Free Republic

HIALEAH GARDENS, FL—On the 63rd anniversary of the tragic Bay of Pigs invasion, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law requiring school instruction on the history and evils of communism beginning in the 2026-2027 school year. "We're gonna tell the truth about communism in the state of Florida. We're gonna tell the truth about the evils of communism," DeSantis said at a Wednesday morning press conference. "We're gonna tell the truth about the unprecedented death toll of the 20th century at the hands of communist tyranny—100 million killed at the hands of communist regimes spreading from China to the...

“Not to have a correct political orientation is like not having a soul.” -Mao Zedong.Mao Zedong took over China with a strategy that will sadly feel unsettlingly familiar to us. Because he was able to mobilize hundreds of millions of people to comply, often enthusiastically, with his catastrophic programs, an adequate name for that strategy would be the politics of compliance. Understanding the basic premises and mechanisms of the politics of compliance is necessary for us today because these same methods are being used maliciously on us, thus require resisting, and because familiarity with these tactics at least partially inoculates...

Famously 'woke' Bank of America has been on the hot seat among a group of state attorneys general, who've demanded information about whom it debanks and why, charging that they target conservatives and faith communities. According to Fox News: Over a dozen Republican attorneys general are warning a major U.S. bank against alleged practices of "de-banking" certain customers because of their religious or political views. In a letter obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, along with 14 of his Republican colleagues told Bank of America CEO Brian T. Moynihan that the company "appears to be...

2024’s “known wolves” carry badges and/or act under the color of law. “It needs to be said, and it needs to be said loudly, the FBI is the 2024 equivalent of the 1984 Soviet-era KGB, now FSB.” — Sundance at The Conservative Treehouse American Thinker and The Conservative Treehouse share many of the same readers, so you may well be familiar with Sundance’s meticulous work over the years, documenting our known-knowns and our known-unknowns. He’s not much for the flights of fancy attendant to unknown-unknowns, so that’s a big part of what makes him such compelling reading. He’s a connect-the-dots...

As we saw this week, the mob closed O'Hare Airport and travelers had to get out of their cars or miss their flights. Was this a "test run" for the convention? Probably so. Add Midway Airport plus local freeways and moving around the city will be a nightmare. Add to this the shooting, and who in the world wants to go to the convention? The convention hall is going to look like a fortress, and who knows what will break out on the floor? The Squad will be there and that's a formula for madness. My point is that this...

The future of Cuba and the trajectory of communism are under threat, with citizens fighting back against the regime. Protesters are taking to the streets amid an ongoing economic crisis, making their concerns heard. Cuba’s communist leadership is facing a fierce backlash that has not been seen since similar protests in July 2021. Since the 2021 protests, it is estimated that nearly 500,000 Cubans have sought refuge in the United States. In this Sky News Digital Originals, we explore whether Cuba’s communist leadership could be about to tumble. “The Cuban regime knows the Cuban people are getting smarter and they're...

Let’s face it: Central planning of the economy hasn’t worked out so well in many places where it has been tried (e.g., Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea, etc.). But then, here in New York, we are so much smarter than the dolts who fell on their faces in those backwaters. With utter confidence in our genius, we have embarked upon the total centrally-directed transformation of the economy into “net zero” utopia, via the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019. But that project is barely getting under way. It will be a few years before we have enough feedback...

<p>The Pope told reporters that he has 'human relationship' with the former dictator of communist Cuba while encouraging 'exploratory dialogues' with the oppressive regime.</p><p>VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis expressed his fraternity with the former communist leader of Cuba Raul Castro in a Monday interview, telling journalists that he had a “human relationship” with the murderous dictator.</p>

As Brazil rapidly descends into authoritarianism, courting the favor of the world’s worst dictatorship (Chinese Communists), meanwhile, journalist Michael Shellenberger warns Americans that we, too, are heading down Brazil’s path. From allegedly aiming to criminalize “lying” to threatening to arrest those who exposed the country’s increasingly tyrannical judiciary, Brazil’s government under President Lula is trying to turn itself into a perfect Orwellian dystopia. That’s exactly why Shellenberger, who wrote the Twitter Files that exposed the corruption, is so concerned. Brazil might be more rapid in crushing rights and freedoms, but the US government is also blatantly violating rights while pandering...

By its 2019 Climate Act, New York has officially embarked on a great energy transition to Net Zero by 2050, with statutorily-dictated interim mandates along the way. The first of those mandates is 70% “emissions-free” electricity by 2030, only 6 years from now. This is far and away the biggest government-directed project that the State of New York has ever undertaken. However, to date, relative to this project there exists no environmental impact statement, no feasibility study, no prototype, and no demonstration project to show how this can be done, let alone any detailed cost analysis to show how much...

