Free Republic

Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has cautioned that it would be a mistake for GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to skip the party’s primary debates. “I think he should be on the stage. I want everybody on the stage that qualifies, obviously,” she told Fox News Wednesday. “It’s a mistake not to do the debates, but that’s going to be up to him and his campaign.” McDaniel cited two main reasons why she feels it’s in Trump’s best interest to jump into the upcoming verbal slugfest despite holding a massive polling lead over his rivals. “One, short-term, you want...

The first openly transgender lawmaker in the US is facing federal charges in connection with sexual exploitation at a Tyngsborough, Massachusetts daycare center. A teacher at the daycare who assisted the lawmaker in obtaining sexual pictures of the children has also been arrested and was charged in June. In a press release, the Justice Department referred to trans-identified male Stacie Laughton as "a New Hampshire woman." Stacie Laughton, 39, has been federally charged with one count of sexual exploitation of children and aiding and abetting by the US Attorney's Office District of Massachusetts. Lindsay Groves, Laughton's former girlfriend, was the...

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR), who served as White House press secretary during the Trump administration, has yet to endorse a candidate in the Republican presidential primary, reportedly causing friction in her relationship with former President Donald Trump. Axios’s Alex Thompson and Worth Sparkman reported on the alleged “tensions” between Trump and Sanders on Wednesday, citing anonymous sources “familiar with the relationship.” Sanders reportedly informed Trump’s team months ago that she would abstain from backing a presidential candidate until after Arkansas’s first legislative session, which concluded more than two months ago on May 1.

: LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia revealed in a tweet Wednesday that no permit was pulled to trim the now-infamous Ficus trees outside of Universal’s Gate 8. He added in a thread that “The City of LA’s Urban Forestry Division (UFD) will coordinate w/ StreetsLA’s Investigation & Enforcement Division (IED) to confirm if this case warrants the issuance of an administrative citation or hearing. If issued, the administrative citation fee starts at $250.” Mejia had previously tweeted that the trees — which had provided shade for picketers during the ongoing strike before they were pruned over the weekend — are...

Children in some areas of England are waiting up to 18 months on average for dental general-anaesthetic treatment and teeth extractions, an investigation reveals. Some have been left with prolonged dental pain, according to information shared with BBC News.The parents of one girl who has waited three years for extractions say the pain keeps her up at night. At the start of this year, more than 12,000 under-18s were on waiting lists for assessment or treatment at community dental service (CDS) providers, data obtained by the Liberal Democrats from the NHS Business Services Authority and shared with BBC News earlier...

The failure of the grain deal (undermining the bridge) will result in huge financial losses for Ukraine. And the strikes on the Black Sea ports are tied into it. It was the most powerful attack on the city since the beginning of the Russian Special Military Operation in Ukraine. From what can be gathered from Ukrainian sources, the Russian combined arms attack included around 32 Iranian UAV ‘Geranium’, 16 Calibre Missiles, 8 X-22s, 6 hypersonic Onyx missiles and one X-59 flew across the skies of Ukraine. The targets were the infrastructure of the ports of Odessa and the region, industrial...

New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu says he will not seek a fifth term in office Sununu made the announcement that he won't run for re-election in 2024 Wednesday afternoon on social media. "After much consideration, I have decided not to run for another term as Governor in 2024. Be assured we will keep working and that the Granite State will continue to be our priority for the next 18 months," he said in the statement. "Public service should never be a career, and the time is right for another Republican to lead our great state. This was no easy decision...

The Congress members asked Secretary Blinken for an update on the Palestinian policy of rewarding terrorists. A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is calling on the State Department to update Congress on negotiations to end the Palestinian Authority’s policy of paying terrorists. In a letter sent to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the 50 members of Congress noted with concern the uptick of violence in Judea and Samaria in recent months and the P.A.’s refusal to condemn the killings of Israelis while at the same time continuing its “pay for slay” program.

Sheryl Crow is stepping into the conversation being from a small town and calling out Jason Aldean after the country star was accused of promoting violence with the song “Try That in a Small Town.” “Jason Aldean, I’m from a small town. Even people in small towns are sick of violence,” Crow tweeted mentioning his colleague. “There’s nothing small-town or American about promoting violence. You should know that better than anyone having survived a mass shooting.” Crow continued, “This is not American or small town-like. It’s just lame.” Related Stories Jason Aldean's "Try That in a Small Town" music video...

Jessica Watkins, an American political prisoner who was sentenced to 8½ years in federal prison for protesting the stolen election at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, is being harassed and mentally tortured by correctional officers in the female maximum security jail of the DC Central Detention Facility, to the point where transgender Oath Keeper and military veteran is inflicting self-harm. During the Capitol riot, Watkins did not threaten anyone, did not vandalize anything, encouraged others not to vandalize, spoke with several police officers inside the Capitol, and followed their orders. Wicked U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sentenced Watkins’...

