Free Republic

Kathy Hochul is urging New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani to devote greater attention to governing the city and less to Israel, according to an interview with The New York Times published Thursday. Hochul was asked about a video Mamdani released last month in which he acknowledged that, despite his repeated promises, he does not have the authority to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The video drew hundreds of millions of views and included accusations against Israel, including the false claim that Netanyahu is a war criminal[sic]. Mamdani has faced repeated criticism over his anti-Israel positions and statements. During his...

Earlier this summer, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced that 50 organizations would no longer receive grants for the teen pregnancy prevention program (TPP), including Planned Parenthood. A federal judge has now blocked that change, though the organizations won't begin receiving funding again yet. Key Takeaways: * In June, over 50 organizations, including Planned Parenthood, were informed that they would no longer receive TPP grants due to the inclusion of "sexually explicit" content in their program materials. * Planned Parenthood and other groups have been criticized for including age-inappropriate, graphic sexual content in their sexual education programs....

Political commentator and comedian John Oliver discussed personhood laws on a recent episode of his show, "Last Week Tonight," on HBO, arguing that such laws "treat[] women as incubators." Key Takeaways: Comedian John Oliver said multiple states currently have personhood laws (which treat preborn human beings as actual human beings) in place, and complained that even legislation like fetal homicide laws are dangerous. * He additionally pointed to cases of medical neglect as "proof" that personhood laws harm women. * Oliver argued that personhood laws turn their mothers into nothing more than "hosts" and "incubators." The Details: On Sunday night's...

At a conference I attended recently in DC, I had the chance to show a lot of my colleagues around the downtown monuments. For them, many from other countries, seeing the Lincoln, the Washington, the Capitol, was once in a lifetime – for me, it was Tuesday. At one point, a German in the group – fatigue in his voice – asked me, “Tell me… How can Americans keep voting for Trump?” The term Trump was shorthand for Americans’ embracing nationalism and rejecting globalism, which seems oh-so backwards to our European cousins. I think he expected me to dance around...

“A New York woman allegedly planned to bomb the New York State Capitol and scouted the building clad in a burka ahead of the ISIS–inspired plot, the FBI said. Jessica Bowie, 35, was arrested on Wednesday and charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS, according to a complaint filed in the US District Court for the Northern District of New York. She stands accused of planning to target the New York State Capitol and New York State Senators. Investigators learned that Bowie had intended to conduct the attack before fleeing to Syria to join others in ISIS–controlled territories,...

Instead of drawing out the big mystery over how much of your money Washington wastes on improper payments, I'll just tell you right up front: In the 20 years between 2003 and 2023, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates the total money blown on payments made in error, or in the wrong amount, or with no documentation (!!!) is $2.7 TRILLION.That's a two followed by a seven followed by 11 zeroes. That's almost double what we spent last year on Medicare/Medicaid combined, or on Social Security. It's triple last year's defense budget. It's almost triple the unconscionable amount we spent...

Most of our attention here at Hot Air is devoted to politics and cultural issues, but I came across some stories this week that have me worried about something else: Earthquakes.I've been living here since 1997 and in that time I've experienced at least half a dozen earthquakes. Most of them are small. Maybe your chair rocks in place a little bit. It's unnerving, partly because you don't know how long it will last or if what you're feeling will suddenly get a lot worse. I've only experienced two earthquakes that I'd describe as scary. The worst one happened sometime...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani's plan to open five government-controlled grocery stores – one for each borough! – is going about as well as you'd expect a taxpayer-funded socialist supermarket experiment would go. Not great.On Wednesday, city officials took a group of prospective vendors to tour the site of the Harlem store, dressing them up in hardhats and high-visibility vests. Everyone was ready for a muddy-boots tour of the construction site, hyped to be wowed by this socialist utopia coming to life. They were greeted by an empty parking lot with no construction whatsoever. Even worse, there was trash...

It's midnight! It's bed time!

Total federal debt reached approximately $40.047 trillion on August 18, 2026, according to the Treasury Department’s Debt to the Penny database. That included roughly $32.27 trillion held by the public and $7.78 trillion in obligations held within the federal government.The milestone is difficult to comprehend in isolation. But the speed of the increase makes it more alarming.A decade ago, total federal debt stood near $19.4 trillion. America has therefore added more than $20 trillion to its debt burden in approximately ten years. It took the country more than two centuries to accumulate its first $20 trillion—and roughly a decade to...

