Free Republic

Francesca Hong is running for governor of Wisconsin, emphasizing affordability and opposition to US support for Israel. Her message is one the Republican Governors Association hopes to boost ahead of the Democratic primary next month: The opposing party unveiled an ad on Thursday dubbing her “too liberal” for Wisconsin. The ad is set to run in liberal parts of the state. The Republican calculus appears to be to make her appealing to a restive Democratic base that, in a number of races nationwide, has turned against the party establishment. That, in turn, could deliver the nomination to an unabashed left-winger...

Secret Service agents tasked with protecting the Vice President and his family appear to be airing grievances with the Vance family through media leaks. MSNow published a story about complaints within Vice President JD Vance’s security detail, citing “Secret Service sources,” people with knowledge of his travel, and the frustration of current and former agents. The story focused on a recently planned trip by the Vice President and his son to Joint Base Andrews for a golf lesson, and on agents’ apparent anger over the “inappropriate or even unprecedented use” of government resources. “[T]he Secret Service staff’s complaints about a...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), who recently lost his state’s primary due in part to President Donald Trump, ripped the president’s obsession with the 2020 elections as Republicans face an uphill battle in the November midterms. Trump spent Thursday night’s primetime address railing against foreign and “deep state” interference in past U.S. elections and presenting declassified documents that he said proved his point. Critics have claimed that Trump is gearing up to interfere in the midterms and usher Republicans to victory. At the yearly Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Politico’s Jonathan Martin asked Cornyn, “Does that speech last night give you...

BREAKING: Two US service members KIA in Jordan after Iranian missile & drone attack and a third service member is missing in action

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issued a stay on Friday, temporarily lifting a lower court’s block on USPS’s mail-in ballot proposal, in a major win for President Donald Trump. On March 31, Trump issued an executive order, “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” which directs federal agencies to develop state-specific lists of voters who are confirmed U.S. citizens. A provision calls on USPS not to handle mail-in or absentee ballots from individuals, unless they appear on the state-specific, federally approved citizenship lists. Ahead of the midterm elections, Trump has been feverishly calling...

Republicans disheartened by growing fears of electoral losses at the federal level this fall can take some solace in evidence from a new, soon-to-be-released study that we coauthored for Unleash Prosperity, a group focused on promoting pro-growth policies. The graph below shows the results from that study, revealing that in this century economic growth has been substantially greater in the Republican Red states. The new study focuses on the more recent years 2020-2024, using modern statistical techniques to show that even after other factors impacting economic change—like climate, the proportion of the population working in manufacturing or producing oil, or...

The backgrounds of the two defendants add an unusual wrinkle to the case. Langley was identified as an Essence magazine curvy model and Allen as a missionary and actress who starred in Netflix’s “Concrete Cowboy,” an unlikely pairing for a federal health care fraud conviction. Candice Langley, a former Essence model and Cynthia Allen, an actress who starred in Netflix’s “Concrete Cowboy,” pleaded guilty to health care fraud charges. Two women who traveled from Philadelphia to Minnesota with the explicit aim of exploiting a taxpayer-funded program now stand as convicted felons. According to KARE 11, Candice Langley and Cynthia Allen...

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi announced Saturday that Iran was no longer observing the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding, which laid out the glide path for the United States and Iran to achieve a peace deal. "Practically, the United States has violated and suspended all its commitments. Consequently, we have also suspended all our obligations under the memorandum and are currently implementing none of them." He also admonished the Trump Administration that "If they are wise, they must choose other approaches [than military action]." This came as the U.S. was finishing up bombing Iran for the seventh consecutive...

Firefighting efforts can help protect communities but can't tackle Canada's vast fire landscapeIt's another smoky summer in southern Ontario, and people breathing poor air in and around Toronto are once again asking what governments can do about wildfire smoke. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended the province's wildfire budget and has asked Ottawa for extra help. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have also demanded Canada do more to stop smoke from drifting across the border. But experts say the politics can obscure a harder reality: fire is a natural part of Canada's forests, and a warming climate is making...

The Department of Justice has submitted its first-ever application to the Alien Terrorist Removal Court, a never-before-used court established three decades ago. The application, filed July 15, was submitted with little public notice. Its contents remain sealed, and an accompanying cover sheet indicates the filing contains classified information. The court’s chief judge, U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, a George W. Bush appointee, held a closed hearing on the matter on Thursday before ordering the Justice Department to submit a revised application.

