Free Republic

NEW YORK, Jan 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday temporarily blocked President Donald Trump's administration from freezing access by five Democratic-led states to more than $10 billion of federal funds for child care and family assistance based on what it said were concerns about fraud. U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian, an appointee of Democratic former President Joe Biden, said he issued a temporary restraining order for the reasons stated in a legal filing by California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota and New York, which filed the lawsuit. The states sued the Trump administration late on Thursday, two days after the...

Did Obama really deport more people than Trump? On the surface, the answer is yes. During his two terms in office from 2009 to 2017, Barack Obama’s administration oversaw roughly 2.7–3.2 million deportations (removals and returns), making him, by some measures, the president with the highest total deportations in modern US history. Since Obama’s era included a higher share of border returns counted as deportations, his total figures appear higher even though the populations targeted were different. Under Trump, enforcement has increasingly focused on interior arrests and removals but these often lag in official numbers due to legal backlogs and...

Minnesota child care centers at the center of widespread fraud allegations fueled by a viral video were operating as expected when visited by investigators, the state Department of Children, Youth, and Families said in a news release Friday. “Children were present at all sites except for one – that site, was not yet open for families for the day when inspectors arrived,” the agency said. The agency gathered evidence and initiated further review, noting the investigation into four centers was ongoing, the report stated. The report comes days after YouTube content creator Nick Shirley, who has created anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim...

Climate change worsened by human behavior made 2025 one of the three hottest years on record, scientists said. The analysis from World Weather Attribution researchers, released Tuesday in Europe, came after a year when people around the world were slammed by the dangerous extremes brought on by a warming planet. "If we don't stop burning fossil fuels very, very, quickly, very soon, it will be very hard to keep that goal" of warming, Friederike Otto, co-founder of World Weather Attribution and an Imperial College London climate scientist, told The Associated Press. "The science is increasingly clear." "The heat waves we...

A video exposing childcare centers in Minnesota that were allegedly involved in fraud has caused leftist Gov. Tim Walz’s (D) officials to go on defense. A spokesperson for his office defended him and claimed the governor has long worked to stop fraud, Fox News reported Sunday. “The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed,” the official said, adding Walz “hired an outside firm to audit payments to...

White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has been plunged into a PR nightmare of her own making after she divulged stunning details about Donald Trump and his top team. Wiles, renowned in Washington for her tact, appears to have made an astonishing slip-up after she revealed that Trump has an 'alcoholic's personality'. In the wide-ranging interview with Vanity Fair, she branded JD Vance a 'conspiracy theorist', ripped into Pam Bondi over the botched release of the Epstein files, and described Elon Musk as a ketamine-dependent oddball. The intimate details were released over many months to journalist Chris Whipple who...

There’s been a lot of unsavory comments making the rounds on our side of the political divide the past twenty-four hours following the murder of Rob Reiner. Some people are evidently happy it occurred, or at least acting as if they are. Nope, they’re not going to say a single good word about Reiner. Nope, they weren’t going to sympathize. Nope, they just don’t care. In other words, they’re acting pretty much the same way the Left does when one of ours gets taken down.That this is not acceptable goes without saying, particularly in a case like this. Reiner was...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani decried the “vile act of antisemitic terror” that unfolded during a Hanukkah celebration in Bondi Beach, Australia on Sunday and vowed to “keep Jewish New Yorkers safe.” During a Chanukah by the Sea event on the iconic Sydney beach on Sunday, at least two gunmen opened fire, killing 11 people, including children, and wounding at least 29 others. “The attack at a Hanukkah celebration in Sydney today was a vile act of antisemitic terror. I mourn those who were murdered and will be keeping their families, the Jewish community, and the Chabad movement in my prayers,” Mamdani...

A beast was awakened by the tragedy. But it didn’t devour the Left. Charlie Kirk’s death shocked the world. Millions of Americans grieved over the loss of the Turning Point USA founder. His public memorial essentially became a state funeral, with thousands in attendance, and countless others watching it live. His death gruesomely illustrated the threat of political violence, with the White House declaring Antifa a terror group and pledging more resources to tackle left-wing extremism. The traumatic event offered the promise of unifying the Right in a common cause against the Left. Tyler Robinson’s actions were clearly inspired by...

My guest today is Andrew Kolvet, who was Kirk’s close confidant. Since the assassination, he’s taken on many of Kirk’s responsibilities, including hosting “The Charlie Kirk Show.” Andrew Kolvet: …“Now, Charlie’s mission was to say: Hey, before us are two roads. You can either go grievance politics, socialism, free stuff populism, Mangione-ism, Mamdani-ism, or you can go MAGA.“ …“I think this is the through line for Israel — is you do not have to support Israel to belong to the team, at least in a traditional historical sense…I’m an American. I’m born in this country. My kids are going to...

