Free Republic

Shapiro was an anti-Trumper in 2016 and was convinced Clinton would win in an electoral landslide.

Jack White has issued a sharp rebuke to Tim Burchett after the Tennessee congressman posted an AI-generated video of the rocker on social media. The video featured a fake version of White -- dressed as the real White did during his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction earlier this year -- declaring, "Don't even think about listening to my music, you fascist." In the caption, Burchett added his own shot, saying: "That cute little girl from the Addams Family got really ugly and angry.” The clip continues a false narrative that White "forbids" any Donald Trump supporters from attending...

The Department of Health and Human Services is freezing all childcare payments to all states, an official for Donald Trump’s administration told ABC News in a report published Wednesday. States’ funds will be released “only when states prove they are being spent legitimately”. The report came a day after Jim O’Neill, the HHS deputy secretary, and Alex Adams, an HHS assistant secretary who oversees the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), appeared in a Tuesday evening video message. O’Neill declared that the department had “activated our defend-the-spend system for all ACF childcare payments across America” and would now require “justification,...

Applied to Jewish life, this model illuminates the Mamdani divide. The younger, Park Slope cohort embodies the individualizing moral style. Their Judaism is ethical universalism — a faith of empathy, repair, and inclusion. To them, Jewish history teaches solidarity with the marginalized, not tribal defense. Their political commitments — tenant rights, climate action, anti-racism, and Palestinian solidarity — feel like moral extensions of their Jewish conscience. Supporting Mamdani, in this light, is not an act of betrayal but an act of consistency. The Upper East Side cohort, by contrast, lives in the binding moral register. Their Judaism centers on loyalty...

Ben Shapiro’s war on Tucker Carlson risks turning conservatism inward—smearing populist concerns as extremism instead of confronting the economic failures driving millions to revolt.Just as a “country without borders is not a country,” so it is that “the conservative movement also requires borders.” This was the general message delivered by conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro in a December 17 speech at the Heritage Foundation and again the next day in a speech at Turning Point USA’s Amerifest conference.Shapiro’s other main point was more specific: Conservative political commentator Tucker Carlson is no conservative and must forthwith be expelled from the conservative...

Work continues apace toward the goal of gestating babies outside a woman’s body. Scientists have now implanted human embryos in “organoids” made of tissues that mimic the uterine lining. From, “Researchers are Getting Organoids Pregnant,” published in the MIT Technology Review: In three papers published this week by Cell Press, scientists are reporting what they call the most accurate efforts yet to mimic the first moments of pregnancy in the lab. They’ve taken human embryos from IVF centers and let these merge with “organoids” made of endometrial cells, which form the lining of the uterus. The reports—two from China and...

It’s hard to be optimistic about the future of Gaza. The cease-fire agreement brokered by the Trump administration is holding, but Israel continues to occupy more than half of the territory, and its forces have killed more than 350 Palestinians since the truce was reached on Oct. 10. Hamas, meanwhile, is resurging in Gaza—replacing key commanders killed in the two-year war with Israel; executing its Palestinian opponents; and hiding weapons and fighters in its tunnel system, more than half of which remains intact. So, where does that leave Palestinians and Israelis? And what does it mean for the rest of...

NOTE: This post is very long, and the videos included are even longer. If you choose to watch only one, I would suggest the third one that specifically covers the Trump class. A lot of people instantly hated the new Trump-class Battleship because it has the name "Trump" attached to it, and especially hated it because Trump wants to have a hand in the design for "aesthetic" reasons. After all, if Trump likes something, it must be a bad idea. But of course, that's a terrible reason to have an opinion about whether a weapons system, which would likely be...

I know some were asking the same question: why would White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles sit down with Vanity Fair for this candid interview? She offered brutal assessments of some of the Trump administration’s top figures, from JD Vance to Pam Bondi; Wiles was no-holds-barred. For starters, you need to talk to the media, even if you hate them. President Trump does this daily. Second, it once again highlighted that even when you cooperate, and they all did, the mainstream press will still cook you. It’s why many have flocked to other sources of information. You can’t trust...

When describing U.S. President Donald Trump’s governing style, and particularly his relationships with other countries, two words tend to come up frequently: “mercurial” and “transactional.” The latter suits several U.S. allies, partners, and even adversaries just fine, while the former has buffeted even some of Washington’s closest and most enduring partnerships over the past year. In examining which countries have benefited the most and least from the second Trump administration, we intentionally excluded the parties to the two biggest conflicts that it is trying to mediate—one between Israel and Hamas, the other between Russia and Ukraine. Both of those conflicts...

