Free Republic

O. EM. GOSH. It’s 2018, and inequality is still a HUGE problem, even in a progressive utopia like Hollywood. Case in point: this woman’s name is Xayley Briers. She spends forty-five minutes a day running her Etsy storefront selling pet rocks. Do you know how much she makes? About $13 a day. Pretty sad, right? Well, it gets worse. While Briers works her butt off selling and shipping pet rocks all over the country for almost an hour each day, Hollywood A-lister and cisgendered white male Robert Downey Jr. made around $15 MILLION for his work in mega blockbuster Spider-Man...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—According to sources within the Senate, Democratic legislators took a short break from their tireless schedule of lecturing the nation about compassion Monday in order to vote against a ban on the barbaric practice of ripping helpless 20-week-old babies limb from limb and pulling them from the wombs of their mothers. The Democratic Caucus unanimously agreed to resume their moral lectures on the plights of such groups as foreign immigrants to the United States, the LGBT community, low-income earners, and others whom it has deemed victimized, after successfully focusing all but three of its members’ attention on perpetuating the...

In light of complaints surrounding tax reform, the IRS has published an updated Form 1040. Please ensure you file using the following:

Do I really need to point out that this is satire?NEW YORK, NY—In a moving highlight at this year’s Grammy Award ceremony, 42-year-old Trump supporter Bill Myers was called up onstage and executed by way of the guillotine partway through the proceedings. “We’ve got an extra special surprise for you tonight,” host James Corden said just after Bruno Mars accepted his 43rd award of the show. “Voilà!” he exclaimed as he pulled a black cover off the archaic execution device. At that, Myers was dragged kicking and screaming up to the podium, where he was forced to his knees and...

New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that his state, New Jersey and Connecticut will be suing the federal government because “the new tax law impedes our ability to extract the maximum amount of revenue from the taxpayers.” The impediment comes from the clause in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that limits the deductibility of state and local taxes to a mere $10,000 per taxpayer per year. The three states rank at the top of the list for heaviest tax burden as a percent of income with New York at 12.7%, Connecticut at 12.6% and New Jersey at 12.2%....

In the midst of widespread praise of President Trump's economic policies by world business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, a Cable News Network (CNN) panel mostly insisted that the credit for America's booming economy properly belongs to former President Obama. CNN International host Christiane Amanpour asserted that "most of the people I talk to on a regular basis agree that President Obama is really the one responsible. It was his policy that ushered in the period of sacrifice and stagnation that made Trump's moves toward deregulation and tax cuts possible. Let's not forget that the eight...

The Trump proposal to extend a path to citizenship for 1.8 illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children was assailed by key Democrats this week. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill) called the proposal “far short of anything I could agree to. What about the other 30 million undocumented persons living in this country? Where’s the path to citizenship for them. On top of this, Trump’s ‘deal’ would require us to agree to fund beefed up border security, limit chain migration, and end the visa lottery—blocking millions of future migrants from enjoying the same opportunity that he would...

A confidential memo written by Republicans from the House Intelligence Committee has sparked different reactions from Democrats and Republicans. Republicans who have read the memo describe its contents as "shocking." "The facts contained in this memo are jaw-dropping and demand full transparency," said Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla). "The widespread illegal surveillance of America citizens by the nation's intelligence community for what appear to be purely political motives is not the kind of behavior one expects in a free society. We need to release the memo so the American people have information they need to decide how they want their government...

Assemblymen Kevin McCarty (D-Sacramento) and Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) are pushing a measure aimed at confiscating half of the business tax cuts resulting from the federal Tax Cuts & Jobs Act for use by the state government. "Businesses have been exploiting the workers and ripping off customers for too long," Ting complained. "That Trump's tax cuts would now further reward them for their predatory behavior is unconscionable. Our measure would expropriate the expropriators and turn half of these unjust tax cuts over to the state for a more socially just redistribution." Ting said he is not concerned that his proposed...

The Trump Administration is crafting new regulations that would reverse Obama Administration rules compelling doctors to perform abortions. The Department of Health and Human Services will establish a division of "conscience and religious freedom protections" within its Office for Civil Rights. Under the new rules, medical personnel could refuse to participate in procedures that violate their faith or conscience. Adora Slaughter, spokesperson for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the reversal "a betrayal of the rights granted to women by the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision and actualized by President Obama's Affordable Care Act. A woman who wants to...

