Free Republic

Dozens of Republicans joined all voting Democrats on Wednesday evening to reject a GOP-led effort to eliminate federal funding for a nonprofit organization accused of bias against conservatives. Lawmakers voted 127 to 291 to strip $315 billion in funding for the State Department’s democracy promotion programs, including the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), out of a government funding package, falling well short of a majority. Republican Arizona Rep. Eli Crane, who offered the amendment, argued that although NED has the ostensible goal of promoting democracy, the organization has repeatedly promoted “anti-American objectives” and undermined freedom of speech.

The Trump administration has tapped a longtime Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official to serve as second in command of the agency. Charles Wall, who currently serves as ICE’s principal legal advisor, will become the new deputy director of the agency, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem announced Thursday via a social media post. Wall will be replacing Madison Sheahan, who is vacating her position to mount a congressional run in her home state of Ohio. “For the last year, Mr. Wall served as ICE’s Principal Legal Advisor, playing a key role in helping us deliver historic results in arresting and...

As Kathleen Kennedy exits Lucasfilm, she’s pointing to fans as the source of Star Wars’ biggest “lows.” In her Deadline exit interview, when asked about the Star Wars highs and lows, Kennedy responded about the lows and claimed that only a “very, very small percentage” of the Star Wars fanbase caused the backlash that defined much of her tenure. According to Kennedy, these fans simply wanted “the same thing” and were impossible to satisfy if Lucasfilm chose to go in new creative directions. “The lows are that you’ve got a very, very small percentage of the fan base that has...

Making an appearance on The Joe Rogan Experience Tuesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) expressed his frustration that the Trump administration has failed to refer Anthony Fauci for criminal prosecution for lying to Congress. Paul told Rogan that he believes Fauci's blanket pardon—issued by former President Joe Biden during the waning hours of his presidency—should be challenged in court. Paul said he has provided Attorney General Pam Bondi with evidence that Fauci misled Congress about gain-of-function research and also instructed his deputies to destroy public records in order to stymie scrutiny. "I've summarized it again in a criminal referral to Trump's...

Two powerful committee chairmen in Congress are moving quickly to investigate why Somali immigrant couriers were moving hundreds of millions of dollars out of U.S. airports in their luggage to overseas destinations the last few years, and whether there is any connection to a massive fraud scheme in Minnesota or terror groups in their native country in Africa. “We're going to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this […] and it will mean subpoenaing these things,” Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Just the News in an interview Thursday. He also revealed that...

Every time I write about this subject it has gotten yet a little more ridiculous. The background is that back in 2019 New York, both State and City, set themselves targets for “emissions” reductions and energy transformation that are quite literally impossible as a matter of physics, thermodynamics, and cost. And then, just to show who is the boss here, they made the impossible targets mandatory by statute. In the case of New York State, the statute in question is the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA or Climate Act). Among the many requirements of that statute, the most...

Let’s pretend you are a liberal living in a red state. If you feel aggrieved about the condition of the world and believe that conservatives are to blame, you can find a few like-minded souls, print up some signs covered in half-clever phrases, and go protest. In most cases, unless you chain yourself to a railing on the courthouse steps or attack the police, you will usually be ignored. On the flip side, let’s pretend you are a conservative living in a deep blue state. If you don’t like the school policy, E.V. mandates, high electricity prices, or restrictive gun...

A woman in Florida is under arrest after allegedly assaulting troopers in the state this week. After the incident, Governor Ron DeSantis talked about it during a press briefing and reminded people that Florida is not Minneapolis, and that there are consequences for that kind of behavior. This is the simple sort of thing that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is seemingly incapable of doing. It’s the sort of basic thing most people learn in childhood. Gov. Ron DeSantis addressed the incident during a press conference, saying, “I do know there was a woman who came out and assaulted one of...

A New Jersey man was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison for a brutal attack involving a dog on a New York City pizzeria manager. ... The shocking incident took place in August, 2024 at Roma Pizza on Fifth Avenue between 19th and 20th Streets in the Flatiron District. The victim, 47-year-old Zakaria El Sherif sustained serious injuries that left him in a medically-induced coma after the attack. Tyshaun Watson, 36, of Secaucus, was sentenced to 17 years in prison and five years of supervised release as part of a plea deal. He was initially charged with attempted murder...

@RandPaul The Senate just passed a bloated $176.4 billion “minibus” spending bill by a vote of 82–15. 46 Republicans joined Democrats after promising voters they’d rein in Washington’s reckless spending. See if your senators voted for this disaster....

