Free Republic

In the United States, Tuesday, April 15 was the deadline for filing federal, state and local income tax returns. Some Americans owed money by April 15, while others are expecting refunds. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is processing millions of federal tax returns. But according to Politico reporters Sophia Cai and Benjamin Guggenheim, the IRS may have a greatly reduced workforce in the future. And Politico's reporting is receiving a lot of discussion on X, formerly Twitter. Cai and Guggenheim, in a mid-April article, explain, "The IRS could see a mass exodus of up to 40 percent of its workforce...

This week, Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs that the Associated Press called “a historic tax hike that could push the global order to a breaking point,” and what I want to know is this: Why are we still wondering what Trump voters want? He promised. He delivered. What’s the mystery? I ask, because our discourse seems to be invested in the idea that his supporters don’t really want this, and I don’t just mean his hardcore supporters. We tell ourselves that the last election was about inflation and the high cost of living, like the price of eggs, and...

President Donald Trump’s new executive order on regulating elections is striking for the way it asserts broad powers for the executive branch that go far beyond what’s prescribed in the Constitution or sanctioned by courts. Experts expect the order to face legal challenges for that reason. This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access. But what’s also striking about the order is how it seeks to dictate some arcane details of the way voting systems work in some of America: Specifically, it bans the machine-readable barcodes or QR codes that...

Trump and his MAGA allies are already targeting the four major pillars of resistance to Trump during his first term. As we prepare for Trump’s second regime — which promises to be far worse than the first — it’s important to do what we can to protect and fortify these four centers of opposition. 1. Universities University faculties are dedicated to finding and exposing the truth — which has often meant calling out Trump’s lies. But Trump has warned that he’ll change the criteria for university accrediting in order to force university faculties into line...... 2. Nonprofits America’s nonprofits have...

There’s an increasing chasm dividing the modern web. On one side, the commercial, monopolies-riddled, media-adored web. A web which has only one objective: making us click. It measures clicks, optimises clicks, generates clicks. It gathers as much information as it could about us and spams every second of our life with ads, beep, notifications, vibrations, blinking LEDs, background music and fluorescent titles. A web which boils down to Idiocracy in a Blade Runner landscape, a complete cyberpunk dystopia. Then there’s the tech-savvy web. People who install adblockers or alternative browsers. People who try alternative networks such as Mastodon or, God...

The Marburg virus — a lethal pathogen similar to Ebola — is spreading rapidly in both Equatorial Guinea and Tanzania, and could soon expand beyond Africa, The Daily Beast reports. "It is important to systematically assess patients for the possibility of viral hemorrhagic fevers… through a triage and evaluation process, including a detailed travel history," the CDC advised on Thursday,

Either way, they thought the Democrats were better. This is important to work out. Independent voters are not merely people refusing formal party alignment. They are that great globular middle of American politics – respectable white people, that is, white people who care about looking respectable to white people, who themselves care about looking respectable to other white people. I call this class of Americans “globular,” because they can be pushed and pulled, depending on the context at election time. They are fickle. They believe they are immune to the consequences of politics. But they can be shamed, as respectability...

Top House Republicans are planning to threaten to shut down the U.S. Government by refusing to raise the debt ceiling next year in a scheme to force Democrats to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, should they win the House in November critics warn, pointing to a Bloomberg report. “Social Security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, and safety-net work requirements are among the top priorities for key House Republicans who want to use next year’s debt-limit deadline to extract concessions from Democrats,” Bloomberg Law reports. “The four Republicans interested in serving as House Budget Committee chairman in the next...

This is a listing of the various types, and sub-classifications of American conservatism today. As one delves deeper, one can clearly see that modern American conservatism comes in many types, shapes and flavors. There is no “one size fits all” American conservative. Here we discuss 29 different types of American conservative. The key to the success of any Presidential Conservative candidate or President is to be able to unite all these disparate groups under one singular banner. Is it even possible? [1] The members of the “conservative movement.” We start right off, addressing one of the most common themes used...

The abortion-on-demand crowd is slowly losing the argument, and they’re tossing up every nonsensical argument they can think of in the hope that something will work. On June 11, Alternate posted an article by Planned Parenthood-honored psychologist Valerie Tarico. In an article titled “What the Unborn and the Undead Have in Common,” Tarico explored the so called similarities between zombies and unborn babies in an attempt to brand the pro-life argument as “magical.” Tarico’s central argument was that personhood is based on thought, so “In the beginning stages of gestation, a human embryo or fetus has no more qualities...