Punk rock’s not dead! In fact, the misfits’ preferred brand of music is alive and thriving, thanks to a decades-long legacy of music that has grown into a set of sub-genres spanning everything from Goth and new wave to cowpunk. Whether you’re in the mood for pop punk, classics, the new generation, or something in between, we’ve got you covered with our list of the best punk bands of all time. These are listed in no particular order, just the 33 bands we like the most: 1. Black Flag

Shot through the heart (of the economy), and they’re to blame. The Fed and Congress give government a bad name. When I see the faces of Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and Jerome Powell, all I think of is …. the Minsky Moment brigade! From Zero debt in 1776 to $21 trillion in 1997 and just in the last 4 years, debt has gone up by that same $21 trillion. This graph shows the debt explosion, a 63x increase. And then we have Congress promising >$192 trillion in entitlements (wealth transfers) that will likley be added to the already...

Explanation: Birds don't fly this high. Airplanes don't go this fast. The Statue of Liberty weighs less. No species other than human can even comprehend what is going on, nor could any human just a millennium ago. The launch of a rocket bound for space is an event that inspires awe and challenges description. Pictured here last week, the Indian Space Research Organization's LVM3 rocket blasted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre on Sriharikota Island, India. From a standing start, the 600,000+ kilogram rocket ship lifted the massive Chandrayaan-3 off the Earth. The Chandrayaan-3 mission is scheduled to reach...

WASHINGTON — IRS agent Joseph Ziegler stepped forward Wednesday as the second whistleblower alleging a coverup in the criminal investigation of President Biden’s son Hunter — calling himself a Democrat who wanted “to do what is right.” Ziegler worked on the investigation since it opened in 2018 and was joined by his supervisory agent Gary Shapley, who oversaw the probe since January 2020, at a House Oversight Committee hearing. “I was the lead IRS case agent on the Hunter Biden investigation. I recently discovered that people are saying that I must be more credible because I’m a Democrat who happens...

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram Threads, which some say could rival Elon Musk’s Twitter, has seen a drop-off in users and engagements in recent days after a relatively strong showing in early July, according to analytics companies. “The Threads launch really did ‘break the internet,’ or at least the Sensor Tower models,” Anthony Bartolacci, the managing director at Sensor Tower, a marketing intelligence firm, told CNBC. Bartolacci added that “in the 10-plus years Sensor Tower has been estimating app installs, the first 72 hours of Threads was truly in a class by itself.” In a statement, Mr. Zuckerberg said on...

ator Tim Scott of South Carolina called it an “amazing, gut-wrenching, emotional movie.” “Wow. Wow. Wow,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas wrote of the film, urging supporters to see it. And on Wednesday, former President Donald J. Trump is set to host a screening of the movie, “Sound of Freedom,” at his private club in New Jersey, the most striking sign yet of how the unlikely box-office hit has captured the imagination of American conservatives. The movie, released July 4, was the second most-watched film in North America last weekend, behind “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning,” and has made $90.7...

ormer House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that President Joe Biden’s age should not be a factor in the 2024 presidential election. Pelosi said, “I think the president should embrace his age, his experience, the knowledge that he brings to the job. Actually, the leader on the other side is not much younger. I don’t like to use his name, but you know who I mean. He’s not that much younger. So I don’t think age is a relative thing. And I think this president, our country is very well served by his leadership, again,...

For some apparently unknown reason, CNN’s Jake Tapper suddenly dropped his combative nature that he carries toward Republicans and shifted to an extremely demure disposition, as he interviews Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. This is the softest softball interview I have ever seen Jake Tapper deliver; and that history goes all the way back to his ABC days as a White House correspondent.It’s almost as if there’s an agenda here in the background for Jake Tapper. Remember, this is the guy who led the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy for over two years with his friends Carl Bernstein, Jim Sciutto and Manu Raju,...

It’s a question that most Americans who follow the news ask themselves daily: “How can the residents of so many of the nation’s largest cities keep supporting local officials who tolerate the ongoing destruction of their communities?” Why this May, for example, did the citizens of Chicago -- a city where 21,000 students cannot demonstrate a basic competence in reading, science, and math -- choose the teachers union-backed candidate, Brandon Johnson, for mayor? Especially when Johnson’s chief opponent, Paul Vallas, had promised the electorate sensible school reforms? Why, a few years earlier, did San Franciscans elect a mayor, London Breed,...

Since Republicans retook control of Congress, oversight and investigations have been moving at a break-neck pace assisted by whistleblowers from federal agencies who have proven willing to risk their career in order to expose the inner workings of Biden's administrative state.On Wednesday afternoon, the House Oversight Committee chaired by James Comer (R-KY) will convene a hearing with two IRS whistleblowers to learn more about the agency's handling of the Hunter Biden investigation. One, Gary Shapley, has already become known for his testimony about what he witnessed as a supervisory agent. The other is identified by the Oversight Committee as "Whistleblower...