Free Republic

... Last week, the NLRB ruled against Starbucks’ dress code policy at its New York City Roastery Reserve cafe, finding it violates labor law. The Board panel unanimously determined that the policy—which bans most personal, political, or religious pins and limits workers to the display of just one labor-related pin—is unlawfully broad and limits workers’ rights to organize. The dress code also barred workers from wearing shirts with graphics, including union insignia. In 2022, Starbucks Workers United filed the initial complaint, alleging that managers threatened employees with disciplinary action for wearing union-related apparel. The Board ordered Starbucks to rescind or...

The current crew, not their proposed Trump replacements, prompted the sick and tired American people to demand different people. Deflated by the resounding November defeat, the left now believes it can magically rebound by destroying Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees. Many of Trump’s picks are well outside the usual Washington, DC/New York political, media, and corporate nexus. But that is precisely the point—to insert reformers into a bloated, incompetent, and weaponized government who are not part of it. Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, is already drawing severe criticism. His furious enemies cannot go after his resume, since he has...

President-elect Trump’s confirmation last month of his plan to deploy military assets for immigration enforcement sparked a constitutional debate. Legal scholars and commentators quickly declared such action forbidden by long-standing prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. But this conventional wisdom misreads both the letter and spirit of American law. A careful examination of a pair of longstanding statutes reveals military support for immigration enforcement is permissible.The issue hinges on two 19th century laws: the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 and the Insurrection Act of 1807. When properly understood, both allow the President to use active-duty military forces to...

Some people are very worried about the coming Trump administration. Jeff Bezos is not one of them. Or, more accurately, the world's second-richest man says he's not worried about Trump 2.0, even though Trump has singled him out in the past. And Bezos says he could be a Trump ally because he wants to help the next president cut red tape. "I'm actually very optimistic this time around," he said at The New York Times's DealBook conference on Wednesday. "I'm very hopeful. He seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulation. And my point of view [is], if...

President-elect Donald Trump will sit down with NBC's Sunday show Meet the Press in his first network interview since winning the presidential election. The interview will be pretaped on Friday and will air on Sunday, Dec. 8.The NBC interview will be conducted by Kristen Welker.JUST ANNOUNCED: President-elect Donald Trump will sit down with @MeetThePress for his first network interview since winning the election. The exclusive interview airs this Sunday.https://t.co/yZBMWfRKBp pic.twitter.com/hyahNHnzRZ— NBC News PR (@NBCNewsPR) December 4, 2024Welker had last interviewed the incoming president in September 2023 and was a presidential debate moderator in the October 2020 debate between Trump and...

President-elect Donald Trump used a “forceful hand” to get his Drug Enforcement Agency pick to drop out on Tuesday after hearing “concerns” about the Floridian’s record, sources familiar told The Post — leading outgoing Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-NY) to make a bid for the position. Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister issued a lengthy statement indicating he was withdrawing his name for the DEA slot — but did not reveal the specific reason he was dropping out of the confirmation process after just three days. “Everyone knows President Trump calls the shots,” a well-placed source spilled. “The president heard the concerns...

Donald Trump may have mastered the art of the deal once again, with rumors he will replace Pete Hegseth with Ron DeSantis as his pick to head Defense in exchange for Trump's daughter-in-law Lara getting Florida's open Senate seat. The Florida governor and Trump have reportedly had one-on-one discussions about the move. A GOP source told The Bulwark: 'These discussions are real. It's serious. I can't say it's definitely going to happen, but the governor is receptive and Trump is serious, too.'

Keir Starmer has been in office for only five months, but it is already clear that his Government will be the worst in half a century. The die is cast: the Prime Minister is doubling down on every mistake, every prejudice, every tenet of the failed orthodoxy that has ruined Britain, probably because he is a true believer. He cannot and won’t change, seemingly oblivious to his abominable poll ratings, yet his inability to get anything right is truly staggering. Even those of us who predicted Starmer would be a disaster have been stunned by the speed of his implosion,...

President-elect Donald J. Trump’s support for Pete Hegseth, who he announced as his nominee for defense secretary shortly after Election Day, is wobbling after a crush of controversy over a rape allegation and a 2018 email from Mr. Hegseth’s mother accusing him of a pattern of abuse toward women. How Mr. Hegseth fares through a series of tests on Wednesday will be critical for his chances. He is set to continue his meetings with key senators, including Joni Ernst of Iowa, a combat veteran who has spoken about being sexually assaulted herself, and his mother is expected to sit for...

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, a longtime Democrat, says he will run for Michigan governor as an independent in 2026. “It’s clear to me that there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of both parties and tired of the system," Duggan said in an interview Tuesday. “And so I want to offer people a choice.” Duggan, 66, is credited by many for leading Detroit after it emerged from bankruptcy to become a thriving, more vibrant city. He formally announced his intentions in a video released Wednesday morning but discussed his future before that with The Associated...

