeles County Superior Court allege he “willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly” followed and harassed his girlfriend from July 2025 through June 2026, leaving...

Pro-life leader says garden could lead to serious health risks or abuse if students use plants Purchase College, a public university in southeastern New York, is home to a student-run “Reproductive Justice Garden” that features plants promoted because of their abortifacient properties. Social media posts by the student club appear to encourage people to use the plants in the garden for self-induced abortions — which one pro-life leader told The College Fix she fears could lead to serious health risks or abuse. The garden, which was launched in 2019 and revamped in 2024, is run by students who are part...

Weeks after the Obama Presidential Center’s star-studded opening in Chicago, a subcontractor who previously claimed his company was stiffed for nearly $4 million has shut down operations and laid off 25 union workers. Mike Owen, the owner of Chicago-based Adamson Plumbing Contractors, told Fox News Digital that the financial fallout forced the company to abandon about half a dozen other construction jobs and left it on the verge of collapse. Owen described the shutdown as a painful decision he believed was necessary to save the company from bankruptcy. "Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in...

Barack Obama’s presidential library opened a few weeks ago with a star-studded celebration, and ongoing criticisms about its Star Wars-prison appearance and failure to pay contractors who worked on the monolith project. Now one subcontractor has shut down operations because the project manager has refused to pay for work that was done on the project. A report at Fox News outlines how Mike Owen, owner of Adamson Plumbing Contractors, confirmed his company was on the verge of collapse because of payments that were due, but never were made. “Laying off close to 30 people is something that no owner in...

President Donald Trump signed an executive order drastically shrinking the size of two national monument areas in Utah on Monday. The order applies to the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, shrinking their total coverage by roughly 90% from 3 million acres to 300,000. The areas were established as federal monuments by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2016, respectively. "They took the land from the people quite honestly," Trump said during the Monday signing ceremony. "We’re giving it back." Utah Gov. Spencer Cox also attended the signing and praised the move, saying the original size...

In the dangerous last two years of Obama's presidency, things could go from bad to worse. His allies are now backing a pro-Sharia populist in Nigeria's presidential election, with potentially disastrous results On Saturday, Nigerians will go to the polls to choose their president. The race pits an incumbent with an imperfect record against a former military dictator who has flirted with Islamism. As with the recent election in Israel, alumni of Obama are aiding the challenger -- and not because he would make the region safer. The decision Nigerians will make this weekend matters greatly, both for themselves and...

Premiums Could Jump More Than One-Third Over Two Years—Middle-Income Enrollees Face the Full Costs Without Enhanced Credits, Even as Existing Federal Subsidies Shield Most from Further Increases =================================================================== ACA Marketplace insurers are proposing a median premium increase of 14% for 2027— indicating a likely second consecutive year of double-digit increases, according to a new analysis of preliminary rate filings in 16 states and DC. If these increases hold, typical premiums for insurers participating in the ACA Marketplaces would jump by more than one-third between 2025 and 2027. Across the 77 ACA Marketplace insurers in the 16 states and DC that...

Gone are the days of university freshmen reading classical philosophers like Plato or contemporary pedagogues like Ta-Nehisi Coates. These days, incoming college students are lucky if they can get through Judy Blume’s “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.” According to a new “Survey of Adult Skills” conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development — a forum for 38 high-income, predominantly Western countries — a not insignificant number of adult students enrolled in higher education are now reading and doing math at a level which, in a more functional society, would be alarming for a middle schooler. The survey,...

Although Donald Trump’s defenders describe the Russia hoax and other efforts to frame the president as a "grand conspiracy," RealClearInvestigations has learned that the man now leading the probe of that scandal is pursuing multiple conspiracy prosecutions that are smaller and more manageable, according to several sources with direct knowledge of the probe. Since taking over the Justice Department’s far-flung investigation in April, veteran prosecutor Joseph diGenova and his team quickly concluded that combining all of the alleged wrongdoing, which ranges from falsifying evidence and committing perjury to leaking classified information and obstructing justice, into one unified plot and trying...