Free Republic

After six congressional Democrats released a video advising members of the U.S. military and national security community to “refuse illegal orders,” President Donald Trump said the lawmakers should be tried in court for “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!” But legal experts told us this was not sedition and that the legislators were restating the law that only lawful orders must be followed. “Sedition is trying to overthrow the government with force or violence,” Eric R. Carpenter, a professor of law at Florida International University College of Law, said in an email to us. “In the video, the elected officials are...

Elected Democrats have every right, indeed, they have a duty, to conduct oversight over the president’s use of the military to defend the nation. But what they may not do is encourage service members to disobey orders they don’t like, and that is what Sens. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and Mark Kelly (D-AZ) and Reps. Jason Crow (D-CO), Maggie Goodlander (D-NH), Chris Deluzio (D-PA), and Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) did last week. It was a disgraceful and foolish thing to do.In a one-minute and thirty-second video posted to social media, these elected Democrats, each of whom either served in the military or...

Pennsylvania has joined 27 other states across the country in officially prohibiting discrimination based on a person's hair type, texture or style. On Tuesday, Nov. 25, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro joined fellow lawmakers at Island Design Natural Hair Studio in West Philadelphia to sign House Bill 439 -- or, Pennsylvania's version of The CROWN Act -- which is legislation intended to ban discrimination in schools and the workplace based on hairstyles. The bill, Shapiro said, would help address an issue that disproportionately impacts Black Pennsylvanians who wear their hair in "protected styles like locks, natural braids or twists

Inside a West Philadelphia hair salon Tuesday, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a law solidifying protections against hair discrimination in the state. The CROWN Act, which stands for "Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair," prohibits discrimination based on a person's hairstyle, type or texture. Pennsylvania is the 28th state to pass a version of the CROWN Act. "This is a place where the community gets nurtured, and folks get to walk in and walk out looking and feeling their absolute best," Shapiro said. "I think that's noble work." "Wearing our crown is very important to me," said...

“The mayor is incompetent, and the governor is … a big, fat slob,” he said with a comically-timed pregnant pause. “He ought to invite us and say, ‘Please make Chicago safe.’ We’re gonna lose a great city if we don’t do it quickly,” Trump warned. Minutes later in his remarks, Trump was in full comedian-in-chief mode, mercilessly trolling Pritzker while mocking Chicago’s soft-on-crime policies. “I looked at the various cases, granting mercy, discovering the terrible trauma that everyone’s going through, and I had a little bit of a Pritzker joke. I was going to talk about Pritzker in size, but...

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) allegedly dragged fellow Democrats for “not allowing” men to be men or “women to be hot” in a leaked string of text messages condemning his own party for being out-of-touch with everyday Americans. Texts obtained by conservative outlet Human Events purport to show Gallego responding to another person, who wrote, “Been watching all the insanity up there I think it’s time that somebody with a cool head and a solid plan could rise to the top of your party.” “Oh man have you met my party?” the senator allegedly replied. “I have been yelling at them...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the recent video in which six Democratic lawmakers called on U.S. troops to disobey illegal orders from the Trump administration was a “politically-motivated influence operation” that injected doubt into the armed forces. “The despicable video urging @DeptofWar troops to ‘refuse illegal orders’ may seem harmless to civilians — but it carries a different weight inside the military. This was a politically-motivated influence operation,” Hegseth wrote Tuesday morning on the social platform X “It never named a specific ‘illegal order.’ It created ambiguity rather than clarity. It used carefully scripted, legal-sounding language. It subtly reframed military...

Only eight percent of Americans believe Democrats “won” the government shutdown battle, a weekly survey from the Economist/YouGov found. The survey asked respondents, “In your opinion, who won the shutdown battle?” Across the board, a plurality, 39 percent, said “neither” side won the shutdown battle, followed by 35 percent who said Republicans. Only eight percent deemed Democrats the victors. Even Democrats themselves are aware that their side lost. Only 14 percent of Democrats surveyed said Democrats won the shutdown battle, as 25 percent said Republicans and 45 percent said neither side. A slight majority, 52 percent, of Republicans said their...

Democrats now celebrate the very nullificationist tactics they once decried, embracing a neo-Confederate defiance of federal authority to undermine a president they despise. Is Jeff Davis the Model?Who is the real, or fictional, inspiration for the new insurrectionary wing of the Democrat Party? The fictitious Hollywood insurrectionist, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “James Mattoon Scott” (Burt Lancaster), who in the 1964 film Seven Days in May attempted to overthrow the presidency? Or perhaps Jefferson Davis? He ultimately ordered the attack by South Carolina state forces against the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, which ignited the Civil War. Or...

America’s leftists have gone from a reverence for Europe’s socialist institutions to a subtle but complete nullification of the United States Constitution and American law. Leftists always adored Europe’s soft socialism. They wanted socialized medicine, practically free pharmaceutical drugs, six weeks of paid vacation a year, one year of parental leave for both parents (not that leftists actually want people to have children), subsidized housing, etc. Pointing out that all of this came about because of American taxpayers who funded building Europe back up after WWII, who absorbed all of Europe’s defense costs, and who pay the costs of all...