The hidden battle in Syria – the one that rarely appears on our television screens – has been raging for years between Israel and a coalition comprising the Syrian government, Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. Watching over the proceedings without directly intervening has been Russia, although that might be about to change. The prize is control over Syrian territory but the battlefield is Syria’s skies.

he executive editor of the left-leaning news website AlterNet is now on "indefinite leave" after multiple women came forward with accusations of sexual misconduct against him. Don Hazen, AlterNet's founder and a former publisher for Mother Jones magazine, reportedly made unwanted advances toward at least five female former employees and sent them explicit messages and photos, according to BuzzFeed News. "We are now investigating the allegations in detail; in the meantime, executive director Don Hazen has been placed on indefinite leave, effective immediately,” board members for AlterNet's parent nonprofit said in a statement.

Acclaimed author Jeff Gillenkirk died of a heart attack this week, two days after publication of his final article, “The New PTSD: Post-Trump Stress Disorder.” Gillenkirk, 67, suffered the heart attack Tuesday while teaching a class of third-graders in San Francisco, Alternet reported. Mr. Gillenkirk, an Alternet contributor and onetime speechwriter for former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, wrote in his final article of the severe anxiety he and others have experienced in the aftermath of Donald Trump being elected president — “a painful, sad irony,” said Alternet’s executive editor, Don Hazen. “Anguishing yet again over election results in the...

Less than a week after they used an overwhelming amount of left-wing Internet clips from YouTube to forward the liberal agenda at the Democrat debate, CNN is promoting another left-wing Internet production. Sunday’s "Newsroom" program spent more than 5 minutes discussing the latest hack job from Max Blumenthal of "The Nation," in which the son of Clinton spin doctor Sidney Blumenthal attacks the "chicken hawks" at the College Republican National Convention. Not only did segment reporter Josh Levs fail to identify many of Blumenthal’s left-wing associations (other than the fact that posted his video on the Huffington Post, which is...

The controversy surrounding journalist Max Blumenthal continues in the wake of the release of his video of intoxicated American Jews in Jerusalem insulting President Barack Obama, but he rejects the claims that the footage fuels anti-Semitism. The video shows young American Jews, who are apparently very drunk, criticizing Obama for his Mideast policies and describing him in derogatory terms. It has also had more than 400,000 hits on YouTube. "I have received death threats from people, mainly ones calling me a self-hating Jew. I am self-hating, but my self-hatred has nothing to do with me being Jewish," Blumenthal told Haaretz...

Sidney Blumenthal, a close adviser to Bill and Hillary Clinton, has reportedly undertaken an email campaign to defend a controversial book written by his son that compares Israel to Nazi Germany. The book, written by Max Blumenthal, accuses Israel of being a fascist country and has chapter titles explicitly comparing the Jewish State to Nazi Germany, such as “The Concentration Camp” and “The Night of Broken Glass.” According to the Nation columnist Eric Alterman, who harshly reviewed the book, long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal has sent “nasty emails” to “our mutual friends and professional acquaintances” attacking him for “telling the...

Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At Risk - FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Anti-Israel Leftist Cited by Anti-Semitic Killer Mocked Idea that American Jews are At RiskPosted By Daniel Greenfield On April 14, 2014 @ 12:27 pm In The Point | 4 Comments Leftist Anti-Israel journalist Max Blumenthal, who is affiliated with The Nation, ridiculed the idea that American Jews are an at risk population.Blumenthal, whose attacks on Israel and Jews were described as anti-Semitic even by many on the left, and whose work was allegedly cited by the Kansas City killer and...

IÂ’ve watched the film depiction of the life of the late Chris Kyle, AmericaÂ’s deadliest sniper, Navy SEAL, and veterans advocate, twice. It is a gripping portrayal, but it is a portrayal nonetheless. While the screenplay perhaps lacks nuance, it is also a product of Hollywood and should be considered a truncated and dramatized version of one manÂ’s life story. The complexities of biography often elude filmmakers who are charged with creating dense and intricate portraits of a human being in 120 minutes. Nevertheless, the movie is quite enjoyable. The performances are stirring and the wartime themes, difficult as...

Following news that Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel had died on Saturday, anti-Israel writer Max Blumenthal called on people to avoid celebrating the life of one of the world's foremost chronicler of the Holocaust.

In an interview with Chris Hedges in 2010, Noam Chomsky, the world-renowned linguist and dissident intellectual, remarked that he has “never seen anything like this.” By this, he meant the state of American society, relative to the time in which he was raised — the Depression years — and to the tumultuous state of Europe during that same period. “It is very similar to late Weimar Germany,” Chomsky said. “The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and...