Free Republic

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes suggested in a recent interview with local Arizona 12 News that people would be justified in shooting masked ICE agents in Arizona, even presenting a legal argument for doing so.

President Trump on Tuesday touted shedding nearly 300,000 employees from the federal payroll during his first year back in the White House as part of a rambling address to reporters largely devoted to defending his administration’s crackdown on immigrant communities and dissent and threatened expansionism. The comments on the federal workforce came during a more than hour-long presentation at the start of a briefing with reporters aimed at highlighting the administration’s first-year accomplishments. Trump read prepared remarks noting that the federal payroll has fallen by 270,000 workers since his inauguration last January, though he quickly inflated that figure to “millions.”...

Financial markets have taken fright amid a resumption of the row over US central bank independence between its chair and the Trump administration. It emerged overnight that the White House was threatening to indict Jerome Powell over comments he made to Congress in relation to renovation cost over-runs at the Federal Reserve buildings in Washington DC. Mr Powell, who has been locked in a feud with Mr Trump over the pace of interest rate cuts since his second term as president began, responded by describing the action as a "pretext" to gain more influence over US monetary policy.

There seems to be a bit of confusion in our society of late about what "civil disobedience" is and what it isn’t. Last week, this very confusion got 37-year-old Renee Good killed. Political protest in the form of civil disobedience has a long and very proud tradition, from Mahatma Gandhi nonviolently defying the British in India, to our own Martin Luther King Jr. penning his eloquence from a Birmingham jail cell. There is a stoic dignity to this practice, which in and of itself grants the words of its practitioners a gravity and profound humility. What we are seeing across...

NOW: President Trump posts that federal employment has fallen off a CLIFF under his 2nd term The federal government has lost hundreds of THOUSANDS of jobs Trump: “Big news for the USA!” 🇺🇸🔥

If you were told a business increased their staff headcount by 5% over four years but its payroll rose 24% over that time, all the while withholding the names of 39% of their staff, would you invest in that company? Unlikely. But that’s just what the United State government does, funded by taxpayer dollars and operating as if accountable to no one. Open the Books analyzed the FY 2024 payroll records of executive agencies and found that 2.9 million federal employees were paid $270 billion, compared to 2.8 million employees paid $217 billion in FY 2020. While the civilian employee...

It seems to me that what’s been lost in the discussion about the fedgov shutdown is the fact that this country has been operating under “omnibus” CRs for some time. The proper appropriations process seems to be a forgotten function of Congress, what do we pay these people for? Even under Republican control, there seems to be no desire to do what should be done regarding funding the government; not even “King” Trump has spoken on this issue (as far as I know), and nothing from loudmouths such as Rand Paul, Tom Massie, or MTG, why? Of course, this how...

The Federal Budget Balance, a key indicator of the health of the U.S. economy, has reported a significant swing into surplus territory. The actual figure for the month came in at $198.0 billion, a stark contrast to the previous month’s deficit of $345.0 billion. This substantial change in the budget balance has exceeded all expectations. Analysts had been forecasting a continued deficit, making this surplus a welcome surprise. The shift from a hefty deficit to a surplus indicates a robust increase in the federal government’s income relative to its expenditure for the reported month. The surplus of $198.0 billion not...

WASHINGTON (AP) — With every passing day of the government shutdown, hundreds of thousands of federal employees furloughed or working without pay face mounting financial strain. And now they are confronting new uncertainty with the Trump administration’s promised layoffs. “Luckily I was able to pay rent this month,” said Peter Farruggia, a furloughed federal worker. “But for sure I am going to have bills that are going to go unpaid this month, and I really don’t have many options.” Farruggia is the head of the American Federation of Government Employees local representing employees at the Centers for Disease Control and...

WASHINGTON — The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is among the offices being permanently downsized as a result of the ongoing partial government shutdown, The Post has learned. The RIFs (reductions in force), which started Friday, will fire many of CISA’s 2,540 employees as well as thousands more within the federal bureaucracy — after President Trump repeatedly threatened to target offices cherished by Democrats if the party’s senators refused to reopen the government. In an indication of the possible scale of the RIF, CISA had planned to keep just 889 employees on duty during a shutdown while furloughing 65%...

