Free Republic

Trump’s presidential blitz is realizing the dreams of conservative intellectuals in the Reagan-Bush era.Imagine a populist president who set out to create, “in the first weeks of his administration, a radically different perception of the presidency.” He could use “far-reaching executive orders” to “give various constituencies throughout the country the immediate conviction that this president, for a change, looks out for them.” The burst of presidential edicts would serve visceral as much as practical purposes: “The nation as a whole needs to be jarred by this newcomer’s determination to protect the country’s vital interests, perhaps by ordering, on national security...

The White House is very concerned with young people’s babymaking. President Donald Trump is considering ideas like a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new moms to encourage a baby boom, a step down from an even more ambitious $5,000 child tax credit idea from Vice President JD Vance, a longtime evangelist for encouraging more kids. “I want more babies in the United States of America,” he declared in his very first public speech as vice president. “Pronatalism,” the belief that the government should directly address America’s falling birth rates, is not inherently conservative, but it’s rapidly gaining momentum in the MAGA...

Watch live coverage of the launch of an Atlas 5 rocket with the first 27 operational satellites for Amazon's Kuiper internet service on Monday, April 28, 2025. Liftoff is anticipated at 7 p.m. EDT (2300 UTC), which is the opening of a two-hour launch window. Watch live: ULA Atlas 5 launches with 27 Kuiper satellites for Amazon's Starlink rival | launches about 7 pm LIVE (no duration shown) | Spaceflight Now | 360K subscribers | circa 1900 watching now | Started streaming 17 minutes ago[Firefly had to scrub yesterday, they were going to launch a Lockheed sat that was described...

Four men accused of murder were executed by gunfire last Friday in crowded sports stadiums across Afghanistan. The Taliban leader defended these public killings as necessary under sharia law. That night, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem announced that the Trump administration would revoke temporary protected status (TPS) for Afghans who evacuated to the United States after their country fell to the Taliban in 2021. This sets the stage for more than 9,000 people to be deported, beginning May 20. A DHS spokeswoman says Noem made this decision based on a “review of the conditions in Afghanistan.” To claim...

Two weeks ago, the sharp-tongued comedian Bill Maher had dinner with Donald Trump. Maher emerged from the meeting thoroughly charmed. During the opening monologue on his show on Friday, he described Trump as engaged and even likable. Trump made him feel comfortable and listened to. In their conversation, which included “an amazing tour of the whole house,” Trump remained empathetic. “He didn’t get mad. He’s much more self-aware than he lets on in public,” Maher recalled. “Why can’t we get the guy I met to be the public guy?” It’s unfortunate that Maher allowed himself to get played like this.In...

Oprah Winfrey is so proud of her bestie. The billionaire, 71, cried when her BFF Gayle King took off into space on the Blue Origin mission Monday morning alongside five others, including Katy Perry and Jeff Bezos’s fiancée, Lauren Sánchez. Winfrey was on scene at the launch site in West Texas and told a reporter during the livestream that she wore yellow because King, 70, is “sunshine.”

Six women, including pop star Katy Perry, are scheduled to be launched into space for about 11 minutes on Monday on a Blue Origin rocket, a lift-off that would mark the first all-female spaceflight since 1963, according to the company. The window for the latest New Shepard rocket launch is expected to open on Monday morning at about 8:30 a.m. CDT, according to Blue Origin. long with Perry, the crew includes Blue Origin owner Jeff Bezos' journalist fiance, Lauren Sanchez, who is also a helicopter pilot. Journalist Gayle King, former NASA rocket scientist Aisha Bowe, bioastronautics research scientist and civil...

Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket has just taken an all-female crew of celebrity astronauts to space in a history-making event not seen in 60 years. Jeff Bezos's fiancée, Lauren Sánchez, and popstar Katy Perry headlined a crew of six noteworthy women who blasted off from West Texas Monday morning on a nail-biting 11-minute suborbital flight during which the crew could be heard screaming on the broadcast. The New Shepard rocket only took its famous passengers beyond the threshold of Earth's atmosphere and into space for roughly three minutes before returning home safely.

When Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy discovered the Washington Post’s Emily Heil had contacted his advertisers and labeled him as a person with a “history of misogynistic comments,” he took matters into his own hands and called her. Portnoy posted the 11-minute confrontation in its entirety on Twitter. Heil initially lies, saying she didn’t characterize Portnoy as a misogynistic racist, before being confronted with her own words. “We have this Pizza-fest happening on Saturday, and you’re reaching out to our advertisers,” Portnoy said. “You’re basically sending an e-mail that says, to the effect, ‘Dave’s a misogynic racist. Do you want...

Barstool Sports founder and small business star Dave Portnoy has faced criticism from the Washington Post for his first-of-its-kind "One Bite" pizza festival, but, despite this strategic provocation and severe weather conditions, the celebration was a success. "It couldn't have gone better. It's our Woodstock moment with the rain. 5,000 people strong. Everyone had a great time. The vibes are actually probably higher because of the controversy surrounding it. So, yeah, it went great," Portnoy said during his Sunday appearance on "Fox & Friends Weekend." The "One Bite" pizza festival was a celebration planned by Portnoy himself to round up...

