Free Republic

I have spent the past week in London. The city’s transformation, which I had followed only abstractly in the newspapers, has prompted a visceral shock. “I haven’t been to London since I was a student,” I told a group of British journalists. “What the hell happened?” “The fact that you would ask such a question,” one responded, “is an act of racism.” The others laughed. The unstated premise of the joke was that everyone knows what the hell happened—mass immigration—but no one is allowed to speak about it. The statistics reveal the general trend. Since my last visit nearly two...

There's a lot to unpack here. Most of the origins of what's unfolding now are self-induced misery, including some related breaking news happening in the United Kingdom, even as I am trying to get this post put together.The two main problems that are blatantly obvious and completely ignored through all of this are excessively lax immigration and asylum policies on behalf of Western countries - particularly if they nurture any collective colonial guilt at all - and the absolute refusal of those afforded the opportunity to immigrate to assimilate.Hell - not even assimilate. How about the ability to just appreciate...

Probably everyone has heard the conventional wisdom that a glass of wine a day is good for you. The problem is that it's based on flawed scientific research, according to a report. However, not all studies have painted such a rosy picture—and the new analysis sheds light on why. In a nutshell, studies linking moderate drinking to health benefits suffer from fundamental design flaws, said Tim Stockwell, Ph.D. The major issue: Those studies have generally focused on older adults and failed to account for people's lifetime drinking habits. So moderate drinkers were compared with "abstainer" and "occasional drinker" groups that...

Perhaps skip that in-flight negroni.You’ve had a good year. You and your significant other are about to board that long-haul flight to your well-deserved salmon-fishing vacation in Scotland, where you’ll be pampered just like King Charles in a real Scottish castle — with its own river, no less. Your wellies, your waders, and your fishing kit are on the plane. Next stop, Edinburgh and on to the wild Highlands. In the lounge with time to kill, you two decide to toast embarking on this adventure by ordering up a round of delicious Johnnie Walker Black on ice. Scotland, right? A...

Buckets of blood dripped from Ebrahim Raisi, the 8th president of Iran, for his roles on the “Death Committee” and other atrocities under his direction. He wore a black turban to claim that he descended from the Prophet Muhammad. The Shiite president did not survive the helicopter crash of May 19, 2024. Who will mourn the death of an evil man who presided over the death and torture of so many? Dissidents were tortured, subjected to cruel inhuman treatment, and killed. A political purge against political dissidents lasted five months during 1988. Ordered by Ayatollah Khomeini, the “Death Committee” was...

A Dutch woman who has been in jail in Qatar since mid-March after she reported being raped, has been found guilty of "illicit consensual fornication" and being "drunk in a public place." At a court hearing in Doha Monday, the 22-year old, whom CNN has identified only as Laura, was handed a one-year suspended sentence and placed on probation for three years for the sex-related charge, and fined 3,000 Qatari Riyals ($823) for being drunk outside a licensed location. She'll almost certainly be deported immediately. A Syrian man also appeared alongside her and was found guilty of the same crimes....

1 in 3 Muslims living in the UK want Islam to be declared the national religion and for everyone to live under the brutal system of Sharia law which calls for beheadings and amputations. Less than 1 in 4 Muslims opposed the move while the majority were unwilling to commit. Among younger Muslims 18-24, 1 in 5 believed that making Islam “our national religion” was “very desirable”, and a total of 43% supported redefining the UK as an Islamic state. Only 16% opposed it. None effectively sympathize with Israel. Previously 1 in 4 Muslims had sympathized with the 7/7 suicide...

New York City has agreed to pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit filed by two Muslim women who were forced to remove their hijabs for police mugshots. Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz filed the class-action lawsuit in 2018 claiming they felt shamed and exposed and liked their treatment to be strip-searched. 'When they forced me to take off my hijab, I felt as if I were naked. I'm not sure if words can capture how exposed and violated I felt,' Clark said. 'I'm so proud today to have played a part in getting justice for thousands of New Yorkers.'...

A federal judge denied a motion Thursday from Nassau County to avoid a state lawsuit against its policy to prevent men from participating in women’s sporting events at county-run facilities. Republican Executive Bruce Blakeman of Nassau County on Feb. 22 signed an executive order that would deny the use of county parks and property for women’s sporting events unless they limit participation to one biological sex, based on participants’ birth certificates. After being threatened with a lawsuit by Democratic Attorney General Letitia James of New York over the policy, Blakeman sought an order from the U.S. District Court for the...

An incident in Lahore Pakistan stands as a damning indictment of modern Islamic society. From distant Pakistan, an NBC news story surfaces that serves to remind us of everything we need to know about our current crisis. A week ago, a female police officer in Lahore, Pakistan, patrolling a shopping district in the busy muslim city, saw a crowd gathering, to taunt, accuse, and threaten a young woman in a colorful Kurta (a long shirt-dress). Her dress was covered with bright and abstract calligraphy that the crowd assumed was an improper quoting of the Koran. In Pakistan, when a crowd...

