Free Republic

On Thursday’s broadcast of CNN’s “AC360,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said that she would make sure education funds are spent properly, but “Heaven help the Republican states who might take that money and do something that’s not focused on feeding hungry kids, helping kids with disabilities, and everyone else that the Department of Education helps.” And declared, “Just leave everybody alone. Leave the parents alone, leave the kids alone.” Hochul said, “Right now we get $6 billion from them in New York state, 2 billion for Pell Grants to give people a pathway to higher education, $2 billion...

A luxury resort in San Diego County may be violating California laws after banning guests under the age of 18.In a note on its website, the Alila Marea Beach Resort in Encinitas, north of San Diego, said it “plans to transition to an adults-only resort, welcoming guests aged 18 and over.” The policy change, effective Feb. 14, is to “provide a serene and tranquil environment tailored to adult travelers seeking relaxation, exploration and a peaceful stay by the beach.”However, the decision to essentially ban children could put the hotel in hot legal water. Chris Dolan, owner of Dolan Law Firm...

Israeli defense minister Israel Katz ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Wednesday to prepare to allow any Palestinians in Gaza to leave for any country that is willing to take them. The move came after President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that he wanted to see Palestinians resettled outside of Gaza, in new and “beautiful” homes, saying that the Gaza Strip had become uninhabitable. (No Arab country has offered Palestinians refuge, despite the war, for a variety of reasons, including hostility to Palestinians and the desire to see them stay in Gaza to strengthen the Palestinian (or Muslim) claim against...

The Swamp purge continues as dozens of Education Department employees were placed on leave, according to reports. CNN first reported the news of the administrative leave, noting that it is connected to the Trump administration’s goal of putting an end to wasteful diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts in the federal workforce. “Effective January 31, 2025, you will be placed on administrative leave with full pay and benefits pursuant to the President’s executive order on DEIA and further guidance from OPM,” the letter sent to affected employees states, making it clear the administrative leave is not related to disciplinary measures.

Likely Dem primary voters in the upcoming mayoral election overwhelmingly say New York City is in crisis — with nearly half saying that if things get any worse, they may leave, a dismal new survey shows. The pessimism is broad and deep. Eighty percent of the respondents say they are worried about the current level of crime, while 75% believe their city is in a state of crisis, and 70% are “fearful and anxious” about its future, according to the poll by Democratic strategists with the Honan Strategy Group. Advertisement

WASHINGTON – The last time Joe Biden packed up and left office, he took with him thousands of papers from his decades in public service — including some classified documents that should have gone to the National Archives for safekeeping. That move spawned a federal investigation into whether Biden had knowingly broken the law and a damaging Justice Department report that referred to Biden as an “elderly man with a poor memory,” igniting public concerns over his mental acuity that eventually led Biden to drop out of the race. The discovery also watered down the significance of the criminal case...

The man who blew up a Tesla cybertruck outside a Trump hotel was "on leave from active military duty in Germany," it has emerged. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, used fireworks to cause the huge blast outside the hotel in Las Vegas at around 7.30am on Wednesday. He died in the explosion, which has left multiple people injured. He was on active duty in the US Army in Germany, but allowed on leave, during which time he returned to his home city of Colorado Springs. However, a relative has today told reporters Livelsberger's wife had not heard from the man in several...

Democrats are eager to turn the page on a poor year in which they lost again to President-elect Trump, who has swallowed up much of the spotlight well before he’s taken office for a second time. Biden for his part has embarked on several major foreign trips since the election. He also pardoned his son, is working on reaching a ceasefire deal in Gaza, upping assistance to Ukraine and working the holiday circuit while delivering speeches in and around Washington. He also made waves just before Christmas by announcing he was commuting the sentences of 37 people serving on federal...

President Joe Biden leaves office in 36 days not with a bang but a resentful whimper, an opinion piece in the Washington Post argued Sunday. The op-ed by Cleve R. Wootson Jr. is headlined “Biden touts his legacy, but frustration seeps through.” It looks back over Biden’s years in office and posits that for all his ambitions, the Biden legacy will be shallow and marked more by bitter disappointment than overarching achievement made evident since his defenestration at the hands of his own Democratic party.

Joe Biden and the Dem apparat around him have made it plain: They are going to do as much damage to America as they can on the way out the door. Last week brought a record number of presidential pardons, including 1,500 commutations of the sentences of “nonviolent” felons, most of whom were already serving their sentences at home after being sprung from prison during COVID. Except the White House upped the count by overlooking some truly heinous offenses: a Pennsylvania judge who took bribes to send kids to a for-profit “detention” center; an Illinois clerk who embezzled over $53...

