Free Republic

Violent crime in the capital drops 22% in first week of Trump federal police control implementation. As the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the Trump administration’s takeover of the Washington DC police force begins to fade, the results are coming in, and they are nothing short of extraordinary. As of Wednesday afternoon, the nation’s capital has had no murders for seven days, something that had not been achieved since March and something I can find no recent record of in summer months when the murder rate is typically at its highest. Last Monday, when a man was tragically gunned...

Government benefits make nonwork pay more than work, while inflated housing costs trap younger generations—proof that America’s inequality crisis is built by policy, not fate. A few years ago, former US Senator Phil Gramm published a book that offers important insights into the status of low-income communities in the United States. Titled “The Myth of American Inequality” and scrupulously researched, the book evaluates U.S. household income by quintiles. It concludes that the bottom quintile (the lowest 20 percent) actually has income virtually equal to that of the second-lowest quintile (21-40 percent), when adjusting for the value of government benefits.The implications...

California State Representatives are calling on the Department of Justice to investigate Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom's scheme to rig the state's congressional elections with new gerrymandering and accusing liberal lawmakers of bribery. From a letter written to Attorney General Pam Bondi Wednesday and signed by Assembly members Carl DeMaio, James Gallagher, Leticia Castillo, Health Hadwick, David Tangipa and State Senators Tony Strickland and Marie Alvarado-Gil: We write to request that the US Department of Justice consider opening an immediate investigation into allegations of corruption and illegality involving members of the California state legislature and their current redistricting scheme. As you...

The following is a series of queries to Grok, confirming the movements of Zelensky and some NATO related members the day prior to the assisination attempt which was the subject of the FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! painting President Trump specifically pointed out to Zelensky and the NATO cohort he met with yesterday.https://x.com/JKash000/status/1957587539071475837 JKash MAGA Queen @JKash000·I think we have our answer about why President Trump made a point today of showing Zelenskyy and Von der Leyen his “Fight, Fight, Fight” portrait and mentioning how July 13, 2024 was not a good day. TY @starstomoon JKash MAGA Queen @JKash000·3h Also, of note,...

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, at Tuesday's briefing, criticized the "left-wing media" and "failed foreign policy establishment" for "actively rooting against the president in his pursuit of peace in Ukraine." KAROLINE LEAVITT: For one thing that has absolutely not changed is the media's negative and downright false coverage of President Trump and his foreign policy accomplishments. From the beginning of this entire process, much of the left-wing media has been actively rooting against the President of the United States in the pursuit of peace. Initially, the media ridiculously claimed that President Trump was somehow beholden to Russia for even...

We remain the beacon of ordered liberty for all mankind.In the age of Trump, our nation lives under the banner of America First. In domestic policy, this means securing our border, deporting those who are in the country illegally, and reestablishing law and order in our cities, among other key goals. But what does America First mean for the world beyond America? To answer that question, we must look back centuries. The onset of the American Revolution was not purely a local affair. The war eventually became a global conflagration, with battlefields stretching from the Caribbean to India. But the...

His fortitude is the stuff of legend.Here, revealed at last, is President Donald J. Trump’s secret weapon: The man has cojones the size of the Las Vegas Sphere.Trump does not pick the easy fights. Too many Republicans are happy to cut a tax or two, sign a few proclamations, and call it a day. Why challenge the Left? They might push back. Political fights? Oooh, messy. No, thanks. Let’s be friends.This battered-wife approach (“The Left beats me because they love me”) defined such GOP invertebrates as Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, both presidents Bush, and too many governors and state...

The Trump administration slapped a Canadian judge on the International Criminal Court (ICC) with sanctions as the U.S. State Department unleashes a new wave of restrictions against judges it said had been instrumental in a past decision to investigate U.S. officials and in efforts to prosecute Israeli leaders. The State Department says Judge Kimberly Prost of Canada was sanctioned for ruling to authorize the ICC's investigation into U.S. personnel in Afghanistan. ICC jurists Nicolas Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji and Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal were also sanctioned, with the State Department linking the decision to the...

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s defense minister said that a flying object that crashed and exploded in a cornfield in eastern Poland early Wednesday was identified as a Russian drone, calling it a provocation by Russia.

Most people not deeply involved in the artificial intelligence frenzy may not have noticed, but perceptions of AI’s relentless march toward becoming more intelligent than humans, even becoming a threat to humanity, came to a screeching halt Aug. 7.That was the day when the most widely followed AI company, OpenAI, released GPT-5, an advanced product that the firm had long promised would put competitors to shame and launch a new revolution in this purportedly revolutionary technology.As it happened, GPT-5 was a bust. It turned out to be less user-friendly and in many ways less capable than its predecessors in OpenAI’s...

