Free Republic

Todd Blanche's uphill battle to be confirmed as attorney general ended on Saturday with a 50-49 vote in the Senate, after President Donald Trump's former lawyer managed to win key Republican support.

The Senate adjourned for a five-week recess early Saturday morning after passing a bill to fund the federal government until Dec. 11 and confirming Todd Blanche as attorney general. Senate Republicans also agreed to set aside — for the moment — President Trump’s demand to approve another budget resolution to pave the way for tens of billions of dollars in new military spending and to pass the SAVE America Act.

The American honeymoon with artificial intelligence is over, and the numbers make the divorce official. The new Bentley University-Gallup survey finds 39 percent of Americans now believe AI does more harm than good, up from 31 percent just a year ago, while a mere 9 percent believe the opposite. A separate Athena Insights poll found Americans nearly three times more likely to be concerned than excited about AI’s growing role in society. The people, it turns out, have functioning instincts.But instincts only get you so far. Ask the average American to name the dangers of AI and you will get...

The story NPR published - and then almost immediately retracted - at the end of June, which falsely claimed that Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito was retiring, was one of the more bizarre and scandalous moments in the "news" organization's tumultuous history.ICYMI:Oh boy. NPR reported that Justice Alito was retiring, then retracted it 10 minutes later, saying it was “published in error.” pic.twitter.com/ljqd9udn9a— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) June 30, 2026As RedState reported at the time, NPR's longtime legal affairs correspondent and Supreme Court reporter, Nina Totenberg, wrote in an apology letter to Alito that "I rushed out of the courtroom after...

The U.S. Department of War has revoked former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s eligibility to access classified information over what the department says was an unauthorized disclosure involving Air Force One’s capabilities. Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced the move Friday on X, saying it took effect immediately and also bars Kendall from holding any sensitive position. "Effective immediately, the Department of War has REVOKED former Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall’s eligibility for access to classified information and his ability to hold any sensitive position. This action follows his unauthorized disclosure of classified information regarding Air Force One’s capabilities...

Temporary protected status (TPS) for hundreds of South Sudanese nationals in the United States is set to end after a federal judge ruled that the Trump administration can move forward with stripping their protections. On Friday, US district judge Patti Saris of the district of Massachusetts rejected an attempt by immigrant rights organizations including the New York-based African Communities Together to keep TPS for South Sudanese nationals living in the US. Saris’s decision follows a 6-3 supreme court ruling in June allowing the Trump administration to strip hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians of TPS, which granted them permission...

For most Virginians, three more years of Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) feels like an eternity. The mom-next-door-turned-radical-Democrat has spent the last seven months shedding her moderate skin and pushing policies that are wildly out-of-step with her middle-of-the-road state. And while voters can’t send her packing any time soon, they can deliver an emphatic rebuke to the historically unpopular governor on two issues that matter most: abortion and marriage. In November, Virginians have a chance to beat back the extremists in Richmond on a pair of ballot initiatives that could turn the Commonwealth into a deep-blue stronghold on core social values....

President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Todd Blanche was set for confirmation Friday as US attorney general after Senate Republicans shrugged off Democratic concerns over politicization of the Justice Department. Blanche -- who has already been serving as the top US law enforcement officer in an acting capacity -- represented Trump as his private attorney in several criminal trials before entering government. But with Republicans holding only narrow control of the Senate, he faced the potential embarrassment of failing to secure formal confirmation. Two senators from Trump's party said they would not support Blanche, leaving his fate in question until...

A federal judge on Wednesday ruled that some federal gun restrictions can no longer stand after Republicans last year zeroed out the taxes that justified their constitutionality. Congress relied on its taxing authority to pass the 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA), which established a $200 fee to transfer or make certain firearms. But last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act eliminated the tax for short-barreled shotguns, short-barreled rifles and silencers. U.S. District Judge Wesley Hendrix said that has “constitutional consequences.” The law’s registration and recordkeeping requirements for those guns can’t continue, he ruled. “Because today’s NFA does not generate any...

A federal judge in Mississippi ruled Wednesday that “tower dump” warrants are unconstitutional, declining to reverse a lower court decision refusing the government’s request to obtain the search warrants in a series of violent crime investigations. A “tower dump” involves cellphone companies providing law enforcement with access to the time and location data of all mobile devices connected to specific cell towers during a designated time window. Law enforcement had sought approval for several of these search warrants as part of criminal investigations into gang-related activity in the Jackson, Miss., area last year, arguing the data could help identify all...

