Free Republic

The best time for the opposition to take a stand, rather than settle for untrustworthy promises, is right now.This isn’t a normal government shutdown, and past shutdowns shouldn’t be treated as models for how Democrats respond to their current crisis.Trump lashing out over the shutdown is an opportunity for Democrats to get more Americans to confront the country’s slide into authoritarianism.Refusing to help the Republican majority pass a budget and end the current shutdown is about more than energizing the Democratic base. Shutdowns inevitably harm federal workers and the millions of Americans who rely on their services, but the Trump...

@KemiBadenoch We have listened, we have learned and we have changed.

A White House spokesperson said the decision was made amid what it claimed were "ongoing violent riots and lawlessness" President Donald Trump moved to deploy the National Guard in another city Saturday by authorizing 300 troops to protect federal officers and assets in Chicago, where the government said Border Patrol agents shot a woman — not fatally — while firing at someone who tried to run them over. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson confirmed that the president authorized using the Illinois National Guard members, citing what she called “ongoing violent riots and lawlessness” that local leaders have not quelled. “President...

There was a time in America when political violence provoked near-universal horror and condemnation.In 1981, President Ronald Reagan was a deeply polarizing figure — but when he was shot, his surgeon famously said, “Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans.”That principle is fading, as we saw last month after the murder of Charlie Kirk.In a Manhattan store, I overheard a customer discussing that news: “I agree he was evil, but I do not think he could’ve been shot by anyone more evil.”“Trump will get worse now,” the cashier replied.Their tone was casual, as if they were talking about the weather.Both...

Cracker Barrel has cut ties with the design firm that created its controversial new logo and redesigned restaurants. The restaurant chain started implementing the changes but quickly reversed course following online backlash - including from President Donald Trump. The company confirmed the split late Thursday in a press release, announcing that it's "ending its engagement with Prophet," the design agency that Cracker Barrel hired just seven months ago to help refresh its brand. In August, Cracker Barrel unveiled a new logo created by the San Francisco-based firm, which ditched the iconic man in overalls and the barrel for a streamlined...

We need to talk about it openly Friends, I’d like to talk with you about a difficult subject. A significant number of you are disoriented by what Trump and his lapdogs are doing. Many are deeply anxious. Some of us are depressed. For years, medical experts have recommended that Americans be screened for “anxiety disorders.” But what many of us are feeling now is not a personal disorder. It’s a rational response to a nation that’s becoming ever more disordered. What we’re experiencing is not a sickness or individual distress. It’s a sensible reaction to a society becoming sicker and...

An American man dying of heart failure received the heart of a Canadian man with ALS who chose a medically assisted death in what is being described as a landmark case of a heart transplant following euthanasia. Organs have been donated after MAID before, involving liver, kidney or lung transplants. “Here we report the first case of a successful cardiac transplantation after MAID,” a team of doctors from The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and The Ottawa Hospital report in the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation. The case involved a 59-year-old man with rapidly worsening heart failure who wasn’t...

Pope Leo XIV continues to make thinly veiled jibes against the Trump administration’s stance against illegal immigration.Speaking in front of thousands of pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square on Sunday, Leo warned that migrants must not be treated with “the coldness of indifference or the stigma of discrimination.”Without singling out any country in particular, Leo said that Catholics should “open our arms and hearts to them, welcoming them as brothers and sisters, and being for them a presence of consolation and hope.”Leo explained that the church was living through a “new missionary age” that tasked its members with providing “hospitality and...

Rapper Bad Bunny responded to the backlash surrounding the NFL’s decision to book him for this year’s Super Bowl Halftime show as he kicked off the 51st season of “Saturday Night Live.” The 31-year-old Puerto Rican native, whose real name is Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, said he was “excited” to be named the headlining act for the big game at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara in February, but urged critics they have “four months to learn” Spanish. “I’m really excited to be doing the Super Bowl, I know that people all around the world who love my music are also...

I just signed legislation allowing the 800,000 rideshare workers in California to unionize. California is determined to give working people a voice, to give them choice, give them dignity, and give them a say about their future.

More than 400 people were arrested at a pro-Palestine protest in central London today, held in defiance of calls to cancel the demonstration following the terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester. Elderly people, relatives of Holocaust survivors, and those with disabilities were among the 492 arrested in Trafalgar Square, as protesters voiced their support for banned terror group Palestine Action. “The final arrest total for today’s public order policing operation in central London is 492. 488 of the arrests were for supporting a proscribed organisation,” Met Police said. “The remainder were for being drunk and disorderly, common assault, a...

