Free Republic

Republicans are turning the heat back up on the Trump administration for its handling of the Epstein files. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie torched FBI Director Kash Patel over the weekend after he caught the bureau chief off guard on information that Patel should have already been privy to. “I told Director Kash Patel that the FBI has names of 20 men to whom Jeffrey Epstein trafficked women and girls,” Massie wrote on X. “This basic fact seemed to surprise him. Why? “Is the FBI withholding those names to protect the President’s rich and powerful friends?” Massie continued, before demanding that...

It turns out that the services benefiting the well-to-do are most impacted by DC’s ICE crackdown.According to Yesim Sayin, who studies the city economy at the D.C. Policy Center think tank, this is all terrible news for the municipal economy, coming at a moment when federal job cuts have made the tax base ever more reliant on hospitality and real estate. “All these actions with ICE are like putting additional weight on something that’s about to break,” she said.But the identity of the most prolific consumers of the impacted industries is also likely to shape the politics around the immigration...

The director discusses all of that, as well as what happened to this new episode’s previously announced 2023 release date.The case against Adnan Syed has pretty much been never-ending, so why should The Case Against Adnan Syed be any different? Amy J. Berg’s HBO documentary series has returned with a fifth episode a mere six years after the fourth one aired. To put that half-dozen-years break into perspective, HBO Max — which premiered episode five, “The Tree Grew,” on Thursday — didn’t even exist when the docuseries debuted as a four-parter. Syed was arrested in 1999 for the murder of...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel launched its offensive in Gaza City on Tuesday, vowing to overwhelm a city already in ruins from nearly two years of war as thousands of Palestinians fled in vehicles strapped with mattresses and other belongings that clogged a coastal road. The operation into the largest Palestinian city escalated a conflict that has roiled the Middle East and likely pushed any ceasefire with Hamas farther out of reach. The military would not offer a timeline for the offensive that aims to crush the militant group’s ability to fight, but Israeli media suggested it could take months. “Gaza...

London Mayor Sadiq Khan, in a Tuesday opinion piece for The Guardian, called out President Trump for boosting “divisive, far-right politics” worldwide in recent years. “We must unite to take on the reactionary populists and nativists who are exploiting economic concerns, the atomisation of modern life and a growing distrust of political and media institutions – something we have seen in countries across Europe and, of course, in the US,” Khan said in his Guardian piece. “President Donald Trump and his coterie have perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world in recent...

The GOP has turned so hard on free speech that now even “libertarian” Rand Paul is calling for a “crackdown” on those using their First Amendment rights. “I was assaulted six, seven years ago, attacked from behind, had six ribs broken and part of my lung removed, and still online, on a daily basis people say they wish that it would happen to me all over again,” Paul said Tuesday on Fox Business. “And by sort of making light of what I suffered, they are encouraging other people to do it. That oughta be taken down, and social media oughta...

Senate Republicans are growing increasingly exasperated over President Trump’s refusal to give them permission to move tough bipartisan sanctions legislation against Russia and countries that buy its oil. Trump pressed European allies over the weekend to levy harsher sanctions against Russia, but he has dragged his feet on the bipartisan sanctions bill, which Republican senators were hoping to get done in July. The failure to act is fueling growing disillusionment among some Senate Republicans that Trump is not serious about helping Ukraine. One Republican senator who requested anonymity to comment candidly on the stalemate over the sanctions legislation questioned whether...

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday to continue the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, specifically information about who other than Epstein, if anyone, was on the receiving end of girls and women being sex trafficked. “The issue’s not gonna go away,” said Kennedy during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s FBI oversight hearing, where Patel was testifying. “I think you’re gonna have to do more to satisfy the American people’s understandable curiosity in that regard.” Kennedy’s comments were notable as the Trump administration battles complaints about the Justice Department’s slow, piecemeal approach to...

Popular conservative creator Matt Walsh called for Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired immediately after she said businesses must allow fans of Charlie Kirk to print posters in honor of the slain Turning Point USA founder. Walsh said that comment, to go along with Bondi’s recent statement on targeting “hate speech” against Kirk, as well as her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, make it clear President Donald Trump needs to fire her. “Get rid of her. Today. This is insane,” Walsh posted on X on Tuesday, in response to a clip of Bondi talking about companies not being...

