Free Republic

It’s known as “Don Colossus.” At 15 feet tall, the statue of President Trump, mounted on its 7,000-pound pedestal, is about the height of a two-story building — a giant effigy cast in bronze and finished with a thick layer of gold leaf. For more than a year, the golden statue has been at the center of one of the stranger moneymaking ventures of the Trump era. A group of cryptocurrency investors paid $300,000 to have a sculptor create it as a tribute to Mr. Trump, an outspoken crypto proponent. Then they used it to promote a memecoin called $PATRIOT....

Gus Kenworthy, a British-American Olympic skier who is set to compete for Great Britain in freestyle skiing, posted a graphic anti-ICE message on his social media as opening ceremonies were set to begin for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics on Friday. Kenworthy posted a photo on his Instagram that showed the words “f–k ICE” on snow in what appeared to be urine. He urged Americans to call their senators to pressure them into voting against Department of Homeland Security funding negotiations. “Innocent people have been murdered, and enough is enough,” he captioned the post. “We can’t wait around while ICE...

“Wokeness” is often seen as the product of radical Marxism imported to America from Europe. In fact, “woke” is a capitalist phenomenon that emerged in the U.S., which exported it to the vassals of its empire. The least woke places in Europe are represented by the former Soviet bloc; the most woke places are those most closely tied to the U.S., such as the UK and Germany, which is still under military occupation. All the woke prerequisites—mass immigration, feminism, equality laws, etc.—are the inevitable fruits of capitalism. It pretends to make individuals “sovereign” after drawing them into the labor pool,...

The White House deleted a meme video posted on President Trump’s Truth Social that depicted former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as apes — after a prominent GOP senator called the clip the “most racist thing I’ve seen” and demanded it be taken down. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt initially defended the post and accused critics of fomenting “fake outrage” — but the video was taken down a little before noon Friday. A White House official added that a staffer had “erroneously made the post. It has been taken down.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the highest-ranking black...

JD Vance sat down with The Daily Mail’s Phillip Nieto for an interview that covered quite a bit of ground, though one exchange stood out — in large part because Nieto asked the vice president a question that’s been on the minds of many. “Have you apologized, did you plan to apologize to the family of Alex Pretti?” the reporter asked. “For what?” the Ohio Republican replied, as if the question were somehow foolish. “For, you know, labeling him an assassin with ill intent,” Nieto explained. Vance again described the intensive care unit nurse who was shot and killed by...

Here we go again. President Donald Trump says he wants to make a deal with Iran and avoid war. And he’s sending negotiators to Oman for talks with Iranian diplomats on Friday. Sound familiar? Ahead of scheduled U.S.–Iranian talks in Oman last June, Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran, instigating a war that Trump later briefly joined with a bombing raid on Tehran’s main nuclear facilities. Not quite eight months later, the world anxiously waits to see if recent history will repeat itself, this time with America leading the charge. Israel, of course, is worried that Trump won’t attack....

Who wrote these words? "Congressman Thomas Massie is a Conservative Warrior for Kentucky's 4th Congressional District! An MIT graduate and a first-rate Defender of the Constitution, Thomas fights hard to Protect your Liberties, especially the First and Second Amendments, which are under siege by the Radical Left. Strong on the Border and our Military and Vets, Thomas Massie has my Complete and Total Endorsement!"

Senator Tim Sheehy (R-MT) publicly undercut President Donald Trump’s push to federalize America’s elections on Thursday, flatly warning he did not support the idea, which would require a constitutional amendment. The proposal, first floated by the president on Tuesday in a podcast interview with Dan Bongino, his former FBI deputy director, came alongside Trump’s familiar unsubstantiated claims that he won states where he was officially defeated in past presidential elections, which he again branded “crooked.” The president said Republicans should “take over the voting” in at least 15 jurisdictions. Trump repeated the claim on Wednesday night in an interview with...

The Trump administration has made no secret of its desire to push the monetary easing pedal to the metal, even as the engine is already near the red line. They intend to push the system as hard as possible today and worry about the consequences later. One reason may be to inflate the stock market ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. There are several indicators that the Trump administration intends to run it hot in 2026. The first — and most important — is that Trump will likely succeed in consolidating control over the Federal Reserve. Jerome Powell’s term as...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he does not support President Trump’s proposal for Republicans to “take over” voting procedures in more than a dozen states and “nationalize” the midterm elections, declaring Trump’s call to action as blatantly unconstitutional.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., leads a committee on Capitol Hill that has jurisdiction over the Department of Homeland Security. That agency has been under heightened scrutiny after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens who were protesting immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis last month. In letters to the heads of three federal immigration agencies, Paul wrote, “The Department of Homeland Security has been provided an exceptional amount of funding to secure our borders and enforce our immigration laws. Congress has an obligation to conduct oversight of those tax dollars and ensure the funding is used to accomplish...

