Free Republic

Given its oft-proclaimed calling as a peace project, the European Union can sound oddly bellicose when it sets about crafting policy. There are trade and fiscal “bazookas” to blast away crises, “silver bullet” solutions for every problem, and “nuclear options” to be used as a last resort. Yet in the absence of an EU army or even a police force, the pen-wielding Eurocracy rarely gets its hands on anything that looks like an actual weapon. The only exception—tellingly—is the club’s border-patrol agency. For over a decade after it was founded in 2005, Frontex agents wielded little more than whistles and...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Hulu series host Nikole Hannah-Jones is set to speak at a Juneteenth event in Springfield. The University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies, in partnership with Juneteenth Inc., the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the UIS Institute for Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice, will host a conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones, host and executive producer of the Hulu docuseries “The 1619 Project,” as part of its Juneteenth Lecture Series.

U.S. influencers and an administration official arrived in Russia just as Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, needed a publicity boost. The small group of Americans flew in as the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, or SPIEF, often dubbed Russian Davos, opened on June 3 in the port city. The annual conference serves as a promotional vehicle for the country as Putin seeks to project strength and global power. Officials say this year they are receiving 20,000 guests from over 100 countries, with 76 countries sending high-level representatives. Putin has increasingly faced setbacks on the battlefield as a Ukrainian drone strike...

STATEMENT FROM CHICAGO BEARS CHAIRMAN GEORGE H. MCCASKEY AND PRESIDENT & CEO KEVIN WARREN Yesterday, the Chicago Bears Board of Directors met and voted to advance our stadium development project in Hammond, Indiana, with the exact site to be selected. We believe a world-class stadium project in Hammond will transform the region, connecting Northwest Indiana to the South Side of Chicago through the Loop and across neighborhoods and suburbs stretching north of the city. It will bring Chicagoland together and deliver new opportunities to its residents and businesses.

After Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) defeated Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate last month, it wasn’t surprising that Republicans launched a barrage of attacks against Democratic nominee James Talarico. What was surprising, though, and troubling, is that they attacked not Talarico’s record or past rhetoric, but his masculinity. Paxton got things rolling on election night, calling him “Tofu Talarico,” “James Tala-freako,” and “low-T Talarico.” Trump aide Stephen Miller piled on, suggesting that Talarico was transgender. Others insinuated that he was secretly gay and that his girlfriend was fictional. (This is a bold strategy, because...

Several women who previously dated Graham Platner have described “unsettling” and controversial behavior by the Democrat looking to unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). The New York Times profiled several women who shared a romantic past with Platner, further piling onto the controversies that have plagued the candidate since discussions about his Nazi tattoo. In one interview, conservative commentator Lyndsey Fifield, who dated Platner between 2013 and 2015, said that he would often be rough with her while discussing violence, clarifying that he never physically assaulted her. “He said this a lot: If anybody ever broke in here, I would rape...

Video

A new lawsuit filed against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber is reigniting concerns about election integrity in the nation’s largest state. The plaintiffs are alleging that hundreds of thousands of inactive voter registrations remain on California’s voter rolls in violation of federal law. The lawsuit was filed in federal court by Orange County Supervisor and Republican Secretary of State candidate Don Wagner alongside the American Independent Party of California. The lawsuit claims that California has failed to remove approximately 873,092 inactive voter registrations despite legal requirements mandating voter roll maintenance. The complaint was filed with the assistance of Judicial...

The wife of the Maine Democratic Senate candidate last year told the campaign about texts she had found between Platner and other women Days after Graham Platner announced his Maine Senate bid, his wife informed the campaign about a potential political problem she had previously discovered on the oyster farmer’s phone: sexually explicit texts with several women, according to people familiar with the matter. Amy Gertner, who married Platner in 2024, told the campaign about messages she had found early in their marriage in the spring of 2025. In late August, as some aides were conducting opposition research on their...

Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey is shaping up to be the biggest movie of the year, and right-wing voices are furious at it. “Chris Nolan desecrated the Odyssey,” wrote Elon Musk on X. Musk, alongside hundreds of right-wing culture warriors algorithmically boosted on his platform, have spent the past few weeks fuming over the news that Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy, and that transgender actor Elliot Page might be playing Achilles. One right-wing influencer described the casting of Page as Achilles as “the final straw to ruin Homer.” Another pundit, in a post that received...

Video

TRANS TERROR: San Diego mosque shooting suspects identified as 17-year-old Cain Clark & 18-year-old Caleb Vazquez, identified as a transgender couple by classmates. 3 men dead including a security guard. Drive-by media will bury the shooters' identities & ideology.

Democratic lawyer Marc Elias appears to believe that Democrats do not need to stop at simply sacking and packing the Virginia Supreme Court in response to the adverse ruling on the radical gerrymandering plan. Elias reminded Democrats that they could eliminate the entire Virginia government under the state constitution. The demand for radical action was prompted by the Virginia justices, including one appointed by then-Democratic governor Mark Warner, who found the Democratic effort unconstitutional. It does not matter that leading Democrats, including Gov. Abigail Spanberger, also believed that the Democrats could be found in violation of the state constitution in...

President Donald Trump will not control the Republican Party forever. No political figure does... History is littered with figures who seemed immovable — until they moved. The question is never whether change will come. The question is whether honorable people are ready when it does. We intend to be ready. What does that mean in practice? It means identifying and supporting candidates, at every level of government, but most importantly a candidate for President in 2028, who hold genuine conservative values rather than merely pay lip service to them. It means building a coalition of Republicans who understand that winning...

Investigative questions about UFOs, aliens, and the supernatural are no longer staying on the fringes. In this fascinating conversation, Billy Hallowell sits down with pastor and broadcaster Joseph Z to unpack claims surrounding a reported closed-door meeting involving pastors, military-connected figures, and alarming discussions about so-called “alien disclosure.” From alleged government technology and mysterious “orbs” to theological debates over demons, Nephilim, and spiritual deception, this interview dives deep into one of the most talked-about topics in both faith and culture right now.

If Only- He should live long enough to witness his inevitable devastating loss in the midterms, be held accountable for his unprecedented corruption, impeached, convicted & humiliated for his countless crimes. Long enough to realize he'll be disgraced in the history books, forevermore. #don_TheCON

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?😂😂 DONALD TRUMP: I’ve been told by my many sources, good sources - they're very good sources - that the chicken crossed the road. All the Fake News wants to do is write nasty things about the road, but it's a really good road. It's a beautiful road. Everyone knows how beautiful it is. JOE BIDEN: Why did the chicken do the...thing in the...you know the rest. SARAH PALIN: The chicken crossed the road because, gosh-darn it, he's a maverick! BARACK OBAMA: Let me be perfectly clear, if the chickens like their eggs they...

The Cook County judge who released a repeat violent felon with four pending felony cases on electronic monitoring last December, the same felon prosecutors now say escaped that monitoring and shot two Chicago police officers, killing one over the weekend, acknowledged during the hearing that the defendant likely would have faced “a minimum $1 million bail” under the state’s old cash bail system. But Judge John Lyke said that era was over. alley’s public defender, Lauren Widdowson, countered that he had changed while in custody. “He’s completed eight courses,” she said. “Particularly, he has completed the Rewired Program, Anger Management,...

Curious as to what concerns (if any) y'all have regarding AI...My biggest concern is that its adoption could accelerate the trend of teaching young people what to think rather than how to think.This inherently breeds laziness and obedience.