Free Republic

WASHINGTON — President Trump said he dined Thursday night with comedian Bill Maher, musician Kid Rock and sports commentator Stephen A. Smith. “I think they had a good time. We talked about everything, it lasted a long time,” Trump told reporters Friday as he left the White House for a campaign trip to Georgia. “Even though they have to sort of put on a certain little facade for their people, they like Trump, and I actually like them. We had a great time.” “We even took a little tour of the ballroom. We went inside the ballroom with beams that...

The Justice Department under the Biden administration opened an investigation into Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, in 2024 to scrutinize her finances, campaign spending and interactions with a foreign citizen, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The inquiry, initiated by the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington and the department’s public integrity unit in June of that year, appears to have stalled for lack of evidence, according to one of the people who requested anonymity to discuss internal department matters. The investigation appeared to be thrust into the public spotlight on Monday, when President Trump blindsided department officials...

A Washington state school district has agreed to publicly apologize, undergo religious liberty training and pay $275,000 in attorney’s fees after a lawsuit challenged policies that required elementary school students to keep Bibles concealed in sealed envelopes, according to a Christian education organization whose CEO says children felt pressured to hide their faith. Joel Penton, founder and CEO of LifeWise Academy, told Fox News Digital in an interview Thursday that parents described the emotional toll of the Everett School District’s restrictions, which also included requiring families to submit permission slips every week for their children to attend voluntary, off-campus Bible...

Okay, so apparently Katie Zacharia didn't work out as press secretary. However, is there a chance she could have remained on that job if she wasn't so nervous at the get-go? In fact, could she have been able to get over that hump of first day nerves if she had been calmed down by just a few shots of whiskey (or rum or vodka)? I say this from some personal experience. I spent a couple of summers years ago traveling the race car circuit (NASCAR, Indy 500, and other car races) in the Midwest, East Coast, and the South. No...

A new poll of the Ohio Senate and gubernatorial races shows Democrats ahead in both contests. In the Senate race, a Bowling Green State University (BGSU) poll found former Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) ahead of Sen. Jon Husted (R) by 6 points, 48 percent to 42 percent, among likely voters. When BGSU surveyed the race in September, Brown had just a 3-point lead. Ohio voters were evenly split 48 percent to 48 percent on who they think will win, regardless of whom they support. That is narrower than September, when more thought Husted would win. In the governor’s race, Democrat...

Kyiv lacks an answer, for now, to Moscow’s mass-produced new weapons In a field in central Ukraine, an experimental drone zoomed into the sky as engineers demonstrated its potential to intercept Russia’s jet-powered attack drones, which are tormenting the country. The prototype, called a Zirka, reached a top speed of 280 miles an hour as its propellers whirred frantically. Not fast enough, the testers acknowledged.“We still need to find a counter-jet solution,” said Lika Volovych, a manager at the Zirka’s manufacturer Noctis, as she watched it buzz high above.On the horizon, black smoke rose from a Russian drone strike on...

The Denver Post’s editorial board has come out against Amendment 87, the proposed graduated income tax ballot measure. In an Oct. 11 editorial, the board argued that extracting $2.7 billion in a single year from the state’s largest businesses would “do more harm than good.” While the board took exception to some opponents’ claims, such as the measure’s impact on businesses under $500,000 in taxable profit and on deductions for seniors and veterans, it concluded that the risk to Colorado’s largest employers outweighs the benefits. Citing conversations with Gov. Jared Polis and Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce president J.J. Ament,...

President Volodymyr Zelensky used his appearance at the Oct. 16 summit of EU leaders in Brussels to list the main things Kyiv needs to survive the winter and beyond, but those asks won't come cheap. "I am grateful for your support for Ukraine," Zelensky told EU leaders. "Without a determined European Union capable of making strong decisions Putin would have gone much further by now," Zelensky said. But with Russia ramping up its use of ballistic missiles and jet-powered Shahed drones to pummel Kyiv, and the U.S. taking steps to undermine Russia sanctions and Ukrainian security, Zelensky also came to...

Bigger agencies, higher spending, and expanded workforces don't always make government more effective.My recent trip to Malibu from Los Angeles was my first post-wildfire drive through the Pacific Palisades and, my goodness, there's nothing like seeing something with one's own eyes to grasp the enormity of the devastation. The obliterated hulks along Pacific Coast Highway 21 months after the tragedy raise multiple issues, including ones related to the excruciatingly slow rebuilding process. This being California, the state has yet to grapple sufficiently with the reasons the wildfires started—and the failed response to them. But late is better than never, so...