These are career bureaucrats who don’t want accountability. The system is finally being exposed for what it is. The question is — is this a crisis or the reset America needs? Thoughts? ⬇️

President Donald Trump claimed on Sunday that tariffs are driving more than $15 trillion in new U.S. investment and that if courts should strike them down, the U.S. would likely become a "Third World Nation." Trump’s post comes in direct response to a federal appeals court delivering a major legal setback to his trade policy, declaring most of his sweeping tariffs unlawful under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. The decision supports earlier rulings by the U.S. Court of International Trade. Although they are still in effect, the tariffs face an uncertain future unless the Supreme Court intervenes....

They brought the hammer down on the worst of the worst. Federal authorities have swept up 264 wanted criminals — including two illegal migrants wanted for sex crimes — in New Jersey in an ongoing mission dubbed “Operation Apex Hammer” that nabbed suspects wanted for murder, robbery and sexual offenses, including those against children. Those arrested include 17 homicide suspects, 95 gang members, including several others wanted for serious violent and sexual offenses, federal officials said. U.S. Marshal Juan Mattos Jr. and Acting U.S. Attorney Alina Habba called the collaboration among federal, state, and local law enforcement “a major success...

President Donald Trump celebrated after the Supreme Court moved to block lower courts from issuing universal injunctions, something that had impacted his executive orders. The president held a news conference just over an hour after the ruling was issued and said the Supreme Court had stopped a "colossal abuse of power." "I was elected on a historic mandate, but in recent months, we've seen a handful of radical left judges effectively try to overrule the rightful powers of the president to stop the American people from getting the policies that they voted for in record numbers," Trump said on Friday....

Nadine Arslanian Menendez is requesting a new trial due to the “blatant violation of her Sixth Amendment right to counsel of her choice,” according to documents filed by her attorneys in federal court. Menendez, the wife and co-defendant of former U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez, was found guilty in April on 15 counts of bribery and fraud charges. Arslanian Menendez's attorneys are arguing that because of one of the superseding indictments during the ongoing case, prosecutors created a potential conflict between her and her attorney at the time, David Schertler. According to the filing, prosecutors said during hearings that they intended...

Solar stocks were plummeting as President Donald Trump’s tax-and-spending bill narrowly passed in the House of Representatives early Thursday, threatening the huge tax benefits granted to clean-energy companies during the Biden-era. Clean-energy producers like solar companies have worried that the Trump administration will cut back or completely overhaul tax credits introduced by former President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act from 2022. Those credits can be of up to 50% of a project’s value. “[The] latest draft represents among the most restrictive interpretations we have heard speculated and the closest to ‘complete’ gutting of [the] bill we’ve ever seen,” Jefferies analyst Julien...

Holy chutzpah! State lawmakers have quietly tucked a sweetheart measure into one of the must-pass budget bills that would put taxpayers on the hook for legal bills Attorney General Letitia James racks up facing federal probes. The $10 million criminal-defense slush fund would seemingly cover any state employee 1) facing any federal “legally compulsive process” (e.g., subpoenas and so on) as of Jan. 1, 2025, 2) who can claim the federal probe is “a result of the employee’s New York State employment or duties.” Insiders are clear that it would cover James, even though nothing official links her day-job work...

"The Judge learns that ICE was outside to get the guy, because he had been deported in 2013, came back into our country, charged with committing these crimes, victim is in court. Judge finds out. She goes out into the hallway. Screams at the immigration officer. She's furious. Visibly shaken. Upset. Sends them off to talk to the chief judge. "She comes back into the courtroom. You're not going to believe this. Takes the defendant and the defense attorney back in her chambers. Takes them out a private exit and tells them to leave. While the state prosecutor and victims...

President Trump signed an executive order this afternoon that targets the broken college accreditation system. Basically, colleges and universities become accredited through third-party agencies, which play a big role in determining whether these higher education institutions can receive federal funds. And, President Trump [requires] these college accrediting agencies to change their criteria to prioritize merit over woke ideologies. ... Colleges and universities are accredited to ensure they meet basic standards by third-party entities, not the federal government, though the Department of Education decides which accrediting agencies to recognize. The accreditation process has broad implications since the government uses it to...

Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration offered federal employees a deal many couldn’t refuse: resign voluntarily and receive full benefits and paid leave lasting until September.Demonstrators rally outside the U.S. Office of Personnel Management in Washington on Feb. 5, 2025. Nathan Howard/ReutersMore than 75,000 workers eventually accepted the Deferred Resignation Program, or buyout, which came as part of the administration’s broader efforts to shrink the size of the federal bureaucracy. Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, the government has already laid off hundreds of thousands of federal employees and contractors.As the federal government concludes a second...