Free Republic

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected Friday that the federal budget deficit would hit $1.9 trillion in fiscal 2025. The nonpartisan budget scorekeeper estimated that federal spending would total $7 trillion during the fiscal year, amounting to 23.3 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). That figure is estimated to reach 24.4 percent in 2035, as spending in areas like Social Security, Medicare and net interest costs is expected to grow. At the same time, revenues are projected to hit $5.2 trillion this year, reaching 17.1 percent of the nation’s GDP. The figure is estimated to rise 1.1 percent...

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was accused of insider trading and fraud by tghe Department of Justice before he was assassinated on Wednesday in Manhattan. Thompson, 50, was shot dead in what NYPD officials believe was a targeted attack as he exited the Hilton hotel before an investor conference. His killer remains on the loose. Last year the DoJ launched a probe into whether the nation's biggest insurer, led by Thompson, was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly. The DoJ then filed a lawsuit in October naming Thompson and other executives, accusing the CEO of failing to tell investors about...

A shocking video showing a man deliver a brutal tackle on a woman has stunned the internet, reigniting the debate surrounding men competing against women in sports. The 12-second clip, which was shared to X by account 'Football's Greatest Moments' and has already amassed 7.4 million views in five days, showed the bikini-clad woman and the man perform the renowned Oklahoma football drill - with a brutal ending for the woman. The pair lay in the sand, yards apart from each other. After hearing a go signal, they jump up and sprint towards each other, as football players do.While plenty...

Axios reported Friday that Israel did, in fact, hit Iranian nuclear facilities in its response last month to Iran’s ballistic missile attack, confirming reporting by Breitbart News based on a theory first floated by Israeli columnist Caroline Glick. As Breitbart News reported in October: [Glick] noted that Israel hit Parchin, a secret Iranian military base that has long been a suspected site for Iran’s nuclear program. Media reports suggest that the target at Parchin was “a building that was part of Iran’s defunct nuclear weapons development program, and … facilities used to mix solid fuel for missiles.” But the program...

Editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg said Wednesday on CNN’s “The Lead” that the “truth is the truth” in response to the Gold Star Family of Vanessa Guillén. Host Jake Tapper said, “You begin you article with a story related to Donald Trump and Vanessa Guillén. Vanessa was a 20-year-old army private. She was murdered at Fort Hood. Trump invited her family to the Oval Office in July of 2020. He offered to pay for her funeral.” He added, “We should note that Mark Meadows has denied this. Guillén sister posted on Twitter, ‘Wow, I don’t appreciate how you’re exploiting...

Boston mob boss James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, 89, was murdered by a fellow inmate with ties to the mafia in a West Virginia federal prison shortly after he was transferred there. According to one congressman, Mueller and those serving under him in the FBI aided Bulger in eliminating mob competitors and recently Mueller turned over an alleged scheme to pay off women to fabricate sexual assault allegations against him to the FBI. The murder occurred outside of the field of vision of security cameras where Bulger was beaten with a lock in a sock and had his eyes gouged out. The...

"See something, say something." After the 9/11 disaster, that phrase served as a terse marching order for alert American citizens willing to help stop terror attacks on U.S. soil. "See something, say something" is superb national security advice. 9/11 demonstrated America is under attack. Every citizen can contribute to the defense effort. On Saturday, July 13, several alert citizens attending a presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, saw a young man lurking near a building adjacent to the fairground where presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump intended to deliver a speech. The young man was later seen on the...

Palestinians have been flocking to the beach in Gaza this week, as temperatures soared and families took advantage of a lull in fighting in most of the area. Israel pulled out its ground forces from southern Gaza earlier this month, leaving one brigade in control of an access road that divides the northern and southern Gaza Strip. Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers have continued to attack Hamas in targeted operations, but most areas of Gaza are enjoying calm.

During an interview with CNBC released on Monday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen responded to a question on whether she is confident that inflation will hit the target rate of 2% by stating that she expects that inflation “will continue to come down over time.” And “we can certainly get into the twos.” Yellen also stated that “we’ve had generally good news on inflation.” CNBC host Sara Eisen asked, “You’re still confident we can get to 2% this year? We’ve seen a little bit of a flare-up so far this year.”

The son of a prominent Dominican politician was shot and killed at a Houston gas station Monday, and three suspects are being sought, police said. The Houston Police Department identified the victim as Luis Alfredo Pacheco Rojas, 34, the son of Alfredo Pacheco, the president of the Chamber of Deputies of the Dominican Republic, the country's lower chamber of congress. "We have spoken with Mr. Pacheco about his son’s death and advised him detectives continue efforts to determine possible motives for the shooting," an HPD statement said. Rojas worked in the music industry in Houston and went by the name...