Former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz sparked backlash Monday after she admitted a social media post that implied former President Joe Biden was dead “got her hopes up.”. The left-leaning firebrand has made her disdain for Biden clear, attacking his pro-Israel stance on the war in Gaza. A social media user seemingly shared her view, posting a black-and-white photo of Biden over the weekend and writing: “RIP Joe Biden 1942-2025…You were always a racist -–king monster, and will not be missed.” Lorenz shared the post on Sunday with a frowny face, adding: “This tweet got my hopes up.” Some social...

Elon Musk's SpaceX, United Launch Alliance and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin on Friday won U.S. Space Force rocket launch contracts worth a combined $13.5 billion through 2029 to send some of the Pentagon's most sensitive and complex satellites into space. The Space Force's flagship National Security Space Launch procurement program will assign roughly 54 missions through 2029 in incremental task orders, according to its Space Systems Command office.

Lee insists he's "famously" a very good Catholic. He's a moral person — his mother raised him right. And by his internal calculation, it's OK to shoplift from Whole Foods. Why? Because of Jeff Bezos.From about 2020 to 2022, Lee, a 20-something communications professional living in the Washington, DC, area, engaged in what he describes as "grand theft auto-ing" from his local Whole Foods store. He would cheat the scale at the hot bar, pocket spices, or take home four lemons in the self-checkout aisle while only declaring two. Lee has never shoplifted from anywhere else — not Safeway, not...

The accused Hamas sympathizer is shrouded in mystery—and so are his supporters. As it unfurls, the saga of Mahmoud Khalil—the Columbia agitator picked up by immigration enforcement last week—looks less like a complicated immigration-law dispute and more like something out of a John le Carré novel. But inspect the details, and Khalil’s case gives us a glimpse a well-established network linking American universities, international progressive NGOs, and government agencies. This network places ideologues like Khalil in positions of power and influence and promoting radical policies that challenge both the will of American voters and our national-security interests. As always in...

After a highly anticipated phone call in which Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to accept President Donald Trump’s offer for a full 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine, the Kremlin on Wednesday extolled the trust between the two leaders as ushering in a “new world order.”Putin instead offered Trump a partial ceasefire — ending attacks on the Russian energy infrastructure being targeted by Ukraine’s long-range drones as well as Moscow’s strikes on Ukraine’s power grid — with the other issues delegated to working groups, creating the likelihood that peace efforts could become bogged down for months as Russia continues pushing into Ukraine.Trump’s...

The Statue of Liberty is a “symbol of hypocrisy or unfulfilled promises” the Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott said in an essay published Saturday. In his piece titled “Maybe it’s time to admit the Statue of Liberty has never quite measured up,” the art and architecture critic wrote: Try looking for Lady Liberty at an exhibition of Chicano graphic art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, for example, where familiar images — flags, maps, military recruiting posters — are repurposed. You will find the statue almost or entirely absent. Maybe that’s because, compared with other icons of national identity, it is...

As my boat cruises toward the private island city of Indian Creek Village — better known as the Billionaire Bunker — I'm hoping my trip doesn't end in an arrest. It's a hot morning on South Florida's Biscayne Bay, and I've convinced two local tour boat captains to pilot me around the perimeter of what is quite possibly the wealthiest and most heavily defended town in America. I'm not entirely clear on the rules about boating near the island, which lies just across the bay from Miami, and neither are my captains — they're both in their first weeks on...

A top political columnist for The Washington Post resigned today, accusing Post chief executive and publisher Will Lewis of killing her column that criticized owner Jeff Bezos's drive to overhaul the opinion pages to focus on his libertarian priorities. Post columnist and Associate Editor Ruth Marcus, who has worked at the paper for four decades, says she can no longer stay there. "Jeff's announcement that the opinion section will henceforth not publish views that deviate from the pillars of individual liberties and free markets threatens to break the trust of readers that columnists are writing what they believe, not what...

Soon after Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, acquired The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013, he assured its editors and reporters — myself included — that he would give us the freedom to do our jobs and “follow the story” without interference from him. At a 2016 Washington Post tech forum with Marty Baron, who was then executive editor, Bezos quoted a phrase he had heard from the legendary Watergate reporter Bob Woodward: “Democracy dies in darkness.” It was a perfect motto to advertise the mission of one of America’s most storied and respected news organizations — a...

Jackson set the standard for the most tumultuous presidential term ever — at least until now. He took office on March 4, 1829, as the self-described champion of “the common man,” declaring he was out for revenge against the “hungry rats” from the outgoing administration of President John Quincy Adams. Jackson quickly replaced the Adams-appointed U.S. ambassador to Colombia, fellow 1812 war hero Gen. William Henry Harrison, who had been there only a few weeks after a months-long trip. Then Jackson turned to federal workers. Everyone in government “from the highest officer to the lowest clerk, was filled with apprehension,”...