Six severed heads have been found by the side of the road in Mexico alongside a chilling message in an area where such brutal violence is rare, Mexican prosecutors said. The male remains were discovered by a road linking the central Mexican states of Puebla and Tlaxcala, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Alongside the heads was a pamphlet blaming the savage killings on the settling of scores between rival gangs, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. ... Both Puebla and Tlaxcala are usually considered among the safest states in Mexico to visit, with the US State Department designating them a...

The move is an acceleration of President Donald Trump’s executive order declaring English the country’s “official language.”The Trump administration has quietly rescinded long-standing guidance that directed schools to accommodate students who are learning English, alarming advocates who fear that schools will stop offering assistance if the federal government quits enforcing the laws that require it.The rescission, confirmed by the Education Department on Tuesday, is one of several moves by the administration to scale back support for approximately 5 million schoolchildren not fluent in English, many of them born in the United States. It is also among the first steps in...

The Democrat Party is hemorrhaging support with no end in sight, according to a shocking analysis of new voter registrations. Fueled by President Donald Trump’s gains among men, younger voters, and Latinos in 2024, more new voters nationwide chose to be Republicans than Democrats for the first time since 2018, according to a report from the New York Times which relies on voter registration data compiled by L2, a nonpartisan data firm. Perhaps more troubling for Democrats, the data suggests Democrat Party activists can no longer rely on the party’s tried-and-true methods to reverse the trend, leaving panicked party leaders...

European and Ukrainian officials call the idea ludicrous, showing the large gaps in peace negotiations.Russia’s top diplomat on Wednesday said the country would insist on being a part of any future security guarantees for Ukraine, a condition that European and Ukrainian officials widely see as absurd.It was the clearest sign yet that enormous gaps remain in the negotiations over a possible end to Russia’s invasion. And it added to the uncertainty over how a European effort to rally a “coalition of the willing” to protect a postwar Ukraine, possibly with Western soldiers stationed inside the country, would fit into President...

Donald Trump was handed another blow on Wednesday when a federal judge denied his administration's attempts to release grand jury testimony from the Jeffrey Epstein case. U.S. District Judge Richard Berman deemed Trump's Justice Department did not provide adequate reasoning to unseal the highly-protected materials. He also said that the grand jury motion was likely a 'diversion' coming from the Trump administration. '[T]he court denies the government's motion to unseal the Epstein grand jury transcripts and exhibits,' the Clinton-appointed judge wrote in his Wednesday decision. It comes after Attorney General Pam Bondi moved at the direct of the president this...

Former President Barack Obama has waded into states’ efforts at rare mid-decade redistricting efforts, saying he agrees with California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s response to alter his state’s congressional maps, in the way of Texas redistricting efforts promoted by President Donald Trump aimed at shoring up Republicans’ position in next year’s elections. “I believe that Gov. Newsom’s approach is a responsible approach. He said this is going to be responsible. We’re not going to try to completely maximize it,” Obama said at a Tuesday fundraiser on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, according to excerpts obtained by The Associated Press. “We’re only going...

"You must be a cat lady, Ms. Kaytee," the student said to me through laughter. I was working in a school, and had popped into one of the classrooms to assist with a project. This student who had just met me seconds ago assumed that I "must be" a cat lady. Kids say the darnedest things, right? Kids say the darnedest things, right? At the time I laughed: I had one cat, yes, but would hardly call myself a "cat lady." I also had a guinea pig, after all. Maybe this was some new Gen-Z slang that I didn't...

Over the past few months, data shows that half of all courthouse arrests made in the U.S. took place in New York City.A controversial immigration enforcement strategy has prompted a lawsuit from New York City officials, backed by Mayor Eric Adams. The suit calls on the Trump administration to immediately end ICE arrests at courthouses. "No one should be afraid to send their children to school, go to a hospital when sick, call 911 when in danger, or go to a court hearing when called upon to do so," Adams said. According to recent data analysis from the city, over...

Summary Republican legislators undertake rare mid-decade redistricting New map would shift conservative voters into Democrat-held districts One Democrat calls redistricting plan "illegal and racially discriminatory" Aug 20 (Reuters) - Texas legislators on Wednesday took up a new state congressional map intended to flip five Democratic-held U.S. House seats in next year's midterm elections, after dozens of Democratic lawmakers ended a two-week walkout that had temporarily blocked passage. Republican legislators, who have dominated Texas politics for over two decades, have undertaken a rare mid-decade redistricting at the behest of President Donald Trump, who is seeking to improve his party's odds...

Several Texas state House Democrats ripped up the written agreements that allowed them to leave the chamber with a police escort and returned to the House floor Tuesday night, the caucus announced. The lawmakers will spend the night on the House floor with state Rep. Nicole Collier, who has stayed in the chamber for more than 24 hours after declining to sign the “permission slip” to leave. House Republicans announced the requirement on Monday when Democrats, who faced civil arrest warrants for leaving the state during a special session, returned from their 15-day quorum break. The Democrats fled the state...