Free Republic

The United States has already struck 200 trade deals, President Donald Trump said in an interview this week — but he refused to say with whom. Trump’s comments come just two weeks after he announced a 90-day pause on most of the sweeping global tariffs he imposed earlier this month to allow time for trade negotiations with hundreds of countries slugged by the punishing levies. Only China was exempted from the 90-day pause. “I’ve made 200 deals,” Trump told Time Magazine in a wide-ranging interview published Friday, “100%.” Pressed on which countries he had made deals with, Trump refused to...

The FBI's arrest of a Wisconsin judge shocked the establishment. But it's exactly the kind of escalation the MAGA base has been agitating for. "This is not the time for summer soldiers or sunshine patriots," MAGA podcaster Jack Posobiec told Axios, invoking founding father Thomas Paine. Why it matters: Friday's arrest of Milwaukee County judge Hannah Dugan, on charges of obstructing an immigration arrest, is a stunning escalation of President Trump's battles with political opponents.

April 21, 2025 – A leaked budget draft revealed the federal government has proposed to eliminate all funding for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ Youth Specialized Services – a federal program that provides emergency crisis support to LGBTQ+ youth considering suicide – effective October 1, 2025. Since being implemented in 2022, this program, funded through The United States Department of Health and Human Services, has provided more than 1.2 million crisis contacts with life-saving, LGBTQ+-inclusive crisis services. “Suicide prevention is about risk, not identity. Ending the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline’s LGBTQ+ youth specialized services will not just...

Oklahoma State Senator Dusty Deevers, a evangelical pastor, said that the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, is not "settled law," arguing that there is "no right to gay marriage." Why It Matters Deevers' comments come amid a broader conservative push in several red states to challenge the legal foundations of same-sex marriage. Conservative lawmakers in five states have introduced various measures encouraging the Supreme Court to strike down Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark 2015 decision that established the nationwide right to same-sex marriage. Conservative Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have previously...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suspended its quality control program for testing fluid milk and other dairy products, citing reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division. This decision follows the termination and departure of 20,000 employees from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), part of a broader federal workforce reduction initiative. ​ Reuters reported, effective April 21, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has suspended its quality testing program for Grade A milk and other dairy products, citing massive staffing losses tied to federal budget cuts. While the move may seem bureaucratic, it...

With President Donald Trump’s former reality TV show “The Apprentice,” streaming on Amazon Prime as of last month, politically astute viewers across the political spectrum have zeroed in on an episode from when Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, now one of the president’s biggest political detractors, praised his fellow New Yorker as a business prodigy. During Season 5, Episode 8, of “The Apprentice” in 2006, contestants were given a challenge — as was typical during each episode — and the winners of said challenge got the chance to fly to the nation’s capital and have breakfast with Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY...

The Trump administration has been mulling ways to get more Americans married and having kids — including a $5,000 “baby bonus” for every new mom after delivery, according to a report. White House officials have recently been brainstorming plans to tackle the declining birth and marriage rates — and push more Americans toward the traditional family values of Trump and his allies. Policy experts and advocates for boosting the birth rate have been meeting with White House aides to come up with plans to convince more women to have babies, four people who have been part of the meetings told...

The Iowa House passed legislation Monday to legalize the use of psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in “magic mushrooms,” for psychiatric treatment through a state program. House File 978, passed 84-6, would establish a Psilocybin Production Establishment Licensing Board within the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, operating in a similar fashion to the existing Medical Cannabidiol Advisory Board that oversees Iowa’s medical cannabis program. The board would grant licenses for the production and administration of products with psilocybin to people with certain mental health needs in the state. The bill also sets new requirements for who can access...

Sen. Ron Johnson is actively investigating 9/11. A day after the Wisconsin Republican went on a far-right podcast promoting conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, a spokesperson for Johnson said the lawmaker is currently seeking information and documentation in order to hold hearings on the event nearly 25 years later. He would do so in his capacity as chair of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, one of Congress’s most storied and powerful panels with far-reaching jurisdiction that gives its chair wide latitude to probe a diverse array of matters. It has...

