Free Republic

Gas prices often increase in the summer as more motorists hit the road, but this year’s pump prices have dropped to match the summer of 2021, the last time seasonal gas prices were this low. The national average is down about 3 cents per gallon from last week, returning to the price from a month ago, $3.16. One year ago, gas prices were at $3.574. Gas prices were also at a four-year low on Independence Day. The White House is attributing the phenomenon to President Donald Trump’s energy agenda, which Energy Secretary Chris Wright told The Daily Signal can be...

Court documents describe surveillance video that shows the victim standing on the platform waiting for a train when the suspect walks up and hits him in the head. Author: Anthony Macuk (KGW) PORTLAND, Ore. — The victim in an apparently unprovoked assault at the Convention Center TriMet MAX station Thursday morning has died, Portland police confirmed late Friday afternoon. Police declined to identify the victim because his family has not yet been notified of his death. Police identified the suspected attacker as Jordan T. Christ, 30, and announced Thursday afternoon that he had been booked in Multnomah County jail on...

As more businesses go cashless, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wants to make it illegal to refuse legal tender. Fetterman, along with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), introduced the Payment Choice Act on Thursday. It would require businesses to accept cash without “It’s simple,” Fetterman said, “if you’re open for business in America, you should take U.S. dollar.” Under the proposed legislation, businesses must either accept cash or provide a device that converts cash to a prepaid card so long as it does not charge a fee. Businesses could refuse payments made with $50 bills or larger. Failure to comply would come...

A new poll suggested that democratic socialist New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s sheen may already be wearing off among voters. Mamdani’s support appears to have dropped 14 percentage points from less than a week ago, based on a previous poll, while Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa’s surged 12 percent. Mamdani shocked the political world by winning the Democratic primary, defeating former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He now faces Sliwa and Cuomo, as well as current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, in the general election. Cuomo and Adams are both running as independents, assuming they each decide to...

Obama and his national security team “manufactured and politicized" phony intelligence to help frame Donald Trump Never before in American history has a departing president connived to sabotage and destroy the man who would replace him. Newly revealed documents show that in 2016 then-President Barack Obama and his national security team "manufactured and politicized" phony intelligence to help frame Donald Trump as a Russian asset when they knew it was untrue. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard who unearthed and released the declassified documents on Friday described it as an "egregious abuse of power" that amounts to a "treasonous conspiracy."...

In an age when political authenticity is currency, California Gov. Gavin Newsom is making a risky bet: that he can repackage his image from slick, left-coast progressive into pragmatic, media-savvy moderate. Newsom’s strategy appears engineered to break out of the coastal liberal mold. His new iHeartRadio podcast, “This Is Gavin Newsom,” features guests from across the political spectrum. He’s launched a Substack, plastered Fox News with ads, and even taken his feuds with Donald Trump directly to national audiences. ... But this isn’t just about booking podcast guests. In another instance, Newsom criticized the inclusion of biological males in women’s...

American Derek Huffman thought he’d found the perfect solution. Move his family from Texas to Russia for “traditional values.” Join the military for fast-track citizenship. Work as a welder, not a fighter. Instead, he’s heading to Ukraine’s front lines after three weeks of training despite assurances he would serve in a non-combat role. Some Americans move to Russia seeking what they view as “traditional values”—conservative Christian beliefs, traditional family roles, and strict opposition to LGBTQ+ rights and “woke” ideologies they feel are overwhelming American culture. Russia’s new “Shared Values” visa program, launched in August 2024, specifically targets these disaffected conservatives...

A man has died after getting sucked into an MRI machine.The accident occurred on July 16 at the Nassau Open MRI in Westbury, New York, according to a press release from the Nassau County Police Department in Long Island.Officers responded to a 911 call at around 4:30 p.m. at the MRI center, which provides diagnostic radiology services."Upon arrival, officers were informed that a male, 61, entered an unauthorized Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) room while the scan was in progress," the release stated. "The male victim was wearing a large metallic chain around his neck, causing him to be drawn into...

Everybody was shocked — shocked! — when Stephen Colbert announced this week that CBS canceled “The Late Show.” The despondent media reacted like a meteor was about to smash into Earth. But how surprising was Colbert’s kibosh really? Did peoples’ jaws also hit the floor when Blockbuster Video called it quits in 2014? Were they muffling their screams when blimps were phased out for air travel in 1937? “What do you mean ‘no more silent films’?!” The end of “The Late Show” was every bit as writ-in-stone as any of those predictable downfalls. And it’s not only Colbert. The Grim...

