Free Republic

Survey suggests UBI has minimal impact.Last October, I reported on a study that gave participants $1,000 a month and measured the impacts of the transfer. The results were disappointing to advocates of universal basic income (UBI). To summarize, the study found that people worked less, and, according to the researchers:[Participants] used the time they gained from working less to engage in leisure, and there is no evidence of an increased use of time in other categories UBI proponents purport to care about, such as creative output, entrepreneurship, community engagement, self-improvement, or even spending time with children.A second study on guaranteed...

Robert Mueller, former FBI Director who was tapped as special counsel to investigate President Trump’s 2016 ‘collusion’ with Russia is reportedly in a memory-care facility. The news of Mueller’s health decline comes as House Oversight Chairman James Comer issued subpoenas for those involved in the Russiagate hoax. On Monday Comer announced the Committee issued subpoenas to a who’s who of political elites and deep state operatives. The sweeping list includes former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former FBI Directors James Comey and Robert Mueller, and multiple former Attorneys General. Comer said Mueller was subpoenaed to appear...

Texas Democrats have fled the state. They don’t want to give the state legislature a quorum to pass a congressional map that favors Republicans. So, they decided to seek refuge in Illinois, a gerrymandered state in the country. The irony is almost as bad as the MLB moving the All-Star game out of Atlanta in 2021 over Georgia’s voter integrity laws. The game was held in Colorado that year, a state with voter ID laws. Gerrymandering did not begin under Donald Trump, which seems to ooze from all the whining and shouting from Democrats about the Texas map. The good...

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has had enough of the spineless “good ole boys” network that’s betraying President Trump’s MAGA movement just six months into his triumphant return to the White House. In an explosive 45-minute interview with the Daily Mail, MTG didn’t hold back, slamming the GOP for abandoning its base and reverting to the warmongering neocon days of yore. “I don’t know if the Republican Party is leaving me, or if I’m kind of not relating to Republican Party as much anymore,” she told the outlet. “I don’t know which one it is.” Her loyalty to President Trump...

A Texas Democrat’s sudden departure overseas ‘for the foreseeable future’ raises important questions about immigration, assimilation, and American identity.If you’re an immigrant who came to the United States as an adult, but you leave America for an indefinite absence to attend to a family emergency in your country of origin, in what sense are you really an American? Is America actually your home, or is home your country of origin? Let’s say you also happen to be a representative in your adopted state’s legislature. Are you really able to serve your constituents and your district by going overseas indefinitely? If...

Three out-of-state neocon billionaires are funding the PAC created to oust Kentucky’s Republican Congressman, Thomas Massie. The legislator claims they’re coming after him because of his opposition to foreign aid for Israel.The backers behind MAGA KY are John Paulson, Paul Singer, and the Preserve America PAC, whose primary financier is Miriam Adelson, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).Massie brought attention to the PAC’s financial backing on Friday in an X social media post. Massie’s 12-year run in Congress will end next year if President Donald Trump has his way. The independent Republican congressman has bucked the president’s wishes one...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is under fire from the House Committee on Ethics for misrepresenting her fiancé, Riley Roberts, as both her “spouse” and “non-spouse” on official filings—allowing him to receive perks reserved exclusively for congressional spouses. Last month, the Ethics Committee’s July 2025 report revealed that Ocasio-Cortez listed Roberts as her “spouse” on travel documents related to her controversial appearance at the 2021 Met Gala, despite not being legally married to him. The same report highlighted that she failed to list him as a spouse on her required financial disclosures, which would have triggered mandatory reporting of Roberts’ financial assets....

Both the General Assembly and the Security Council are broken because the alliances upon which they were founded no longer exist.The world is insane, but that’s its normal state. We now have al-Qaida leaders who are about to be released from prison, the United Kingdom, France, and Canada are about to recognize a Palestinian “state,” and a hostage held by Hamas was photographed digging his own grave. In Inside the Asylum I specifically warned that the UN was employing terrorists, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. There is famine in the Gaza...

Here’s a bold idea for the Kurds, Taiwanese, and Tibetans: Go to Israel and kidnap a bunch of Jews. It’s your quickest path to statehood. Travel to Tel Aviv, go swipe a few hundred Israeli civilians (women and children are your best bet; they’re smaller and take up less space), and then send your demands to the United Nations. Within a few days, England, France — and a growing number on the American left — will reward you with statehood. Pro Tip: Try to align your independence movement with some kind of colorful headgear — like what the Palestinians did...

The Trump administration wants to defund the unconstitutional, left-wing, foreign-meddling National Endowment for Democracy (NED). So what did House Republicans just do? They voted to give the agency $315 million.According to the Daily Caller:In May, the Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommended eliminating federal funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), citing the organization’s pattern of partisan advocacy and hostility towards Republicans. However, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on National Security, Department of State and Related Programs advanced a bill on July 23 that would allocate $315 million to the organization for the upcoming fiscal year.“It might...