CBS News now reporting that the Trump FBI are planning for Comey’s perp walk, and that FBI agents are being suspended for refusing to cooperate. Kash confirmed that agents will be relieved if they don’t follow chain of command. Comey’s perp walk sounds imminent 👀

A federal judge in Massachusetts denied a request for an injunction sought by two “sanctuary cities” in the state — Chelsea and Somerville — that sought to bar the Trump Administration from withholding federal funds due to their support for illegal aliens. Somerville and Chelsea had requested a preliminary injunction in June, arguing that the targeting of cities and towns over their “sanctuary” policies — which openly defy federal immigration law by barring local authorities from working with immigration agents — is unconstitutional and at odds with advice from local law enforcement, according to a report from the Boston Herald....

MANCHESTER, U.K. — Police in Great Britain are working to determine the motive of a man named Jihad Jewkiller who attacked a synagogue earlier this week. "So far we have no idea why Mr. Jewkiller would have attacked a synagogue," U.K. police officer Cecil Landers told reporters. "His social media profile, replete with messages about conducting a jihad against the Jews, has so far been unhelpful. We promise that we will continue to investigate what could have motivated such a surprising rampage." Jewkiller's family said the man is fueled by deep hatred for members of the Jewish faith and that...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) -Rescue efforts were underway on Sunday to clear access to campsites on Tibet's eastern slope of Mount Everest, where nearly 1,000 people have been trapped by a blizzard that has blocked roads, according to Chinese state media reports. Hundreds of local villages and rescue teams have been deployed to help remove snow blocking access to the area, which sits at an altitude above 4,900 metres (16,000 feet), according to a report in Jimu News. Some tourists on the mountain have already been brought down the mountain, it added.

Six Flags Over Texas is raising the bar for thrill-seekers with the announcement of Tormenta Rampaging Run, a record-breaking roller coaster scheduled to open in 2026. Billed as the world’s first “giga dive” coaster, the ride will have a peak of 309 feet, launching riders down a one-of-a-kind 95-degree drop from 285 feet high, and eventually reaching speeds of up to 87 miles per hour. Along the way, passengers will flip through a 179-foot vertical loop, the world’s tallest, and twist through a 218-foot “Immelmann inversion” (a helix track named after maneuvers pulled by War War 1 pilots). In total,...

LONDON — Despite being headlined by a genuine star and staged at one of London’s premier theaters, a play about the foundation of a sprawling and troubled public service seemed unlikely to provoke night after night of standing ovations. But that’s what happened with “Nye,” an unlikely hit about the creator, and origin story, of Britain’s taxpayer-funded National Health Service. The play, written by Tim Price and directed by Rufus Norris, came at an inflection point for the NHS, as it’s known. Almost 80 years after it was founded, the medical service once touted as the envy of the world...

Trump is clearly listening to the NEOCONS, and he may believe their BS that Russia’s economy is collapsing, so Russia can be defeated in three days, as Kinzinger was claiming. Mark Rubio is a Neocon. I believe Trump hired him as a compromise to the Neocons. But he is taking us into World War III in slow motion. Trump is listening to the wrong people, and he had better look unbiased at why Putin is being put into a precarious position. He has insulted the dignity of Russia and reduced it to a meaningless 4th-world country. If Putin is replaced...

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem is revealing bounties of up to $10,000 have been put on the heads of federal agents, encouraging Americans to murder officers enforcing U.S. immigration laws. "Gangs, cartel members, and known terrorist organizations have placed bounties on the heads of several of our law enforcement officers," Noem posted Sunday on X. "These violent riots are not about free speech. This is the rule of law vs. anarchy. We will win."

Anti-American leftist anarchists are doxing, stalking, and targeting federal agents in coordinated plots across major U.S. cities, with some groups offering thousands of dollars to kidnap or kill them, according to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. "So our intelligence indicates that these people are organized," Noem warned in a Sunday morning TV interview. "They're getting more and more people on their team, as far as attacking officers, and they're making plans to ambush them and to kill them. "We have specific officers and agents that have bounties on their heads. It's been $2,000 to kidnap them, $10,000 to...