Free Republic

Historical television has been a hit or miss proposition since the 1950s, when CBS aired the series, You Are There. Narrated by Walter Cronkite, the series first aired on radio beginning in 1947 and moved to TV in 1953. It was a fascinating concept. CBS correspondents would report on earth-shaking events from the past as if they were doing a live broadcast, interviewing historical figures, and providing analysis as if the events were happening in real time. I tried something similar early in my writing career, reporting on the Battle of Gettysburg and the signing of the Declaration of Independence...

President Donald Trump's sudden pivot on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files was not an impulsive gamble but a tactical move to end a months-long drama that has consumed the White House and Congress. In a sudden shift, Trump said Sunday night that 'House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files.' But White House insiders have told the Daily Mail that the move by Trump wasn't a U-turn, but a calculated move to expose senior Democrats and his critics who had links to Epstein. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday: 'We have nothing to do with Epstein....

Although mainstream outlets claim closing the Department of Education is unpopular, a new poll shows that once voters hear the specifics, most actually support the idea.Initially, 51 percent oppose shutting down the Department, while 38 percent are in favor. But after learning that K-12 funding would remain intact and that useful functions would be shifted to other agencies, support rose to 56 percent. In comparison, opposition drops to 30 percent, according to a survey by the Yes Every Kid Foundation, which fights for school choice. Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told the New...

Acting FEMA Chief David Richardson resigned on Monday, according to CBS News. David Richardson, a Marine Corps veteran and assistant secretary for DHS’s Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction Office, was appointed to assume the duties of FEMA Administrator in May after Cameron Hamilton was abruptly removed from the post. “Mr. Richardson led FEMA through the 2025 hurricane season, delivering historic funding to North Carolina, Texas, Florida, New Mexico and Alaska, and overseeing a comprehensive review that identified and eliminated serious governmental waste and inefficiency, and refocused the agency to deliver swift resources to Americans in crisis,” a DHS spokesperson said...

WASHINGTON — The East Wing that President Donald Trump tore down last month stood for decades. The ballroom he’s building in its place could be gone not long after the first wave of guests sit down for dinner, depending on the outcome of the 2028 presidential race. If elected, a Democratic president would have plenty to worry about aside from White House decor; war and peace can easily fill up a day. But a new president may face considerable pressure from within the Democratic fold to do something about a massive new ballroom forever linked to Trump. Already, prominent Democratic...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department engaged in a “disturbing pattern of profound investigative missteps” in the process of securing an indictment against former FBI Director James Comey, a federal judge ruled Monday in directing prosecutors to produce to defense lawyers all grand jury materials from the case. Those problems, wrote Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick, include “fundamental misstatements of the law” by a prosecutor to the grand jury that indicted Comey in September, the use of potentially privileged communications during the investigation and unexplained irregularities in the transcript of the grand jury proceedings. “The Court recognizes that the relief sought...

On Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) said President Donald Trump was “losing his MAGA base” over the Jeffrey Epstein files.Host Kristen Welker said, “I want to turn to another big issue, you are pushing for the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Your joint bill with Thomas Massie is going to come to a vote on the House floor. It’s expected to this week. Do you think you have enough votes for it to pass?”Khanna said, “We do, and there’s nothing I have been prouder of or more meaningful than this work. The credit goes...

President Donald J. Trump inherited an economic mess when he took office. Years of mismanagement under Biden, his incompetent Administration, and Democrats in Congress — who spent years insisting inflation was “transitory” while doling out trillions in new spending and dramatically upscaling government — brought the country to the brink of economic ruin.Since Day One, the Trump Administration has been on a mission to tame Biden’s inflation crisis, stop the sky-high Biden price increases, and lower costs for everyday families — and while it can’t happen overnight, evidence shows the trend is in the right direction.President Trump tamed Biden’s inflation...

Vice President JD Vance says that mass immigration under former President Joe Biden significantly skyrocketed the cost of rent and home prices.In an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity, Vance attributed sky-high home prices to record-setting illegal immigration under Biden — noting that flooding the housing market increases prices on Americans, particularly those first-time home-buyers.“To me [this] is maybe the most important because I care so much about our young people being able to afford a good life, a lot of young people are saying, ‘Housing is way too expensive,'” Vance said: Why is that? Because we flooded the country...

President Donald Trump issued a new round of attacks against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Truth Social on Friday, November 14, continuing the public feud that has widened over Massie’s voting behavior, recent positions on foreign policy, and Trump’s decision to back retired Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District.Trump wrote: Did Thomas Massie, sometimes referred to as Rand Paul Jr., because of the fact that he always votes against the Republican Party, get married already??? Boy, that was quick! No wonder the Polls have him at less than an 8% chance of winning the Election. Anyway, have...

