Free Republic

Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul, R-Ky., tells Just the News his investigation into Dr. Anthony Fauci's stewardship of the COVID-19 pandemic has uncovered fresh evidence of government-document destruction and more extensive gain-of-function research that enhances the human lethality of viruses. Paul, an M.D. specializing in ophthalmologic surgery, said the revelations were included in communications on Fauci's phone, computer and diary and were the reason why his committee tried but failed Wednesday to pass a measure granting prosecutorial immunity to a former top aide to Fauci so she could testify freely about the issues. "More explosive information that comes...

The lone holdout juror in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial is pushing back after Clancy’s defense asked a judge to investigate his conduct and obtain cellphone records from the jury’s deliberations. Edward Paltzik, attorney for juror Michael Desronvil, blasted the motion as “Looney Tunes” and a “full-frontal attack on the U.S. Constitution.” He warned that investigating jurors for standing by their views could threaten the independence of jury deliberations, CT Insider reported. Below is the full statement from Paltzik: "The Looney Tunes motion filed yesterday by Kevin "Shooter McGavin" Reddington to investigate Michael is not just an attack on Michael for...

Reporters for CNN, MS NOW and Politico were blocked from entering the White House complex Thursday morning, hours after a DC federal judge ruled President Trump’s ban on the three media outlets was likely unconstitutional. In an eight-page order, US District Judge Tim Kelly told administration officials to immediately return reporters’ press passes that were confiscated Saturday and blocked enforcement of Trump’s ban for 14 days. However, an unidentified Politico journalist, CNN correspondent Betsy Klein and MS NOW reporter Laura Barrón-López were denied entry after presenting themselves at a Secret Service checkpoint.

Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing sources, that shipping giant UPS was sending a cockpit canopy and weapons bay door to the U.S. from Australia in late May when it was diverted. The F-35 is a fifth-generation stealth fighter made by Lockheed Martin, and Washington controls the sale of these aircraft only to its closest partners and allies. A $24 billion sale of F-35s to Saudi Arabia was approved last week, but some lawmakers in Congress have already expressed concerns over the technology finding its way into Chinese hands. SNIP

It’s Commie Week for President Trump. First it was New York’s unlovely Mayor Mamdani Trump did the great honor of visiting at Gracie Mansion on Monday. Then on Wednesday the president rolled out the literal red carpet for another Communist dictator, President Xi Jinping of China. Donald Trump and the first lady warmly greeted Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, when they alighted from their plane at Joint Base Andrews and strolled together companionably down the red carpet as a 21-gun salute sounded, followed by the national anthems of both nations. Trump could not resist sending a US Air Force...

CAVE CREEK, Ariz. - Matthew Ammel, the former bodyguard to ex-Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, is accused of entering her Cave Creek home while she was out of town and causing more than $200,000 in damage, according to a probable cause statement. What we know: According to court documents, the incident occurred Aug. 30, but Sinema did not report it to deputies until Sept. 3. Sinema told deputies Ammel demanded she post a video to her X account and threatened to damage her paintings every 10 minutes if she did not. The probable cause statement says Sinema did not post the...

Fauci was kind enough (and stupid enough) to write his most intimate thoughts and feelings in a diary. He wrote this on a government-owned computer, making Fauci's inner musings the public's business. And the release of those more than 1,100 pages of his spectacularly narcissistic, self-congratulatory braggadocio will almost certainly have future historians asking one simple question: Why wasn't this guy in jail? It's been less than two months since that diary was made public, and researchers are still pulling astonishing nuggets of damning information out of it. Reason.com's Zach Weissmueller has taken a very deep dive into the diary's...

The US has warned southern states of a possible Moscow attack that would see Russia fire 600 km-range drones from commercial ships at Spain, France and Italy. We examine what is known and how the threat is mounting. US intelligence services have shared a report with several European countries pointing to a possible Russian operation using drones against targets in Spain, France or Italy, according to Spanish media. The information was first revealed by journalist Xavier Colás — a former Russia correspondent — in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. It traces the origin of the alert to CIA director John...

After posting an explicit warning that MAGA supporters, conservatives and apolitical applicants need not apply, a New York City kitten rescue is defending its screening process against mounting criticism, including from PETA, which called on the group to scrap the ideological ban. "Homeless animals don’t care which side of abortion you are on or whether you believe in global warming or support Palestine or Israel or if you don’t vote at all, ever. They care if you love them and will give them a good home," PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk told Fox News Digital. "We hope this policy, which is...

The 50th anniversary of the death of Mao Zedong has just passed. (He died on September 9, 1976.). I did not see large amounts of commentary about Mao on the occasion of the anniversary, but everything that I did see was either neutral or positive, with the majority being praise. And as I looked around for any commentary I could find from around the date of the anniversary, most of what I found is again praise. How could that be? This man was a monster. Certainly, the death toll for which Mao was responsible was a large multiple of anything...