A new study suggests that high-intensity training (HIT), compared to conventional training, may improve walking ability in patients with chronic traumatic brain injury (TBI). Possible secondary benefits may include improved aerobic capacity/efficiency and cognition. T. George Hornby, PT, Ph.D. and co-authors, evaluated the effects of HIT focused on stepping practice versus conventional training on walking in individuals with chronic TBI. HIT focused on maximizing stepping practice while trying to achieve higher cardiovascular intensities. The investigators observed greater increases in 6-minute walk test and peak treadmill speed during exercise testing following HIT vs. conventional training. "The present and previous results suggest...

I am a 100 percent believer in strong gun control,” Berkeley-based photographer Judy Dater told me in September shortly before the opening of The Gun Next Door, her latest exhibition at Oakland Photo Workshop. “I don’t have a gun. I’ve never shot a gun. I believe we would all be safer if no one had a gun. But I also see we have a huge problem with so many guns out there, and we really need to understand why so many people in this country feel they need to have one or two or several hundred.” A pioneering feminist artist...

About 49,500 people took their own lives last year in the U.S., the highest number ever, according to new government data posted Thursday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which posted the numbers, has not yet calculated a suicide rate for the year, but available data suggests suicides are more common in the U.S. than at any time since the dawn of World War II. “There’s something wrong. The number should not be going up,” said Christina Wilbur, a 45-year-old Florida woman whose son shot himself to death last year. “My son should not have died,” she said. “I...

Video footage emerged on Tuesday showing the moment that a staffer for Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) was brutally stabbed in Democrat-controlled Washington, D.C. The Washington Post obtained the footage of Glynn Neal allegedly attacking Phillip Todd back in March after Todd left a restaurant with a friend. Todd and his friend were walking out of the frame of the video when the suspect charges in and tackles Todd to the ground and begins repeatedly stabbing him. “What the f***,” a voice on camera says before Todd’s friend rushes in to get the suspect off of him. The two men then...

As more details are being released about how the Club Q shooting suspect was subdued, numerous outlets have indicated that a patron took away the suspect’s handgun and then “hit him with it.” CNN reported that Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers (R) indicated “one of the customers took a handgun from the gunman and hit him with it.”

In September US District Judge for the Eastern District of Texas ordered the FBI to “produce the information it possesses related to Seth Rich’s laptop.” In our previous reporting, The Gateway Pundit’s Joe Hoft reported on the FBI’s refusal to release documents on Seth Rich. To this day we still don’t have good information on Seth Rich’s murder. He was shot in the back twice in the early morning near his home. He died later in the hospital. The police recorded the event as a robbery and yet Rich’s phone, wallet, and personal items were with him when the police...

The destructive space rock was somewhere between 12.4 and 15.5 miles wide. The largest asteroid ever to hit Earth, which slammed into the planet around 2 billion years ago, may have been even more massive than scientists previously thought. Based on the size of the Vredefort crater, the enormous impact scar left by the gargantuan space rock in what is now South Africa, researchers recently estimated that the epic impactor could have been around twice as wide as the asteroid that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs. The Vredefort crater, which is located around 75 miles (120 kilometers) southwest of Johannesburg,...

A Catholic priest was among four people sentenced on Monday over the shooting of a bishop-elect in South Sudan. A judge at the high court in the capital Juba issued the sentences on April 25 after Father John Mathiang Machol, Moris Sebit Ater, Laat Makur Agok, and Samuel Makir were found guilty of “participating directly or indirectly” in the attempted assassination of the now Bishop Christian Carlassare of Rumbek. Justice Alexander Sebur Subek gave Father Mathiang a seven-year jail term in connection with the attack on the Italian-born member of the Comboni Missionaries, who was shot in both legs on...

In a phone call to golfer John Daly, video appears to show former President Donald Trump saying he was friends with Vladimir Putin while in office, but claimed he threatened the Russian president with 'hitting Moscow' if he attempted to cause trouble. A video posted to the @nopopsgolf Instagram showed Daly's conversation with a voice presumably belonging to Trump on speakerphone. The two discussed nuclear weapons and alleged threats he said he made towards Putin. "They're all saying, 'Oh he's a nuclear power,'" Trump said. You know, he was a friend of mine. I got along great with him. I...

Researchers may have found an explanation for the rare but serious blood clots reported among some people who received AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. They believe the phenomenon is similar to one that rarely occurs with a blood thinning drug called heparin, called heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT). In HIT, the drug triggers the immune system to produce antibodies that activate platelets, which cause blood to clot. Drugs other than heparin can cause clotting disorders that strongly resemble HIT, and researchers suspect that in rare cases, the AstraZeneca vaccine may be another such trigger. Four previously healthy individuals who got the AstraZeneca shot and...