Free Republic

The U.S. can deport the leader of a large mosque in Wisconsin on the grounds that he is a threat to national security, an immigration judge ruled on Wednesday. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Salah Sarsour, an outspoken supporter of Palestine, in March. Sarsour alleged the federal government was targeting him for speaking out against Israel and advocating for Palestinian rights. In June, a federal judge agreed and ordered Sarsour released, the Associated Press reported. Sasour was born in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and was imprisoned in Israel in 1988 after confessing to throwing a Molotov cocktail and...

The White House began mailing $500 refund checks on Wednesday to nearly 1 million Americans the Trump administration says were overcharged for their ObamaCare insurance. The Treasury Department checks will go out to more than 950,000 Americans across 30 states who use healthcare.gov, the federal health insurance marketplace, the Hill reported. "For years, the Biden administration overcharged you to fund the operation of HealthCare.gov. That money belongs to hard-working Americans, not the Government, and now I’m returning it to you!” President Trump wrote in a letter that will be sent with the checks. Approximately 19.2 million people enrolled in Affordable...

Americans' trust and confidence in the judicial branch has hit a new low as the Supreme Court prepares for a new term, according to Gallup.The big picture: The justices return to the bench after spending their summer making consequential emergency-docket decisions allowing some (but not all) of President Trump's most controversial executive actions to proceed. Driving the news: Since 2022, fewer than half of Americans have reported a great deal or a fair amount of trust and confidence in the judicial branch, headed by the Supreme Court — a share that had never dipped below 50% before in Gallup's trend...

A decision made inside the Pentagon can look very different to the soldier under fire who must carry it out. Sometimes the consequences are a matter of life and death. Washington has no shortage of people who know how to make a decision. What every soldier needs to know is whether the person making it understands what happens after the order leaves the building. Anyone who has served, knows the feeling of wishing that someone several levels above understood what they were asking. I learned that lesson in Ganjgal. My team was trapped under heavy fire, calling for support that...

Five weeks before Election Day, Democratic enthusiasm is reaching a fever pitch. With Republicans struggling to overcome President Donald Trump’s low standing, Democrats are on the offensive in Republican strongholds like Texas and Florida, and even eyeing contests in deeper-red Kansas and Mississippi. Many Democratic leaders predict that the House majority is all but theirs, and that the Senate majority, almost unthinkable a year ago, is nearly in their grasp as well. In the midst of such confidence, however, Democrats are ignoring glaring vulnerabilities that threaten to undermine the unstoppable blue wave they say is coming. Look no further than...

Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has named Fatima Ezzahra El Mansouri as the country’s first female prime minister and the second-woman ever in the Arab world to serve in the position. The royal palace said in a statement on Tuesday that El Mansouri, a 50-year-old urban planning minister and the mayor of Marrakesh, was tasked with forming a new government. El Mansouri said in a televised address her appointment was “truly historic”. “For the first time in our country’s history, a woman is taking on the responsibility of leading the government,” she said. “This is a source of pride not only...

If it seems that the lights are going out more frequently in the Xcel Energy service area, it isn’t your imagination: Outages in 2026 are running above historic averages, according to a Colorado Public Utilities Commission analysis. “In every single month of 2024, 2025 and the first half of 2026, customers have experienced an above-average number of outages,” Nick Bongiardina, a PUC staffer, told the commission during a Sept. 23 review of outages. “This really reflects what customers are expressing they are experiencing.” After a wave of customer complaints in 2024 with 90,000 customers experiencing a 10-year record of six...

A Staten Island judge sided with a group of homeowners who had sued the city over its introduction of the tax, dealing a blow to Mayor Zohran Mamdani.A Staten Island judge on Tuesday dealt a major setback to Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s push to raise taxes on the wealthy, saying that the city had mishandled the rollout of a tax on high-end second homes and must start over.The judge, Wayne M. Ozzi of State Supreme Court on Staten Island, sided with a group of homeowners who had sued the city. The homeowners had argued that the Mamdani administration’s Department of Finance...

This is not an easy undertaking. ... The SR-71 program was scrapped decades ago. There are few people alive who remember how the engines were designed and built. And yet, it seems NASA is getting the gang back together: ... Mike Relja, a retiree in his late 70s, received an unexpected job offer from NASA about a month ago. The assignment: Help put a former NASA-operated Lockheed SR-71A Blackbird back in the air after a nearly 27-year hiatus. Relja, an ex-U.S. Air Force and NASA test engineer for the SR-71A, could not believe his ears. David Ash, a former U.S....