FBI Director Kash Patel is scheduled to appear before senators Tuesday as he faces growing questions about his ability to lead the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Patel's appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was put on the books weeks ago but comes at a delicate time for the director, who is a loyalist of President Trump but has no experience leading an organization like the FBI. In just the past week, he has come under criticism for his social media posts and actions during the manhunt for the man who killed conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He's also been sued...

Conservative talkshow host Erick Erickson tore into “moron” Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday after she claimed “hate speech” did not count as “free speech” and would be targeted by her office.During an interview with former White House official Katie Miller, Bondi said, “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society.”She warned, “We will absolutely target you, go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that’s across the aisle.”

The Senate and House are on a collision course over whether to repeal comprehensive sanctions on Syria, a rare area where there are bipartisan coalitions on both sides of the debate. Discussion centers on whether to completely repeal the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act of 2019, a severe sanctions mechanism that blocked nearly all U.S. and international cooperation or engagement with the regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Legislation to repeal Caesar is included in the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2026. But an amendment to the House version of the NDAA to repeal Caesar...

The AI argument kicked off in late July, just a day after Trump announced his AI plan — a 28-page strategy to accelerate the technology and build new power infrastructure to supply it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) fired off a tirade on X, complaining that AI could create mass poverty by replacing human jobs, and giant AI data centers could have potentially devastating effects on the environment and water supply. In the days that followed, GOP strategist Steven Bannon chimed in, comparing the pursuit of AI superintelligence to “summoning the demon.” And since then, think-tankers and populist conservative outlets...

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by a hostile foreign country’s spy service, according to a leak to The New York Times. ..... Snip..... The New York Times on Wednesday reported that the US Government actually discovered John Bolton’s classified emails while gathering information from an “adversarial country’s spy service.” The New York Times reported: The investigation into President Trump’s former national security advisor, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that...

Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow expressed concern on Friday over the Trump administration’s move to take a 10 percent stake in mega chipmaker Intel. “I am very, very uncomfortable with that idea. I’m very uncomfortable with that one, but that’s a conversation for another meal on another day,” Kudlow told economist Stephen Moore, in an interview highlighted by Mediate. Moore himself, a Trump economic adviser, earlier in the appearance, also criticized the administration’s decision, calling it “terrible.” “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the...

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) on Saturday upped her crusade against conditions in the Gaza Strip following a declaration of famine in the region by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. “U.S. taxpayers fund Israel $3.8 billion annually for military aid. That means every U.S. tax payer is contributing to Israel’s military actions,” Greene wrote in a Saturday post on X. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with. And I will not be silent...

“It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future. I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company,” wrote Trump on Truth Social. “The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to...

Democratic Party officials are quietly battling over which state will be the first to vote in the 2028 presidential primary — a fight that's set to break into the open next week, when the officials meet in Minneapolis. * Nevada, New Hampshire, and Michigan are currently the frontrunners to be "the new Iowa," and lead off the 2028 Democratic primary season, according to several people familiar with the Rules and Bylaws committee that will determine the order. Why it matters: The candidate who wins the first state primary gets a boost that can help propel them to the nomination —...

Democrats are tortured by what they should stand for now and heading into the 2028 elections. But a number of current trends suggest a likely answer: their own version of a populist, anti-establishment, MAGA-like makeover.Why it matters: The debate is usually framed as liberal vs. centrist, Rahm versus AOC. But big, fast changes in AI, media habits and general public angst point to a more sweeping shift in ideas and attitude.Four megatrends that are already shaping Democrats' efforts to remake their image and rewrite their agenda:Media: MSM is fading in its mesmerizing hold over liberals. At the same time, the...

Less than one percent of customers who filed detailed complaints about checking or savings account closures with the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau over the last 13 years accused banks of acting for political or religious reasons, even as the White House mounts a campaign to stamp out "systemic abuses" in the financial system that it says have wronged conservatives, a review of the agency's data shows. U.S. President Donald Trump earlier this month signed an executive order requiring banks not to discriminate against clients on political or religious grounds, a practice known as debanking, after citing what Trump called...