"We're going to give them a stipend, we're going to give them some money and a plane ticket, and then we're going to work with them if they're good," Trump told Fox Noticias' Rachel Campos-Duffy. "We're going to work with them to get them back as quickly as we can." While Trump said details are still being planned for the program, he wants to make it "comfortable" for people. "We want our great people to stay," he said.

Can’t forget this scumbag fast enough. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/31/biden-transgender-day-of-visibility-trump-republicansA Joe Biden White House spokesperson said Republicans who have spent the Easter weekend criticizing the president for declaring Sunday’s annual Transgender Day of Visibility “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric”. “As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.” Bates’ statement came as the president faced criticism from the campaign...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is suing President Trump’s administration in federal court for targeting international students who had their legal status revoked. “The consequences of Defendants’ unilateral and unlawful termination are dire. The termination puts students out of lawful student status. Plaintiffs and the class face immigration detention and deportation. Plaintiffs and the class face severe financial and academic hardship. Further, Plaintiffs and the class are not able to obtain their degrees and work pursuant to the Optional Practical Training (OPT) program after graduation,” ACLU’s lawyers wrote in the class action lawsuit filed in New Hampshire. “Indeed, Defendants’...

Plan to eliminate $307 million ecosystem program could face obstacles in Congress... The email, sent yesterday by Anne Kinsinger, associate director of ecosystems at USGS, notified colleagues that the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has ordered the agency to design a plan to slow and then cease all activities in its Ecosystems Mission Area in the next fiscal year, which begins in October... USGS scientists study how ecosystems respond to climate change...

The search for life beyond Earth has led scientists to explore many suggestive mysteries, from plumes of methane on Mars to clouds of phosphine gas on Venus. But as far as we can tell, Earth’s inhabitants remain alone in the cosmos. Now a team of researchers is offering what it contends is the strongest indication yet of extraterrestrial life, not in our solar system but on a massive planet, known as K2-18b, that orbits a star 120 light-years from Earth. A repeated analysis of the exoplanet’s atmosphere suggests an abundance of a molecule that on Earth has only one known...

El Salvador won’t let Senator Chris Van Hollen have any contact with Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland resident who is being unlawfully detained in a megaprison in the country. Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador Wednesday in search of answers about Abrego Garcia’s whereabouts. The father of three was deported last month due to an “administrative error” by the Trump administration, which continues to claim Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13, despite there being no evidence to prove it.

Left-wing commentator and Harvard Law professor emeritus Laurence Tribe claimed Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that President Donald Trump’s administration was causing “an impending police state.” Tribe said, “I been in school for 50 years studying the constitution, teaching about it. It doesn’t enforce itself. It takes human beings of character to take it seriously. And when for whatever combination of cultural and social reasons, the nation selects someone who clearly has no respect for the constitution, someone who is cruel, someone who is without moral principle this is what we see. We see a tinhorn dictator interacting with a wannabe...

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...

Former President Joe Biden made his first public remarks since leaving the White House, referring to Black children as “colored kids”—a comment that quickly sparked backlash online, including criticism from voices on the left. On Tuesday, Biden told an anecdote about his childhood migration from Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Wilmington, Delaware, in which he remarked that until his family moved to “The First State,” he had “never seen hardly any Black people.” “I was only going in fourth grade,” Biden stated, as he recalled his mother driving him to Catholic school in Wilmington. “And I remember seeing kids going by, at...

The foreign minister stressed that "Russia has consistently upheld the belief that reliance on enduring values common to all major world religions and cultures along with respect for the unique identities of all nations and their right to sovereign development is key to building a fairer multipolar world order"MOSCOW, April 16. /TASS/. Russia is prepared to support the growing number of those in the world who share its traditional spiritual and moral values, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated during a meeting of the Foreign Ministry Council of Heads of Regions of Russia. "As a civilization-state, Russia has consistently upheld...

Two weeks ago, the sharp-tongued comedian Bill Maher had dinner with Donald Trump. Maher emerged from the meeting thoroughly charmed. During the opening monologue on his show on Friday, he described Trump as engaged and even likable. Trump made him feel comfortable and listened to. In their conversation, which included “an amazing tour of the whole house,” Trump remained empathetic. “He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” Maher recalled. “Why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?” It’s unfortunate that Maher allowed himself to get played like this.In...