Free Republic

Much like every other major story, the dying news media have managed to take a really interesting topic and thoroughly dumb it down to a limited set of monotonous slogans. In this case, variations of “tariffs hurt working people the most” and “the cost is passed onto consumers.”NBC News: “Trump’s new tariffs will hit lower-income households the hardest.”Associated Press: “Companies buying foreign products pay the tariffs imposed on them — and, as a result, face higher costs that are typically passed on to customers.”USA Today: “[S]ome economists predict Americans will feel the pain – at least in the short term...

Ex-“Squad” Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman claimed that Democrats had originally wanted to pass $10 trillion in spending as part of former President Joe Biden’s doomed Build Back Better (BBB) Act. “We were at 10 [trillion] and then it went down to 6 and down to 3 and down to 1.7, I believe,” Bush said on the “Bowman and Bush” podcast on March 14. The two were reflecting on the collapse of Biden’s ambitious Build Back Better Act, which called for hundreds of billions of dollars of investments in “social infrastructure” programs such as universal child care, an expansion...

The sky is falling. The United States federal government is being illegally dissolved before your very eyes. The workers you rely on to ensure that you don’t eat ground beef tainted with paint chips are being laid off en masse. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided your office last week and asked for your papers, even though you were born in Fremont. A fire tornado is due to touch down in your backyard next Tuesday. Your parents are terrified to board an airplane. Your gay nephew is terrified to go to school. Your 401(k) is in the toilet. MEASLES. Measles have...

MEMORANDUM Date: February 5, 2025 Subject: Capture of U.S. Critical Infrastructure by Neoreactionaries Executive Summary Following President Trump’s Executive Order establishing the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), m have been shocked by the speed and scope of changes led by Elon Musk. While DOGE in theory aligns with longstanding conservative ambitions, the reality is that Musk has not limited government or dismantled the deep state; he has replaced it with himself. Under his radical restructuring of federal power, the White House is at risk of becoming captive to Musk’s demands. This memo outlines four alarming developments that transcend partisanship. I....

The United States might welcome the royal family for a tour following the inauguration of President Donald Trump. Historically, the United States and the United Kingdom maintained a strong alliance, carrying over between Presidential administrations. As Trump enters the first year of his second term, the senior royals are considering their options moving forward. According to The Times, they're looking to travel to the United States in 2026 in an effort to renew the countries' relations. The official plans are yet to be set, but a source indicated that the British are hoping that Trump's affection for the Firm will...

Observations suggest that galaxies are moving apart at a higher rate than scientists have long expected. Many now wonder if the standard model of cosmology can fully explain what’s going on. Dan Scolnic is an associate professor of physics at Duke University. He and his team led a new study, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, that strengthens the case for a mismatch between data and predictions. Century of tracking

Trump and his MAGA allies are already targeting the four major pillars of resistance to Trump during his first term. As we prepare for Trump’s second regime — which promises to be far worse than the first — it’s important to do what we can to protect and fortify these four centers of opposition. 1. Universities University faculties are dedicated to finding and exposing the truth — which has often meant calling out Trump’s lies. But Trump has warned that he’ll change the criteria for university accrediting in order to force university faculties into line...... 2. Nonprofits America’s nonprofits have...

LONDON (AP) — Fresh from pouring his money and energies into helping Donald Trump win reelection, Elon Musk has trained his sights on Europe, setting off alarm bells among politicians across the continent. The Tesla and SpaceX chief executive has endorsed the far-right Alternative for Germany, demanded the release of jailed U.K. anti-Islam extremist Tommy Robinson and called British Prime Minister Keir Starmer an evil tyrant who should be in prison. Many European politicians have been left concerned by the attention. Musk’s feed on his social network X is dotted with abusive language — labeling politicians “stupid cretin” and “sniveling...

The president-elect and his allies have spent four years reinventing the Capitol attack — spreading conspiracy theories and weaving a tale of martyrdom to their ultimate political gain. In two weeks, Donald J. Trump is to emerge from an arched portal of the United States Capitol to once again take the presidential oath of office. As the Inauguration Day ritual conveying the peaceful transfer of power unfolds, he will stand where the worst of the mayhem of Jan. 6, 2021, took place, largely in his name. Directly behind Mr. Trump will be the metal-and-glass doors where protesters, inflamed by his...

