Free Republic

At this point in his second term, President Donald Trump has higher approval ratings than Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in their second terms. According to the RealClear Politics average of presidential approval polls, Trump, on Aug. 13, 2025, had a rating of 45.8 percent. G.W. Bush on Aug. 13, 2005, registered a 43.2 percent rating. Obama, on Aug. 13, 2013, stood at 43.8 percent. For Trump, this approval rating follows: two impeachments; a verdict of liable defamation; a criminal verdict of guilty by a Manhattan jury for a supposed violation of federal election law; a prosecution by...

Britons are spray-painting the Union Jack and St. George flags on roundabouts, ambulances, walls, and local counsels are filing suits to evacuate asylum seekers from local hotels, which has a history of success. People are calling for Starmer to resign, demanding mass deportations. Some Labour and even Reform officials are aggressively prosecuting flag spray-painters for vandalism. Fake news is fake news-ing. Tousi is analyzing the events, but is not allowed to approve of them on his podcast, because if he does he'll be prosecuted for "hate speech". Transcript linked below video.

New details have emerged on the viral arrest of a man who attempted to flee from a group of federal agents not far from the National Mall on Wednesday afternoon, prompting a deleted X post from Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov after she initially defended the suspect. Footage obtained by NBC Washington shows a group of federal agents and D.C. Metropolitan Police officers stopping a Hispanic man driving a blue SUV. Almost immediately after exiting the vehicle, the man attempted to flee and was subsequently tackled by one of the agents. As he was being restrained, the man yelled, in...

Explanation: In this predawn skyscape recorded during the early morning hours of August 13, mostly Perseid meteors are raining down on planet Earth. You can easily identify the Perseid meteor streaks. They're the ones with trails that seem to converge on the annual meteor shower's radiant, a spot in the heroic constellation Perseus, located off the top of the frame. That's the direction in Earth's sky that looks along the orbit of this meteor shower's parent, periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle. Of course the scene is a composite, a combination of about 500 digital exposures to capture meteors registered with a single...

We may have the funniest scandal of the year. Winnie Greco, a “close advisor” to Democratic New York City Mayor Eric Adams, was “suspended from his re-election campaign on Wednesday after giving a journalist cash tucked inside a potato chip bag,” according to The New York Times. It gets better. The cash was allegedly tucked inside a red Chinese envelope and then hidden in an “opened bag of Herr’s Sour Cream & Onion ripple potato chips,” reports The City. The reporter, Katie Honan, thought “it was an offer of a light snack,” and “told Greco more than once she could...

Ukraine has struck the Druzhba pipeline carrying Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia, even as widening attacks indicating the war is spreading to the Eurasian landmass. “The Druzhba oil pipeline is taking a rest,” crowed Robert “Magyar” Brovdi, Ukraine’s drone chief, on August 18. “Greetings from the Birds of the Unmanned Systems Forces.” The strike, the second in less than a week, took out the 4,000km (2,500-mile) pipeline, bringing to an indefinite halt oil flows which had been supplying Central Europe via Ukraine and Belarus since the early 1960s. The language was tongue-in-cheek, but the destruction of the Nikolskoye oil...

A former Ukrainian military officer suspected of leading a team that sabotaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022 was detained in Italy on Wednesday under an international arrest warrant issued by German prosecutors, according to investigators and people familiar with the case. The officer, identified by German police as Serhii K., allegedly headed a team of two soldiers and four civilian divers covertly recruited by a special Ukrainian military unit to lay explosives that damaged the undersea pipelines, investigators said.

A fire has started following a drone strike at an industrial site in Russia's southern Novoshakhtinsk city, home to an oil refinery, authorities said on Thursday, as Ukraine stepped up attacks on Russia's energy infrastructure. “A fire broke out at one of the industrial enterprises in Novoshakhtinsk. Preliminarily, no one was hurt. Emergency services are working at the scene,” said Yury Slyusar, the acting governor of the Rostov region, without specifying the target of the attack. Novoshakhtinsk refinery, which sells fuel mainly for export, has an annual capacity of 5 million metric tons of oil, or around 100,000 barrels per...

A one-time Colorado “counselor of the year” is accused of sexually assaulting a female student over several years — and threatened to kill herself if the girl ever came forward, according to police. Cassandra Poncelow, 40, met her accuser in her high school counseling office in the Poudre School District in Fort Collins, Colo. — and later began bringing her to her home for “sleepovers,” according to court documents obtained by 9News. The student — who is now an adult — met with police in July and claimed she was assaulted more than 100 times over several years at Poncelow’s...

Israeli government of Jerusalem municipality freezes bank accounts of Greek Orthodox ChurchAt the heart of the confrontation lies “Arnona,” Jerusalem’s property tax. For generations, churches had been shielded from such levies, a status quo respected by Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli authorities(ZENIT News / Jerusalem, 08.20.2025).- The decision by Jerusalem’s municipality to freeze the bank accounts of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate has thrust one of the Holy Land’s oldest churches into financial paralysis, intensifying a long-running dispute over property taxes and exposing once more the fragile standing of Christians in the region.The measure, imposed on August 6, prevents the Patriarchate...