It is the most spectacular trial ever held in Vietnam, befitting one of the greatest bank frauds the world has ever seen. Behind the stately yellow portico of the colonial-era courthouse in Ho Chi Minh City, a 67-year-old property developer stands accused of looting one of Vietnam's largest banks over a period of 11 years. The numbers involved are dizzying. Truong My Lan is charged with taking out $44bn (£35bn) in loans from the Saigon Commercial Bank. Prosecutors say $27bn may never be recovered. The habitually secretive communist authorities have been uncharacteristically forthright about this case, going into minute detail...

This is a video about the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, a state that lasted for half a century and epitomised an isolationist and quasi-xenophobic foreign policy. While today Albania is open to the world and nominally democratic, despite its issues with corruption, in the mid to late 20th century it was ruled by a paranoid tyrant akin only to North Korea's Kim Il Sung - this video intends to shed some light on this relatively unknown period of European history and specifically the life and disposition of one of the most brutal dictators Europe has ever seen. There's so...

Some stunning courage from Musk in standing up to, undermining, and even mocking Brazil's pettiest tyrant judge. Given all the cowardice we see, it was a thing of beauty seeing someone standing up to the sleazy little tyrants who want to shut down free speech. Which is what we see from Elon Musk, who literally vowed to defy a Brazilian Supreme Court Chief Justice's demand that he secretly ban certain prominent Brazilians from his site 'X,' formerly known as Twitter, or face criminal charges. According to the Associated Press: RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice...

A new study led by Jarmo Kikstra, a research scholar in the IIASA Energy, Climate, and Environment Program, explores whether reducing production and consumption growth could make a significant contribution to resolving the climate crisis. As the effects of climate change become more severe and the scale of environmental damage gains magnitude, some researchers disagree about the desirability and feasibility of further economic growth in high-income countries. More recently, the case has been made for exploring a "degrowth" (or post-growth) strategy. Such a strategy would entail reducing less necessary forms of production and consumption (rather than growing them) with the...

Like the prophets of old, Stanley Kurtz warned of the evil mongers in America, but sadly, no one seemed to heed his dire warning. In his 2012 book titled Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities, Kurtz painstakingly detailed Obama’s and, now by extension, Biden’s nefarious plans to destroy the suburbs. The ever-stealthy Obama has been assiduously working on the goal of abolishing America’s suburbs ever since his days as a community activist. Although state laws may discourage involuntary annexation of suburbs, there are three key changes that will end the dream of...

It is important to understand that censorship does not occur in a vacuum. It is a symptom of a worsening disease. It is an early indicator of the political repression to come. Like a canary in a coal mine, the criminalization of speech forewarns that State-sponsored terror and murder are not far away. First, certain words and thoughts are banned. Next, certain people are rounded up and imprisoned. Finally, certain “enemies of the State” are executed quite publicly. The imposition of fear supersedes the rule of law. Terrorism undergirds social order. Oppression replaces popular support. What is happening in the...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinals worried about liberation theology in 2013 conclave, pope saysA group of cardinals asked Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in-depth questions about liberation theology and its political consequences before deciding to elect him pope in 2013, Pope Francis said.In the book-length interview, "El Sucesor" ("The Succesor"), published in Spain April 3, the pope said he "did not realize" that he was a serious candidate for the papacy in 2013, but that he began to put together the pieces of a campaign to elect him after a group of cardinals asked him about liberation theology — a theological approach developed...

For sociopaths, their end always justifies the means, and it turns out that the most powerful people in America have no brakes. Anyone with a brain knows that there was epic cheating behind Biden’s “win” in 2020, ranging from official cheating (e.g., mail-in ballots, drop boxes, and ballot harvesting) to unofficial cheating (e.g., delayed vote counts, faked ballots, and illegal registrations). Pollster Scott Rasmussen has discovered something very disturbing about all that cheating: While ordinary Americans want fair elections, the “elite”—that is, the rich, powerful, and connected—don’t. They want only to win. According to the Issues and Insights editorial board:...

Iran warned United Nations Security Council envoys to expect retaliation against Israel’s apparent bombardment of a diplomatic facility in Syria that killed several Iranian military commanders. “The Islamic Republic of Iran has exercised considerable restraint, but it is imperative to acknowledge that there are limits to such forbearance,” Iranian envoy Zahra Ershadi, the regime’s deputy representative to the United Nations, said Tuesday afternoon. “The occupying regime must bear full responsibility for its consequences. Iran reserves its legitimate and inherent right under international law and the United Nations Charter to take a decisive response to such reprehensible acts.” -snip- “Do not...

The greatest threat to Western civilisation comes not from China, Russia or Islamists, but from the very people who rank among its greatest beneficiaries. In virtually every field, the midwives of our demise are not working-class radicals or far-right agitators, but, as the late Fred Siegel called it, the ‘new aristocratic class’, made up of the well-credentialed and the technologically and scientifically adept. Virtually every ideology that’s undermining the West has its patrons in these ruling cognitive elites. This includes everything from the purveyors of critical race theory and Black Lives Matter to transgender activists and, perhaps most egregiously, campaigners...