Free Republic

A McDonald’s restaurant in the progressive Washington, D.C. suburb of Fairfax County, Virginia has banned under 21-year-olds from indoor dining after “repeated incidents of student violence.” Adults must ring a doorbell to be let in by staff. The McDonald’s is located just outside the Beltway in the Franconia neighborhood between Alexandria and Springfield. It has been a popular hangout for students of several nearby schools, including Thomas A. Edison High School. A sign posted at the door says, “RING THE DOORBELL SAFETY NOTICE: Effective immediately. Due to repeated incidents of student violence, this McDonald’s location is temporarily closed for dine-in...

San Francisco has erected a statue of a woman with no clothes on which will be greeting visitors in front of the Ferry Building. The 45-foot-tall statue was installed to "jazz up downtown" according to CBS News. One worker was seen doing a "surgical procedure" on the statue's rear end. The sculpture and base weigh 30,000 pounds. "This sculpture is about being seen. Women’s presence in public art is rare. When they are depicted, it is often through outdated or passive narratives," said artist Marco Cochrane."She stands strong, aware, and grounded—calling for a world where all people can walk freely...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer just admitted on PBS that Democrats intentionally stacked the courts with 235 “progressive judges” in order to stop President Donald Trump “time after time after time.” Since President Trump triumphantly returned to the White House on January 20, 2025, his administration has faced an all-out legal assault — not from Congress or the will of the American people — but from a weaponized judicial branch hijacked by radical leftists. In just under two months, President Trump has been hit with 132 legal challenges, with only two resolved. And now, Chuck Schumer has admitted it all...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy was spotted at a Washington, DC, watering hole on a date with a progressive media mogul and strategist who’s boosted his efforts as a leading anti-Trump politician in Congress — just months after the Connecticut Democrat announced he and his wife were separating. Murphy, 51, was caught “cuddling” with Courier Newsroom publisher Tara McGowan, 39, last Monday by the bar at the Red Hen, located just one mile north of Capitol Hill in the district’s Bloomingdale neighborhood, a source told The Post, sharing a photo of the pair’s romantic rendezvous. The source said Murphy wrapped...

His political career may be over — but his heart will go on. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio revealed Thursday that he is in a new romantic relationship — with a raven-haired progressive pundit decades his junior, who shares his lefty views and his desire to “cuddle.” The 63-year-old Democrat is romantically involved with liberal activist Nomiki Konst, 41, and plans to spend Valentine’s Day snuggling with her and sipping wine. “Nomi and I have started a really lovely relationship, just in time for Valentine’s Day. We’ve known each other for a long time and are very kindred souls,” he...

James Carville suggested there could be a "plant" in progressive Democratic politics during his podcast on Thursday to see how many "stupid things" the party could embrace while discussing the Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair race. The political consultant read a description of former DNC Chair Jamie Harrison's announcement during the elections that they must be "gender balanced." Harrison said during the election process, "Our rules specify that when we have a non-binary candidate or officer, the non-binary individual is counted as neither male nor female, and the remaining six offices must be gender balanced with the results of the...

“All these things are connected. This is a challenging time. But we’re up to this challenge.” That was California Gov. Gavin Newsom back in 2020 when he was busy blaming “climate change” for the wildfires that erupted that year. “I quite literally have no patience for climate change deniers,” he said. Four years later, Newsom is again blaming “climate change” for the fires ravaging LosAngeles. But wait. If climate change really is to blame, why was California so obviously, so woefully, so inexcusably unprepared? Someone needs to ask Newsom why the state didn’t spend the last four years aggressively clearing...

Kentucky Bishop John Stowe has expressed his “dismay” over the overwhelming Catholic voter support for Donald Trump, insisting the U.S. Bishops should have warned Americans about the “danger” of the election. Stowe, a well-known liberal prelate, said the bishops should have issued a public statement of disagreement with Trump’s policies following the election, the way they did in the case of Joe Biden four years ago. There is the issue of Trump’s character, Stowe told Crux, an online Catholic news service, “and when somebody has such a flawed character that has been manifestly obvious throughout his previous presidency and the...

Tony Campolo, a bestselling author, teacher and evangelist preacher known for championing a movement called “Red Letter Christianity,” has died. He was 89. Campolo’s death was announced on his Facebook page on Tuesday evening. The message to his friends and followers said the notable preacher “died at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania,” where he was “surrounded by his family and loved ones.” “His life was a testament to faith, love, and the transformative power of relationships, and his influence will be felt for generations to come,” the announcement added. “For more than six decades, as a pastor, distinguished professor,...

Progressives are at odds with one another over how to hone their message to voters after losing the White House again to President-elect Trump. There’s little disagreement that things need to change. Democrats’ most recent electoral strategy has been rendered ineffective, delivering Trump back to Washington with his party’s full control of Congress. But there’s no consensus about what the left should do next. One camp says the future is with economic populists, a group that puts financially disadvantaged voters of all demographics at the forefront. They believe that if Democrats prioritize class struggles over culture wars on the national...