The liberal Washington Post is out with a story today about how to leave the United States and live in another country. It’s one of their top stories for today. As the Gateway Pundit recently pointed out, we have been down this road before, but the people who claim they want to leave rarely follow through and actually do it in the end. Threatening to leave the country because Trump won the presidency seems to be some sort of rite of passage on the left. The most read story on the Washington Post right now is a how to guide...

Qatar has told the leaders of Hamas to leave the country where they have enjoyed a luxurious exile for many years, just days after President-elect Donald Trump won the U.S. election, according to reports in the Israeli media. Hamas, the Palestinian terror group, has been able to protect many of its leaders because they have taken refuge in Qatar and Turkey, both of whom are U.S. allies. Turkey is a member of NATO, while the Biden-Harris administration declared Qatar a major non-NATO ally, despite its ongoing support for Hamas and other terrorist organizations. The Biden-Harris administration had pressured Qatar to...

President Biden spends almost as much time on R&R as he does running the country. The 81-year-old commander-in-chief has racked up 532 vacation days in less than four years — about 40% of the 1, 326 days he’s been in office. It would take the average American — who gets 11 days a year of vacation — approximately 48 years to accumulate that number of days off, according to shocking data compiled by the Republican National Committee. “The image of Biden fast asleep and lying flat on his back in his chair at the beach while America and the world...

Jenna Bush Hager is recounting the toll that a 1992 election loss had on her late grandfather, President George H.W. Bush. On the Monday, July 22, episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna, Bush Hager was speaking about President Joe Biden's announcement that he will no longer run for reelection. "You know, I think, it’s so interesting because we’ve become a country that is so divided about politics that sometimes It’s hard to think, ‘Oh my gosh, he’s a human,' " Bush Hager, 42, said, adding: "I think even in the depths of us having these political opinions, and obviously...

Ever since Donald Trump rode down the escalator at Trump Tower in June 2015 to announce his run for president, certain Democrats and “Never Trumpers” have been inventing and rolling out one fabricated, dangerous and divisive charge after another. One of the latest they have been running up the flagpole is that Trump will become a dictator who would refuse to leave the White House once his next term is up. It is all the rage among multiple liberal media outlets, while the main talking point of the Biden campaign seems to have morphed into “democracy is at stake” if...

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Monday on NBC’s “Today” that she believes that if former President Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, he will attempt to stay beyond the end of his second term. Anchor Savannah Guthrie asked, “You think this a vote about whether or not we still have democracy in this country?” Cheney said, “It certainly is. Donald Trump told us exactly what he will do. He will not abide by the rulings of the courts. He will certainly appoint people to office whether or not they can be confirmed by the Senate. He has talked about...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) predicted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will leave Congress by the end of the year, following former Rep. George Santos’s (R-N.Y.) historic expulsion Friday. “With Santos gone, you’re hearing it here first: the next GOP member to leave Congress will be @SpeakerMcCarthy,” Swalwell wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday. “No way he stays,” he continued. “A guy who kidney punches his colleagues from behind is too afraid to serve out a full term with them. I bet he’s gone by end of year. What say you?” Swalwell’s reference to “kidney punches” pointed...

Segments of the Jewish population in Berlin are being forced to consider a question many once thought unthinkable in the wake of the atrocities committed by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers and the subsequent promises of “never again” — is it time to leave Germany? Spiegel International reports testimonies from a host of Jews in the national capital worried about their futures and those of their families as a rising tide of antisemitism is seen once more to cast a shadow across the city. The despair has arrived on the back of the Hamas terrorists attack that killed 1,400...

VILNIUS, Lithuania — The Biden administration is urging U.S. citizens in Belarus to depart the country immediately and warned against travel there in a statement published Monday. The updated travel warning comes after bordering countries Lithuania, Latvia and Poland have stepped up security along the border over concerns about Russian Wagner mercenary forces exiled in the country. The State Department, in its warning, encouraged Americans still in Belarus to depart the country immediately and categorized the country as a Level 4 risk, the highest security warning.

British Military families have been left “appalled” after they were given just a week’s notice to leave their homes at a former airbase in Essex to make way for alleged asylum seekers. The Conservative government of Rishi Sunak has given some military families just a week’s notice that they would have to leave their home at a former air base outside the village of Wethersfield in Essex. They will be forced to leave so that the base can be converted into a migrant camp as the government continues to try to reduce the £6 million per day bill for accommodating...