HeeHaw's owner argues that “no reasonable officer…would have believed that such force was necessary or justified.”The Georgia officer responsible for killing a 1-year-old miniature donkey, HeeHaw, has filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit against him, claiming the body camera footage proves he "reasonably believed the donkey posed an imminent threat to a fellow officer." But even if it doesn't, the officer argues he is immune from liability. In the early morning hours of August 30, Hannah Michelle Israel was at her Cedartown home in western Georgia when she received a distressing phone call. A supervisor with the Cedartown Police...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- A Center City woman was arrested after allegedly refusing to move out of the path of a delivery robot. The confrontation was captured on video and has since drawn online attention. Philadelphia police said officers responded to the 1200 block of Filbert Street after witnesses reported a disturbance involving Carolyn Marvin and an Uber delivery robot near Reading Terminal Market. According to police, Marvin repeatedly blocked the robot's path and ignored multiple commands from officers to move. She was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. Marvin tells Action News she was protesting the use of delivery robots...

Secretary Mullin and Commissioner Scott observed ongoing construction on secondary barriers and met with construction crews as the Trump Administration marked 17 months of ZERO releases of illegal aliens at the southern border. The latest data from CBP also revealed that Fiscal Year 2026 saw the lowest amount of border crossings of any fiscal year in American history. ...“Thanks to President Trump’s bold leadership, we have had ZERO illegal aliens released into our country for the past 17 straight months—that’s promises made, promises kept in action.” In Fiscal Year 2026, CBP completed construction of 250 miles of new border barrier...

[Catholic Caucus] The Modernist Gospel of Lived Experience: Rome Rediscovers the Heresy Condemned by St. Pius X At Leo XIV’s Vatican, theology is now said to emerge from people’s experiences. St. Pius X exposed this inversion of Catholic faith 119 years ago.The Modernists Are Finally Saying It Out LoudSometimes the Modernists make their intentions so obvious that one wonders why they bother dressing them up in theological jargon.During the October 14 Vatican press conference marking the tenth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia, Fr. Stanislaus Chu Ilo, a Nigerian theologian at DePaul University, offered this remarkable explanation of the theological revolution currently...

Iran’s oil industry has been brought to a standstill, and the economic consequences are becoming impossible to ignore. Iran’s seaborne crude oil exports collapsed from a 14-day average of 230,000 barrels per day at the beginning of September to ZERO, remaining there into October. This is an extraordinary development for a country that depends upon petroleum revenues to finance its government, support its currency, and obtain the foreign exchange necessary to purchase imports. Washington has spent decades attempting to cripple Iran’s economy through sanctions, but the naval blockade has accomplished something far more devastating in a matter of weeks. Claire...

How the free market gets blamed for cronyism. Words have specific meanings. Unfortunately, capitalism is frequently misused by supporters and critics alike. Too often, what people defend or condemn is not free-market capitalism at all. Although distinctions exist among capitalism, free enterprise, and free market, for the purposes of this essay, I use capitalism to mean free-market capitalism: an economic system based on private property, voluntary exchange, competition, freedom of entry and association, and freedom of contract—including wages negotiated without government-imposed minimums. Government’s role is that of a referee: protecting property rights, enforcing contracts, and preventing force and fraud, not...

As smoking makes a comeback among Silicon Valley founders and engineers, Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar says some AI researchers are lighting up to signal their belief that the technology will cure cancer, calling it a form of “mass psychosis.” Speaking with Face the Nation’s Margaret Brennan Sunday, Sankar argued that some people building artificial general intelligence (AGI) have developed an almost religious faith in the technology, while others’ warnings about its dangers are driven by their own ideological beliefs. The X account Fireside Alpha shared a clip. [Palantir CTO reveals AI researchers are taking up smoking to signal to other...

If absentee ballot numbers are any indication, things in Wisconsin look really good for Republicans in the state, including Tom Tiffany. Here's a better breakdown of those numbers: There were 363,330 applications this year, down 20.3 percent from 2022, and 151,231 were returned, down 28.2 percent from 2022. Those numbers are down across the board, but especially so in bluer districts. Republicans must go and vote. But the signs are there that this may not be the blue wave Democrats are hoping for. That's great news for all of us.

Looking for an easy weeknight meal that the whole family will enjoy- this King Ranch Chicken casserole is a flavorful recipe with history too!

The weeping mother of the crazed teen gunman who carried out a mass shooting at an Oregon elementary school insisted her son was “a good boy” and that she would have tried to prevent the massacre if she could. Shauntai May Nickerson, the mother of 16-year-old John J. Griffin II, waved off reporters on the porch of her apartment complex as she smoked a cigarette and cried, the New York Times reported. The mother insisted Griffin — who killed three students and one teacher at Silver Rail Elementary School on Thursday — was “a good boy, he really was” and...

Author and media personality Oli London labels Greta Thunberg a "hypocrite" for fighting climate change while joining protests that are further polluting European streets. "Greta Thunberg has to be labelled a hypocrite. She claims to be a climate change activist, but she's constantly jetting around Europe," Mr London told News24 Digital Presenter Gabriella Power.