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has reportedly given Apple a final warning after more than a year of delayed responses in an ongoing antitrust investigation. Here are the details. As reported by Reuters, the CCI filed a confidential order on December 31, decrying what it described as Apple’s repeated requests for extensions in an antitrust investigation stemming from a 2022 complaint filed by Match and several Indian startups. In 2024, Indian investigators concluded that Apple had engaged in abusive conduct in the iOS apps market, and asked the company to respond with objections and key financial details Since then,...

Last weekend, hundreds of protesters gathered in California’s state capitol to denounce the killing of 37-year-old Renee Good by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In California alone, demonstrations took place in 60 different communities. Most proceeded without incident, but on Tuesday, a protester at an ICE facility in Santa Ana was hit in the face by a projectile fired by a federal agent. President Donald Trump has denounced the anti-ICE protests, saying they are being organized by “professional agitators,” and that law enforcement “should not have to put up with this stuff.”

Pennsylvania’s power crisis is no longer theoretical: PJM’s latest auction shows deep shortages, soaring prices, and a state losing new generation to neighbors with clearer, faster rules. If anyone still doubts how serious the power situation unraveling in Pennsylvania has become, the warning signs are no longer abstract. PJM Interconnection, the regional transmission organization that coordinates wholesale electricity across all or parts of 13 states, including Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia, made the problem unmistakably clear in its most recent capacity auction.According to PJM’s own executive summary, the auction ended more than 6,623 megawatts (MW) below what PJM says...

Parents at an elementary school in Kansas are upset after students were reportedly told that they were not allowed to list President Donald Trump or late conservative activist Charlie Kirk as their role models for an assignment. The situation happened at Marshall Elementary School in Eureka, Kansas, in October. A formal complaint said the incident only recently came to light because students were originally instructed not to tell their parents about what happened. The American Center for Law & Justice, described as “a politically conservative, Christian-based legal organization,” has filed a civil rights complaint with the school. The organization said...

I have been wondering why the left is so absolutely dead set against ICE and their mission of keeping America safe. I had a discussion with a leftist on a friend's FB post (and no, I'm not posting her post, or my friend will be hit with tons of people showing up). She claimed that they were Gestapo. I told her she was wrong. I then worked to try to explain why Renee Good was in the wrong, and she posted up a list. If I believed the line of lies of the left, I can understand why they believe...

In this video, we break down the growing questions surrounding Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and the documented connections between his wife’s former lobbying firm and the infamous Feeding Our Future fraud case — a $250 million scandal that rocked Minnesota. As Mayor Frey goes on a national media blitz attacking the Trump administration, opposing ICE operations, and warning about federal overreach, Minnesota is once again facing uncomfortable headlines: multiple ICE-involved shootings, escalating protests, lawsuits against the federal government, and renewed scrutiny of past fraud cases involving Somali-run nonprofits.

@LindseyGrahamSC As I have previously stated, I am growing increasingly concerned that the new Syrian government is aligning with Turkey to use military force against the Syrian Kurds, who are our strongest ally in the enduring defeat of ISIS in Syria. They also have control of about 9,000 of the worst of the worst ISIS prisoners. It is in our vital national security interest that these prisoners do not go back to the battlefield. I support a fair chance for the new Syrian government, however if there’s an escalation of attacks against the Kurds by Syrian forces supported by Turkey,...

Will the New York City Council bend to Mamdani’s will and wishes? Believe it or not, nearly all socialist regimes, even the most infamous, have had legislative branches. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had the Supreme Soviet. Cuba has the National Assembly of the People’s Power. China has the National People’s Congress. North Korea has the Supreme People’s Assembly. Even Nazi Germany, which was a socialist government according to its German name (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei), which translates to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, had the Reichstag. Of course, these bodies are and were “legislatures” in name only....

María Corina Machado says she gave Trump her Nobel Peace Prize 'he deserves it' Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado had a simple explanation for why she gifted President Trump her Nobel Peace Prize medal at the White House Thursday. “Because he deserves it,” Machado told “Fox & Friends” during an interview that aired Friday morning. “And, um, it was a very emotional moment.” Machado, 58, added that she had presented Trump, 79, with the medal in a frame “on behalf of the people of Venezuela” following the Jan. 3 arrest of socialist authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro on federal drug...

@ShawnRyan762 “Pam Bondi can be personally fined up to $10,000 every day that these documents aren’t released, and she could be put in jail for breaking the law. They keep releasing fluff instead of the actual files, and they’re protecting people. This is the one issue that is hurting them with their own base, and people are screaming, ‘Release these damn files.’ If there’s evidence being destroyed, that’s a serious crime, and career prosecutors would be risking everything.”