PULSE POINTS❓WHAT HAPPENED: A 150-year analysis challenges conventional wisdom on the impact of tariffs, suggesting they lower prices and raise unemployment, contrary to establishment economic models.👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Researchers Régis Barnichon and Aayush Singh from the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco conducted the study.📍WHEN & WHERE: The study analyzed data from 1870 to 2020 across the U.S., the U.K., and France, with findings published in November 2025.💬KEY QUOTE: “We find that a tariff hike raises unemployment and lowers inflation,” the authors stated in their working paper.🎯IMPACT: The findings challenge establishment economic models and suggest tariffs may work through demand-side...

Under Kevin D. Roberts, the Heritage Foundation is unraveling the remarkable legacy Edwin Feulner built. Once known as “the intellectual backbone of the conservative movement,” Heritage’s moral and philosophical clarity has yielded to confusion, populism and personality-driven politics. The damage to Heritage’s mission and credibility is becoming irreparable. Much of the recent outcry focuses on Roberts’s decision to maintain Heritage’s partnership with Tucker Carlson after Carlson’s now-infamous interview with Holocaust-denier Nick Fuentes. During that exchange, Carlson ridiculed Christians who affirm the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, sneering that figures such as Ambassador Mike Huckabee and Senator...

WASHINGTON — A group of 17 transgender members of the Air Force are suing the U.S. government over what they say is the military’s unlawful revocation of their early retirement pensions and benefits. The lawsuit, filed in federal court Monday, comes several months after the Air Force confirmed that it would deny all transgender service members who have served between 15 and 18 years the option to retire early and would instead separate them without retirement benefits. It is just the latest in a series of legal challenges to the Trump administration’s policies that have sought to push transgender troops...

An immigrant who was arrested after a Milwaukee judge allegedly helped him dodge federal agents has been deported. Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, 31, pleaded guilty in September to illegally reentering the United States after he reached a deal with prosecutors. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security tweeted Friday afternoon that he has now been deported. The tweet did not say whether he was transported back to his native Mexico or some other destination. The Associated Press sent an email message to his attorney, Martin Pruhs, seeking more details but he did not immediately respond. Flores-Ruiz is at the center of a case...

"How do empires fall? Not by war, but by unbalanced minds disconnected from reality." — The Vigilant Fox on “X" By now, whenever you hear anyone invoke the phrase “saving our democracy,” that should be a signal that they are intent on destroying this republic, and with that, your natural rights to free speech, economic liberty, and public order. What began in 2016 as a simple, high-level plot to take out Donald Trump and squash Trumpism — a grassroots revolt against those very high-level DC insiders —turned sharply in 2017 into a long-running cover-up operation that spawned a multiplying cycle...

A unanimous Nevada Supreme Court on Thursday revived the criminal case against six prominent allies of President Donald Trump who falsely claimed to be legitimate presidential electors amid Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election. The justices concluded that Attorney General Aaron Ford properly brought the forgery case in Las Vegas, overruling a lower-court decision that found the case should have been brought in Carson City, where the pro-Trump elector nominees signed the false documents. The 6-0 decision comes just days after Trump pardoned dozens of allies — including the six defendants in Nevada — for any potential federal crimes...

If you were told a business increased their staff headcount by 5% over four years but its payroll rose 24% over that time, all the while withholding the names of 39% of their staff, would you invest in that company? Unlikely. But that’s just what the United State government does, funded by taxpayer dollars and operating as if accountable to no one. Open the Books analyzed the FY 2024 payroll records of executive agencies and found that 2.9 million federal employees were paid $270 billion, compared to 2.8 million employees paid $217 billion in FY 2020. While the civilian employee...

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki immediately walked back her suggestion that President Donald Trump is among the “predators” named in the documents about sex offender Jeffrey Epstein during a Thursday segment. House Democrats released emails on Wednesday in which Epstein claimed that Trump knew about his conduct and even sat in a room with his victim. After making the suggestion that Trump is a predator, Psaki immediately noted on “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” that there is no evidence that Trump committed any wrongdoing in relation to Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. “You’re talking about the other predators out...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Jessica Sweet spent the federal government shutdown cutting back. To make ends meet, the Social Security claims specialist drank only one coffee a day, skipped meals, cut down on groceries and deferred paying some household bills. She racked up spending on her credit card buying gas to get to work. With the longest shutdown ever coming to a close, Sweet and hundreds of thousands of other federal workers who missed paychecks will soon get some relief. But many are left feeling that their livelihoods served as political pawns in the fight between recalcitrant lawmakers in Washington and...

Justice Department leaders later tied to agency special counsel Jack Smith shut down an FBI investigation tied to possible campaign finance violations carried out by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign when it used cutouts to fund the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, emails released Thursday appear to show. Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassely, said his Judiciary Committee, which made public the messages, describes them as “internal emails” and an “electronic communication” from the FBI “exposing” the “refusal” by DOJ leaders “to open a criminal investigation into potential campaign finance violations committed by Hillary Clinton...