“Zelensky is mentioned in one of the published emails, which dates back to 2024. The identities of both the author and the recipient are concealed. The letter claims that Zelensky is involved in trafficking women and children from Ukraine and suggests that he may have been associated with modeling agent Jean-Luc Brunel. The latter was charged in France in 2020 with raping minors and committed suicide in his cell before the court's decision.”

Paul addressed federal officials’ claims that Pretti posed a threat to ICE officers.... I saw no evidence of him assaulting the police,” Paul said. “The president’s advisor, Stephen Miller, called Pretti an assassin. That’s a lot of people–not telling the truth,” Pelley added. Paul shook his head at Miller’s statement and added, “It sounds like terrible judgment. I mean, terrible conclusions, incorrect conclusions, stating things that no one else believes.

China Sets The Price Now GFN – SHANGHAI Trading in a major China-listed silver fund was halted for a full session on January 30 as regulators moved to contain price distortions, while global silver prices fell sharply from record highs amid elevated volatility and tighter derivatives margin requirements. China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange suspended trading for the entire day on January 30 in the UBS SDIC Silver Futures Fund LOF, according to an official fund announcement. The notice stated that trading would be halted from the market open through the close as part of exchange risk-control measures. “该基金将于2026年1月30日开市起停牌至收市。” (“The fund will...

The death of Alex Pretti, the Minneapolis man killed by federal agents, has been ruled a homicide, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office said. Pretti was shot Jan. 24 during a chaotic encounter with federal immigration officers in Minneapolis. Citing government records, ProPublica identified Border Patrol agent Jesus Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez as the two officers who fired at Pretti. The news outlet reports that Ochoa has been a Border Patrol agent since 2018, while Guituerrez had been with CBP since 2014.

Democrats seem to be getting their mojo back as the midterm season heats up. Democrats topped Republicans on the generic congressional ballot by a considerable six points, 52% to 46%, scoring the highest of any party on that metric in the history of the survey commissioned by Fox News.The minority party also made massive gains on key issues, crushing Republicans on affordability by 14 points, health care by 21 points, helping the middle class by 14 points, transgender issues by 22 points, and even taxes by one point.<“Democrats are taking back the House in November,” a confident Democratic Congressional Campaign...

Minnesota’s standoff with the Trump administration amid its immigration crackdown in the state has made a political tinderbox of the Twin Cities, as devolving clashes between protesters and federal agents stoke fears of a bigger brewing conflict. Local officials have deemed the surge of immigration enforcement officers a “federal invasion,” doubling down in the courts and in public remarks as federal confrontations with Minnesota residents turned violent, then deadly. The fatal shooting of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti brought the standoff to a cliff edge — and both President Trump and the state seem to have changed course.But as...

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins said early Thursday that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ended its enhanced immigration operation in the state of Maine. The Republican senator said she had several “direct conversations” with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem since the agency launched its operation over a week ago, which comes after she’d received no information from the agency at the start of its heightened presence. While not saying when the operation ended, Collins said in a statement, “There are currently no ongoing or planned large-scale ICE operations here.” It is unclear how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity...

@Holden_Culotta Thomas Massie just exposed that Trump is threatening to “ruin” his supporters’ businesses if they fund his campaign. “I’m not talking about IRS audits.” “It’s bigger than that.” “Here’s what happens behind the scenes … ” First, Trump allies are coercing Massie’s consultants into quitting his re-election campaign: “Three of my consultants have quit on my campaign, all three for the same reason.” “They were told: your other 30 clients will fire you if you keep working for Massie.” “They make it hard to hire people.” “I really love the consultants I got now, because they’re the ones who...

The National Rifle Association (NRA) criticized comments by a senior federal prosecutor warning that approaching law enforcement with a gun could justify a fatal police response, saying such statements risk "demonizing law‑abiding citizens" as the nation reels from the killing of a man in Minneapolis by a U.S. border agent.