Free Republic

Where is Mark Levin on Epstein?” influential MAGA commentator Tucker Carlson asked last week. “I notice that all these very voluble people who do not hesitate before imposing their opinions on the rest of us suddenly don’t have very strong opinions about Epstein,” he continued. “What is that?” Carlson’s questions came in the wake of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation’s releasing a memo on the late Jeffrey Epstein. The memo closed the case on the notorious sex trafficker and made the surprising claim that there was no evidence he kept an “incriminating ‘client list,’” something that...

In April 2025, Tucker Carlson invited Matt Walsh onto his podcast. The conversation covered everything from same-sex adoption and surrogacy to foreign policy isolationism. It is well worth listening to. But beyond the substance of the conversation, there was simply something powerful about a discussion between two men with such influence on the American Right—each man has an audience of several million subscribers on YouTube alone. In the age of digital media, each man far surpasses the reach of any legacy-news media personality. Matt Walsh and Tucker Carlson could be fairly described as two of the most influential men in...

President Donald Trump remade the Republican Party in his own MAGA image. Will he now do the same to the conservative legal movement? During his first term, Trump benefited immeasurably from his association with Leonard Leo, the former Federalist Society official whose advice on judicial nominations helped Trump to transform the U.S. Supreme Court into a conservative legal juggernaut that eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, overturned affirmative action in higher education, and expanded the right to keep and bear arms. Such rulings will likely be remembered as Trump's most far-reaching accomplishments as president. Yet now, Trump is denouncing both...

Bleary-eyed House Republicans advanced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act past the Rules Committee after a marathon hearing Wednesday, overcoming the final hurdle needed to bring it up for a floor vote. In an 8-4 vote shortly before 11 p.m., the colossal legislation cleared the GOP-led committee along party lines. The panel convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the measure due to requirements that Democrats get two days to file minority views. A “Manager’s Amendment” making last-minute tweaks to the mammoth bill — including a provision cementing a deal to increase the State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions cap...

The Heritage Foundation is proposing that the U.S. wind down military aid to Israel as part of a strategy to “re-orient its relationship” with the country over the next two decades, a notable stance for the prominent conservative think tank given the long and deep support for Israel among conservatives and Republicans. The Heritage report on moving the U.S.-Israel strategy, “From Special Relationship to Strategic Partnership,” was crafted by its defense experts and released on Wednesday. “Just as Israel once advanced from a financial assistance recipient to an economic partner of the United States, so, too, should it move from...

Playboy is reportedly returning to its roots after going through a failed woke rebrand that included pop star Lizzo on a centerfold, a transgender Playmate, and a ban on nudity. After a five-year hiatus, the magazine was relaunched this month with a new issue including a fully nude centerfold featuring Guess model Gillian Nation — a fit, biological female — who has been crowned Playboy‘s 2025 Playmate of the Year, according to a report by Daily Mail. Nation was born and raised in rural Montana, and her photos include shots of her outdoors on a farm, featuring cowgirl vibes. In...

In August, a day after Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president, a conservative-against-conservative argument erupted on social media. Steve Hayes, the editor and CEO of The Dispatch, called out his fellow conservatives for “fluffing” the progressive Harris and “embracing” the “nutty” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “What a mess the modern conservative movement is,” he sighed. The pile-on was swift. Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark, was first. “Honestly, what are you talking about Steve?” she wrote. The problem with the conservative movement, she said, was the capitulation to Donald Trump, not the opposition against him. Hayes shot back:...

Soon-Shiong said he was specifically looking for influential conservative voices like Scott Jennings at CNN. Jennings has been a commentator on the left-leaning outlet since 2017. Los Angeles Times owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong on Thursday night said that he was looking to hire conservative voices to help balance out the editorial section of his newspaper. Soon-Shiong previously stated that he would be working to make the newspaper more fair moving forward, after deciding not to endorse a presidential candidate in the 2024 elections. Several newspaper owners withheld endorsements in the 2024 elections, with Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos claiming it...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, federal prosecutors said in a newly unsealed court filing that argues that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution. The filing was unsealed Wednesday. It was submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution. This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.