I've known some libertarians and conservatives to say: "You are free to speak. You are not free of the consequences."This is their way of saying, with approval, that the First Amendment only forbids the government from banning speech. But if you lose your college admissions, business customers, jobs, or platforms because of what you say, well then, tough. That's the "free market" at work. I disagree. While their interpretation of Constitutional law is accurate, the market is not moral, and not all consequences are just or conducive to a free society. Whereas the First Amendment is a legal doctrine, free...

The Republican-led House Committee on Education and Workforce is demanding financial records from five of the nation's largest labor unions over allegations that union leaders used funds to support Democratic candidates and progressive causes while spending millions on lavish perks. In letters obtained by Fox News Digital and sent Thursday, the lawmakers on the committee requested financial records dating back to January 2023 from the United Auto Workers (UAW), United Steelworkers (USW), SMART Transportation Division (SMART-TD), Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), and Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees Division (BMWED). "Unions are supposed to be representing workers for...

Boltinhouse has yet to speak out about the decision, but Brodeur emphasized her statement will be made publicly available soon. She has been described as, “a proud Latina woman with Honduran roots, entrepreneur, and community advocate.”

A half dozen House Democrats in safe districts have lost their primaries so far this election cycle — and many more could soon follow suit. Why it matters: Many of these losses are the result of growing restlessness among the Democratic grassroots that has increasingly morphed into anger towards the party establishment. "I expected a lot of people to run because they didn't know how to respond to Trump without just being active," Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) told Axios He added: "We're seeing that and all the primary electorate voting right now." Driving the news: Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) on...

A federal judge on Wednesday officially allowed the Trump administration to end temporary deportation protection for hundreds of thousands of Haitians, marking the final step, for now, in a months-long case that made its way to the Supreme Court. The announcement from US District Judge Ana Reyes comes more than a month after the high court reversed a ruling she made earlier this year that halted the government’s plans to end a program, known as Temporary Protected Status, for Haitians who fled the country in recent years amid political unrest and on the heels of natural disasters. “The court’s order,...

A federal judge slammed the Justice Department as he “reluctantly” dismissed the seditious conspiracy case against leaders and members of the Oath Keepers in the final January 6 US Capitol riot case. “This is the last of the prosecutions seeking to hold accountable those responsible for the events of January 6,” Judge Amit Mehta wrote in his order dismissing cases against nine people in which he recounted the events of that day. “That book is now closed.” “Today’s epilogue diminishes the gravity of that day, denigrates the work of the prosecutors and law enforcement officers who secured these convictions, and...

A big tent may end up being the death of what was once the Democrat Party. Scott Jennings made the case on Tuesday as the country waited to see whether five Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates in Missouri, Michigan, Kansas, Virginia, and Washington state would topple Democrat incumbents and push the party even further toward the radical left. What’s unfolding now is not just a primary-season skirmish; it’s the visible advance of a hostile takeover. Establishment Democrats who refuse to condemn their ideological allies, along with the party’s progressive wing, have spent months celebrating the “big tent” chief among them...

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff picked up a high-profile endorsement Tuesday from former U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican whose clashes with President Donald Trump prompted him to back other prominent Democrats. Flake said he still disagrees with Ossoff on key policy issues. But in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he said character outweighed those partisan differences. “I’m still a conservative Republican. But character matters. And I want someone in that seat who takes the institution seriously and will protect the institution,” Flake said.

Snapchat’s automated system flagged a private DM to three contacts and triggered an FBI alert in under 60 minutes, ending her teaching career Sixty minutes. That’s how long it took for a private Snapchat message to travel from Kristen Volpe’s phone to the FBI to the deputies standing in her elementary school hallway. On January 29, 2025, the 22-year-old student teacher at John L. Hensey Elementary in Washington, Illinois, vented to her boyfriend and two roommates — three people total — after a student closed her laptop mid-class and wiped her lesson plan. She referenced shooting the student or the...

Republican Utah Sen. John Curtis introduced a bill this week that would let states run their own migrant worker visa programs, with a legal-status pathway for some illegal immigrants tucked inside. Curtis rolled out the legislation Monday alongside Democratic Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, according to the Deseret News. The measure would let state legislatures build voluntary visa programs sized to local labor demand, a reworking of federal immigration law that, according to the outlet, mirrors a 2011 Utah guest-worker proposal Washington never signed off on. The bill contains language the Deseret News described as a possible pathway to legal residency...