He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat. He is among about white 30 Christian clergy – pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders – known to be potential Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections, including a dozen who are already in the...

NATO Secretary General Rutte said today that Europe must be prepared for 'the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured' as the alliance is Putin's 'next target'NATO Secretary General Rutte said the alliance was Vladimir Putin's "next target" as he called on members to prepare for "the scale of war our grandparents and great-grandparents endured".Speaking in Berlin, Rutte said Europe is "already in the danger zone". He also thinks Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.Rutte said: "We are Russia's next target. I fear that too many are quietly complacent. Too many don't...

When we look back in time, 2020 will not be remembered for many good things. Most notably, a worldwide pandemic and the shutting down of society that came with it, and the worldwide protests that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. There will always be professional protesters, but in the case of Floyd's death, the rush to virtue signal made otherwise rational people do irrational things. Even law enforcement officers hurried to "take a knee" in supposed solidarity with protesters. But now, some of those law enforcement officers are crying foul and want to give the "real" explanation...

Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom credited the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk Wednesday with helping him to have a deeper understanding of Christianity. Newsom said on “The Ezra Klein Show” that Kirk helped him realize that Christianity creates a “sense of belonging” and “community” to millions of Americans that need meaning in their lives. He said that these aspects of Christianity are desperately needed in the U.S. today. “That was also telling, you know, I lazily said, you know, ‘Jesus,’ and [Kirk] got offended. And then I said it again, and I realized, ‘boy, you really are offended....

Hispanic voters — crucial to Trump’s 2024 victory — are abandoning him in significant numbers. Sure, the Hispanic flight from the Trump camp is slower among Cuban Americans and Venezuelan Americans in Florida, but the cracks are already visible. In New Jersey, Trump won 46% of the Latino vote in 2024. But this time, Trump-backed Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli got only 31% of the Hispanic vote in the Nov. 4 election, CNN exit polls show. The Democratic winner, Mikie Sherrill, won by a landslide, thanks in part to the Latino vote. In heavily Hispanic Passaic County, where Trump won...

Researchers have found that cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome, a vomiting condition tied to chronic cannabis use, rose sharply in US emergency departments between 2016 and 2022 and has stayed elevated. As of June 2025, nearly half of US residents live in states with legalized recreational cannabis, and policy shifts have expanded adult-use access through legalization, medical programs, and decriminalization. Among cannabis-related harms, cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) has been described as a growing concern in clinical and public health settings. CHS was first identified in 2004 in Australia and remains a syndrome with uncertain etiology. Proposed neurophysiological mechanisms include downregulation of cannabinoid...

Evidence leading to the arrest of a suspect for planting pipe bombs at the DNC and RNC was “sitting there collecting dust” at the FBI during the four years of the Biden administration, Attorney General Pam Bondi revealed Thursday. In a press conference Thursday afternoon, Bondi, FBI Director Kash Patel, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others praised the herculean months-long work to arrest a suspect after years of inactivity during Joe Biden’s administration. Brian Cole Jr. was arrested and charged with placing the pipe bombs at the RNC and the DNC on January 5, 2021....

Democrats and the media have been trying to whip up a story about the Trump administration taking out drug boats. They thought they had something with a story from the Washington Post that claimed Secretary of War Pete Hegseth ordered a second strike on a drug boat when there were survivors in the water. I reported how Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) made troubling comments about the military "may help save us from this president and his lame people like Hegseth" because their "commitment is to the Constitution and obviously not to Trump." He was saying that in response to questions...

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Southeast Asia is being pummeled by unusually severe floods this year, as late-arriving storms and relentless rains wreak havoc that has caught many places off guard. Malaysia is still reeling from one its worst floods, which killed three and displaced thousands. Meanwhile, Vietnam and the Philippines have faced a year of punishing storms and floods that have left hundreds dead. What feels unprecedented is exactly what climate scientists expect: A new normal of punishing storms, floods and devastation. Atmospheric levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the most on record in 2024. That “turbocharged” the climate,...

FBI Director Kash Patel is facing withering criticism from an alliance of active-duty and retired agents and analysts, days after the White House denied media reports that the president is about to fire him. A troubling new report card on the first six months of Patel’s leadership concludes he is “in over his head” and his deputy, Dan Bongino, is “something of a clown,” according to the alliance, which in two previous reports warned about crippling DEI and politicization of the FBI during the Biden administration. The Patel-led FBI is described in the 115-page report as a “rudderless ship” and...