Free Republic

Kamala Harris’s memoir gives you little idea of what she believes. John Fetterman’s is better.Earlier this week everyone piled on congressional Democrats, or furiously defended them, over the government shutdown and its end. It was the longest in U.S. history, 43 days, and utterly pointless. When it was called I thought of Albert Brooks in “Broadcast News,” who asked, of a different predicament, “Does anybody ever win one of these things?” No, not the administration, not its opponents, not federal employees, not the country. Shutdowns are a trauma without meaning. All this had me thinking about an aspect of the...

The public health watchdog has been accused of a “cover-up” after refusing to publish data that could link the Covid vaccine to excess deaths. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) argued that releasing the data would lead to the “distress or anger” of bereaved relatives if a link were to be discovered Public health officials also argued that publishing the data risked damaging the well-being and mental health of the families and friends of people who died

A stunning report from UC San Diego has exposed a dramatic collapse in academic readiness that should alarm anyone who cares about California's education system. The numbers are jaw-dropping: between 2020 and 2025, the share of incoming freshmen requiring remedial math instruction for skills below middle school level surged nearly thirtyfold—from about 1 in 100 students to roughly 1 in 8. The 54-page report, released November 6 by the university's Senate-Administration Working Group on Admissions, paints a troubling picture. According to the report, these students arrive with solid high school math grades—many sporting 4.0 GPAs—yet can't handle arithmetic that elementary...

When the show’s over, what federal agents will leave behind is predictable. All the president’s men are coming to Charlotte. After several days of rumors, federal officials confirmed to local leaders in North Carolina that, indeed, Border Patrol agents will be conducting operations in the state’s largest city. I used to live in Charlotte. I still have a lot of friends and family there. I’m told Donald Trump is coming to save them, but from what? We don’t know. If Charlotte residents are living in terror — other than the terror President Trump has created by frightening the city’s...

The reactions to last Tuesday’s elections can be broadly divided into two camps. “Why is everyone losing their minds over leftists winning predictable races in blue states?” and “The GOP had better wake up or we’re toast in 2026!”If it had just been predictable races won by predictable people, the first reaction would be understandable. But when the GOP loses its supermajority in the Mississippi Senate (a state President Trump won last year by 22 points) and when both GOP incumbents in Georgia’s statewide Public Service Commissioners races are ousted by Democrats for the first time in decades, some deep...

For Chuck Schumer’s growing list of haters, there are two realities that are going to both excite and frustrate: He’s not going anywhere as Senate Democratic Leader, and it’s increasingly unlikely he’ll be reelected in 2028. Schumer is now the most unpopular Senate leader with his own party on record. The Democratic base is furious at him for effectively permitting eight Democrats to vote with Republicans to end the government shutdown. For many Democratic voters, the shutdown was a great letdown because it did not secure Schumer’s stated objective: to renew expiring federal subsidies for Obamacare. It’s hard, in fact,...

Former first lady Michelle Obama said at a recent event that the US isn’t ready for a woman president, pointing to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful bid for the White House last year. “As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready,” Obama said in response to a question from actor Tracee Ellis Ross on whether there has been enough “room” created for a woman president. “That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running ‘cause you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman,” Obama told Ellis Ross. “We got a lot of...

Jim Farley, the CEO of Ford, is claiming that he cannot fill 5,000 mechanic jobs – even though they pay $120,000 per year. This is a problem that TV personality Mike Rowe has been talking about for years. We don’t have enough young people in the country who are learning skills, such as working with tools, or how to do things like be an auto mechanic. Meanwhile, we have a surplus of people in college who are going into massive debt wasting their time on useless topics like gender studies, women’s studies, and various social justice topics. The New York...

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...

President Trump said he is withdrawing his support for GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a longtime backer who has recently criticized the Trump administration and called for the release of Justice Department investigative files into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. The president, in a Friday night social-media post, said he would consider supporting a primary challenge to Greene. “I understand that wonderful, Conservative people are thinking about primarying Marjorie in her District of Georgia, that they too are fed up with her and her antics and, if the right person runs, they will have my Complete and Unyielding Support,”...

