Free Republic

Not since Herbert Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff has a president chosen to disregard a larger body of informed opinion than President Trump did when he instituted his protectionist trade policy. Based on a series of verifiably false grievances—wages haven’t grown in 50 years, manufacturing has been hollowed out by imports, countries with trade surpluses are “ripping us off”—Mr. Trump used constitutionally questionable powers to abrogate congressionally approved trade agreements and undermine the world’s trading system. Markets convulsed in anticipation of the massive wealth annihilation that would accompany the shredding of global supply chains and a transition to a more...

A judge Monday dismissed the charges against Donald Trump related to the Jan. 6 riots after Special Counsel Jack Smith threw in the towel — with the president-elect bashing the case as solely “political hijacking.” Presiding US District Judge Tanya Chutkan ​of Washington, DC, granted​ Smith’s motion filed ​earlier Monday seeking to dismiss the charges​ based on Trump’s victory in the 2024 presidential election and​ the precedent against indicting a sitting US president​. Smith​’s team ​also separately moved ​Monday to end its appeal of a Florida judge’s decision nixing Smith’s classified document case against Trump — once considered one of...

Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband is being accused of slapping his ex-girlfriend for flirting with another man at a ritzy gala in 2012, a new report claims. Second gentleman Doug Emhoff, 59, supposedly struck his then-girlfriend — a successful New York attorney — in the face so hard, she spun around while in a valet line after an event at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2012, three unnamed friends of the woman reportedly told the Daily Mail. The woman — who was identified only as Jane — allegedly called one of the friends sobbing in her cab immediately after...

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), the Republican Party’s vice-presidential nominee, narrowed down his appearances on the Sunday political talk shows this weekend to just one: Fox News. Perhaps this was because his multiple appearances a week ago had him trying to defend his running mate Donald Trump’s past engagement with a notorious antisemite; perhaps it was because he is viewed broadly negatively, including faring relatively poorly among Fox News’s central audience, Republicans. Whatever the reason, the friendly environment allowed Vance to lean into claims that would have met more resistance elsewhere, like Trump’s long-standing insistence that every bad poll is (somehow)...

The chief financial officer of conservative global news outlet The Epoch Times was arrested and charged with leading a yearslong scheme to launder at least $67 million in illicit funds. The alleged scheme by Weidong Guan and others involved cryptocurrency, prepaid debit cards, fraudulently obtained unemployment insurance benefits and stolen personal identification information, according to federal prosecutors. The money laundering scheme caused tens of millions of dollars to be transferred to bank accounts linked the media company, prosecutors alleged.

In November 2022, the first subpoena was filed against John Negroponte, the former director of national intelligence — despite no prior involvement in the lawsuit on either side. Then, in June 2023, My Pillow, Inc. filed a motion to compel the testimony of Department of Justice attorney, Carlotta Wells. The career government lawyer, again, was not previously involved in the civil dispute between the voting machine companies and the bedding retailer up to that point. “First, as Lindell does not dispute, Wells and Negroponte do not have any personal or direct knowledge regarding the allegedly defamatory statements at issue,” the...

Gov. Kristi Noem has “no shot” at being Donald Trump’s running mate after revealing in a forthcoming book that she shot and killed her puppy, sources close to the 45th president tell The Post. *** “She was already unlikely to be picked as VP, but had a shot,” the person said of Noem, who has been widely projected to be on Trump’s shortlist. “After this, it’s just impossible.” Noem writes, according to the Guardian, that she executed Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, after determining that the pooch’s “aggressive personality” made her “untrainable” as a hunting dog. “It was not a...

Nikki Haley was born “Nimarata Randhawa” in Bamberg, South Carolina, in 1972. But at the time of her birth, neither one of her parents were American citizens. As recently unearthed by investigative journalist Laura Loomer, both “Haley’s parents were Indian immigrants who did not become U.S. citizens until after her birth in 1972. Her father, Ajit Randhawa, became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1978, Haley’s office said. Her mother, Raj Randhawa, became a U.S. citizen in 2003, a year before Haley won a seat in the S.C. House.”

