Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his push against President Donald Trump's tariffs, with legislation he is co-sponsoring against them to come before the Senate next week. Paul says lawmakers should be in control of tariffs, rather than Trump, through the use of a national-emergency law. The discussion will come less than a month after Paul was one of the only two chamber Republicans to vote against his party's budget, which is seen as a key part of the president's tax cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "I don't have any bad feelings towards the president, but this is...

US President Donald Trump has signaled a potential U-turn on his trade war with China amid continued market volatility, saying the high tariffs on Chinese goods will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.” Trump’s remarks, made at a White House news event Tuesday, appear to mark a rhetorical climbdown after weeks of tough posturing and tit-for-tat retaliation that sent tariffs on China beyond a staggering 145%. “145% is very high and it won’t be that high,” Trump said in a question-and-answer session with reporters in the Oval Office. “It won’t be anywhere near that high. It’ll come down...

In an unprecedented move, the Justice Department has announced the indictment of a leader of the violent Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang, who will face terrorism and international drug distribution charges. This is the first time the DOJ has brought terrorism charges against a member of the newly designated foreign terrorist organization. FBI Director Kash Patel called the first-of-its-kind terrorism indictment ‘a critical step in dismantling their network and holding its members accountable.’ Enrique Martinez Flores, 24, a reportedly high-ranking member of TdA who goes by the name ‘Chiqui.’ He is charged with conspiring to provide, and providing, material support...

President Trump continues to walk back his original tariff assault, and markets are pleased. They rose again Wednesday after Mr. Trump said he won’t fire the Federal Reserve Chairman and is likely to retreat from his highest China tariffs. Is this Mr. Trump’s François Mitterrand moment? Readers of a certain age will recall how the French Socialist President swept into power in 1981 promising a far left agenda of government control over the private economy. The market reaction was brutal. Within a year he had put socialism on pause and by 1983 he had abandoned most of it. He went...

A disturbing surge of swatting attacks has struck media personalities, conservative influencers, and me too. The FBI is investigating. FBI Director Kash Patel has said, “This isn’t about politics—weaponizing law enforcement against ANY American is not only morally reprehensible but also endangers lives, including those of our officers. That will not be tolerated.” “Swatting” is the crime of making calls to report fake emergencies in order to provoke armed police responses. The calls often claim a shooting, hostage situation, or bomb threat—to dispatch heavily armed police, typically SWAT teams, to a victim’s address. As federal and local authorities scramble to...

Illegals OVERRUN Chicago Home Depot Parking Lot BEGGING FOR WORK 🤣 (Where was ICE?)

During a swearing-in ceremony for Paul Atkins as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, President Donald Trump was asked point-blank about the long-awaited release of documents tied to Jeffrey Epstein. A reporter asked, “When can we expect the Epstein documents to be released?” Trump replied, “Which documents?” “The Epstein files,” the reporter clarified. President Trump responded calmly but pointedly: “I don’t know. I’ll speak to the attorney general about that. I really don’t know.”

Washington -- The infighting and backstabbing that plagued President Donald Trump’s first term have returned as a threat to his second, with deepening fissures over trade, national security and questions of personal loyalty. The latest turmoil threatens to engulf the Pentagon, where Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has pushed out top advisers and faces fresh controversy over sharing sensitive information about airstrikes in Yemen outside of classified channels. A former Pentagon spokesperson who was ousted last week wrote in Politico that Trump should fire Hegseth for presiding over a “full-blown meltdown.” The interpersonal drama is not - at least yet -...

Donald Trump will let Vladimir Putin keep almost all the territory he has seized from Ukraine under the terms of a proposed peace deal. The condition is part of a seven-point plan to end the war that leaves Ukraine with no clear US security guarantee. It was due to be discussed in London on Wednesday, when US officials would hear Kyiv’s reaction, though the talks were downgraded when US secretary of state Marco Rubio pulled out. Foreign ministers from the UK, France, Germany and Ukraine withdrew in an apparent response. Discussions were instead scheduled to take place between senior officials...

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...

US Vice President JD Vance warned Wednesday that Moscow and Kyiv must strike a deal or Washington will end its efforts to reach a ceasefire. 'We've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either say yes, or for the United States to walk away from this process,' Vance told reporters in India, where he is on a four-day visit. -snip- 'It's now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the party saying we're going to...

