Free Republic

Airlines have canceled more than 1,000 flights to comply with a shutdown-related FAA directive to reduce traffic at 40 airports, including Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas. Airlines canceled hundreds of flights Friday — the highest number since the government shutdown began — as they scrambled to comply with a Trump administration order to reduce air traffic amid growing concerns about potential staffing shortages. The administration announced Wednesday that it would direct U.S. carriers to trim their schedules by 10 percent at 40 U.S. airports — including major hubs in Atlanta, New York, Chicago and Dallas. “This isn’t about politics — it’s...

Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer offered a new plan to Republicans that would allow the U.S. government to reopen after a shutdown that began on Oct. 1. Schumer’s proposal calls for Democrats to agree to pass a so-called clean resolution that would provide short-term funding for government operations. In exchange, Republicans would agree to a one-year extension of existing enhanced tax credits that are used to reduce the cost of health insurance purchased on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

Pressure for a deal has intensified as the impact on Americans grows Senate leaders plan to take up a stopgap funding measure in a rare Friday session to test whether a Democratic logjam could finally break to end the longest partial government shutdown in history. But after a long day of closed-door talks, Democrats remained mostly tight-lipped about their intentions, with some suggesting they were prepared to continue the standoff until they secure an extension of expiring health insurance subsidies. Republicans leaders have insisted they would not negotiate on health subsidies until the government is reopened. “The plan is...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) pushed back on President Trump’s claim that grocery prices are falling, arguing that affordability — an issue she believes contributed to GOP election losses this week — is a problem for many Americans. “I go to the grocery store myself,” Greene told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday. “Grocery prices remain high. Energy prices are high. My electricity bills are higher here in Washington, D.C., at my apartment, and they‘re also higher at my house in Rome, Ga., higher than they were a year ago.” “So, affordability is a problem,” the lawmaker continued. She said she...

Zohran Mamdani is about to find out what I learned the hard way: No one can be truly prepared for the tsunami-like dynamics of the transition from regular human to leader of a city of 8.5 million people. So let me speak from experience as a two-term mayor of New York City and offer a little guidance (or at least some solace) to Zohran and his team as they begin their extraordinary journey in governance. There are four areas that can make or break the first year of a mayoralty: Team, Simplicity, Speed, and Authenticity. Let me break them down....

The U.S. Army is not in “terminal decline” but at a “classical crisis”—a decisive turning point. Critics see an “obsolete” force, but the author points to historical parallels (post-WWI, post-WWII, and the post-Vietnam “Hollow Army”) where the Army successfully renewed itself. Signs of this “metamorphosis,” like the SkyFoundry drone initiative (aiming for 10,000/month by 2026), show the Army is adapting, not collapsing, and will emerge smaller but more lethal.

Last spring and summer I watched bits of our contemporary gladiatorial contests, AKA congressional confirmation hearings. One thrust that many Democrat inquisitors relied on to soften up their victims was some form of the question: “Do you believe that Joe Biden won the 2020 election?” At least one contestant resorted to the parry “I believe that Joe Biden was seated as president,” which of course is not quite the same thing as acknowledging that he actually won. The subterfuge did not pass by unnoticed. Nothing escapes these Democrat Divas of the Dialectic. Having exposed the equivocation, they attempted to pounce....

President Donald Trump has approved a pardon for baseball legend Darryl Strawberry, according to a White House official. Strawberry is a three-time World Series champion and eight-time MLB All-Star who “served time and paid back taxes after pleading guilty to one count of tax evasion,” the official said. “Following his career, Mr. Strawberry found faith in Christianity and has been sober for over a decade — he has become active in ministry and started a recovery center which still operates today,” the White House official said. Strawberry thanked the president in a post on Instagram. “Thank you, President @realdonaldtrump for...

For much of the 21st century, people disparaging the Democratic Party, and particularly its moderate or Establishment wing, have accused it of lacking courage or spine. No one said that, however, about one of the party’s enduring pillars of strength, longtime House leader and sometime Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who just announced she would retire from Congress at the end of her current term. Some Democrats and most Republicans thought Pelosi was wrong from time to time during her 39 years in the House, 20 of them as leader of her party’s caucus. But nobody doubted her resolution, her vote-counting skills,...

See the old man with the kindly eyes? There’s nothing kindly about them. And there’s nothing kind about what’s waiting for you and your family out on the highways. Just listen: On November 8, 1994 there was a light drizzle and fog on the Illinois expressways and up into Wisconsin. It was fall. Temperatures were in the 40s. Now think of the Willis family packed into the family van, six kids and parents on the expressway near Milwaukee. The father, my friend Scott Willis, a Christian pastor from Mt. Greenwood, was driving. His wife Janet was in the seat next...