A "pro-Palestine" protest in Umeå, in northern #Sweden, staged a Nazi-style display of Jews hanging while wearing the striped unforms of Auschwitz and other concentration camp inmates. They even put prisoner numbers on the mannequins. https://t.co/XwiqsMY0SC pic.twitter.com/pxbViGDPmj— Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) July 19, 2025

Ukrainians have had enough of Zelensky.During the three and a half years of the war in Ukraine, the western Globalist politicians and the obedient mainstream media have painted Volodymyr Zelensky as the defender of democracy, a historical, mythological figure comparable to WW2’s Winston Churchill.Then, of course, came Donald J. Trump, calling him ‘a moderately successful comedian’, ‘the greatest salesman on earth’, and ‘a dictator, with no elections’.Now, even as Trump promised Kiev air defenses with new Patriot batteries and is threatening Russia’s Vladimir Putin with sanctions, a Spectator article shows Ukraine about to be ‘engulfed in a critical military, political...

The House gave final approval to President Donald Trump's request to claw back about $9 billion in funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid early Friday. The vote marked the first time in decades that a president has successfully submitted such a rescissions request to Congress, and the White House suggested it won't be the last. Some Republicans who indicated they were uncomfortable with the cuts,yet supported them anyway. “The money that we're clawing back in this rescissions package is the people's money. We ought not to forget that,” said Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., chair of the House Rules Committee....

Behind the razor wire of her rundown Florida federal prison, Ghislaine Maxwell was always clinging to the hope that when Donald Trump was back in the White House, he’d set her free, a jailhouse source told The Post. The disgraced British socialite — called “Max” by her fellow inmates — is still waiting. Maxwell, 63, was convicted in 2021 for recruiting and grooming underage girls for billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his Manhattan jail cell in 2019. She has served three years of a 20-year sentence. “Max was very into her appeal,” the source at FCI...

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican’s Homosexual Network: Protected by the Secretariat of State“Twenty years of scandals, and the Vatican - to be more specific, the Vatican Secretariat of State - has learned nothing”, writes Phil Lawler on CatholicCulture.org (July 17).He comments on the case of Rev Carlo Capella. The priest was imprisoned in Vatican City for possessing and distributing child pornography, yet he has returned to work in the Holy See’s diplomatic service — first without an official title, and now with a formal senior designation.An official labelled the scandal as 'an act of mercy'.Lawler asks: “Mercy? Not mercy toward the teenagers...

Like his sugardaddy, Vladimir Putin, Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro, likes to take American hostages for use as bargaining chips. He's got a lot of them in his many dungeons. So surprise, surprise, he's traded a lot of them: According to ABC News:The more than 200 Venezuelan migrants who were deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador's mega-prison in March have left El Salvador to be sent to Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap that included Americans being held in Venezuela, El Salvador President Nayib Bukele announced on X. The deal included the release of 10 Americans held in...

I didn’t expect the highlight of my Tuesday night would be watching an actor portraying Luigi Mangione sing a ballad about hash browns, followed by a tap dance number featuring his cellmates Sean Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried (who happen to be falling in love). The plot is totally outrageous, but as “Luigi: the Musical” goes on, it becomes cathartic to sit in the warm haze of the Independent with over a hundred strangers and laugh, groan and marvel at the spectacle American life has become.

A woman shot by “Son of Sam” killer David Berkowitz nearly 60 years ago found herself in the crosshairs again this week when she was confronted by a friend of the serial killer who lectured her about the murderer’s innocence. Wendy Savino was at Valley Cottage Library in Rockland County Wednesday when Frank DeGennaro — who became friends with the heartless killer 30 years ago — confronted her and insisted Berkowitz did not shoot her ... Savino was shot three times as she sat in her brand new silver Jaguar XJS on April 9, 1976, in the Bronx. ... She...

Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard appeared on "Hannity" Friday night where she asserted that former President Barack Obama's goal with the Russia collusion narrative was to "subvert the American people's will" in the 2016 presidential election. Gabbard declassified the report on the Obama administration's Russia hoax on Friday, revealing "overwhelming evidence" that demonstrates how, after President Donald Trump won the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, then-President Barack Obama and his national security team laid the groundwork for what would be the years-long Trump–Russia collusion probe. ... this is an issue that is "important to every single one of...

By Dr. John BergsmaThis Sunday, as we continue to accompany Jesus on his fateful journey to Jerusalem in the Gospel of Luke, we are confronted with a pair of Readings in which human beings host a meal for God: Abraham for the LORD in the First Reading; Martha and Mary for Jesus in the Gospel. But is it really possible for us to “do God a favor” by giving him a nice meal? We are going to discover that, while God graciously accepts our services, it’s really about what God does for us, not what we can do for him....

U.S. — The news media which remained unconcerned for four years by the lack of circulation to former President Biden's brain have expressed deep concern over the circulation in President Trump's ankles. Journalists, who were unable to identify any symptoms of cognitive decline in a man who could not speak and shook hands with ghosts, have sounded the alarm over the mild swelling in Trump's ankles. "This is no deep fake, America. This is real," said ABC journalist Mario Arrato. "The administration says Trump is okay, but as journalists, we do not simply take their word that the President is...