Free Republic

None offered

When you’re discussin’ cussin’, many fancy it too much fussin’. I learned this years back when, after editorializing against it years ago, a reader responded that “we aren’t all Little Lord Fauntleroys.” (Why, that #$@&%*!) In truth, though, objections to vulgarity go beyond 19th-century fictional characters. Some observers warn that its acceptance is a sign of cultural decay. And none other than the Father of our Nation, George Washington, inveighed against it. It “is a vice so mean and low, without any temptation,” he wrote in 1776, “that every man of sense, and character, detests and despises it.”If that doesn’t...

... Carlson pulls no punches: he traces his own journey from a Weekly Standard neoconservative to the leading voice of America First nationalism, recounting the exact moment in Baghdad in 2003 when he realized he’d been “used” to sell a disastrous war. With unflinching honesty, he admits his past mistakes, explains why he now rejects both libertarian economics and neoconservative foreign policy as “false religions,” and declares that any government not putting its own citizens first has no legitimacy. The conversation then dives into the ongoing civil war inside conservatism—paleocons vs. neocons, Buchanan vs. Buckley 2.0—and why the old gatekeepers...

A small group of women known as some of the fiercest MAGA stalwarts in the House have led the way in pushing back against President Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on some of the most high-profile issues of recent months — many involving the victimization of women. These lawmakers have been on an island apart from their colleagues as they’ve called for the Department of Justice to release files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and supported a resolution to censure a fellow Republican accused of sexual misconduct. “I think we ran out of patience a...

Republican senators are warning Attorney General Pam Bondi not to slow-walk the public release of records and documents related to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein following votes by the House and Senate demanding the documents. The calls come amid speculation that the Justice Department may cite ongoing investigations or other reasons to hold back material. Bondi said Wednesday that “new information” obtained by investigators had spurred the Justice Department to reverse its earlier decision to close investigations related to Epstein. Democrats are warning that new investigations into high-profile associates of Epstein, such as former President Clinton and former Treasury...

Attorney General Pam Bondi said, "We have released over 33,000 Epstein documents to the Hill, and we will continue to follow the law and to have maximum transparency." She spoke at an unrelated news conference alongside FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche. The bill includes several exceptions to a full release that could complicate or delay disclosure. The measure says the Justice Department has up to 30 days from its signing to make "publicly available in a searchable and downloadable format all unclassified records, documents, communications, and investigative materials in the possession of the Department of...

President Trump has said he will sign the legislation after reversing his position on whether the documents should be released. But some critics and legal experts question whether that will be the end of the matter. The House passed the bill by a vote of 427-1, with GOP Rep. Clay Higgins (La.) the only dissenter. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) backed the bill despite his opposition to the discharge petition that forced the vote. The Senate later passed it by unanimous consent, sending it to Trump for a signature. A White House official reiterated to The Hill earlier Tuesday that the...

An old report has brought back a question Donald Trump’s team hoped would disappear: did the FBI work through the night to remove his name from the Jeffrey Epstein files before saying there was nothing left to release? The timing is important as Trump has suddenly reversed his stance on making the documents public. Sources familiar with the process told Bloomberg, “We know from news reports that Trump’s name was in the Epstein files. But what hasn’t been reported is that an FBI FOIA team redacted Trump’s name and the names of other prominent public figures from the documents.” The...

When an off-camera female reporter — later identified as a Bloomberg reporter — began to ask if there was anything "incriminating" in the Epstein emails, Trump pointed a finger in her face. "Quiet. Quiet, Piggy," he said menacingly.

The connections of those mentioned in the Epstein documents. Github

US President Donald Trump has urged Republicans in Congress to vote to release more files relating to Jeffrey Epstein - a sudden reversal in his position after having previously opposed efforts to make the documents public. Trump had been facing a potential revolt this week after a growing number of Republicans signalled they would vote in favour of releasing the files despite his opposition. While the measure is likely to pass in the House of Representatives, it is far from certain that it would pass in the Republican-controlled Senate. And even if it does pass in the Senate, it remains...