WASHINGTON — Many Republican lawmakers lie low when they have differences with President Trump. Sen. Rand Paul has taken the opposite approach. “Congress needs to grow a spine, and Congress needs to stand up for its prerogatives,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, complaining that Trump relied on a national-emergency law to impose tariffs that Paul believes should be controlled by lawmakers. His comments came just days after he was one of only two GOP senators to vote against the party’s budget framework that is key to Trump’s tax cuts, saying it didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit. The libertarian...

Stock markets have risen around the world after Donald Trump said his tariffs on China would come down “substantially” and he had “no intention” of firing the chair of the American central bank, Jay Powell. The president told reporters in Washington on Tuesday he plannned to be “very nice” to China in trade talks and that tariffs could drop in both countries if they could reach a deal, adding: “It will come down substantially, but it won’t be zero.” The comments sparked a fresh rally on Wall Street, with the S&P 500 blue chip index and the Nasdaq ending the...

Well, the end of the war in Ukraine could be very near—and for the first time since this whole expensive nightmare started, there’s an actual adult in the room. And that’s because President Trump is back in the White House. The truth is, Ukraine has always been one of the most corrupt countries in the world—and their leader is leading the pack. OCCRP: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his partners in comedy production owned a network of offshore companies related to their business based in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. Zelensky’s current chief aide, Serhiy Shefir, as well...

It could take up to five years to develop a domestic supply chain to supplant China’s global monopoly in processing rare earths into materials needed to produce everything from iPhones to F-35 fighter jets. While the United States has most of the 17 rare earth elements and 50 critical minerals underground, it has no industrial capacity to refine them into processed metals and magnets, according to Melissa “Mel” Sanderson, American Rare Earths board member and Critical Minerals Institute co-chair. “Currently in the United States, we have zero magnet manufacturers,” Sanderson told The Epoch Times. She said that’s why China imposed...

Following the Tesla Q1 earnings call and a profit drop of 71%, Elon Musk has announced his imminent departure from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).A longtime hero of the left due to his work on global warming initiatives — solar panels and electric vehicles — Elon Musk began to fall out of favor initially when he bought Twitter, announcing that he wanted to defend “freedom of speech.” He became an absolute enemy of the left when he joined the Trump administration as the titular head of the Department of Government Efficiency.In the initial months of Elon’s work with DOGE,...

“Black Americans’ fight for true reparations will not be co-opted and misappropriated for racist anti-immigrant fear-mongering operations,” said Dreisen Heath, a reparations researcher. White House aide Stephen Miller argued that Americans who have been harmed by undocumented immigrants and immigration policies enacted by the Democratic Party should receive “reparations.” Miller, who serves as President Donald Trump‘s deputy chief of staff for policy, appeared on Newsmax’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight” on Friday night, where he discussed the Trump administration’s immigration policies, which include the mass deportation of undocumented people living in the United States. During the news segment, Miller said Americans should...

The first RICO racketeering charges against members and associates of the migrant terrorist group Tren de Aragua were filed this week in New York. A statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York said that the case is part of "Operation Take Back America," which it said is a "nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Justice Department to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs), and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime." According to the statement, the charges filed...

Donald Trump and Joe Biden officials ‘improperly shared’ sensitive documents with over 11,000 federal workers, The Washington Post reported on Sunday, citing internal records. These documents included classified White House floor plans. The lapse by the General Services Administration, which supports the basic functioning of the government and manages its real estate portfolio, triggered a cybersecurity incident report and investigation last week, the report added. WaPo added that the internal records showed that a Google Drive folder was shared with the entire GSA staff, more than 11,200 people. It included sensitive documents and the White House floor plan. Details of...

Two teenage girls from Germany were detained, arrested, and deported at an airport in Hawaii after immigration officials said it was suspicious they had not booked a hotel room. Backpackers Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Honolulu from Auckland while undergoing a round-the-world trip. The duo planned to spend five weeks in Hawaii before moving onto California and Costa Rica for the next legs of their journey. But despite having ESTA travel authorization, immigration officials accused them of attempting to enter the U.S. to work illegally, and they were placed in handcuffs and taken to a nearby...