Free Republic

Aizenberg @Aizenberg55: Hamas uses child soldiers. NGOs don’t talk about it. The UN doesn’t report it. Human rights "experts" don't care. But the evidence is public — names, ages, photos, and admissions. 1,000s killed in combat. The Child Soldiers of Gaza ⬇️Feb 17, 2026The long-standing use of child soldiers by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups is absent from mainstream discourse. A search for news coverage on child soldiers in Gaza since 10/7 yields no results from major media outlets. While the deaths of thousands of children in the Gaza war are tragic and deserve acknowledgment, many of those recorded...

WASHINGTON — The powerful House Oversight Committee is investigating a sadistic, nihilistic terror cult known as “764” that preys on minors and coerces them into sex acts, self-harm, animal torture, and other vile actions. Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) and Subcommittee on Federal and Government Reform Law Enforcement Chair Clay Higgins (R-La.) demanded Tuesday that the FBI give lawmakers a briefing on its efforts to undermine 764. “Reporting indicates the FBI has opened more than 250 investigations tied to the group, which preys on children and teenagers on popular online platforms,” Commer and Higgins told FBI Director Kash Patel...

By CBS Minnesota A man who was part of a copper wire theft ring in St. Paul was sentenced to three years of probation. Eh Tha Blay, 26, pleaded guilty to one count of aiding and abetting third-degree property damage in December. In addition to his probation sentence, he must also serve 20 hours of community service. He is one of five people charged in connection to copper wire thefts that took place in St. Paul between Nov. 10, 2023, and Jan. 15, 2024. Officials say the ringleader, Kyaw Klay, rounded up the crew to steal the copper and would...

Democratic “squad” Rep. Ilhan Omar needs to be investigated for filing “misleading disclosures” to Congress regarding her husband’s $30 million net worth, according to a government watchdog. The National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative nonprofit based in Virginia, wants the Office of Congressional Conduct to “immediately” investigate Omar’s disclosures which showed her third husband Tim Mynett’s assets explode in worth from 2023 to 2024, according to the complaint. According to paperwork she filed to Congress, Mynett went from being worth just over $51,000 one year to nearly $30 million the next. “The information in Omar’s financial disclosures, and her...

"This I pray" (Phil. 1:9). Your prayers reveal the level of your spiritual maturity. As we come to our study of godliness in Philippians 1:9-11, we note that this passage is a prayer. Typically, Paul's prayers reflected his concern that his readers would mature spiritually. That is impossible without prayer because spiritual growth depends on the Holy Spirit's power, which is tapped through prayer. Prayer is so vital that Jesus instructed His disciples to pray at all times (Luke 18:1). Paul commands us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17). Peter said we should be "of sound judgment and sober...

Jamie Kennedy has slammed anti-ICE celebrities who preach from glitzy Hollywood red carpets about authoritarianism while being protected by security guards. The 55-year-old comedian appeared on Jack Osbourne’s “Trying Not to Die” podcast on Tuesday, calling out liberal stars who cry about living under a so-called “fascist regime” while they are “literally guarded.” He said “when you have actors from the red carpet of an award show” saying stuff like “we’re under a fascist regime” and cries of “authoritarianism,” they couldn’t be more clueless. He added: “You can’t say you’re under authoritarian rule when you’re literally being authoritarian.” Kennedy claimed...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business; End to Sex Slavery; Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

Two high-profile “detransitioner” cases involving young women whose bodies were irrevocably altered as teens by transgender surgery are expected to go to trial in early 2027.Chloe Cole, an 18-year-old woman who regrets surgically removing her breasts, holds testosterone medication used for transgender patients, in Northern California on Aug. 26, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch TimesChloe Cole, who drew national attention after speaking out against subjecting children to gender-reassignment procedures such as hormones and surgeries, has an April 5, 2027, trial date, according to Mark Trammell, CEO of the Center for American Liberty, which represents several detransitioners.​Cole and others, known as detransitioners,...

When Winter Storm Fern swept across much of the United States in mid-January 2026—bringing snow, ice, and sustained sub-zero temperatures from Texas to New England—millions of Americans braced for power outages. In some areas, those fears were realized. Tennessee alone reported more than 245,000 customer outages at peak conditions. At the same time, natural gas prices spiked dramatically, exceeding $30 per MMBtu at certain constrained delivery points within the PJM Interconnection.Yet despite the severity and duration of the storm, the national electric grid largely held. Hospitals remained open. Emergency services stayed online. Most homes stayed warm. That outcome was not...

An analysis released by Google this month showed that the U.S. defense industrial base—a network of public and private entities used to develop or maintain military weapons systems—has sustained cyberattacks from groups and criminal organizations from China, Russia, and North Korea in recent months.The report, released on Feb. 10 by Google Threat Intelligence, found that the Chinese regime and associated groups continue “to represent by volume the most active threat to entities in the defense industrial base,” which it said can pose “significant risk to the defense and aerospace sector.”Google’s report added that it “has observed more China-nexus cyber espionage...

