Free Republic

Between the White House ballroom currently under construction, and the proposed Arc du Trump currently in the planning stage, Washington DC could look entirely different when President Trump leaves office. The classic elements are genuinely inspiring. PRESIDENT TRUMP – “This beautiful building will be, when complete, the much-anticipated White House Ballroom — The Greatest of its kind ever built! It is a rendering from the Treasury Building, directly across the street, and replaces the very small, dilapidated, and rebuilt many times, East Wing, with a magnificent New East Wing, consisting of a glorious Ballroom that has been asked for by...

A set of internal documents published by the Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (Judiciary GOP) has sent shockwaves through Brussels. Released under the title The EU Censorship Files, Part II, the investigation presents documentary evidence of a sustained strategy by the European Commission to influence public debate on social media and digital platforms, pressuring major tech companies to censor lawful content, alter their internal rules, and restrict certain political viewpoints. https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/2018683758006665352 The revelations go far beyond an abstract debate over content moderation. According to the material made public, the Commission has directly or indirectly intervened in at...

alifornians have a right to be angry about Minnesota. It’s getting all the federal government attention for its illegal immigration, street violence, fraud and graft when California, in fact, is the king of all those civic sins. Yes, Minnesota and its lead city, Minneapolis, are impressive in the scale of fraud, estimated currently at billions of dollars, according to the Cato Institute’s recent “Fraud Update.” Not bad for a blue state, especially one with just 5.8 million people. But let’s be honest. Minnesota’s inhabitants are mere pikers compared to those in the Golden State. There, the level of fraud and...

BASF plant in Ludwigshafen, 1881.In its ‘Climate & Energy’ newsletter on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal’s report on Germany’s chemicals industry headlined ‘The Agonising Decline of One of Europe’s Core Industries’ reads less like an industry report than a forensic examination of an industrial autopsy. Once Europe’s formidable manufacturing powerhouse, Germany is now presiding over the steady dismantling of one of its most foundational industries – chemicals – under the combined weight of self-inflicted energy scarcity, climate moralism and geopolitical miscalculation. In Politico’s view, the auto sector has already assumed the role of Exhibit A in Germany’s economic self-harm. But...

As discussed in the previous post, the Federal Judicial Center’s recently-updated Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence contains a new chapter on Climate Science. That chapter focuses on the promoting the hocus pocus of “attribution” studies that seek to blame every latest hurricane or flood or drought on human emissions of CO2, and thus on fossil fuel producers in particular. In my post, I characterized the authors’ write-up of the methodology of these attribution studies as relying on “logical fallacy,” and as “double-talk and bafflegab.” But I think that I inadequately articulated the nature of the fallacy. So I will try...

The Super Bowl hasn’t even kicked off yet, but the halftime show is already a fumble in the eyes of over 100,000 disgruntled fans. A viral petition demanding the NFL ditch Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny in favor of country legend George Strait has gained a lot of internet interest, racking up more than 122,000 signatures as of Tuesday morning. The petition, started in October 2025 by Kar Shell, argues that Strait — the Texas-born country music icon with more than 60 No. 1 hits and decades of chart-topping success — better represents “American music’s rich heritage” and would be...

Top California Republican Steve Hilton blasted GOP rival Sheriff Chad Bianco for skipping Tuesday’s gubernatorial debate — and for taking a knee with George Floyd protesters in 2020. Before answering questions from moderators, Hilton wanted to address the “RINO who is not in the room.” “In 2020, during the Black Lives Matter riots, he took a knee when told to by BLM,” Hilton said. “Now, he says he was praying.” Hilton urged voters not to take his word for it, but see the video of the “shifty sheriff” online for themselves. ... Hilton is considered the leading Republican in the...

When President Donald Trump took the oath of office for the second time in January, he did not inherit a roaring economy or a nation brimming with confidence. He inherited an economy weighed down by chronic inflation, high prices, and a deep sense of anxiety among working families who felt they were falling further behind every month. But one year later, the outlook is far different. From day one onward, Trump has taken decisive action to stabilize and improve the economy. Challenges remain, and affordability is still a serious concern. But the results speak for themselves—and the best may still...

Last week's FBI raid on a Georgia warehouse yielded approximately 700 boxes of ballots and other related materials from the 2020 election and was focused on finding evidence of possible fraud under statutes governing the conduct of election workers in the state's largest metropolitan area. The search warrant for the Fulton County election hub near Atlanta was signed by a federal magistrate and specifically cited Title 52 of the U.S. Code, Sections 20511 and 20701, according to sources in Georgia who have seen the still-sealed warrant. Those statutes govern the conduct of election workers when it comes to preserving records...