Progressive Democrats are pushing to take over the party leadership as in-fighting breaks out following Kamala Harris’s election defeat. Left-wingers are hoping to install Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman, to take over the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and swing it away from the current centrist leadership ahead of the 2026 midterms.

From the left: Progressive Moment Is Done “The progressive moment is well and truly over,” argues the Liberal Patriot’s Ruy Teixeira — because many of its ideas “were pretty terrible and most voters, outside the precincts of the progressive left itself, were never very interested in them.” For example, “loosening restrictions on illegal immigration was a terrible idea and voters hate it.” So too with “promoting lax law enforcement and tolerance of social disorder,” “insisting that everyone should look at all issues through the lens of identity politics” and “telling people fossil fuels are evil and they must stop using...

Unconventional college funds LGBTQ and DEI programs amid budget cuts, layoffs A private Massachusetts liberal arts college which openly touts its embrace of progressive concepts continues to grapple with big budget deficits. The budget woes have not stopped campus leaders from funding programs advancing LGBTQ and DEI concepts amid laying off employees and slashing departments. Hampshire College, which made headlines years ago when it took down the U.S. flag to promote multiculturalism and more recently offered Florida students wanting to flee from Gov. Ron DeSantis streamlined enrollment, is currently laying off 9 percent of its staff to close a budget...

Former US Secretary of State John Kerry spoke against freedom of speech at a recent World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting, saying that "allowing individuals to freely post their thoughts on social media hampers the ability of government to build a consensus around a favored policy. It used to be that ill-informed nobodies had no way of spreading their ignorance. Editors of newspapers could weed out unacceptable viewpoints appearing in their 'letters to the editor' page. But now anyone can reach millions of readers by posting to the Internet." "Efforts to mute these unwanted opinions by having government agents intimidate the...

Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr owes Israel a debt of gratitude for taking out the terrorists responsible for his father’s assassination in Lebanon four decades ago, but don’t expect the progressive former NBA star to say thank you, an Israeli columnist said. Kerr’s father, Malcolm Kerr, was gunned down in 1984 while serving as the president of American University in Beirut by two members of an Islamic jihadist group that is believed to have had ties to Hezbollah. “But don’t expect a thank you. It’s not in his progressive lexicon.” He has not commented publicly on the Israeli military’s...

As the talk of socialism becomes more widespread on the Left, particularly within Democratic party politics, and as anger at President Trump boils over, the advocacy of political scientists will become even clearer: first, Progressivism, then socialism, and ultimately, Leninism.... A contrary example both of the theory and practice of politics, because its focus is on advancing the principles of the Declaration of Independence, are the panels and scholarship sponsored by the Claremont Institute—recently honored at the White House with the National Humanities Medal. So Claremont has its work cut out for it. How far will the Left take political...

Jason and Travis Kelce have become one of the most-popular NFL brother duos in history. While Peyton and Eli Manning dominated most of the NFL brother talk for years, Jason and Travis Kelce are coming for their throne lately. Jason and Travis Kelce have their own podcast and are reportedly seeking a $100 million deal for it. Perhaps we'll see them with their own "Manningcast" style live shows in the future, too. And, like the Manning brothers, Travis and Jason Kelce have made it pretty clear which way they lean politically over the years. Travis, who is still playing, and...

Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said Friday on MSNBC’s “All In” that Vice President Kamala Harris laid out a “strong progressive agenda” during her economic speech earlier today. When asked for his reaction to the speech, Sanders said, “I think given the fact she has been a candidate for only three weeks I think she’s doing really really well in a whole lot of ways. I think what she laid out today was a strong progressive agenda. Obviously in the weeks and months to come, I think she will add more specificity to some proposals and she’s going to add to...

President Biden claimed Tuesday that he and Vice President Kamala Harris share policies that are not “progressive” — tying his legacy to hers in another comment from the White House stressing their join legacy and complicating potential efforts for Harris to distance herself from his record Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked Biden “how much more progressive is Vice President Kamala Harris than you as a candidate in the general?” “The issues we’ve worked on together have made big progress economically,” the president responded while walking out of the White House en route to a Cancer Moonshot event in Louisiana. “No...

Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., was largely unknown to voters across the country when Vice President Kamala Harris selected him as her running mate, so his record is coming under national scrutiny for the first time. Unfortunately for Walz and the Democrats, his record as governor of Minnesota is every bit as bad as that of the Biden-Harris administration, if not worse. When the George Floyd riots began in Minneapolis in May 2020, Walz dithered. For four days, while Minneapolis and other cities burned, Walz refused to call out the National Guard. By the time the riots were finally brought under...