Free Republic

A Texas Democrat’s sudden departure overseas ‘for the foreseeable future’ raises important questions about immigration, assimilation, and American identity.If you’re an immigrant who came to the United States as an adult, but you leave America for an indefinite absence to attend to a family emergency in your country of origin, in what sense are you really an American? Is America actually your home, or is home your country of origin? Let’s say you also happen to be a representative in your adopted state’s legislature. Are you really able to serve your constituents and your district by going overseas indefinitely? If...

The Trump Administration may be about to turn over a new leaf when it comes to transparency regarding the ongoing Epstein uproar. As The Gateway Pundit reported, Epstein’s partner-in-crime Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed by the Department of Justice last month. Maxwell’s attorney, David Markus, told the press after the second day of interviews that his client answered questions about ‘a hundred people’. Now, CNN reports that the Department of Justice has an audio recording of the interview and is seriously considering releasing it for public consumption. This is also the first time the recording has been reported. Should the interview...

President Trump has dropped his demand that Rupert Murdoch immediately testify in the president’s libel lawsuit over a Jeffrey Epstein story in the Wall Street Journal, but the 94-year-old media mogul has agreed to provide his health information.Trump initially demanded Murdoch sit for a deposition within 15 days to answer questions about the Epstein story, citing Murdoch’s advanced age and various health complications.But the warring sides reached a truce, agreeing that Murdoch instead would provide “a sworn declaration describing his current health condition,” according to a joint stipulation filed in U.S. District Court in Miami late Monday. “Defendant Murdoch has...

Florida police arrested a 13-year-old on Friday who is charged with possessing child pornography and beastiality material after he joined an “online cult” that allegedly targets minors for abuse, according to a local sheriff. The unnamed suspect was charged with four felonies weeks after police received a tip about a group on Discord, a popular gaming platform, encouraging a young girl to harm herself during a “live cut show,” Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said in a Monday press conference. The suspect’s group adheres to “Satanic and neo-Nazi ideology” that has been linked to similar cases in the U.S., and...

[Catholic Caucus] The Unseen World – Hell For Christians, Hell and Paradise are neither subjects of speculation nor historical-academic studies: they are among the most important articles of faith, referring to the “unseen world” where we will live eternally. It is no coincidence that the poetic masterpiece of the Christian world, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (c.1265–1321), is entirely dedicated to the afterlife. The endless multiplication of academic studies has generated some unexpected effects. Over the past century, works have emerged on increasingly exotic subjects. Some of them—like George Minois’s Histoire des enfers (History of Hells, 1991) or Jean...

The man who recently caught police attention for allegedly abusing his 21 children in the U.S. previously served as a high-level Chinese government official for at least two decades in the region at the heart of the communist nation’s ongoing genocide, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation. In May 2025, police in Arcadia, California, arrested Xuan Guojun, 65, and his wife, Silvia Zhang, 38, for child endangerment after their two-month infant was brought to a hospital suffering from a traumatic head injury, The Associated Press reported. Police reviewed security footage from the couple’s $4 million, 10,000 square-foot mansion...

Laura Loomer has leveraged a personality that friends label “obsessive” and an extreme loyalty to Trump to emerge as a powerful figure in the president’s orbit.Laura Loomer’s application for a White House press pass has gone unanswered for months. The jobs she said President Donald Trump wanted her to take working for him have never materialized.And yet, there she was in the Oval Office on July 24 — her fourth time at the White House since Trump returned to office — after the president invited her during a recent phone call.It was the latest example of the unlikely access that...

If finalized, the move would escalate the Trump administration’s efforts to claw back billions of dollars in climate grants awarded under President Biden.The Trump administration is preparing to terminate $7 billion in federal grants intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes, according to two people briefed on the matter.The Environmental Protection Agency is drafting termination letters to the 60 nonprofit groups and state agencies that received the grants under the “Solar for All” program, with the goal of sending the letters by the end of this week, according to the two people, who spoke...

In many of the countries we’re drawing migrants from, women are treated like second-class citizens, like objects to be used, abused, and discarded at some man’s will. These are not just isolated attitudes; they’re deep-seated cultural norms. And yet, we continue to welcome this disgusting mindset into our country under the left-wing banner of “tolerance and diversity.” This isn’t just reckless behavior; it’s dangerous and deadly, to boot. ... The latest case out of Minnesota proves that yet again. A 42-year-old Somali man was convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl. That’s horrifying enough on its own. But what’s even more...

