Free Republic

I’m not a big fan of political labels. They invite people to put you in a box, and the only box I want to be in is one labeled “open-minded.” I don’t think anyone has a monopoly on the truth.But anyone who takes a look at my résumé — I worked at a top Democratic Party-aligned think tank and a left-leaning political action committee, where I helped Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats win elections — would acknowledge that over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time in the progressive movement.And yet, for the past week, the politician I find...

The ex-girlfriend of the Delta pilot who was arrested on child abuse charges after landing his flight in San Francisco on Saturday has also been charged in the case–with the child victim being her own daughter. ... After landing at San Francisco International on a flight from Minneapolis Saturday night, 34-year-old Rustom Bhagwagar from Florida was dramatically arrested on the plane–while shocked passengers pulled out their cellphones to record–by Contra Costa Sheriff’s detectives aided by Homeland Security agents. He was initially charged with five counts of sexual abuse of a child under 10. ... The Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office...

The far-right activist is continuing to use her close association with President Trump to go after those she deems insufficiently loyal.Laura Loomer, the far-right activist and self-described Trump administration “loyalty enforcer,” has had another busy stretch.Last Friday, April Falcon Doss, the general counsel of the National Security Agency, was fired after Ms. Loomer spotlighted conservative attacks of her previous work, including for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Democratic staff.Then the Food and Drug Administration’s top vaccine official, Dr. Vinay Prasad, resigned on Tuesday after a post by Ms. Loomer on social media, in which she pointed out his past statements disparaging...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Workers at a site in South Carolina that once made key parts for nuclear bombs in the U.S. have found a radioactive wasp nest but officials said there is no danger to anyone. Employees who routinely check radiation levels at the Savannah River Site near Aiken found a wasp nest on July 3 on a post near tanks where liquid nuclear waste is stored, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Energy. The nest had a radiation level 10 times what is allowed by federal regulations, officials said. The workers sprayed the nest with...

The system will focus on diabetes, weight management, and digital tools for patient check-ins. The Trump administration announced it is launching a new program that will allow Americans to share personal health data and medical records across health systems and apps run by private tech companies, promising that will make it easier to access health records and monitor wellness. More than 60 companies, including major tech companies like Google, Amazon and Apple as well as health care giants like UnitedHealth Group and CVS Health, have agreed to share patient data in the system. The initiative will focus on diabetes and...

When the Fed cut short rates in the fall, long-bond yields spiked.The Federal Open Market Committee meets this week to discuss monetary policy, and President Trump is demanding a big cut in the Fed’s target short-term rate. That’s what Mr. Trump always wants. But is he looking at the wrong interest rate? The Fed isn’t expected to cut its current short-term target rate of 4.25%-4.5% this week, and no doubt that will upset the President. But if Chair Jerome Powell is cautious, perhaps it’s born of experience. When the Fed began a rate-cutting spree last September, it was premature and...

The top staffer to a Republican lawmaker running for Senate hired his girlfriend and made sure she was paid thousands, the Daily Mail has exclusively learned.Georgia Rep. Mike Collin's chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, 39, was hiring for an intern at the lawmaker's district office, and filled the position with girlfriend, Caroline Craze, 26. Former Collins staffers revealed to the Daily Mail that Craze, despite getting paid thousands, rarely showed up for work.According to congressional salary tracker Legistorm, Craze was paid $5,044 for interning in the district for two months from November 4, 2023, until December 31, 2023.She was also...

A Democrat member of the Cincinnati City Council is facing backlash after saying that the victims of a mass brawl in her city deserved to be beaten to a pulp. Victoria Parks, 67, the President Pro Tem of the city council, sparked anger on social media after commenting on a story about a melee in the Ohio city's downtown area over the weekend. The fight captured national headlines as a couple were set upon by a large group of people, with upwards of 100 witnesses gathering to watch the savage attack, but only one eventually calling 911. In her comment...

"The policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Brazil are repugnant," the order states. WASHINGTON — As the United States Treasury Department sanctioned Brazil’s infamous Supreme Court justice, President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday slapping an additional 40% tariff on the country in response to the “unusual and extraordinary threat” that Brazil poses to U.S. national security. The president’s order uses the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 to declare a new national emergency, saying that Brazil has engaged in practices and policies harming United States companies, United States foreign policy and economy, and the free...

The National Security Agency removed its top lawyer after The Daily Wire exposed her past work investigating President Donald Trump for Democrats and penning op-eds praising censorship and defending the intelligence community’s treatment of Trump associates like Carter Page. The intelligence agency’s webpage listing April Doss as general counsel was deleted and “multiple former officials” told The New York Times that Doss had been removed. The removal shows that, after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard said documents show a conspiracy of “manufactured intelligence” to sabotage the president, the Trump administration is taking steps to ensure that people involved in...