Notes In Absentia I want again to thank everyone for the wonderful expressions of concern and reassurance that I have received from listeners and readers. In response to inquiries, and some quite detailed questions and advice, here is a brief update concerning my current temporary absence. As I wrote, the removal of a cancerous lung mucinous adenoma carcinoma along with the lower right lung lobe roughly a month ago was successful. But a post-op aneurism/bleed soon developed. That required a quick second reentry operation into the lung to stop the hemorrhaging—adding considerable time under anesthesia and requiring about five blood...

n less than a month, two “ICE watchers” have been shot and killed by immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis. On January 24, a federal agent shot and killed 37-year-old Alex Pretti, a Veterans Affairs ICU nurse. His death follows that of Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, who was killed on January 7. Both Pretti and Good participated in “ICE watching,” an anti-immigration-enforcement tactic that can involve tracking ICE agents, filming arrests, and alerting other activists of enforcement actions. While participants frame ICE watching as a “community safety” measure, these tactics often place untrained civilians in direct, high-stakes confrontation...

Florida stands at a consequential moment in the national debate over illegal immigration. The state has already moved decisively to protect taxpayers, reinforce the rule of law, and support federal agents. What comes next should be durable, voter-approved, and immune to the shifting moods of Washington. A Florida-tailored constitutional amendment modeled on the core framework of California’s Proposition 187 represents the logical next step, not as nostalgia, but as evolution. Properly adapted to Florida’s legal system and adopted through the state’s referendum process, such a measure would anchor immigration control in constitutional certainty. Simultaneously, public confidence would be bolstered, after...

Yigal Carmon, President and cofounder of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), issued a blunt warning to President Trump in a Daily Brief published January 30, 2026: Hamas and similar Islamist groups are locked into a jihadist ideology that no amount of economic prosperity can break. Carmon argues that even if Gaza were rebuilt into a luxurious "Middle East Riviera" with beaches and hotels, these groups would still prioritize ideology such as martyrdom and Israel's destruction, over material comforts or the "good life" ideal, which he argues motivates the West. He points to pre-October 7 Gaza, where residents enjoyed...

The first comment of this thread will display this chart. For discussion.

According to a report at the Texas Scorecard, Texas’s attorney general, Ken Paxton, is going after the fraudsters abusing the H-1B visa system: Attorney General Ken Paxton has announced a wide-sweeping investigation into alleged abuse of the federal H-1B visa program by Texas businesses, issuing civil investigative demands to three North Texas companies suspected of operating sham enterprises to fraudulently sponsor foreign workers. [snip] Standing outside a single-family home listed as the office address for one of the companies highlighted in recent reporting, Paxton credited BlazeTV and Texas Scorecard personality Sara Gonzales with prompting the investigation. [snip] A portion of...

Our town on the San Francisco Peninsula has had a string of auto burglaries in recent months. The Police Department sent a message to our neighborhood group saying: "We encourage everyone to lock their vehicles and to take out all personal belongings, electronics and valuables. The thieves have electronic devices that detect devices with Bluetooth, so they can use the device outside a vehicle and they will know if there is a device inside with Bluetooth (i.e. laptop, iPad, AirPods, etc) and they will then break into the trunk, even if nothing is visible in the interior of the car....

Maybe the UN can sell Dictator Scouts cookies as we stop footing its bills. The BBC reported, “The United Nations is at risk of ‘imminent financial collapse’ due to member states not paying their fees, the body’s head has warned. “António Guterres said the UN faced a financial crisis which was ‘deepening, threatening program delivery,’ and that money could run out by July. “He wrote in a letter to all 193 member states that they had to honor their mandatory payments or overhaul the organisation’s financial rules to avoid collapse. “It comes after the UN’s largest contributor, the U.S., refused...

Let’s try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that Pearl Harbor happened. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and destroyed the bulk of our Pacific fleet. But nobody talked about it. Nobody reported on it. In fact, the press said that there was no attack, perhaps only a Japanese protest against American government actions in the Pacific. If you suggested going to war with Japan, you were called a Nazi, a racist, and a xenophobe. That sounds absurd, but it’s effectively what’s going on right now. Every day in a thousand different ways, we are being attacked. The republic is being threatened....

It is truly remarkable how easy it is to fool the smartest people. And especially when you tell them they are helping to save the world. So something called the Federal Judicial Center has just come out with a new edition, the 4th, of something called the Reference Manual on Scientific Evidence. The publication date appears to be December 31, 2025. The idea that the federal government, and in particular the judiciary, needs a reference manual on scientific evidence seems to date from the 1990s. The courts, then as now, were facing an increasing volume of cases involving complex scientific...

Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House has been a parade of bold, daring accomplishments. Few presidents would dare to dream of matching it. Elected with a resounding mandate in 2024, Trump wasted no time implementing a transformative agenda that reshaped the nation in tangible, measurable ways. He secured the Mexican border with unprecedented rigor. He is revitalizing the economy through deregulation and tax relief. From brokering international peace deals to dismantling bureaucratic waste, Trump’s administration compiled 365 wins in 365 days. On immigration, Trump achieved negative net migration for the first time in fifty years, removing over 2.6...