The evening of Aug. 19, 1976, was hot and muggy in Kansas City, where the Republicans were wrapping up their convention. Gerald Ford was scheduled to give his speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination for what is probably the last contested party convention in American history. While exact totals varied slightly depending on uncommitted state delegations, Ford entered the convention with approximately 1,100 to 1,110 committed delegates, while his challenger Ronald Reagan held around 1,030 to 1,040. Because neither candidate had reached the 1,130-delegate threshold outright, roughly 90 to 100 uncommitted delegates held the balance of power. It had been...

I really wanted the column to run. I didn’t think it would, but I felt obligated to try to get it in. Toward the end of last month, before the Seattle Storm hosted the Indiana Fever, I spoke to people attending a rally in support of Sophie Cunningham outside Climate Pledge Arena. The Fever guard had recently taken a stance against biological males competing in women’s/girls sports, and a few dozen folks showed up to express their gratitude for her position. One of them was 16-year-old Ahnaleigh Wilson, who’d lost to a biological male in a track and field race...

Delusional Prince Harry and Meghan Markle sought US political clout far beyond the dreams of any British royal since King George III, The Post has learned, with the Duchess of Sussex angling to take over the Senate seat held by Kamala Harris ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Weeks before Democrat Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump, a source says, Markle requested a sitdown with California Gov. Gavin Newsom because she “wanted to be considered to be appointed” to the seat held by Harris, which she vacated just before becoming vice president on Jan. 20, 2021. The source added...

MOST PEOPLE believe humans are different. The reason is that Homo sapiens has evolved to be conscious. Many animals feel pain and pleasure; some appear to be self-aware. But the human mind’s unique potential to exhibit a sense of self marks out every member of the species for special treatment. In his encyclical in May, Pope Leo upheld this insight by drawing a line between humanity and its growing army of bots. Artificial-intelligence systems, he said, do not undergo experiences or feel joy or pain. He is not alone. Many people feel that to confer personhood on AIs would be...

As someone quipped on Twitter yesterday: America 250 finally has something to celebrate. Either that, or Donald Trump's immigration enforcement policies will get more popular. Who says self-deportation won't work? Six years after coming to the US to launch a self-promoting media empire while claiming to shun the spotlight, Britain's part-time royals have decided to return to the United Kingdom after all. Fox News gives a brief rundown of the timeline of their oh-so-brief run in the A-list circles of Tinseltown... FOX & Friends @foxandfriends · Follow ROYAL RETURN: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are returning to the U.K. After...

Residents of Kyiv are sleeping once again in overcrowded metro stations or in cars in underground garages. Above, the air war is turning into a turkey-shoot. Russia is bombarding the city with ever more ballistic and hypersonic missiles. Ukraine, which had previously thwarted most such attacks with Patriot anti-missile batteries, is “going Winchester”—military jargon for running out of ammunition. Ukraine’s plight is the most acute sign of the West’s shortage of interceptors. America’s depleted arsenal also helps explain why President Donald Trump has repeatedly retreated from threats to return to war with Iran. America’s allies are alarmed. Switzerland expects its...

Texas Senate hopeful James Talarico took heat Thursday for suggesting teen killer Karmelo Anthony’s murder conviction was unjust because there were no black jurors at his trial. Talarico — who is seeking to become the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since 1988 — was asked about the high-profile case during an appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show earlier this month and seemingly argued that Anthony’s conviction was proof the justice system “is not working for black Texans.” “Well, I’ve done a lot of work in the state house on justice reform, and right now we’ve got...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio outperforms Vice President JD Vance in three hypothetical 2028 presidential match-ups against some of the top-polling Democrats, according to a survey released Thursday. Pitted against former Vice President Kamala Harris and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rubio tops both by the same 48%-43%, the Emerson College National Poll showed. Meanwhile, Vance bests the “Squad” congresswoman 46%-44% but comes up short against the failed 2024 Democratic presidential nominee by 4 percentage points.

I don’t know how familiar readers are with the term ‘accelerationism’. It is generally used to describe a tendency on the left, though is increasingly heard on the right too. The basic idea of accelerationism is that there are certain flaws in the societal structure which if pushed could bring things to their inevitable conclusion more quickly. It is why there are so many people on the left of politics who say that sustainable government spending should be discouraged. It is not just because they are economically illiterate. What they really hope is that a speeded-up financial disaster will expose...

...For 2025, we brought it down by more than a percent. ...