As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven't been appointed to key positions. ABC News spoke to more than a half dozen longtime and new African American conservatives and Republicans within Trumpworld, in and outside of Washington. Last month, the president-elect appointed Scott Turner, who was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump's first term, to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ...

I’d like to put into words just how much the election results in the United States mean to me even though I’m not an American. I don't cry much, but I found, to my own surprise, that I was choking up on Tuesday night as the returns rolled in. I was born and raised in Canada, where we don’t engage in the level of overt and unabashed patriotism of our southern neighbours. In fact, while most people spoke warmly of Americans themselves, their displays of patriotism were seen to be a bit too much, too over-the-top. Garish. “Sure, we get...

Ireland’s election looks set to have secured victory for the incumbent center-right parties which have dominated the country’s politics for nearly a century, signaling continuity for the business community but belying broad dissatisfaction with many social issues. Fianna Fáil, led by Micheál Martin, and Fine Gael, helmed by Simon Harris, by midday Monday appeared able to form a coalition just shy of a parliamentary majority in the 174-seat Dáil, and are widely expected to seek backing from one or two smaller opposition parties to form a government. A key question will be who takes on the role of taoiseach, the...

Below is my column in Fox.com on President Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son Hunter of not just his convicted crimes but any crimes that he may have chosen to commit. President Biden has set a standard that is not merely a new low but positively subterraneous for future presidents. Here is the column: President Joe Biden’s decision to use his presidential powers to pardon his own son will be a decision that lives in infamy in presidential politics. It is not just that the President used his constitutional powers to benefit his family. It is because the action culminates...

"Russia is preparing for a war with the West," Bruno Kahl, the head of Germany's foreign intelligence service, said in late November. But it's not likely to be a large-scale attack into NATO territory, the intelligence chief warned. Moscow could opt for a limited incursion or upping its hybrid warfare tactics to probe the alliance's conviction, Kahl said. NATO is trying to prepare for both scenarios: an all-out war, and less obvious techniques designed to undermine stability in the alliance's member countries. "There are multiple options for Russia to test the cohesion of the alliance," including limited land grabs, the...

I’ve just watched the film Bread and Roses, co-produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousefzai, and directed by Sahra Mani. If only American women were half as brave as the on-camera real-life women activists in Kabul! We see them willing to risk being beaten, arrested, tortured, and even murdered by the Taliban because they’ve dared to demonstrate for “Work, Bread, and Education.” Wearing hijab, but naked-faced, identifiable, these heroes march, chant, hold placards aloft, scrawl their demands on walls and even on the snow, meet secretly — and continue to do so even as the Taliban death-threatens,...

A presidential pardon notwithstanding, the Biden family may yet face accountability from Congress and the executive branch, government watchdog groups say. In fact, President Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of son Hunter Biden could provide more leverage for Congress to investigate other Biden family members, said Mike Davis, founder of the Article III Project, a conservative legal group. “President Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter means that Hunter can no longer invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination,” Davis, Republicans’ former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Daily Signal in a telephone interview Monday. Hunter Biden...

SAINT-MALO, France (AP) — Had he continued working aboard fuel-powered cargo ships, Yann Jourdan reckons he’d be earning perhaps four times what he now gets as captain of a sailboat that instead uses the wind’s clean energy to transport goods across the Atlantic. But the hit to Jourdan’s pay is buying him peace of mind. When his 3-year-old son, Marcel, grows up, the burly French mariner wants to be able to explain what he did to make a dent in the the shipping industry’s huge carbon footprint. The international merchant fleet of more than 100,000 ships transports more than 80%...

Daniel McCarthy is right that President-elect Donald Trump has rewritten the electoral map, but he is incorrect in saying that it was Trump who turned Florida into a reliably red bastion (“A New Political Map,” Post­Opinion, Nov. 26). In Trump’s first midterm, 2018, Republicans won the governorship by less than one percentage point. Four years later, in 2022, Gov. Ron DeSantis was re-elected by about 20 points. That happened while Trump was out of office and MAGA candidates were losing elsewhere. It is DeSantis, the most effective and principled governor in America, who turned Florida reliably red. He did so...

In the days after the presidential election, Sadie Perez began carrying pepper spray with her around campus. Her mom also ordered her and her sister a self-defense kit that included keychain spikes, a hidden knife key and a personal alarm. It’s a response to an emboldened fringe of right-wing “manosphere” influencers who have seized on Republican Donald Trump ’s presidential win to justify and amplify misogynistic derision and threats online. Many have appropriated a 1960s abortion rights rallying cry, declaring “Your body, my choice” at women online and on college campuses. For many women, the words represent a worrying harbinger...