The visit is part of a domestic travel push ahead of the midterm elections as the administration looks to promote its economic strategy, focusing heavily on deregulation, tax reductions, and trade policies.

New rules also ease path for wealthy donors to contribute stock while avoiding capital-gains taxesThe Treasury Department will automatically enroll tens of millions of children in the government’s new Trump Accounts as soon as this week, replacing the previous structure that required parents or guardians to sign up, the agency said in rules published Tuesday. The shift to automatic enrollment will ensure much broader access to the child investment accounts, creating them for more than 60 million additional children under age 18, according to the Treasury Department. The shift to auto enrollment means that big contributions from wealthy donors to...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday removed obstacles to the Trump administration deporting certain immigrants to “third countries” to which they have no previous connection. The justices, with the court’s three liberals dissenting, granted an emergency request filed by the government seeking to block an appeals court ruling that said the current process is unlawful because the affected people are not given a proper chance to raise concerns about safety risks in violation of federal immigration law. In the brief unsigned order, the court also said it would hear oral arguments in December and issue a definitive ruling on...

Consumer confidence plunged in September, falling well below expectations as investors face a wave of headwinds. The Conference Board's consumer confidence index fell to 81.9 from the previous month's reading of 88.6, which was revised down from 89.4, per Conference Board data published Tuesday. Economists had been looking for a sharply higher reading of 89.

Kristi Noem has filed for divorce from her husband Bryon Noem just months after the Daily Mail exposed his crossdressing online porn fetish. Court documents filed by Noem back in April state that basis for the divorce is 'irreconcilable differences.' This is a developing story...

The Jackson, Mississippi, police chief told reporters on Monday that the hanging of Tasia Fortune, whose body was found on Aug. 3, was a "staged event" in a "a drug case gone very wrong." Police Chief RaShall Brackney also said that authorities are still investigating and expect "more arrests to be pending," as well as "charges of conspiracy" to be filed against the three suspects who were already charged in her murder. "This is apparently from what we can see, a drug case gone very wrong, in the ultimate death of Tasia Fortune," Brackney said. "So at this time, we...

Ten thousand U.S. households that earned over $1 million collected unemployment benefits in 2024, receiving nearly $100 million in taxpayer money, according to data shared with The Washington Times. The data was given to the newspaper by Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst, who received it from the IRS and who has tracked this issue for years. Among the most common millionaire claimants were engineers, software engineers, lawyers, executive managers and salespeople, according to the newspaper. High-tax, Democratic-led states topped the list of locations in which the millionaires who collected unemployment lived. California ranked first, followed by New York, Massachusetts and...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has assigned personnel to use "advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference" in the upcoming elections, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The threat of foreign election interference has been a biennial U.S. concern for the past decade. This effort will use the most advanced artificial intelligence capabilities to date, officials said. Hegseth's order does not direct military personnel to the polls, but President Trump has refused to rule out that possibility, heightening concern from Democrats and administration critics.

President Donald Trump is searching for ways to ease the affordability squeeze on American households, but nearly every proposal is colliding with another part of the economy.Beef relief risks hurting ranchers. Restricting fuel exports could distort energy markets. A proposed $5,000 payment to American adults would require congressional action and could add enormous new spending power to an economy where inflation remains above the Federal Reserve’s target.For investors, the bigger story is becoming clear: there may be no quick political fix for an affordability problem being driven at the same time by energy costs, interest rates, inflation and weak purchasing...

In direct support of President Donald J. Trump's commitment to election integrity, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has signed a memorandum directing the Department of War to mobilize a comprehensive, whole-of-government defense of our election infrastructure from foreign adversaries. Under the Secretary's directive, U.S. Cyber Command and Combat Support Agencies will prioritize and deploy advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference in U.S. democratic processes. "Free and fair elections are the foundation of our republic," said Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell. "By working in lockstep with federal, state, and local partners, U.S. Cyber Command and...

President Donald Trump has personally driven the controversial, taxpayer-funded video ads promoting himself and his administration’s policies, including helping select the imagery and videos used, a source familiar with the matter told CNN. Two Trump advisers familiar with the ads said that they were being created in-house by the White House video team — which is part of the communications team, responsible for the administration’s public messaging. “It’s a great message. I like the message, but it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters in the Capitol on Monday. Multiple members of Trump’s...