This is the problem. Whitaker’s arrogance thinks that the US is so powerful that it can crush Russia without ever firing a shot and calling Putin “sick and twisted” when we started this war, and there were TWO peace deals which the WEST broke – not Russia. I have NEVER in my entire life witnessed such INCOMPETENT diplomacy. The Neocons have been instructing Trump to be strong and yield nothing to Putin, and he will fold. Peace is easy. Just HONOR the Minsk Agreement. But this is a war to destroy Russia, and Trump is a fool who is being...

The United States stands on the brink of an unprecedented transformer shortage that threatens to derail President Trump’s ambitious plans for AI-driven reindustrialization. With wait times for electrical transformers now stretching to 3–5 years—compared to just 4–6 weeks in 2020—manufacturers warn of "catastrophic" grid instability as power demands skyrocket from new data centers, factories, and infrastructure projects. The bottleneck stems from Trump’s aggressive trade policies, including a 25% tariff on India (the world’s largest transformer producer, making 60% of global supply) and looming 100% penalties on China (which produces another 20%). The Transformer Shortage: A Ticking Time Bomb Transformers are...

When President Trump announced the terms of the pending US-EU trade deal, the world was shocked. Not only is it the biggest trade deal in history—it unequivocally puts America first. In fact, when asked what concessions America gave, EU President Ursula Von Der Leyen could not come up with a single item. Europeans went ballistic. They described this as the death-knell for the EU. Europe has been described as a collection of American vassal states (which is fundamentally accurate). Even America’s liberals went nuts—the deal was too good for America. They argued that it would undermine America’s political relationship with...

In another display of a double standard, patriotic Americans are being blocked from wearing pro-Trump or conservative gear at public concerts and sporting events. Yet, Pride and trans flags are allowed to be freely displayed. At venues like NFL stadiums, pro-Trump shirts or MAGA hats have been confiscated or banned, with fans told that political attire isn’t allowed. Meanwhile, displays of Pride and trans flags are embraced—often part of official event branding or venue-supported inclusion campaigns. In a video posted to X, a man taped himself being kicked out of a St. Louis City game for wearing a MAGA hat....

I have repeatedly stated -- in this forum and elsewhere — that Republicans must not gloat over their rare and recent victory in the 2024 elections. The incumbent party typically loses numerous House and Senate seats in mid-term elections. Moreover, things can change fast. Unforeseen circumstances routinely arise. (See COVID-19.) Arrogance can turn many voters off. The mainstream media is 100.0% in the tank for Democrats, as is the education establishment and other institutions. The Deep State is ever lurking. And Democrats cheat … whenever and wherever they can. That is why they are so rabidly against the concept of...

President Trump, on Thursday, extended the tariff pause on Mexico for another 90 days, in the hopes that a larger trade deal can be made. Mexico's President agreed to immediately suspend non-tariff trade barriers to secure the extended pause. The tariff rate will remain, with a 25 percent "fentanyl" tariff, a 25 percent tariff on cars, and a 50 percent tariff on steel, aluminum, and copper. .@PressSec: "Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its non-tariff trade barriers, of which there are many. As the President said, we will continue to talk to Mexico over the next 90 days with the...

The ousting of Kiev regime leader is ongoing – and today, the successor was anointed in the pages of Vogue. After three and a half years hailed as the heroic defender of democracy and a present-day Churchill, Kiev regime leader Volodymyr Zelensky rapidly fell out of favor with both the exhausted Ukrainian population and with his masters in the West. We reported today here on TGP how the EU has frozen all aid until the independence of the anti-corruption agencies is restored.

These are very early days, and there are good reasons to be skeptical of any public statements made by elected officials, diplomats, and other trained liars. But Trump announced his trade deal with the Europeans, the largest features of which are agreements to purchase American energy and arms. Those are major investments. A lesser component was the opening of European markets to more American goods at lower tariffs than what European goods will face coming here. Jim Geraghty uses cars to helpfully illustrate one problem for American manufacturers for breaking into the European market. Europe’s regulatory environment and lifestyle just...

Some black Americans, we hear, are moving back to the land of those who sold their ancestors into slavery. That’s one way of putting it, anyway. But as is said, home is where the heart is. The heart is often happier, too, when your formerly upper-middle-class self can now live like a king in a country of relative serfs.The Associated Press (AP) covered this topic on Saturday. Relating stories of black Americans relocating to Kenya, the news organ wrote (with the expected woke suppositions):Kenneth Harris spent most of his days in Atlanta yearning for a life in a place where...

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey issued an early Wednesday morning press release announcing a lawsuit against Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) for its deceptive messaging about the abortion pill Mifepristone.Today, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that his Office has filed a lawsuit against the national Planned Parenthood Federation of America for violating the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. The suit alleges that Planned Parenthood has systematically misled women about the dangers of chemical abortions in order to cut costs and drive up revenue at the risk of women’s health and safety. “The national Planned Parenthood organization is actively endangering...