A powerbank explosion torched a passenger and forced 150 people to flee Melbourne Airport’s Qantas business lounge Thursday when the device ignited in the man’s pocket. The portable charger ignited around 11 a.m., setting the man’s jacket on fire as travelers heard screams erupt across the lounge. Battery acid sprayed across the area as the device exploded, witnesses said, according to local Australian outlet The Sydney Morning Herald. Staff rushed the burning passenger into a shower while evacuating the entire lounge. The man, in his 50s, suffered burns to his leg and fingers. “His jacket caught on fire. They evacuated...

Good quality, rare video, recorded from Top Of The Pops 1981. Lene Lovich (born 30 March 1949) is an American singer based in England, who first gained attention as part of the New Wave music scene of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Her most popular hit single was "Lucky Number", first released in 1979. Lovich was born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan, to an English mother and a Serbian father

Trump Derangement Syndrome has progressives snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.When it comes to trade, there are two kinds of progressives: the virtue signalers who profess concern for the environment, human rights, and good jobs for American workers while quietly pushing American reliance on low-wage sweatshops and sludge-dumping factories, and the ones who support tariffs.This used to be a fair fight within the Democratic Party. The corporate wing would head to Davos to celebrate free trade, open borders, and higher profits, dutifully buying carbon offsets for their private jets, while the labor wing would stay home and warn against...

We know that New York City’s socialist mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, wants to give everything away for free, essentially doubling the city’s budget and raising taxes on successful earners and businesses to allegedly pay for his big-government socialism. We know he will destroy New York housing by freezing rents. We know he hates cops. And on top of all that, he’s a heavy-duty antisemite who also hates the state of Israel. So, it’s a pretty grim picture if you happen to live in the city, like I do. However, there’s a big difference between his crazy campaign promises and what he...

Good news for Zohran Mamdani: Wall Street isn’t going anywhere.Andrew Cuomo, the vessel for Wall Street’s dashed mayoral hopes, is fond of invoking scripture: deeds over words, he’s told many a church congregation over his now-punctuated political career. As the city’s financiers complain loudly about Zohran Mamdani’s win, watch what they do, not what they say.The local media and thirsty suburban real estate agents have stoked fears that New York’s billionaires (i.e. its tax base, cultural patrons, and scientific benefactors) will leave for places where it is cheaper to be rich. I doubt it. “There are two things driving the...

Rate cuts are too small, and the central bank is making things worse by shrinking its balance sheet.This week’s election outcome showed that affordability and the economy are likely to be major political flashpoints in the 2026 midterm elections no matter how well the economy is doing. Meanwhile the Federal Reserve last week took three steps that will harm the economy and could weigh on President Trump’s growth program.It cut the interest rate by only 0.25 percentage point, falling further behind in the rate-cutting cycle. It warned that any further rate cuts would depend on economic weakness, since the Fed’s...

It depends on who’s running the tent.Democrats are famously in very poor shape these days. Despite the unpopularity of many of Donald Trump’s specific moves, Democrats’ popularity has not been rising. Indeed, in many polls it is mired at historic lows. Democrats’ lead in the generic congressional ballot for 2026 is alarmingly modest and the situation in the Senate is dire. And no, the Democrats’ strong showing in the idiosyncratic 2025 elections, boosted by favorable terrain, disapproval of the incumbent Trump administration, and their now-traditional advantage in lower turnout elections where their educated, engaged supporters flock to the polls, does...

We can draw a few conclusions from an off-year election, when iconic races in blue states went, as expected, overwhelmingly Democratic. Nevertheless, there is only a year left before the midterms. So Republicans must react to even these paltry results. 1) Democrats' chaotic nihilism still works. The chaos strategy causes so much turmoil, noise, and negative media coverage that the confused voting public simply cannot sort it all out. The public wishes the upheaval would just go away and often blames those with the most current authority -- logically, the incumbent Trump and his administration. 2) Every day of Trump's...

16-year-old violin prodigy Karolina Protsenko shreds 'Sweet Home Alabama' on the streets of LA! 🎻🔥 Her energy is unstoppable.

Lawmakers on Thursday called for the passage of the PELOSI Act to ban congressional stock in honor of Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) retirement. “She’ll be the opportunity to finally ban stock trading by members of Congress. Nobody made more, I think, than her,” Hawley told reporters on Thursday. […] Hawley in April reintroduced the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments (PELOSI) Act, which would ban lawmakers and their spouses from purchasing or selling individual stocks. …