Free Republic

An octogenarian lawmaker infamous for screaming at journalists and sending a rude letter to a child is on the verge of losing her seat after more than 21 years. Incumbent congresswoman for North Carolina's fifth district Virginia Foxx, 83, is set to lose her seat to Democrat upstart Chuck Hubbard. Hubbard has so far taken home 139,034 votes, or 48.7 percent, while Foxx managed to get 138,935, or 48.66 percent, according to NBC. At the time of publication, Foxx is just 99 votes behind, with more than 95% of votes in the district having been counted. While a majority of...

Donald Trump focused on his lavish White House ballroom in his first public appearance since Democrats seized control of the House and Senate. The President largely ignored the disastrous midterm results that have left his political legacy in jeopardy, instead showing off the construction of his $600million vanity project to reporters on Wednesday morning... Trump invited the press to view his ongoing construction efforts and spoke at length about the progress on his personal vanity projects. 'It's going to be not only one of the biggest, but it'll be the most beautiful ballroom, I think, anywhere in the world,' he...

Outgoing Florida Governor and former 2024 presidential contender Ron DeSantis has taken a swipe at Donald Trump after the Republican defeat in the midterm elections. DeSantis called it 'close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country' and singled out the Democratic wins in the Texas governor and Senate races in what he called 'the crown jewel of Republican politics.' 'Let's just be clear, that is going to hurt, not just for the next two years, that's something that can reverberate for the next decade or more,' he said at a press conference in Tallahassee on...

President Trump said that he was in 'no rush' to decide whether to resume fighting Iran on the eve of the midterm elections. Speaking to Axios on Monday afternoon, he said: 'One way or the other, we will do something, but there is no rush. We crippled them financially. They have no money, no gasoline and their people are getting very tired of it.'... The president held the final rally of his nationwide, 28-stop midterm campaign yesterday in Salina, Kansas as he sought to shore up Republican support and preserve the party's congressional majorities. Democrats' odds of taking control of...

Donald Trump is secretly asking close advisers about whether Pete Hegseth and General Dan Caine should be fired after the midterms, even as he weighs restarting the bombing of Iran.The president has been quizzing allies on the performance of his defense secretary and his Joint Chiefs chairman, the two men who assured him the war would be wrapped up well before the midterms, according to the Atlantic. *** As Republicans face the real possibility of losing the House and Senate, Trump has concluded the Iran war would be partly to blame and trained his attention on the advisers who promised...

Vice President JD Vance was blasted online for showing off his Halloween costume with his son Alec, the newest addition to their family, in a clip posted on social media. Vance, 41, uploaded a video of himself dressed as Harry Potter franchise headmaster Albus Dumbledore, fitted with a long grey-haired wig and robe, as he held Alec in his arms. 'Hey guys, Vice President Dumbledore here with little Dobby the Elf,' Vance told the camera. 'Wishing you a Happy Halloween. Have fun, be safe, eat a lot of candy.' Alec, who was born in July, was seen in a knitted...

The US Army has started practicing digging mass graves to bury fallen troops for the first time in decades amid fears of a looming war with Iran. The exercise tested how effectively diggers and excavators could help keep bodies intact pending identification and return to the US. Images of the training captured an Army D6 bulldozer pulling dirt from the ground to form massive trenches. Operators kept the bulldozer blade 18 inches above the ground, allowing loose soil to fall into the trench instead of forcing it down. To test whether soil weight could crush human remains, the team...

“Marine Le Pen has called for a 'renaissance for France' in her presidential campaign speech, the day after violent protest broke out once more across the country. Earlier today, the police announced 1,314 people had been arrested in weekend protests across France, with 53 officers hurt in the clashes. The National Rally leader has been using the clashes to fuel her campaign to be France's next president in April, accusing current authorities of being soft on violent protesters and lacking authority. Current polling shows the hard-Right politician is in the running to push out Emmanuel Macron's centrist government. Addressing 10,000...

Elon Musk has reportedly poured $1 billion into the media empire behind CNN and Paramount, potentially giving the billionaire a powerful new foothold in Hollywood and sending shockwaves through an industry packed with his fiercest critics. The world's richest man has acquired a stake in Skydance, the entertainment giant controlled by David Ellison, according to people familiar with the investment who spoke to Semafor. The blockbuster deal could mark the beginning of a much larger alliance between Musk and the Ellison family, whose sprawling media interests include CNN, HBO, CBS and Paramount. And for liberal commentators who have spent years...

An Anthropic artificial intelligence model sent a fabricated tip about an unsolved murder case to US police. The fake tip was sent to PhillyUnsolvedMurders.com, a website where people can send information about unsolved cases, on July 18, local police said. The AI model presented itself as somebody who may have knowledge regarding an unsolved murder. 'I may have information regarding this case,' Anthropic's model wrote in its submission. 'I recall seeing someone matching the description in the area around (named street) during that time period. Please contact me if this information is relevant.' The AI firm notified the force of...