A judge in Atlanta left a courtroom gasping after he mistakenly delivered a devastating “guilty” verdict for a man charged with murdering a police officer — when the defendant was found “not guilty” on all counts. Judge Henry M. Newkirk on Friday botched the climax of the week-long murder trial of Alton Oliver, who was accused of fatally shooting off-duty Fulton County Deputy James Thomas in Dec. 2022. After nine hours of deliberation, the jury found Oliver innocent — but Newkirk left out a critical word, Fox 5 reported. “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as to all six...

An American woman who traveled to the UK to try to assassinate her lover’s business rivals — only for the gun to jam on her — was sentenced Thursday to 30 years in prison. Loved-up Aimee Betro, 45, traveled from Wisconsin for the twisted murder plot nearly six years ago in Birmingham, England, to please Mohammed Nazir, a British man she fell for on a dating app. Surveillance footage caught Betro as she hid behind a full Islamic niqab face covering while waiting in a car — then stepped out to try to shoot her main target’s son, Sikander Ali,...

VIDEOCall it Karmatic Kickback! While CORRUPT Letitia James is now facing federal criminal charges of mortgage fraud, President Donald Trump had the absurd $500 million civil fraud penalty tossed out by the New York Appeals Court in the case that James had been pursuing like a rabid dog. Yes, yet another BEAUTIFUL example of the hunter becoming the hunted. Now looking forward to a very steeep fraud PENALTY to be applied to James to drain her of the MILLIONS that she illegally obtained for herself over the years.

Covid vaccine mandates and a lack of transparency by public-health experts produced many unintended effects—or what scientists call “off target” responses. One is a political turn against mRNA technology that could damage U.S. innovation and pandemic preparedness. The Health and Human Services Department recently scrapped 22 mRNA-related vaccine investments. “These vaccines fail to protect effectively against upper respiratory infections like COVID and flu,” Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said. “We’re shifting that funding toward safer, broader vaccine platforms that remain effective even as viruses mutate.” Let’s dissect these assertions. Start with his claim that mRNA vaccines fail to protect against...

Breaking: agreements have been reached with 10 FBI Whistleblowers (and counsel) to include a combination of backpay, security clearance, and reinstatement. We greatly appreciate Donald Trump commitment to transparency and accountability. Thank you to Chuck Grassley for working with us to make this happen.

Foreign Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday met Russian President Vladimir Putin. The meeting came hours after Mr Jaishankar held wide-ranging talks with his counterpart Sergey Lavrov. It largely focused on expanding the trade ties between the two countries. The meeting comes amid Trump's tariffs and pressure on India to stop buying oil from Russia, claiming that it fuelled the Ukraine war. "We believe that relations between India and Russia have been among the steadiest of the major relationships in the world after the Second World War," Mr Jaishankar said at a joint media briefing with Mr Lavrov. "Geo-political convergence, leadership...

In one of the largest overnight strikes since the war began, Russia unleashed some 614 drones, ballistic and cruise missiles across Ukraine, killing one, injuring dozens and destroying an American-owned electronics company less than an hour from two NATO borders, officials confirmed Thursday morning. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenksyy said the strike on the private U.S. company, which involved "several" cruise missiles, was "very telling" following President Donald Trump’s attempts to force Moscow to end its invasion.

At the heart of the confrontation lies “Arnona,” Jerusalem’s property tax. For generations, churches had been shielded from such levies, a status quo respected by Ottoman, British, Jordanian, and Israeli authorities(ZENIT News / Jerusalem, 08.20.2025).- The decision by Jerusalem’s municipality to freeze the bank accounts of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate has thrust one of the Holy Land’s oldest churches into financial paralysis, intensifying a long-running dispute over property taxes and exposing once more the fragile standing of Christians in the region. The measure, imposed on August 6, prevents the Patriarchate from paying clergy, teachers, and employees across its schools, monasteries,...

Is this the last gasp of Latin America's disastrous "pink tide"?Two decades ago, democratic socialism was rising in Latin America. The so-called "pink tide" swept leftist leaders into power in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Their useful idiots in the U.S. were delighted. Linguist and political commentator Noam Chomsky saw "seeds of a better world" in Venezuela. Filmmaker Michael Moore praised Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez as a champion of the poor. Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz claimed he was witnessing an "economic miracle" in Argentina. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) said Bolivia's socialist government had improved the lives of...

In a bizarre and cringey five-and-a-half-minute video posted by James Comey to social media exclaiming his adoration of Taylor Swift, the former director of the FBI opens by claiming that Donald Trump is humiliating America through his negotiations with Vladimir Putin. In reality of course, the only one humiliating America, and himself, is James Comey.That this man ever led the FBI – once considered the world’s premier law enforcement agency – speaks volumes about the discredit that that institution has brought upon itself. Comey’s increasingly irrational behavior appears to necessitate some sort of intervention by those who love him. Recently...