A zoo in Denmark is asking for donations of small pets as food for its predators. The Aalborg Zoo said it is trying to mimic the natural food chain of the animals housed there “for the sake of both animal welfare and professional integrity” and offers assurances the pets will be “gently euthanized” by trained staff. The zoo in northern Denmark explained in a Facebook post that “if you have a healthy animal that needs to be given away for various reasons, feel free to donate it to us.” The zoo points to guinea pigs, rabbits and chickens as possible...

Gov. Greg Abbott directed the Texas Department of Public Safety to “locate" and "arrest" Democrats who fled the state. President Donald Trump is standing firm in his support for Texas Republicans pushing a congressional redistricting plan, despite a dramatic walkout by state Democrats. "We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor and good people in Texas," President Trump said Tuesday in a phone interview on CNBC. "And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more...

Over 64,000 pounds of butter have been recalled due to a potential undeclared allergen, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). “Bunge North America Inc., based in Missouri, initiated a voluntary recall of 64,800 pounds of its NH European Style Butter Blend on July 14 because milk may not have been listed on the product’s label,” Newsweek stated. The FDA raised the risk classification for the recall to Class II, the second-highest warning label. According to the FDA’s website, a class II recall is “a situation in which use of or exposure to a violative product may cause temporary...

The man wanted in the killings of the parents, grandmother and uncle of an infant found abandoned in a front yard last week has been arrested, police in Tennessee said.Austin Robert Drummond, 28, was taken into custody amid a search on Tuesday, police in Jackson said in a social media post. Police later released a photo of Drummond standing in a wooded area wearing a dark hooded sweatshirt and looking into the camera.Drummond’s arrest came shortly after police had warned residents to stay inside their homes, having received a report that he was spotted in a neighborhood. Jackson is more...

ALBANY, N.Y. (WRGB) — A redistricting showdown in Texas is now spilling into New York State and other states, with a group of Texas Democrats fleeing to Albany in an effort to block what they call a dangerous and partisan power grab. More than 50 Texas Democratic lawmakers walked out of the legislative session in Austin this week, effectively denying a quorum needed to pass a controversial mid-decade congressional redistricting plan.

National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) hearings on the devastating Washington, DC, helicopter-plane crash that killed 67 people revealed devastating findings last week, with Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy scolding the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for ignoring safety concerns. The NTSB interrogated FAA and U.S. Army officials on the series of events that led to a Black Hawk helicopter colliding with a passenger jet as it descended into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport during what the Associated Press (AP) described as “three days of sometimes contentious hearings.” The 64 passengers and crew killed on the American Airlines flight included a group of young...

Summary US trade deficit narrows 16% in June, lowest since September 2023 China trade gap shrinks by a third to $9.5 billion Tariffs on imports to US rise to highest since 1934 Aug 5 (Reuters) - The U.S. trade deficit narrowed in June on a sharp drop in consumer goods imports, and the trade gap with China shrank to its lowest in more than 21 years, the latest evidence of the imprint on global commerce President Donald Trump is making with sweeping tariffs on imported goods. The overall trade gap narrowed 16.0% in June to $60.2 billion, the Commerce Department's...

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday ruled Texas can enforce a law requiring ID numbers for mail-in ballots. A three-judge panel unanimously overturned a lower court’s block on the state’s mail-in ballot requirements. The three judges included: Judge James Ho (Trump), Judge Don Willett (Trump), and Judge Patrick Higginbotham (Reagan). “We have no difficulty concluding that this ID number requirement fully complies with a provision of federal law known by the parties as the materiality provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” the judges ruled. “The ID number requirement is obviously designed to confirm that each mail-in ballot...

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will release new rules and regulations on migrant farm labor, as the country’s need for workers and the food they help produce clashes with his vow to deport undocumented immigrants. Trump said his administration will continue to deport criminals, but that he wants to “work with” farmers to find a solution for their workers, oftentimes immigrants who have lived in the country illegally for decades and are paying taxes. He suggested the White House was working on a touchback program for some workers, requiring them to leave the U.S. and reenter through...

Two of NASA's historic data-collecting missions — used by scientists and earthbound agriculturalists to track carbon dioxide and crop health — may be permanently grounded as the Trump administration looks to shrink the agency's spending. When they launched over a decade ago, the satellites known as the Orbiting Carbon Observatories (OCOs) revolutionized the collection of carbon data and greenhouse gas science. To put it simply, the OCOs changed how we understand our impact on the planet. Experts rely on the data for studies on greenhouse gases and severe weather and climate disasters, as well as other practical uses, including modeling...