Free Republic

The world’s Arab countries for the first time have joined unanimously in the call for Hamas to lay down its weapons, release all hostages and end its rule of the Gaza Strip, conditions that they said could help the establishment of a Palestinian state. The surprise declaration, endorsed on Tuesday by the 22 member nations of the Arab League, also condemned Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which set off the devastating war in Gaza. The statement came at a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to end the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. “In...

The president clamors for the Fed to lower interest rates because it serves his wild spending.No one likes to be told no, especially Donald Trump. To refuse the president is to invite a battle that he will pursue to the bitter end. So the Federal Reserve’s decision on Wednesday to leave interest rates unchanged, at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, was hardly a routine vote. It was a loud no from the majority of voting members — including the president’s designated nemesis, Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell — to Trump’s demand that “interest rates have to come down.”The retributive president...

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard just released a trove of apparently once-classified documents — with promises of much more to follow. The new material describes the role of the Obama administration’s intelligence and investigatory directors — purportedly along with former President Barack Obama himself — in undermining the 2016 Trump presidential campaign. In addition, their efforts extended to sabotaging the 2016-2017 presidential transition and, by extension, the first three years of the Trump presidency. The released documents add some new details to what over the last decade has become accepted knowledge. Congressional committees, special prosecutors, and the inspectors general...

Somebody had to say it. It has been noted on many an occasion that we aren't all getting along. The United States of America in 2025 is a fractured place. What was once a casual political divide has become deep and difficult to navigate. One could say, "Well, it's everybody's fault," but it's not. The American Left is diving deep into reasons that they should be violent these days. They're hateful. They're combative. And they wish you grievous harm. From the top down, Democrats have been gleefully advocating for violence against people like you and me. Their politics of hate...

The West has grudgingly recognised its inability to persuade India not to buy Russian oil. However, anti-Russian lobbies continue to apply pressure on New Delhi, seeing that their goal of imposing a strategic defeat on Russia has proved illusory. Both the US and the EU seek to offload onto our backs some of their continuing failures in dealing with Russia. They have imposed a series of draconian sanctions on Russia for intervening militarily in Ukraine, but these have not caused the economic collapse of the country as they thought it would. Not just that, Trump himself, encouraged by his bludgeoning...

Black teens beat white bystanders in downtown Cincinnati as police, media, and public figures stay silent—revealing a dangerous double standard on racial violence. Recently, a large group of black youths began pummeling several white adults in downtown Cincinnati. The original altercation apparently broke out between a black and white male in he-said/he-said fashion. But that dispute soon turned into a virtual free-for-all. Numerous male and female black youths sucker-punched a middle-aged woman and a man. Others continued to kick or body slam the victims, who were sprawled on their backs and seemingly unconscious. There were many disturbing aspects to the...

Egads! After a disastrous first 100 days, Donald Trump is starting to have a much more successful presidency. This is not what we, his foam-at-the-mouth critics, had planned or perhaps secretly hoped for. Some of this is a function of good policy, like getting NATO’s European members and Canada to spend much more on their defense, something previous American presidents asked for, but much too politely. Far from destroying the Atlantic alliance, as his critics feared, Trump may wind up being remembered for reviving and rebalancing it, to the advantage of both sides. Some of this is courageous policy: Joining...

When labor leader David Huerta was arrested last month during a high-profile anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement protest in Los Angeles, Democrats rushed to denounce his detention.

President Donald Trump's tariffs, scheduled to increase on August 1, could result in significantly higher prices for a range of food groups. This is according to an analysis published Monday by the bipartisan Tax Foundation, which found that these will impact nearly 75 percent of U.S. food imports, which it said will "likely lead to higher food prices for consumers." Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment. Why It Matters It has repeatedly been warned that the higher import taxes implemented as a result of the Trump administration's economic agenda will increase costs for U.S. businesses...

SAO PAULO, July 29 (Reuters) - Brazilian beef-packers' lobby Abiec, which represents companies including JBS and Marfrig (MRFG3.SA), opens new tab, on Tuesday estimated losses of $1 billion if the United States applies a 50% tariff on Brazilian exports The U.S. is Brazil's second biggest beef export destination after China. Roberto Perosa, head of Abiec, said Brazilian beef companies had expected to sell some 400,000 tons by yearend to the U.S., but imposition of a 50% tariff would make sales "inviable." No market can immediately replace the U.S. based on the sheer volume demanded by the importers and the price...