Meta and Microsoft — two of America’s biggest companies — both delivered blockbuster earnings on Tuesday. The news helped to calm fears that President Donald Trump’s tariffs were hurting consumer and business spending. That boost to confidence in the broader US economy gave a lift to 401(K)s invested in major indexes like the Nasdaq and S&P 500. Meta and Microsoft are considered bellwethers for the US economy because they sit at the heart of key growth sectors — digital advertising, AI, cloud computing, and office software. Their strong performance often reflects broader consumer and business trends, from advertising spending to...

Top executive resigns on the heels of federal funding cuts.Federally funded media companies just got their quills handed to them, and now it appears they are scrambling to reshuffle their woke practices. Edith Chapin, the editor in chief and acting chief content officer of National Public Radio (NPR) announced she will be leaving the organization later this year while the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and affiliates are looking at layoffs and other budget cuts.Housekeeping Underway at NPRRecently, Congress approved a request to cut nearly $9 billion of previously approved funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. Most of the funding...

President Trump on Wednesday said that India will pay a 25% tariff on Aug. 1 and suffer a penalty for buying Russian energy."Remember, while India is our friend, we have, over the years, done relatively little business with them because their Tariffs are far too high, among the highest in the World, and they have the most strenuous and obnoxious non-monetary Trade Barriers of any Country," Trump posted on Truth Social."Also, they have always bought a vast majority of their military equipment from Russia, and are Russia’s largest buyer of ENERGY, along with China, at a time when everyone wants...

https://babylonbee.com/news/kamala-announces-she-will-step-away-from-politics-to-spend-more-time-with-vodka SACRAMENTO — Former Vice President Kamala Harris officially announced today that she would be stepping away from politics in order to spend more quality time with vodka. Harris stated that in the wake of her defeat in the 2024 election, she spent time evaluating what her priorities were at this stage in life and discovered that it was vodka. "I'm looking forward to finally being at home with vodka," said Harris. "See vodka, it's like a drink. It comes in a bottle, and you pour it into a glass, and then you drink it. Sometimes people say, 'Stop! That's...

‘You need to TRUST ME on this,’ Clapper’s crony told the analyst, saying he ‘would need to demonstrate [his] ability to “outgrow”’ the refusal to sign off on assessments he did not concur with. A crony of then-Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper threatened to withhold a promotion from a senior intelligence official unless he concurred in the fake Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) on Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election, notes obtained exclusively by The Federalist show. The notes made public for the first time today recount a conversation the top analyst in the Office of the Director of...

GOP senators sparred with fellow Republican Josh Hawley on Wednesday over a Hawley-authored bill that would ban trading and ownership of stocks and certain other assets by lawmakers, the president and vice president and their spouses and dependent children. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved the bill on a slim 8-7 vote after earlier adopting a Hawley substitute amendment that extended the prohibitions beyond just members of Congress, reaching into the Oval Office. The compromise amendment would give officials elected before the date of enactment until after their current term to divest their assets. So President Donald Trump...

Vitol Group handed a record $10.6 billion to its executives and senior staff through share buybacks last year, as the fallout of the energy crisis continued to deliver extraordinary riches to the world’s commodity traders. The share repurchase — almost certainly the highest such payout in the industry’s history — means privately held Vitol has distributed over $31 billion to its partners in the past decade, according to the company’s audited annual accounts seen by Bloomberg News. The numbers show how the disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have handed a spectacular bonanza to a small group of commodity...

Many Hispanic Americans living along the U.S.-Mexico border are voicing strong support for President Donald Trump’s handling of immigration enforcement, adding that they got exactly what they voted for.In the 2024 presidential election, Trump managed to flip several border counties that had not voted for a Republican president in decades, and in one particular case, for more than a century. President Joe Biden’s mismanagement of the border was cited by members of these Latino communities as one of the defining reasons for this change, and Trump’s historic crackdown on illegal immigration has kept them satisfied with their choice. “Oh, I’m...

Texas has long been defined by oil, heat, and huge infrastructure projects. Now, it’s also at the center of a growing environmental debate. Microsoft’s Stargate campus in Abilene is leading a data center boom that is drawing concern over water use, right in the middle of a prolonged drought. According to a July 2025 investigation by The Austin Chronicle, data centers across Central Texas are consuming millions of gallons of water every day. This comes as many residents are being asked to reduce their usage due to dwindling supplies. The problem is not limited to one city. In San Antonio,...

President Trump on Wednesday went off on one his closest allies in Congress, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) over voting in committee on a bill that would ban stock trading by lawmakers, presidents and vice presidents, arguing that Hawley teamed up with Democrats to advance the measure. The bill would ban congressional lawmakers and their spouses from trading stocks as well as presidents and vice presidents, but the latter would only apply to future administrations. Still, Trump, in a social media post, went off on Hawley claiming that he was being used by Democrats to target the president. He also questioned...