It is becoming obvious to 'me' that abortion is the one thing that is making elections these days. I think this wedge issue may in fact be the one issue that will keep Trump or the GOP nominee out of office. Is there enough support on the right to bend one the issue?

Former President Trump and two of his top attorneys representing him in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation parted ways Friday, just a day after he was indicted. Trump, the current front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, was indicted on at least seven counts involving obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and illegal retention of classified government material. He has been ordered to appear in federal court in Miami on Tuesday. The indictment remains unsealed. The lawyers representing him ahead of his indictment, Jim Trusty and John Rowley, resigned Friday. "This morning we tendered our resignations as counsel to President Trump, and...

Former President Trump claimed Tuesday that his potential future administration would reach a deal on abortion that "the whole country" would be okay with. "Now DeSantis, or Ron DeSanctimonious as I call him, he came out with the six weeks. Other people agree with it. And a lot of people don't," Trump said in an interview with Newsmax. "We're in a position now – and I'm going to be leading the charge – we're in the position now where we can get something that the whole country can agree with, and that's only because I got us out of the...

The FBI worked with social media to kill the Hunter laptop story before the 2020 election. These goons running the FBI are not on the side of the people. Their job is to run cover for crooked politicians and put good people who shine the light on their crimes behind bars. The Gateway Pundit previously reported in May that the Missouri and Louisiana Attorneys General filed a lawsuit (Missouri v. Biden) against the Biden Administration, including Joe Biden himself, Anthony Fauci, the Department of Homeland Security and nearly a dozen federal agencies and Secretaries. The suit alleges a massive coordinated...

In a news release, the police said its traffic safety division joined forces with its aviation unit for a speed control operation on Maryland Route 10, a 7-mile expressway that runs from Pasadena to near Glen Burnie. From the sky, the aviation unit managed to observe multiple speeders going over 100 mph, including a Ford Mustang going 169 mph, police said.

Do you see what is coming our way? Abbott can stop it.. He hasn't. Republicans could. They haven't. This is my country.. I am livid at what is being done.. They in Washington hate America.

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Over recent months, a huge amount of misinformation about Australia has been circulating on Freerepublic. In most cases, the person sharing it probably didn't know it was misinformation - they were sincerely and honestly passing on things they'd been told were true. But that doesn't change the fact that a lot of misleading material is being shared and a false narrative is being created that Australia has turned into some sort of neo-fascist state. I've attempted to provide accurate information, and I know I'm not the only Australian doing so, but it's a deeply frustrating uphill battle.Please note - I...

A pre-print study which claimed that there is a 1 in 1,000 risk of contracting a heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis has since been retracted due to a calculation. The study which was conducted by researchers at The University of Ottawa Heart Institute, was featured in numerous blogs and social media posts as proof that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe for use. “New Study Shows 1 in 1000 Develop Heart Inflammation After Covid Vaccination; Myocarditis and Other Related Heart Conditions Have Increased Death Rate Within 5 Years,” the headline of an article published on September 21 on The Gateway...

For almost as long as he can remember, Mathieu’s father had been a provocateur, with a penchant for inappropriate jokes and borderline remarks. But when he started dipping his toes into conspiracy theories, things quickly got out of hand. “When he told me to ‘look out for the FBI report’ proving Hillary Clinton tortured babies and drank their blood to live forever, I knew with 200 percent certainty that I had lost him,” Mathieu* recalled. “It was finished. I would never again see the person he was before.” As is often the case, the father’s cross over to “the other...

Fully vaccinated people are much less likely to die with Covid-19 than those who aren't, or have had only one dose, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show. Out of more than 51,000 Covid deaths in England between January and July 2021, only 256 occurred after two doses. They were mostly people at very high risk from illness from Covid-19. The figures show the high degree of protection from the vaccines against illness and death, the ONS said.

Last week, the Colonial Pipeline Company gave nearly $5 million to an Eastern European criminal group that hacked them. This should bother us. We should all be bothered that our government can’t protect our companies. We should all be bothered that there’s a real cyber war underway and terrible things could happen in a matter of seconds.