As Trump’s downward spiral starts producing harsher media coverage, a writer who regularly dissects MAGA and political media explains why he’s entering a tailspin that will be very hard to reverse. Suddenly, media outlets seem to have figured out that President Donald Trump is really, really unpopular. There’s been a palpable shift in the discourse: The New York Times reports that Republicans are quietly looking beyond Trump, suggesting he’s losing his grip on the party. Axios claims that it’s “red alert” time for Trump and the GOP. Politico describes how Republicans are getting routed in school board races, a sign...

Infighting. Bad polls. Party divisions. Midterm fears. It’s all back. President Donald Trump’s administration has been embroiled in scandal and sloppiness. His own party has defied his political pressure. His senior staff has been beset by infighting. He has sparred with reporters and offered over-the-top praise to an authoritarian with a dire human-rights record. A signature hard-line immigration policy has polled poorly. And Republicans have begun to brace themselves for a disastrous midterm election. That was 2017. But it’s also 2025. Ten months into the president’s second term, Trump 2.0 is for the first time starting to resemble the chaotic...

At least three people were killed, and 26 others were wounded in weekend shootings across Chicago as of Sunday. The ages of the victims range from 13 to 65, according to police. Two separate shootings took place in Chicago's Loop following holiday festivities. The first was around 9:50 p.m. in the 100 block of North State Street, near the Chicago Theatre. Police said officers saw a large group on the sidewalk and heard gunfire before the group ran from the area. Responding officers immediately responded to the area and found seven people, between 13 to 17 years of age, who...

Norwegian Cruise Line is alerting guests on Hawaii cruises in 2026 and beyond of the new Transient Accommodations Tax that levies an additional 14% on their cruise fare. While the cruise line is part of the legal challenges to the new tax, it may be some time before any court cases are resolved and in the meantime the tax goes into effect from January 1, 2026. Booked guests are reporting additional taxes on their cruise fares from $50-500 and higher, depending on the overall cost of their cruise and how much time their itinerary spends in Hawaii. Norwegian Cruise Line...

The Democrats’ orders to defy President Trump’s lawful orders and their outrage over Trump’s calls for accountability– and even the death penalty– are now blowing up in their faces after days of intended backlash against Trump.Trump is being proven right to call for criminal charges and the death penalty, if a jury determines it appropriate, by their own statements! In a recent video message to active-duty military members, six Democratic lawmakers told service members and intelligence officials that they have a “duty” to disobey “illegal” orders from President Trump. The members of Congress used their credentials as high-ranking former members...

In Chicago, the great city shaped by Mayor Richard J. Daley and his son, Mayor Richard M. Daley there is a new policy, a progressive policy. It is not the law-and-order city. Instead, the liberal politically correct Democrats who have followed the Daleys now refuse to punish repeat violent lawbreakers. The Democrats have become George Soros Social Justice Warriors and the newspapers reflect the progressive view. “Burn alive B****!” That is what a career violent predator with more than 50 arrests–at least 10 of them for violent felonies–is alleged to have shouted the other night in Chicago after dousing a...

Fmr CIA Ops Officer: Slotkin ‘Knew Exactly What She Was Putting Together with Her Little Propaganda Video’ On Friday’s “Jesse Watters Primetime” on FNC, former CIA operations officer and host of the “The Wright Report” podcast, Bryan Dean Wright, argued that Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) intentionally sparked a firestorm with what he deemed a “propaganda video” urging military members to defy so-called “illegal orders.” “All right, Brian, these Democrats. Is this seditious what they’re doing?” host Jesse Watters asked. “It is,” Wright replied. “And look, we need to be very, very clear about Slotkin and who she is, so she...

The group of Democrat lawmakers who told military members to disobey orders should be locked up, President Donald Trump proposed Saturday.Trump made his statements after those lawmakers, including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), were featured in a video on Tuesday urging troops to ignore orders in the clip that said “Don’t give up the ship,” per Fox News.In his post on Truth Social, Trump said, “THE TRAITORS THAT TOLD THE MILITARY TO DISOBEY MY ORDERS SHOULD BE IN JAIL RIGHT NOW, NOT ROAMING THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT WHAT THEY SAID WAS OK. IT WASN’T, AND NEVER WILL...

The following quote is the opening salvo from an article titled “The Largest Funder of Al-Shabaab Is the Minnesota Taxpayer,” by Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo, both with the Manhattan Institute: Minnesota is drowning in fraud. Billions in taxpayer dollars have been stolen during the administration of Governor Tim Walz alone. Democratic state officials, overseeing one of the most generous welfare regimes in the country, are asleep at the switch. And the media, duty-bound by progressive pieties, refuse to connect the dots. [snip] In many cases, the fraud has allegedly been perpetrated by members of Minnesota’s sizeable Somali community. Federal...

After Democratic lawmakers, who also are military veterans, released a video this week warning service personnel about following orders of the commander in chief that may be "illegal," President Trump reacted angrily, saying the action was "seditious." Now a group of Republican veterans have released their own video, reminding Americans in the military of the oath they took to the Constitution and criticizing the "insinuation" of the Democrats that Trump had given "illegal" orders. The video was put together by the Republican Conference of the U.S. House of Represenatives.