The president’s vision for reshaping global trade is falling into place, but he is embarking on an experiment that economists say could still produce damaging results.Over the last six months, the United States has left behind the global trade order that persisted for decades in favor of something drastically different and largely untested. Formidable economies like the European Union and Japan have abruptly made peace with higher tariffs on their exports, acquiescing to President Trump’s demands in order to avoid damaging trade wars and to coax even steeper U.S. duties down just a little bit. As major economies fall in...

A coalition of 20 states and Washington, D.C. announced a new lawsuit Monday against the U.S. Department of Agriculture after the federal agency told states to turn over the detailed, personal information of food assistance applicants and their household members.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court gave the green light for his administration to slash nearly a third of the Department of Education’s workforce. It’s a big (and long overdue) step toward reining in decades of federal overreach that’s taken power away from parents and local communities. ...... Now, thanks to the Supreme Court, the door is open to real reform. Congress has the power to finish the job and eliminate the DOE for good. These layoffs are just the first move toward dismantling a department that has prioritized politics over education for far too long. For years, bureaucrats in...

Progressive overreach alienated the middle class, replacing working-class roots with elite dogmas—and now the Democrats are reaping the whirlwind they sowed. Sometime after the election of Barack Obama in 2008, the American Left began exploring, then embracing, and finally enacting agendas that proved not only unhinged and unworkable but also fatal to the left-wing project itself. How did the party so alienate the middle classes when it once professed it was the sole party and protector of those in-between? How did the Democratic Congress sink to a 16 percent approval rating in a current liberal Quinnipiac University poll? How could...

The U.S. DOGE Service is using a new artificial intelligence tool to slash federal regulations, with the goal of eliminating half of Washington’s regulatory mandates by the first anniversary of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post and four government officials familiar with the plans. The tool, called the “DOGE AI Deregulation Decision Tool,” is supposed to analyze roughly 200,000 federal regulations to determine which can be eliminated because they are no longer required by law, according to a PowerPoint presentation obtained by The Post that is dated July 1 and outlines DOGE’s plans. Roughly...

It is becoming harder by the day to pretend this is all normal. Epping, a leafy Essex town not known for rabble-rousing, has suddenly become a bellwether. It is not extremists making the noise, but mothers: ordinary, decent, quietly exhausted. One protestor’s placard said it best: “I’m not far-Right. I’m worried about my kids.” Eight days. That’s how long it took from Hadush Kebatu’s illegal arrival on our shores to his alleged assault of a local teenage girl. This criminal charge has pierced through the political haze, not because it is an anomaly, but because it is no longer rare....

The administration’s claims are overblown, but newly declassified information provides some messy details about a January 2017 intelligence assessment of Moscow’s election interference.The Trump administration in recent weeks has released a series of reports intended to undermine the conclusion reached by intelligence agencies before President Trump’s first term that Russia had favored his candidacy in 2016 and sought to improve his chances of winning.That assessment, an unclassified version of which was made public in January 2017, has long infuriated Mr. Trump. In disclosing the reports, he and his team are proclaiming that President Barack Obama and his team torqued the...

A Seattle woman has accused the US Navy's Blue Angels of 'terrorizing' her elderly cat before its death, then violating her rights after they blocked her on social media for complaining, according to a new lawsuit. Lauren Ann Lombardi's 14-year-old cat Layla died on August 11 after suffering from congestive heart disease, which the cat mom claims was worsened by noise from the Blue Angels. 'Layla's final days on Earth were marred by sadistic suffering - cowering in terror beneath furniture while her ailing heart struggled against the Blue Angels' relentless noise pollution,' her federal lawsuit said.

The director of national intelligence gave the Justice Department little warning before she demanded an investigation. President Trump made clear this week that Tulsi Gabbard was back in his good graces. A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump excoriated Ms. Gabbard, one of his top intelligence officials, over a video she filmed during a trip to Asia that he saw as self-promotional, and she was left out of some meetings in the lead-up to the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to two people with knowledge of what happened. But on Tuesday...

... Extreme summer heat during baseball season is not only making games uncomfortably hot and sweaty for fans in the stands — it’s also posing a danger to the health of players and changing the physics of the sport. Since 1970, human-made climate change has driven up average summer temperatures in Chicago by 2 degrees, according to the climate science nonprofit Climate Central. That lines up with an average increase of 2.8 degrees across 26 Major League Baseball home cities in the United States — except Los Angeles. The home of the Angels and Dodgers has had no measurable change...