Free Republic

Pope Leo will not be celebrating the United States' 250th birthday; instead, he will visit a poverty-stricken migrant island on July 4. The first American pontiff has been deeply critical of Donald Trump's immigration agenda and war against Iran, culminating in an unprecedented public falling-out with the president. On the day that marks the United States' independence from Britain, Leo XIV will visit the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa, the gateway for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe's shores. His decision appears to be a deliberate but subtle rebuke of the Trump administration as the president pushes on with...

@RandPaul Months before the Supreme Court ever ruled, I had a feeling exactly this would happen. An executive order was never going to be strong enough to permanently fix birthright citizenship, no matter how good the intentions behind it were. That's why I filed a constitutional amendment early this year instead of waiting around to see how the courts would rule. This decision confirms what I already suspected. If we want real, lasting change, it has to come through the amendment process. @glennbeck The Supreme Court just ruled that, apparently, immigration IS a suicide pact. It has struck down Trump's...

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says. Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens. “This is a dramatic warning being sent once again by nature on what it means to have a different climate system,” she told the Guardian. “What we are experiencing today [in the form of record heat] is what we knew could happen, but we have not been smart enough to...

CIA and FBI leaders are resisting Donald Trump's mandate that intelligence agencies compile a master list of every US spy and potential recruit, amid fears it could endanger their own agents. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), first under Tulsi Gabbard and now under new director Bill Pulte, has in recent months spearheaded the grand spy list effort. ODNI was created in the aftermath of 9/11 to foster better communication among intel agencies. Trump wants the master list because officials claim it could used to better track foreign intelligence threats and avoid inadvertent conflicts when different agencies...

@Independent Sir John Major has slammed "ragbag" Reform UK for its scapegoating of Muslims and migrants, claiming the party has nothing positive to offer Britain.

China is closing in on the US in the AI race after the superpower developed its cybersecurity capabilities to match those of its American rivals. Beijing-based tech firms 360 Security Technology and Z.ai, also known as Zhipu AI, have narrowed the gap with American competitors when it comes to finding bugs. 360 Security Chief Executive Zhou Hongyi told a cybersecurity conference in the Chinese capital that the company's bug-finding tool, called Tulongfeng, is now comparable to Anthropic's Mythos, which serves the same function. 'This kind of powerful weapon that can alter the landscape of cyberwarfare can't remain solely in American...

A 50% top rate of income tax, a mansion tax, a fresh tax blitz on buy-to-let landlords and tougher taxes on inheritances may only be the start as Labour looks set to take a sharp lurch to the left. Many fear what will happen if net zero zealot Ed Miliband is made chancellor. But whoever Burnham appoints, they will face relentless pressure to do the one thing Labour MPs always want: hike spending and find somebody to tax to pay for it. They will pretend only the rich will pay, but as we've seen, in practice working people and pensioners...

@OcrazioCornPop Senator Ashley Moody (R-FL) just gaveled in her SECOND pro forma session in two days for @LeaderJohnThune, BLOCKING work on the SAVE America Act AND Trump's recess appointments! The Senate is OFF FOR 19 DAYS! SHOULDN'T @realDonaldTrump use Article II Section 3 and CALL THEM BACK NOW TO Pass the SAVE AMERICA ACT!?

On Wednesday, Pierre Masselot received a text from his daughter’s nursery – less than 50 miles from the weather station that was the first this week to break the UK June temperature record – asking parents to collect children early because the school buildings were about to get worryingly hot. Similar scenes were repeated across Europe this week as the continent swelters through its most severe and widespread heatwave on record – an oppressive force made hotter by carbon pollution and less bearable by repeated failures to prepare for it. France experienced its hottest day and night on record, while...

A nightmare scenario has been playing on eastern European minds with increasing intensity since Donald Trump returned to the White House: what if Russia attacks and the US does not join the fight? On the rare occasions the question is posed out loud, nobody much likes the answer. In mid-May, at a gathering in Tallinn, the US undersecretary of state Thomas DiNanno was asked directly whether American troops would fight if Russia invaded the Baltic states. He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, then gave a meandering answer. It did not include the word “yes”. Politicians from the region usually try...

EXCLUSIVE: Nigel Farage told Fox News Digital that mass migration has radically changed the country's makeup. The Reform UK leader argued that Britain’s political system is "completely broken" following Prime Minister Keir Starmer's resignation. Farage is calling for a new general election, predicting his party has "every chance of winning." Speaking exclusively from the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London this week, a forum focused on debates over culture, Western civilization and Judeo-Christian values, Farage said Starmer’s downfall was not an isolated political event, but the latest aftershock of the Brexit revolt that upended British politics a decade ago....

@opinion_black The circus has begun. You have little to no idea who this WEF puppet Andy Burnham is. A left wing tax and spend socialist who is a Manchurian candidate operating on behalf of the corporatists and oligarchs that control this country. A man sent to destroy what’s left of this once great country. A man who will surround himself with other puppets dedicated to that same ideal. The UK needs an election not a coronation. If that does not work then certainly a revolution.

@EvanAKilgore Tucker Carlson says he no longer supports the Republican Party and that it is "no longer loyal to the United States." He says the GOP puts foreign nations over America and that there is no way he can defend the GOP anymore.