NBC White House correspondent Garrett Haake asked President Donald Trump on Monday if he would sign the bill to release the Epstein Files now that he no longer opposes Republicans voting for it SNIP All I want is for people to recognize a great job that I’ve done on pricing, on affordability, because we brought prices way down, but they go way lower, on energy, on ending eight wars, and another one coming pretty soon, I believe. We’ve done a great job, and I hate to see that deflect from the great job we’ve done. So I’m all for it....

President Donald Trump’s call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote. It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. “He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning. Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of...

Time is short for the Trump administration. Last week's elections were a setback, but not a devastating one: New Jersey is still a blue state, and while Virginia went red four years ago, it's been trending Democratic for more than a decade. Republicans also fared poorly in Pennsylvania, however, an all-important presidential battleground. Democrats even made inroads deep into the South, taking two state senate seats in Mississippi -- ending a GOP supermajority -- and picking up city council spots in South Carolina and Florida. With results like these, the Republicans' razor-thin majority in Congress won't survive the midterm elections...

When the show’s over, what federal agents will leave behind is predictable. All the president’s men are coming to Charlotte. After several days of rumors, federal officials confirmed to local leaders in North Carolina that, indeed, Border Patrol agents will be conducting operations in the state’s largest city. I used to live in Charlotte. I still have a lot of friends and family there. I’m told Donald Trump is coming to save them, but from what? We don’t know. If Charlotte residents are living in terror — other than the terror President Trump has created by frightening the city’s...

Donald Trump was caught making an eyebrow-raising joke about the Syrian president's marital status at the White House this week. But the US President immediately lowered the tone by giving Sharaa a spritz of $249-a-bottle Trump Cologne before jokingly asking him how many wives he has. In an exchange captured on video, Trump said: 'This is men's fragrance,' as he sprayed some of the scent on Sharaa's beard while the Syrian leader smiled nervously. 'It's the best fragrance,' the 79-year-old said, adding that a second bottle of the perfume was for Sharaa's wife. 'How many wives? One?' Trump asked, as...

President Trump is being misled into a regime-change war close to home. Few Americans nowadays find much to celebrate in the Iraq War or the intervention that overthrew Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Regimes were successfully changed both times, but what came after the dictators’ downfall was civil war, regional instability and mass-migration flows that exported many of those nations’ troubles to their neighbors. Now the Trump administration wants to do to Venezuela’s despot, Nicolás Maduro, what George W. Bush did to Saddam Hussein and Barack Obama did to Gaddafi. That will predictably do to the Americas – including the US –...

Donald Trump’s new stock-buying strategy isn’t socialism, but it is a step toward a government-controlled economy. Recently, a handful of people—none of whom have ever invited me to their birthday party—accused President Donald Trump of being a socialist. Gavin Newsom, who many pundits credibly believe is the governor of California, said Trump is committing socialism by having the federal government buy stock in private companies. At the time of writing, the government has taken shares in Intel, MP Materials, Lithium Americas, U.S. Steel, and even a Canadian mining company that mines cobalt or some other stupid mineral I hate. This...

GÜIRIA, Venezuela (AP) — One was a fisherman struggling to eke out a living on $100 a month. Another was a career criminal. A third was a former military cadet. And a fourth was a down-on-his-luck bus driver. The men had little in common beyond their Venezuelan seaside hometowns and the fact all four were among the more than 60 people killed since early September when the U.S. military began attacking boats that the Trump administration alleges were smuggling drugs. President Donald Trump and top U.S. officials have alleged the craft were being operated by narco-terrorists and cartel members bound...

You know, I'm so tired of being against everything. Saying what we're not. It's time that we start saying what we are. And it's hard, because we're changing. It's different to be a conservative, today, than it was, you know, years ago. And part of that is just coming from hard knocks. School of hard knocks. We've learned a lot of lessons on things we thought we were for. No, no, no. But conservatives. To be a conservative, it shouldn't be about policies. It's really about principles. And that's why we've lost our way. Because we've lost our principles. And...