The Republican-controlled House rejected on Thursday evening a revamped spending bill that would stave off a federal government shutdown by the end of the week, leaving the ultimate fate of the measure backed by President-elect Donald Trump and his close allies in doubt.Just hours after the new deal was unveiled, 172 Republicans and two Democrats voted for the bill. It failed to pass under suspension of the rules, meaning the bill needed a two-thirds majority for it to succeed. Another 38 Republicans voted against the bill, siding with the majority of Democrats.Revised GOP CR fails to even get a majority,...

MSNBC's Joy Reid told Republicans their liberal friends and family have a right to be scared in an end-of-times warning on TikTok today. Reid, 55, who recently left X after Elon Musk's cabinet nomination by President-Elect Donald Trump, isn't done explaining to GOP voters why she believes Democrats are rightfully scared for the future. She warned Trump voters they should accept being excluded from family Thanksgiving plans, and spoke of the likelihood of the country collapsing under the new government.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Panicked sources within the nation's capital expressed fear that the entire governmental bureaucracy that had been methodically built up over the last century was about to be dismantled by an Indian guy and an autistic African American obsessed with rockets. The vast federal mechanisms put in place to make even the simplest and most straightforward tasks take years to accomplish and cost billions of taxpayer dollars now faced elimination at the hands of what federal officials referred to as "two total outsiders with weird names." "Who do these guys think they are?" one high-ranking official asked under...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Reports circulated today that President-Elect Donald Trump was worried that large numbers of corrupt government officials would start quitting before he would have the opportunity to tell them, "You're fired." Sources indicated that one of the things Trump had been looking forward to most in his return to the White House was having the opportunity to personally say "You're fired" to record numbers of career bureaucrats and underperforming government employees, an experience that would be denied him if they all quit before January 20, 2025. "It's my catchphrase," Trump reportedly said wistfully with his head in his...

Democratic lawmakers are enraged at Donald Trump's recent picks for Cabinet and West Wing, saying his selections are downright 'dangerous.' The president-elect has stirred controversy after nominating a rash of hardline conservatives and MAGA loyalists, some with questionable qualifications, to top positions in the executive branch. Two of the most polarizing nominations have been Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary and ex-Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz for attorney general.

Donald Trump has been president before. But all indications are that we should expect an even bolder Trump — or more extreme, depending on your point of view — in a second term. Gone will be the many establishment-oriented administration officials who served as checks on him and have since criticized him. Republicans will most likely control both chambers of Congress, with GOP contingents more Trump-y than before. The Supreme Court recently gave presidents a substantial degree of criminal immunity, which will insulate a president who has been convicted of felonies and charged with others. And Trump as a term-limited...

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a novel set in a totalitarian society, has shot to the top of Amazon’s bestselling books list following Donald Trump’s reelection. It saw a whopping 6,866% surge in sales, according to Amazon figures early Thursday. “The Handmaid’s Tale” takes place in a theocratic, male-dominated future America where the US Constitution is suspended, media is censored and women (the titular “handmaids”) are forced to bear children for the ruling class. Many have harnessed comparisons to Atwood’s classic in the lead-up to the election, particularly around the topic of reproductive rights. Other works of dystopian fiction have...

Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed presidential bid has political strategists second guessing many of her campaign choices, including her selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate. "The choice of Walz was only one of many disastrous mistakes but symptomatic of one larger problem — the Democratic Party leadership is too scared to say no to the hard-left progressive wing of the party," Julian Epstein, longtime Democratic operative and former chief counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, told Fox News Digital. "This hard left opposes commonsense solutions that [Pennsylvania] Gov. [Josh] Shapiro supports — charter schools, for example....

The imminent US election has been a constant source of anxiety for me. The prospect of a literal fascist returning to the White House has triggered my self-diagnosed PTSD. I haven’t been this distressed since my niece spat out the puberty blockers I smuggled into her rusks. Donald Trump has consistently sown division and hatred. In this election campaign there have been three assassination attempts against Trump, thereby proving irrefutably that he is guilty of inciting violence. If Trump continues to speak in public, no doubt more innocent people will be goaded into attempting to shoot him, thereby putting themselves...

More broadly, one network executive told features writer Charlotte Klein, "It's going to change everything" if Trump wins. The exec said it could signify the complete failure of the news industry. "If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they're not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form," they said.

Donald Trump is so dependent on racial and ethnic antagonism that without it, he would be a marginal figure, relegated to the sidelines. Trump’s constant demonization of Black people and immigrants has inured the public to the fact that he is the first — or certainly the most explicit — modern president and party nominee to transparently generate, not to mention exacerbate, fear and white animosity toward people of color. Despite his appeal to a small if potentially crucial segment of Black and Hispanic men, racial bigotry has been central to Trump’s appeal from his initial quest, in 2015 and...