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“We have all seen the video and our eyes don’t lie,” a friend of Alex Pretti said in the aftermath of Pretti’s murder.

He was speaking as Donald Trump’s administration advanced a lie, undeterred by what people had seen in the video which dismantled the story spun by ICE and their protectors.

On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the rise of authoritarianism in America and what comes next.

As ICE rampage as the Black and Tans once did in Ireland, they also look at the money that is going to ICE and who has benefited. 

As people in Minnesota protest, what is the end goal for Trump and his goons? When people take to the streets will Trump step back or is this a deliberate step towards an American dictatorship.

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What would it mean to be free of financial insecurity? Why does money scare us so much?

On Free State today money expert Eoin McGee talks about how we can achieve financial freedom and faces one of his greatest challenges: Dion’s attitude to money.

In doing so, he talks about things far more profound than money. What do we really want from life and Dion explains why your wedding day is not the best day of your life.

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When Donald Trump backed down on Greenland, he tried to make it sound like a victory.

But what caused him to cave? Western leaders have tried to placate Trump and continued this approach at Davos until Canada’s prime minister Mark Carney laid out the truth about the world today.

‘The strong can do what they can, and the weak must suffer what they must,’ he said quoting Thucydides.

This is the reality of the world and somebody naming it shook Trump.

On Free State today we look at where he goes next and how Tony Blair remains part of the Gaza Peace Board.

We look at Blair’s journey to the heart of power and wealth. Dion and Joe disagree on what drove him to this. Joe outlines how Blair moved closer to Israel during his time in power and why he has always sided with the strong while the weak suffer what they must.

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When the Senegal team walked off the pitch in the last seconds of the AFCON final, were we witnessing a moment of brave resistance or gamesmanship?

Was this a stand against the technology which is destroying sport or a stroke?

On Free State today we ask if injustice has to be part of sport? 

Joe makes his case for video evidence in Gaelic football.

Joe and Dion also look at Trump’s determination to land the biggest real estate deal in American history as he pursues Greenland. Is this a negotiation or the actions of a narcissist?

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What drove DJ Carey? What did he believe of the fraud and deception that ended up with him being sent to prison? And as he faces life as a social pariah, what does he think today of his crimes?

On Free State today Eimear Ni Bhraonain, author of The Dodger, the bestselling book about DJ Carey looks at what drove one of Ireland’s greatest sportsmen.

She considers the childhood of excellence and isolation and what removed DJ Carey from the world around him and sent him into the field of deception and fraud. 

She looks at how DJ might redeem himself and considers the question that even asking makes some people angry: Is it ok to feel sorry for DJ Carey?

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In August Belfast will host Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann. More than half a million people will visit the city from around the world for the festival which is a global event. Last year nearly a million people attended the Fleadh in Wexford.

But be warned. All this music and culture is not what it appears. A DUP councillor has warned that a spin off event in Bangor has potential to cause ‘ill feeling’ because it takes place on the same day as the Ulster Championships for Pipe Bands.

On Free State today Joe and Dion look at how a strand of unionism sees everything as a zero sum game. But it’s a game they are losing.

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‘A society,’ Dostoevsky said, ‘should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but how it treats its prisoners.’

In the U.K. Nigel Farage is promising to build bigger prisons and send prisoners to Estonia and El Salvador. There are more people in prison in the US than in any country in the world.

On Free State today we look at how society gave up on prisoners. We examine why populism and media scares matter more than any idea of rehabilitation. 

And there is news on the GAA quiz which was postponed as Joe questioned Dion’s right to even answer the questions. Send your questions to [email protected]

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In November, 2022, the principals of Blackrock College and its two junior schools issued a statement. It followed a public apology that had been made by the Spiritan Order over abuse that took place in its schools

The statement by the schools spoke of the “great harm done” to pupils over an extended period.

It added that “Philip Feddis, Corry McMahon, Louis Hoffman and John Coulter, all of whom left school at the end of the 1970s, showed extraordinary courage in bringing the scale of the problem to attention. Over the last number of years the determination these four men and indeed many others have displayed, warrants our collective gratitude.”

On Free State today, two of those extraordinarily courageous men Corry McMahon and John Coulter talk to us about their years in Blackrock College and the junior school Willow Park. They talk about the darkness and the light of their schooldays and the joy of friendship which has helped them deal with the horrors.

They speak about the restorative justice programme they have worked on for the past four years and what needs to happen next.

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As the US military pursued the Russian tanker Marinera in the North Atlantic, a village in South Tyrone might have been paying close attention.

The world is not a safe place for many these days but in this time of danger, the residents of Fivemiletown are particularly at risk.

On Free State today we look at why Fivemiletown appeared on a Russian strike list. What does it tell us about the drumbeats for war that the residents of the village are being told to prepare for nuclear annihilation?

Meanwhile Dion prepares for a purity test as Joe decides to set a GAA quiz for him. Send your questions to [email protected]

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When Nicolás Maduro, the deposed Venezuelan leader, appeared in a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, he insisted ‘I am still president of my country.’

Maduro was labouring under a misapprehension, not just about his own country but about how things now work.

On Free State today, Joe and Dion look at the new age of empire as Donald Trump’s gangsterism spreads across the world.

America now has Venezuela’s oil but it also has exercised muscle and for a bully like Trump that is its own reward.

They explain why international law matters except when it doesn’t and they wonder what this means for the FIFA peace prize.

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