Free Republic

Eleven minutes into the June 27 presidential debate, CNN anchor Dana Bash slipped a note to her colleague Jake Tapper after President Biden gave a rambling, incoherent answer. "He just lost the election," she wrote The event at the network's Atlanta studios — recounted in Tapper's and Axios correspondent Alex Thompson's new book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" — turned out to be the most consequential presidential debate in history

Jason Collier, a special education teacher in Virginia, often needs to wait until payday to fill up the gas tank of his car — and in the meantime hopes he doesn’t run out. “Money is tight when you’re a teacher,” Collier, 46, said. Now he’s afraid that the U.S. Department of Education will soon garnish up to 15% of his wages because he’s behind on his student debt payments. Collier said he hasn’t been able to meet his monthly bill for years, while juggling the expenses of raising two children and medical expenses from a cancer diagnosis. If his paycheck...

Actor Danny Glover has taken on a new role - as international statesman. The "Lethal Weapon" star traveled to South Africa late Wednesday to escort exiled former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide back home. Aristide has been issued a diplomatic passport after seven years in exile but has encountered resistance to his return to Haiti before a presidential run-off election on Sunday. Glover questioned why former Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier would be allowed to return, but the twice-elected Aristide would not. "People of good conscience cannot be idle while a former dictator is able to return unhindered while a democratic leader...

Even before President Trump was re-elected, the Heritage Foundation, best known for Project 2025, set out to destroy pro-Palestinian activism in the United States.In late April, the Heritage Foundation dispatched a team to Israel to meet with power players in Israeli politics, including the country’s foreign and defense secretaries and the U.S. ambassador, Mike Huckabee.The conservative Washington-based think tank is best known for spearheading Project 2025, a proposed blueprint for President Trump’s second term that called for reshaping the federal government and an extreme expansion of presidential power.Now the Heritage contingent was in Israel, in part, to discuss another contentious...

We reached out to a hair metal community on Reddit and asked them to share their thoughts on what they find most annoying about the band Bon Jovi. What started as a simple question quickly spiraled into a heated discussion, with fans passionately expressing their opinions. As it turns out, Bon Jovi remains a polarizing topic even among fans of the genre, and the responses we received were nothing short of colorful.

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Stock market watchdog Quiver Quantitative announced Monday that Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., had made millions in the market since that day’s opening bell. The representative allegedly raked in $4.7 million, according to Quiver’s estimates. It claimed that figure inflated her overall net worth to $261.9 million. An X account dedicated to tracking Rep. Pelosi’s stock market activity added the sum amounted to 26 times her annual salary. A representative of Rep. Pelosi’s office told The National News Desk Tuesday the former House speaker does not own any stocks, adding that the tracked account belongs to her husband...

Space junk in Earth's orbit may increase because of the effects of the same heat-trapping gases that are polluting the air and warming the planet, according to a recent study. What's happening? A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that, with Earth's warming, space debris could accumulate enough to reduce the low Earth orbit area available for satellites by between a third and 82% by the year 2100, as the Associated Press detailed. The reason for this, per the study published in Nature Sustainability in March, is that climatic changes high above ground could reduce the effectiveness...

Trump’s presidential blitz is realizing the dreams of conservative intellectuals in the Reagan-Bush era.Imagine a populist president who set out to create, “in the first weeks of his administration, a radically different perception of the presidency.” He could use “far-reaching executive orders” to “give various constituencies throughout the country the immediate conviction that this president, for a change, looks out for them.” The burst of presidential edicts would serve visceral as much as practical purposes: “The nation as a whole needs to be jarred by this newcomer’s determination to protect the country’s vital interests, perhaps by ordering, on national security...

MAGA supporters have erupted in fury over Saturday Night Live's latest political sketch featuring a deeply personal dig at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The controversial segment, which aired this weekend, featured former cast member Cecily Strong returning as Judge Jeanine Pirro alongside Colin Jost portraying Hegseth as her 'drinking buddy.' In the sketch, Strong repeatedly made light of alleged alcohol issues that the real-life Defense Secretary has vehemently denied. 'I love Pete Hegseth. He's my old drinking buddy,' Strong's Pirro said. When Jost then entered the scene as Hegseth, Pirro was so surprised that she sprayed wine all over his...