New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani encouraged his more than 1 million X followers this week to boycott Starbucks. "Starbucks workers across the country are on an Unfair Labor Practices strike, fighting for a fair contract," the 34-year-old wrote on Thursday. "While workers are on strike, I won’t be buying any Starbucks, and I’m asking you to join us. Together, we can send a powerful message: No contract, no coffee." On the same day, Starbucks Workers United, a union representing workers at the coffee giant, announced it was going on an open-ended strike in what is being dubbed the "Red Cup...

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced that contracts have been awarded for the acquisition of approximately one million barrels of crude oil for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). The contracts awarded on November 12, 2025, are for deliveries beginning in December 2025 through January 2026 to the Bryan Mound site. This announcement follows the Request for Proposal (RFP) that was announced on October 21, 2025. President Trump promised to refill the SPR and rebuild America’s strategic strength. Currently, the SPR holds just over 400 million barrels out of its capacity of approximately 700 million barrels. The SPR was...

The hemp industry is gearing up for a lobbying effort following a provision in the recent government funding package meant to stop the sale of intoxicating hemp products but could inadvertently destroy a legitimate $28 billion industry and kill 300,000 American jobs. The new ban tucked into the spending bill prohibits products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container and is aimed at stopping the sale of intoxicating products often sold in gas stations and convenience stores. While the spending bill was still in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to remove the language,...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez continually touts her fundraising as a grass-roots effort that relies on small donations from regular people — but her campaign coffers are stuffed with big contributions from celebrities, wealthy activists and executives, a Post review found. Even many of AOC’s small-dollar contributions are larger than meets the eye, under an accounting loophole that lets big donors masquerade as little ones. Among the bold-faced names whose identities are buried inside her lengthy Federal Election Commission reports are Jane Fonda, the actress and activist has given $8,300 to the socialist lawmaker and “Squad” member over the years, including $500...

"I want to tell my comrades that with our president who constantly lies, steals money. Well, it it's a bad idea to to fight with the Russians."

An 11-year-old boy was killed in a road rage incident in Henderson, Nevada, after two drivers got into a heated exchange along the freeway and one fired into the other vehicle, according to police. "We lost a life today that we didn't have to lose," Henderson Police Department Chief Reggie Rader said during a press conference on Friday. At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Friday, two vehicles in traffic began "jockeying for positions trying to pass each other on the congested freeway," police said during a press conference on Friday. One of the vehicles tried to pass on the shoulder of...

DMV employee getting paid $3,000 per illegal she took commercial drivers license tests for “Took commercial driver's license, or CDL, written exams — each time she'd use disguises, sunglasses and surgical masks to look like a different person taking the exam” “She'd split a $1,500 to $3,000 payment for each bogus test with accomplices in the DMV” Now imagine similar scams like this taking place in every county in every state in America

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...

It has been almost 20 years since Shelby Steele published the best-known of his five books on race, “White Guilt: How Blacks and Whites Together Destroyed the Promise of the Civil Rights Era.” A lot has happened since. In 2006 “we hadn’t had President Obama, Ferguson, Trump, George Floyd, DEI, Black Lives Matter, President Biden,” Mr. Steele says. “We also hadn’t had Oct. 7.” Mr. Steele, 79, is one of America’s foremost black conservative thinkers, recently retired as a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. He is still hard at work, on a film made by his son, Eli Steele,...

BELEM, Brazil (Reuters) -With the United States absent from the U.N. annual international climate summit for the first time in three decades, China is stepping into the limelight as a leader in the fight against global warming. Its country pavilion dominates the entrance hall of the sprawling COP30 conference grounds in Brazil's Amazon city of Belem, executives from its biggest clean energy companies are presenting their visions for a green future to large audiences in English, and its diplomats are working behind the scenes to ensure constructive talks. Those were Washington's roles, but they now reside with Beijing. China’s transformation...