This week President Donald Trump underwent a full physical exam carried out by Dr. Ronny Jackson. Unusually, the exam included a test of cognitive abilities. The Doctor, who pronounced his patient to be in good health, was then subjected to a barrage of questions, 80 in all, from the media. A few are shown below. NBC News reporter Hallie Jackson wondered “isn’t Mr. Trump is too fat to be president? I mean, he’s no Obama. He doesn’t shoot hoops. He looks fat to me. Doesn’t he look fat to you?” “The tests we conducted were aimed to objectively measure important...

This week, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az) compared President Trump to notorious Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in a speech he gave to fellow Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn) in the Senate. Durbin characterized his colleague's remarks as "moving and insightful. Considering that Trump is clearly a monster of prodigious magnitude, Jeff showed enormous courage speaking truth to power. Why, just the other day Trump used the s*** word to denigrate the governments that are so bad that they turn their citizens into refugees." Klobuchar praised Flake's defense of the media as "a stellar effort in the battle against...

The wave of corporations announcing employee bonuses in the wake of the recently passed Tax Cuts & Jobs Act was denigrated by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) as “pathetic crumbs. These corporations are getting billions in tax cuts, but are only giving out a few thousand to employees.” While the “few thousand” is a per employee figure, the total being paid out in bonuses is in the billions. So far, over two million employees are set to receive a bonus averaging up to $3,000 per worker. On top of these bonuses there will also be individual tax cuts. H...

This week, Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif) illegally released classified testimony given by Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson to the Senate Judiciary Committee. At first, she blamed “a bad head cold” for this lapse in judgment. Later, she alleged “I just got pressured.” Now she disavows her earlier lame excuses, asserting that “I never said I was pressured” and speculates that a reporter “misunderstood my complaint about the severe sinus pressure I was experiencing with the cold.” The reporter in question, BuzzFeed’s Emma Loop, says she has heard a recording of the Senator alluding to getting pressured and wanted to know...

During a private meeting at the White House to work on an immigration bill, President Trump is reported to have asked "why are we having all these people from shit-hole countries come here?" Meeting attendee Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) called Trump's words "hate-filled" and "the worst words ever spoken in the Oval Office. Frankly, it's embarrassing to have a man capable of such language as the nation's Chief Executive. I don't know if it's a high crime, but it certainly seems at least a misdemeanor." Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Az), who was not at the meeting, said "I was aghast at...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) named Donald Trump the "top global press oppressor." The award was considered an upset win. Regimes like China where journalists are jailed for criticizing the government, Turkey, which has surpassed China as the world's biggest jailer of journalists, and Russia where reporters frequently are murdered are expected to lodge protests. Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan complained "we have worked very hard to be the best oppressors. We have more reporters in prison than any other country. I could understand being edged out by Russia or China with their lengthy pedigrees for dealing with nettlesome...

In France, burning cars on New Year’s Eve is becoming more popular. This year’s toll of 1,031 vehicles torched, predominately by Muslims residing in the country, topped last year’s 935. French Sociologist Michel Wieviorka maintains that we should consider these arsonists as “playful rather than criminal in nature. The vandals are mostly young men of foreign heritage coming from countries where automobiles are rare. On the one hand, there is a genuine and warranted expression of rage at a society in which cars are available to some, but not all. They are hitting out at the injustice of a system...

A trio of recently released economic statistics have boosted Democratic hopes of retaking the majority in the House and Senate later this year. First, in December, private employers increased payrolls by stepping up hiring and reducing layoffs. Second, unemployment among blacks fell to the lowest level since 1972. Third, the number of Americans on food stamps fell by two million. Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez labeled these statistics “the starkest of warnings concerning the sad fate in store for average Americans under Republican government. Millions are being forced out of the social safety net so meticulously constructed for them...

CHICAGO, IL—Immediately upon Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent declaration of the entire city of Chicago as an official “crime-free zone,” every criminal in the city suddenly and miraculously left the urban area, according to a statement released by the city council. “We declare every part of the city of Chicago a crime-free zone,” Emanuel announced in a Thursday appearance on CBS This Morning. “It is now physically impossible for any crime to be committed in our great city, because we declared it a zone of peace and harmony and criminals have no choice but to abide by our new rule.” Emanuel...

This week, retired singer Barbra Streisand took to Twitter to vent against the recently passed tax cuts saying that “blue states, athletes, actors, writers, producers, and directors will be punished by this scam of a tax bill. It targets those of us who have earned millions entertaining America. It limits property tax deductions to only a single residence and caps it at $10,000 per year. I, myself, have several homes. I don’t remember exactly how many, but all of them are in the multimillion dollar range and have annual tax bills far in excess of $10,000.” “What Trump fails to...