Denmark said Monday it will summon the US ambassador after President Donald Trump announced he had appointed a special envoy to Greenland, the Danish autonomous territory he has threatened to annex. In response, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa said they stood "in full solidarity with Denmark and the people of Greenland". Denmark said Monday it would summon the US ambassador after President Donald Trump appointed a special envoy to Greenland who immediately vowed to make the Danish autonomous territory "a part of the US". Since returning to the White House in January,...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed the Trump administration over its plan to deploy National Guard troops in Illinois over the strenuous objections of local officials. The court in an unsigned order turned away an emergency request made by the administration, which said the troops are needed to protect federal agents involved in immigration enforcement in the Chicago area. In doing so, the court at least provisionally rejected the Trump administration’s view that the situation on the ground is so chaotic that it justifies invoking a federal law that allows the president to call National Guard troops into federal service...

Trump’s uncharacteristically wooden address to the nation revealed a panicked president

It was on April 2 that President Trump appeared at the White House to unveil his “Liberation Day” tariffs. The sweeping announcement roiled markets and helped set the tone for the president’s second-term tariff push — even though many of the country-specific tariff rates he held up in a chart would soon be paused until May and then tweaked throughout the rest of the year.

Most Americans are not antisemitic, but concerns over Israel reflect “a real backlash to consensus view in American foreign policy,” United States Vice President JD Vance assessed in a Monday interview… The vice president said Fuentes serves as a “useful foil” for some pro-Israel conservatives, allowing them to avoid a substantive discussion about US policy toward Israel. Vance said that while he believes “Israel is an important ally... we’re also going to have very substantive disagreements with Israel – and that’s OK.”

What can Donald Trump do to stop morphing into Joe Biden? The two presidents could hardly be more different in most ways—but in the one that counts most with voters, Trump is in danger of resembling his predecessor. Americans rejected Biden and the Democrats last year because they were incensed at the lousy state of the economy. Right now, they’re not much happier with Trump’s economy. Inflation was the No. 1 concern on voters’ minds last year, and it’s still a top concern today. Trump’s team say they plan to tout “affordability” as a theme Republicans can win on in...

Megyn Kelly criticized Ben Shapiro and Bari Weiss at AmericaFest on Friday, accusing them of trying to dictate what qualifies as conservative during a discussion with Jack Posobiec. JACK POSOBIEC, HUMAN EVENTS: Well, Megyn, you mentioned him, and your name came up on this stage last night in regards to pretty much all of this, would you like the opportunity to respond? MEGYN KELLY: Well, I found it kind of funny that Ben thinks he has the power to decide who gets excommunicated from the conservative movement, which shows a willful blindness about his position in it. It reminded me...

Summary A few Republicans join Democrats in criticizing Epstein release as inadequate Justice Department missed deadline for full Epstein file disclosure Critics say redactions fuel conspiracy theories, erode Trump support The U.S. Justice Department released a partial, heavily redacted set of Epstein-related files on December 19-20, 2025, missing a congressional deadline for full disclosure under a bipartisan law signed by President Trump in November. The release included approximately 300,000 pages of documents, photos, and materials, with extensive redactions—including entirely blacked-out sections—and featured prominent references to former President Bill Clinton but few to Trump. Criticism came from both parties: Democrats accused...

Summary Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) ended her campaign for New York governor on December 20, 2025, weeks after launching it on November 7, despite leading in polls. She also announced she will not seek re-election to her House seat, which expires in January 2027. Sources close to Stefanik attributed the withdrawal to President Trump's refusal to fully endorse her, instead remaining neutral in the GOP primary against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a longtime friend of Trump. Trump described both candidates as "fantastic people," hosted each separately at the White House, and expressed discomfort with their competition. New York Republican...

PHOENIX — For a second day in a row, a long-brewing internal fight among MAGA influencers spilled onto the stage of Turning Point USA's first annual conference since the September slaying of Charlie Kirk, the organization's co-founder.Podcaster Ben Shapiro, speaking on the AmericaFest convention's opening night Thursday, ripped into right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes.At the core of his argument is a case that Owens has peddled conspiracy theories, without objection from Kelly and other prominent conservatives, about Kirk's assassination. Those theories include suggestions that foreign governments —...