“The United States has decided to remove all of its B-1 bombers from an air base in the United Kingdom following a suspected terror plot in the country. Around a dozen American bombers were stationed at the RAF Fairford air base, located northwest of London, until the Pentagon made the move on Sunday. The air base was used as a hub for launching bomber strikes in Iran. The Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday: 'While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all U.S. bombers that...

The American presenter Tucker Carlson has claimed Britain would have been better off losing the Second World War to an incredulous Jacob Rees-Mogg – but says he is not a Nazi supporter. The US commentator was widely mocked after his most recent episode of the Tucker Carlson show, featuring former Tory minister Mr Rees-Mogg, aired last night. In the online show, Mr Carlson claimed Britain 'destroyed their empire and their country fighting this war that they still pretend was a good idea but it wasn't'. The former Fox News presenter – who once described Darryl Cooper, a Holocaust denier, as...

A team scanning a boat-shaped hill in eastern Turkey has announced that new radar images show a large man-made structure underground, not just natural rock. On Wednesday, private research group Noah’s Ark Scans released a preliminary report about their work at the Durupınar Formation in Turkey, claiming that the 515-foot boat-shaped mound contained a 'man-made object.' The scans were conducted by Dr Khosrow Bakhtar, an engineer who spent decades building detection systems for US defense agencies, including the Air Force, Navy and NORAD. He used a system he invented called BakhtarRadar, originally developed to find buried tunnels and hidden structures,...

The White House has registered the domain 'aliens.gov,' sparking fresh speculation that President Donald Trump's long-awaited UFO disclosure may be imminent. The domain, linked to the Executive Office of the President, was flagged on Wednesday by an automated tracker of federal websites. However, it is also listed in the government's official .gov registry maintained by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. Registry records show it was recently added under the White House Office alongside other official government sites, confirming it as a legitimate federal web address, though its purpose has not been publicly disclosed. In February, Trump directed federal agencies,...

First Lady Melania Trump is responding to reports that a Russian oligarch accused of helping lead an organization that facilitates the abduction of Ukrainian children helped pay for Donald Trump Jr and his new wife Bettina Anderson's lavish wedding party.

The Supreme Court handed President Donald Trump a major loss in his quest to restrict the use of mail-in ballots just weeks before the midterm elections. Lawyers for Trump had asked the Supreme Court to allow his executive order allowing US Postal Service rules allowing the government to 'check' mail-in ballots against a central repository of registered voters in each state - and reject ballots from voters not listed in the database. The appeal was the third time the Trump administration asked the high court to intervene - in a sign of its outsize interest in the matter. Critics have...

Bill Clinton's White House was warned that Osama bin Laden wanted to crash a bomb-packed plane into an American city three years before the hijackers struck, explosive CIA files reveal. The warning was a part of a September 10, 1998 report prepared for senior Clinton officials cleared to read the then-president's most secret morning intelligence digest, according to the Wall Street Journal. Headlined 'Bin Laden's Location and Intentions,' it offered no date or target, but made clear the terror chief had Washington, DC, in his sights. Bin Laden's terrorists would crash an airplane into the Pentagon three years later. Other...

Theodore Roosevelt was famous for gunboat diplomacy. But Donald Trump's ambassador to Italy has found a rather more luxurious way to win friends: love boat diplomacy. Billionaire entertainment mogul Tilman Fertitta, 69, is wooing foreign officials from the deck of his $450 million mega yacht, the Boardwalk, as he cruises around Italy on a two-and-a-half-month 'Coastal Diplomatic Tour.' The 383ft vessel boasts two helipads, two swimming pools, four hot tubs, a fully equipped spa, scuba room, putting green and cinema, with business tycoons and sports personalities rubbing shoulders with government officials at lavish receptions. Fertitta, the world's 312th-richest person according...

A text message sent by Vice President JD Vance on behalf of the Republican National Committee urged people not to donate if they couldn't afford groceries. The fundraising text sent in the Vice President's name told recipients: 'If you can't give right now, don't. Groceries cost what they cost.'*** The appeal then offered an unusually frank admission about the Republican Party's finances. 'Now the part I owe you honesty about,' the message said. 'The Republican National Committee needs money. That's true of every party committee, and anyone who tells you otherwise is doing the exact thing I just apologized for....

“ Several 'doomsday planes' were spotted circling above the US on Tuesday, just hours after the CIA director made a surprise visit to Moscow. Flight enthusiasts spotted at least five Boeing E-6 Mercury aircraft along the West Coast and in the central region of the nation. These giant unmarked planes, constructed using the frames of the Boeing 707, are built to survive a nuclear war and coordinate America's military response from the air if bases on the ground are attacked. Public flight trackers began following the aircraft at around 1:30pm EST, although the main planes appeared with blank or missing...