The White House has defended the Argentina’s football team’s right to free speech after waving of a Falklands banner in the wake of their semi-final win over England. The sign, originally held by fans but taken onto the pitch during the full-time celebrations, supported the country’s territorial claim to the islands. The flag read “Las Malvinas son Argentinas”, which translates to “The Falklands are Argentine”. It risked being in breach of the International Football Association Board’s (IFAB) rules on political flags. A number of politicians condemned the team for displaying the message in the following days, including Ed Davey —...

Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi says Tehran has “suspended” commitments to the memorandum of understanding signed with the United States last month amid renewed clashes with the US. “The US has violated and suspended all its commitments within the framework of the Islamabad MOU,” he says in a statement carried by the Fars news outlet. “We have also suspended our commitments; we are not implementing them, and we are busy defending the country,” he says.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said his administration was still discussing whether to arrest the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, if he comes to New York City as expected for the U.N. General Assembly in September. “I believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu belongs in The Hague,” Mr. Mamdani told Lulu Garcia-Navarro this week on “The Interview,” a New York Times show, referring to the home of the United Nations’ International Court of Justice. “He’s a war criminal who has been charged by the International Criminal Court,” Mr. Mamdani added. “And what you will find is that is an opinion that is held...

US had partially destroyed the Iran media building the night before - last night they level the building and also leveled the Parliament building in Tehran. No reports here on whether or not anyone was taken out when this happened. Saudi Arabia also moved forces into Bahrain to help defend against the IRGC.

This is a big one in both length and materiality - newly declassified documents from the White House (available for download here) that cover: Democratic large-scale voter fraud in Michigan in 2020; and China’s acquisition of voter data and Chinese plans of election interference; Vulnerabilities in electronic voting systems; and Noncitizens on state voter rolls. We begin with Michigan. In March 2021, the FBI was informed that the State of Michigan is investigating allegations of fraudulent voter registrations submitted to the Muskegon City Clerk’s Office. State investigators were estimated that between 8,000 to 10,000 voter registrations had been delivered by...

As Andy Burnham prepares to become prime minister on Monday, his Conservative predecessors have lined up to give him their advice on succeeding in the job. While Sir Keir Starmer has said he will not give his successor advice in public, other recent occupants of No 10 have been more forthcoming, stressing the pressures of time Mr Burnham will face. Writing in The Sunday Times, Rishi Sunak urged Mr Burnham to “soak up every second” of his arrival in Downing Street, saying he regretted not allowing himself “a moment of reflection”. But once inside, he added, it was “imperative” for...

DENVER (KDVR) — A man was arrested for surfing naked on top of a moving locomotive on Thursday, according to a social media post from the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Office. The man, identified as Daniel Ray Ballance of Quartzsite, Arizona, broke the window on a Union Pacific Railroad locomotive and entered it. Ballance was arrested and faces a combination of felony and misdemeanor charges, according to the sheriff’s office. “For those of you who had the unfortunate experience of seeing this gentleman surfing naked on top of a moving locomotive yesterday, I want you to know that he was arrested...

Christopher Nolan‘s The Odyssey sets sail on its box office voyage as the star-studded retelling of the classical mythological tale aims to get moviegoers back in the saddle after a recent stretch of underperforming debuts. Universal Pictures‘ feature collected $17.6 million from Thursday previews on 3,900 North American screens as it targets a $50 million Friday and a better-than-expected $117 million opening weekend. (It was projected to bow to between the mid-$80 million range to upwards of $100 million). That would give it both the top live-action opening of the year, and the top R-rated opening of the year, as...

Over the last month, Democratic socialists have notched victories in the liberal strongholds of New York City, Washington, D.C., and Denver. Now Francesca Hong, a single mother who has worked as a dishwasher and line cook, is trying to do the same with her campaign for governor in Wisconsin, a swing state known for razor-thin election margins where winning over moderate, independent voters is crucial. Hong’s candidacy has turned the Democratic primary on Aug. 11 into the latest test of just how far left voters are willing to go in the November midterms. “We do this in Wisconsin, we’re going...

This video from Black Conservative Perspective provides commentary on recently released police bodycam footage involving Gabriel Hostin, the 24-year-old son of The View co-host Sunny Hostin. Key events and points covered in the video: The Incident: Gabriel Hostin was detained by police in Westchester County, New York, for trespassing on active Metro-North Railroad tracks (4:00 - 4:45). Officers explained that this is a dangerous area where people are frequently struck by trains and that they were performing a mandatory subject stop for safety reasons (6:05 - 6:30, 8:12 - 8:28). Sunny Hostin’s Involvement: While on the phone with her son...