Mayor Zohran Mamdani laid out two potential paths Tuesday to close what he says is a $5.4 billion dollar budget gap in New York City. In one, Albany would raise taxes on the richest New Yorkers. In the other, the City would raise property taxes for the first time since the late 2000s. The City could generate $3.7 billion by raising the property tax by 9.5%, Mamdani said. Gov. Kathy Hochul has repeatedly said she is not on board the mayor's first, and more preferred, option. If Albany does not agree to taxing the wealthiest New Yorkers, Mamdani says the...

The latest “trans violence” was committed by a heterosexual man who went to a hockey game in Rhode Island and shot his family, then himself. His daughter described him as sick and mentally ill. Robert Dorgan, who preferred the name Roberta, is just the latest in a long line of violent people claiming to be transgender. Last week, a 6’0 18-year-old boy who wanted to be a “petite” woman carried out the worst mass shooting in Canada’s history. Last summer, a male called Robert Westman killed two children and injured many more at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis. The...

A 51-year-old Salton City man was arrested on Friday morning, Feb. 13, for the murder of missing Riverside County 17-year-old T’Neya Tovar, according to Imperial County authorities. About 07:30 a.m., the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office, Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team, in collaboration with the FBI, served a search warrant at a residence in the 2800 block of Harlequin Court in Salton City. As members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team made contact at the residence, a male subject, later identified as Abraham Feinbloom, was observed jumping a fence to the residence in what appeared to be an attempt to evade law...

CBS News’ 60 Minutes is about to lose another high-profile star under the chaotic reign of the network’s editor in chief Bari Weiss following the shock exit of Anderson Cooper, according to a report. CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote in his Reliable Sources newsletter that “at least one other correspondent” is on the way out after it was reported Cooper would not be renewing his contract after becoming disillusioned with the direction of the now Donald Trump–friendly CBS News under Weiss. (snip) The official reason Cooper gave for not renewing his contract at CBS News was to spend more time with...

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general declared the United States is “finished” and claimed that even deploying America’s entire aircraft carrier fleet against Iran “won’t be able to do a damn thing” as U.S. and Iranian officials concluded a second round of nuclear talks in Geneva Tuesday under the shadow of an expanding American military buildup across the Middle East. General Mohammad Reza Naghdi, a senior adviser to the IRGC’s commander-in-chief, made the remarks last Wednesday in comments to an Iranian state-affiliated news agency, according to a translation released by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “Even...

"Restore Britain has been called ‘far-right’ and ‘racist’ by the Guardian, Reform and the whole host of soapless socialists over the last few days. I cannot be clearer in our official party response. We do not care. The illegals will go. The hotels will be emptied, the HMOs closed. Foreign sex pests, criminals and invaders will be rounded up, and they will be sent home. Far more legals will leave than enter. Those foreign nationals here already will pay their way, they will contribute, they will respect our culture. If they don’t do that? Fine. Their choice. They will leave...

One of the world’s largest and most influential scientific societies held its annual conference last weekend, which a Fox News Digital review found was littered with examples of progressive messaging, criticisms of the Trump administration, and “woke” workshops. Attendees who showed up at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) event, held at the Phoenix Convention Center from Feb. 12-14, were immediately greeted at registration with identifier stickers that used gender pronouns such as “they/them,” “xi/xer,” “xe/xem,” and other descriptors that critics have alleged have little to do with science and biology. During the meeting’s opening night, shortly...

On the eve of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s first preliminary budget rollout, Gov. Kathy Hochul handed him what amounted to a $1.5 billion gift card, courtesy of state taxpayers. On Tuesday, the mayor thanked the governor for the promised new state aid — by handing her a ticking political bomb. Despite the added money, Mamdani said, the city faces a “historic” $5.4 billion budget gap — which can only be closed by proceeding along what the mayor characterized as two “paths.” Path one, he said, would be for the state to give the city authority to “raise [income] taxes on the...

A YouTuber has used Grok to predict how the upcoming 2028 US election will pan out in a detailed breakdown shared online, including the likely winner and which states they'll triumph in. Grok is Elon Musk's artificial intelligence bot, which is commonly used on his social media platform Twitter (or X, as it's now known). (snip) For the sake of the Grok results, the person behind the YouTube channel Election Time input Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Pete Buttigieg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Josh Shapiro, JB Pritzker, Cory Booker, and Tim Walz as potential candidates. (snip) Looking at the Republican side of things,...

The Libertarian National Committee voted this month to hold the party’s 2028 national convention in El Paso, Texas, selecting the city over Richmond, Virginia, after two rounds of balloting. Vote totals shared on the committee’s public Business List show that the final vote was 9–8 in favor of El Paso. Members also had the option to select “None of the Above,” which would have prompted further research into additional potential venues. The site selection vote followed a special virtual meeting held February 10, during which committee members heard presentations from venue representatives in El Paso, Richmond, and Frisco, Texas. The...