In the run-up to the vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., knew her party had a problem — and its name was John Fetterman. Fetterman, the Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, was open to confirming President Donald Trump’s embattled pick, according to two people familiar with his thinking. Murray wanted to speak with her colleague one-on-one. So she reached out to set up a time. But Fetterman refused, as the two people familiar with the episode told NBC News. “He figured that she wanted to yell at him about it,” one person familiar with the...

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting which is comprised of the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) are budgeted to receive $535 million from the federal government for FY2025. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has recommended this funding be cut. Paula Kerger, CEO, of PBS and Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR appeared at the House of Representatives DOGE subcommittee to testify against budget cuts. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga) said "folks in my district listen to podcasts and internet based news. At the same time, NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical, left-wing echo...

In 2020, one hitherto unknown report accurately predicted what was to follow Biden’s election. It also laid out a plan to preserve democracy in an uncertain future. Weeks before the 2020 election, a secret 87-page document outlined in matter-of-fact language the threat posed by Donald Trump’s still-to-come campaign of election denial. The private paper — the existence of which has not been reported before — forecast with chilling confidence the likelihood of violence during the presidential handover and proposed a far-reaching set of political reforms to thwart Trumpism in the future. Americans remember that dark winter well. But the impetus...

The left has curiously continued its efforts to destroy President Donald J. Trump even though that stance played a large role in returning him to the White House. But that strategy did not play out too well for former White House press secretary Jen Psaki when she mocked Trump for not striking any trade deals. “It’s been more than a month, if you can believe it, since Donald Trump announced his sweeping and pretty ridiculous tariffs. But Mr. Art Of The Deal, as he calls himself, has not yet struck a single trade deal. Not a single one. With any...

At least 10 Les Miserables cast members are expected to boycott a June 11 performance of the musical at the Kennedy Center, which President Donald Trump is planning to attend. Following the controversies at the once-prestigious Washington, D.C. performing arts center since Trump appointed himself chairman, CNN reports that the musical’s cast was given the choice of whether or not to perform that night, with the performance doubling as a big-ticket fundraiser for the Kennedy Center.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved. Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred. As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers...

The White House is very concerned with young people’s babymaking. President Donald Trump is considering ideas like a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new moms to encourage a baby boom, a step down from an even more ambitious $5,000 child tax credit idea from Vice President JD Vance, a longtime evangelist for encouraging more kids. “I want more babies in the United States of America,” he declared in his very first public speech as vice president. “Pronatalism,” the belief that the government should directly address America’s falling birth rates, is not inherently conservative, but it’s rapidly gaining momentum in the MAGA...

There are always four phases to the Left's argument against an issue: 1. That thing isn't happening; it's a Right-wing conspiracy. 2. Okay, that thing is happening, but it's not happening much. 3. Yeah, that thing's happening and it's a good thing. 4. It's happening, it's a good thing, and we're not gonna let you stop us. Bigots. This story is somewhere between Steps 2 and 3. ne of the women accused of stealing and fraudulently casting more than a dozen ballots ahead of last November’s election pleaded guilty Monday. Vicki Stuart, 64, was charged with 34 counts related to...

White House fact sheet refers to eight scholars, but none are namedNoticeably missing from the 400-page reportopens in a new tab or window on gender dysphoria issued by HHS late last week were the names of any of its authors. In its press releaseopens in a new tab or window announcing the report, HHS stated that the names of the contributors "are not initially being made public, in order to help maintain the integrity of the process." A White House fact sheetopens in a new tab or window on the report noted that "eight distinguished scholars" worked on the report,...

Oil producing countries are bracing for a bumpy ride this year, with a precipitous drop in prices to the lowest levels in four years seen as the initial, alarming sign of looming turmoil. A price drop benefits any country seeking to cut its fuel bill. But in oil producing nations, lower prices can feed economic troubles, and sometimes political unrest, as governments slash spending. Analysts who had already been predicting lower oil prices because of softening demand amid increased global production said the possibility of a tariff trade war and the overall climate of uncertainty could well deepen producers’ woes....

This CNN segment was actually going quite well until CNN's Isobel Yeung sat down with a member of the Sinaloa Cartel and treated him as some sort of a victim of Donald Trump's anti-cartel policies. You gotta see this: VIDEO AT LINK.................. According to the Trump administration, you are a terrorists, I mean the cartels have been labeled a foreign terrorist organization. What do you make of that? What's your message to Donald Trump if he's watching this? Yes, these are the questions CNN asked to a flippin' Sinaloa Cartel member who makes fentanyl for consumers in the U.S. Bro's...