President Donald Trump's ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico suffered a setback Thursday after a federal judge ordered the administration to restore White House access to the outlets. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly issued a temporary restraining order Thursday blocking the ban and ordering White House officials to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" the outlets' hard-pass press credentials while their legal battle continues. The order will be in effect for 14 days. Kelly wrote that the outlets had shown they were likely to succeed on their claim that their White House "hard passes were revoked without constitutionally adequate due...

An Iowa judge on Wednesday threw out President Trump’s lawsuit over the Des Moines Register’s final 2024 poll and declared that even a wildly off election-eve survey is the kind of “erroneous statement” the First Amendment must protect. RedState readers will surely remember the poll in question. The Register published a wild outlier three days before the presidential election, suggesting Kamala Harris held a lead over her Republican opponent in Iowa. The Hawkeye State was not considered competitive. And it wasn't. Trump went on to win the state by 13 points. It was a 16-point miss that Trump described as...

You open FoodNeverComes, pick from 22 cuisines and start scrolling. Butter chicken looks good. So does bibimbap. You add a few dishes, watch the total climb and hit checkout. A tracker says a rider is on the way. Then you get a dummy AI-generated call from inside the site. He is outside your building, he says, but cannot find your street or door. Except there was never any food in the first place. The order exists only on the screen. "Order the food. Skip the bill," says the site. Its slogan is blunter: "The food never comes - but the...

What happens when Western liberals stop distinguishing between religious tolerance and political surrender? There was a time when “Never Forget” truly meant something in mainstream circles. Twenty-five years after September 11, in some corners of America and Western Europe, it has become worth asking exactly what we were supposed to remember. The obvious answer was the nearly 3,000 people who were murdered by Islamist terrorists in a brazen attack on the American way of life. But there has been another critical lesson buried in the rubble: Western civilization will not survive if it becomes so afraid of offending people that...

Starbucks announced plans to close roughly 250 stores across North America this week, company COO Mike Grams revealed Thursday. Grams announced the closure in a public statement, saying that while most of its 18,000 North American stores were profitable, a small portion has been struggling. "We have carefully reviewed our North America coffeehouse portfolio and identified locations where we do not believe we can consistently deliver the experience we want for customers and partners or where we don’t see a path to acceptable financial performance," Grams said in the announcement, which was in the form of a letter to "Partners."

Minnesota Lt. Gov. and Democratic Senate candidate Peggy Flanagan is set to attend a fundraiser hosted by an individual who has served as the state’s Medicaid medical director during a time period where Medicaid fraud exploded onto the national scene. Dr. Nathan Chomilo has served as Minnesota’s Medicaid medical director since January 2020 and is listed as one of the hosts of an October 1 fundraiser supporting Flanagan, first reported by Townhall’s Dustin Grage. Much of Minnesota’s broader fraud scandal has centered on Medicaid-funded programs, including autism services and Housing Stabilization Services, and although Chomilo was not the official responsible...

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claimed Wednesday his country has “been the victim of terrorism” and blamed the US and Israel for instability in the Middle East during a wild address to the United Nations General Assembly. Pezeshkian, whose nation is the leading funder of terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah— reiterated claims that an American attack was behind the deadly Feb. 28 Minab school strike that killed an estimated 120 children. “The United States president described us as terrorists,” the 71-year-old told world leaders gathered in New York, referring to President Trump’s remarks to the same body one day earlier....

Very inconvenient for the "our elections are safe and secure" crowd. No joke, a Utah postal worker has been indicted for allegedly yeeting more than 300 mail-in ballots into a church parking lot dumpster right before the state's June primary. Damon Matai Seei, 34, of Payson, was working his route in Eagle Mountain when he apparently tossed the ballots in a dumpster. He allegedly tossed the ballots along with other mail, so we're not entirely sure whether he hates elections, hates his job, or just had a bad day. (It was Pride Month, for goodness' sake, the worst time of...

Republican Rep. Maria Salazar (FL-27) recently dropped an ad directly confronting President Donald Trump about his immigration agenda. Salazar has been none too pleased about the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations, detentions, and mass deportations of certain people and groups, particularly those who had their temporary protected status revoked. However, she made the assumption that she would be cheered on by her voters, Republican moderates and so-called moderate Democrats. A week later, that ad has aged like curdled milk. It seems that Salazar's Miami constituents, for whom she claimed to be speaking, are letting her know that she does...

If you read media headlines about the Supreme Court’s September 14, 2026, ruling on the Post Office’s handling of mail-in ballots, it’s easy to think the Supreme Court completely stopped Trump’s effort to secure our national elections. Pundits, activists, and state officials claimed total victory. They pointed to federal district court injunctions issued by Judges Indira Talwani and Carl Nichols, arguing that because the Supreme Court didn’t lift those stays, Executive Order 14399 is permanently dismantled. They want you to believe federal oversight was turned back, leaving local election practices completely untouched for the midterm cycle. Don’t buy it. To...