The New York Times put Charles Murray on the cover of its Sunday Magazine, calling him "The Most Dangerous Conservative." That was after he co-wrote the book, "The Bell Curve," which argued that different ethnic groups have, on average, different IQs. As Murray puts it in my video this week, "Blacks on average have a lower IQ than whites. However, whites are not at the top. East Asians, on average, have a higher IQ than whites. Ashkenazi Jews have higher IQs." Other researchers agree. An article in ScienceDirect journal puts it this way, "East Asians and their descendants average an...

It's time to confront some hard truths. As a conservative, I value truth, even when it's inconvenient. Here's the truth: Donald Trump mishandled highly sensitive, classified information and lied to the public about his authority to do so. This conversation is not something I enjoy, considering he held the position of president. However, the recent indictment against him has left me outraged. It appears that what the former president did was not just careless but criminal. He stored hundreds of highly sensitive documents that can pose a grave threat to national security if disclosed at Mar-a-Lago with complete carelessness. These...

The report from ‘i’, a British newspaper, claims Murdoch has responded to the midterm disaster befalling the GOP by telling Trump the failure of his candidates to carry a red wave to fruition has “put an end” to the former President’s political career. “There have been conversations between them during which Rupert made it clear to Donald that we cannot back another run for the White House,” one News Corporation source allegedly said. They also suggest that Murdoch’s son, Lachlan, chief executive of Fox News’ parent company Fox Corporation, has indicated the media outlet would get behind Florida Governor Ron...

Owens said there was a shift towards the end of Trump's presidency, and she blamed the COVID-19 pandemic for handcuffing Trump. She warned that Trump shutting down the government could have long-term ramifications. During her interview with Trump in December 2021, Candace confronted the former president about the COVID-19 vaccine. Owens asked Trump where he stands on the vaccine mandates. He replied, "People have to have their freedom," and then touted the COVID-19 vaccine as "one of the greatest achievements of mankind." Addressing why Trump hasn't acknowledged reports of possible efficacy issues with the COVID-19 vaccine, Owens theorized, "I believe...

WASHINGTON, District of Columbia — Former Vice President Mike Pence spoke about the future of the conservative movement Wednesday morning, warning that it cannot be “led astray by the siren song of unprincipled populism.” Pence said speaking to an audience at the Heritage Foundation:

Conservatives are turning against each other in part because they have won the battle for control of the Republican Party. The centrists are routed, and liberals in the mold of Jacob Javits, the four-term GOP senator from New York, are as extinct as the Federalists or the Whigs. As late as 2006, Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), with a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 35.95%, could win a Republican primary against a conservative challenger. He is now in at least his fourth partisan configuration since that election. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) beat his eventual successor, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), in...

There’s a warning for Republicans in the defeat of Marc Molinaro in Tuesday night’s special election in New York’s 19th Congressional District, but also hope. It was a tiny turnout across the board but especially for the Trump base — rural and working-class, non-college-educated white voters — who stayed home, while Democratic women without much else to vote for are newly energized by abortion, as we have seen in each of the four US House special elections since the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade. But that does not mean Democrats will be riding a Dobbs...

The billionaire Koch brothers’ network of donor-class organizations is lobbying members of Congress to pass an amnesty for illegal alien farmworkers ahead of the November midterm elections. Last week, executives from the Koch-funded Libre Initiative joined officials from former President George W. Bush’s administration as well as farm owners to ask Republicans and Democrats to pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act — an amnesty for as many as 2.1 million illegal aliens working on United States farms. In a news release, Libre Initiative executives wrote that passing the amnesty plan is vital ahead of the midterm elections where Republicans are...

Russia took military action against Ukraine in order to change a post-Soviet Union "world order" in which the U.S. and NATO have become dominant global forces, Russia's ambassador to the U.S. said. Anatoly Antonov justified his nation's "special military operation," the term the Kremlin uses to avoid calling the invasion a war, by saying it is meant to halt the West's expanding dominance worldwide, according to an interview published Monday by Politico. "It's a very narrow approach to say the 'Russian invasion of Ukraine,'" the ambassador told the news outlet. "We are talking about changing the world order that was...

...and the reasons why there is less space for any debate or dissent since at least 2002: [link to deBoer article at URL and below]

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday that Russia's unprovoked war with Ukraine is "meant to put an end" to US-led global domination and the expansion of NATO, according to a report. "Our special military operation is meant to put an end to the unabashed expansion [of NATO] and the unabashed drive towards full domination by the US and its Western subjects on the world stage," Lavrov told the state-owned television news channel Rossiya 24, according to a translation from Russian state-run media outlet RT.