Way back in 2005, when I was an MP in the Netherlands, my party was strategising about the upcoming local elections. I belonged to the centre-right VVD, and we were particularly concerned about appealing to the nation’s growing migrant community. After much discussion, the leaders settled on Laetitia Griffith to represent us in Amsterdam. She was black and had roots in Suriname, a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean. She could pull in the city’s Creole vote. More importantly, the VVD’s strategists thought she could win over some of the city’s Muslim population. In the hope of making this task...

Instead of a statue of Queen Elizabeth, Trafalgar Square will feature "transgender sex workers". Satire is practically pointless nowadays. I’ve done plenty of satire over the years and I doubt that I could make up wilder headlines than the reality. Take this one up above. I’d like to say that I made it up, but we ended up living in a world in which it’s just everyday reality. Sadiq Khan has been criticised for effectively blocking a statue of Queen Elizabeth II in Trafalgar Square until 2030 at the earliest – with “woke art” going there instead. The London Mayor...

Severe penalties for countries that refuse to take them.. The EU has passed a migration pact dubbed “the suicide of Europe” which could lead to the continent being flooded with as many as 75 million new migrants. The European Parliament’s LIBE committee passed the act on Wednesday, which formalizes the distribution of migrants to member states and punishes those that refuse to take them. Because cultural enrichment and diversity is “our greatest strength,” countries that try to maintain their national identity without being subsumed by migrants will be hit with severe financial penalties. Marine Le Pen, the leader of National...

On Tuesday, February 6, the Uttarakhand government tabled the much-awaited Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state assembly. The bill included various provisions, including a complete ban on polygamy and child marriage, a standardised marriageable age for girls across all faiths, and a uniform process for divorce. These proposals, geared towards promoting gender equality and social harmony, will be discussed during the ongoing special four-day assembly session, which commenced on Monday and will run until Thursday. The draft of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) covered a wide range of aspects of civil life. It includes suggestions regarding inheritance rights, compulsory...

A Houthi-run court in Yemen has sentenced 13 people to public execution on homosexuality charges, a judicial source said Tuesday, as human rights groups decried a rise in abuses by the Iran-backed rebels. The sentences were handed down in Ibb, a province controlled by the Houthis whose attacks on Red Sea shipping since November have prompted retaliatory strikes by the United States and Britain. Three others were jailed on similar charges, according to the judicial source, who spoke to AFP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press. Another 35 people have been detained...

Britain has moved to ban the group Hizb ut-Tahrir, saying it is anti-Semitic and should be designated as a “terrorist” organisation. Parliament this week will debate a proposal to make joining the group illegal in the United Kingdom under terrorism laws, the Home Office said on Monday ... “Hizb ut-Tahrir is an anti-Semitic organisation that promotes and encourages terrorism, including praising and celebrating the appalling October 7 attacks,” Home Secretary James Cleverly said. Hizb ut-Tahrir’s celebration of the October 7 Hamas attacks on southern Israel and descriptions of Hamas members as heroes on its website has constituted promoting and encouraging...

33-year-old Roya Heshmati accused by Tehran’s judiciary of having ‘encouraged permissiveness’ after violating mandatory dress code in public... TEHRAN — Iranian authorities have whipped a woman 74 times for “violating public morals” and fined her for not covering her head, the judiciary said. “The convicted, Roya Heshmati, encouraged permissiveness [by appearing] disgracefully in busy public places in Tehran,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said late on Saturday. “Her penalty of 74 strokes of the lash was carried out in accordance with the law and with sharia,” and “for violating public morals,” Mizan said. Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw identified Heshmati as...

The Muslim holiday known as Eid al-Fitr could become an official state holiday in Pennsylvania. House Bill 1752, sponsored by a trio of Democrat representatives in the Philadelphia area, would provide “for the annual designation and holiday observance of the first day of the Islamic lunar month of Shawwal as Eid al-Fitr Day in this Commonwealth.” Eid al-Fitr, one of two major Muslim holidays, is celebrated at the end of Ramadan, a month of intermittent fasting and religious observances. According to a House memo, the holiday “includes two to three days of celebrations, and it begins with a special prayer...

In a recent interview on Bradley Martyn's Raw Talk podcast, American entrepreneur and author Patrick Bet-David shared thought-provoking insights regarding demographic trends, particularly the contrasting birth rates between Muslim and non-Muslim populations in the United States. Bet-David expressed concern about the potential consequences of these demographic shifts, suggesting that within a few decades, Muslims might hold significant political influence in the United States.Bet-David highlighted a key statistical difference in birth rates between Muslim and non-Muslim communities. According to his observations, Muslims, on average, have 2.9 children per woman, while Christians and non-Muslims have an average of 2.1 children. Bet-David contends...

“I studied the Koran a great deal … I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad.” — Alexis de TocquevilleDespite the terrible massacre of October 7, many politicians in the West continue to talk about Islam as a “religion of peace.” Respected professors, journalists, columnists, philosophers from Paris to San Francisco share this view. They really want to believe in it; otherwise, the claim that true evil comes from the West only, and the Islamic movement is no more...