Free Republic

Congress on Thursday split on advancing a pair of war powers resolutions aimed at forcing President Donald Trump to abandon his war with Iran, as the conflict escalates into a deadly new phase and oil tops $100 a barrel. The moves were the first vote since Trump informed Congress that he restarted the war with Iran following the breakdown of peace negotiations. The conflict’s revival after weeks of a shaky ceasefire comes just months before the U.S. midterm elections. It threatens to scramble the majority Republicans’ plan to maintain their razor-thin majorities. The Senate on Thursday voted 47-49 to kill...

Nancy Armour's column argues Clark's reactions to officiating fuel racist harassment of opponentsUSA Today columnist Nancy Armour wants Caitlin Clark to stop flopping and berating WNBA officials. Plenty of people agree with that take, including OutKick's Dan Dakich. Others would argue that Clark’s frustration is understandable, given the physical treatment she has received and the WNBA’s inconsistent officiating. Either way, Armour is well within her rights to criticize Clark’s behavior on the court. Armour argues that Clark’s reactions to missed calls put "Black" and "queer" WNBA players "in danger," essentially blaming Clark for alleged racist messages sent by people she...

Sophie Cunningham doubles down on her transgender stance.A recent press conference appearance by Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham quickly drew widespread attention. The prominent professional basketball player faced intense questioning following her transgender comments. Several aggressive media members heavily questioned her regarding controversial opinions on biological divisions. Sports Reporters Confront Sophie Cunningham Over Divisive StanceBefore Wednesday night’s game against the Connecticut Sun, Cunningham addressed the comments she made in ESPN’s profile. Cunningham was asked about her political views and the “MAGA Barbie” nickname she has been given by some fans. “I got a lot of negative feedback about me hating...

On Thursday’s Morning Joe, MS NOW’s Jonathan Lemire grossly misrepresented the scale of New Jersey’s non-citizen voter registration scandal. Lemire claimed that the state “had to acknowledge that a few hundred voters were, you know, non-citizens were mistakenly added to the voting rolls.”That is false. According to multiple reports, including NBC News, roughly 6,600 non-citizens were improperly registered to vote, allegedly because of a software error at the Motor Vehicle Commission. About 400 of them cast ballots. By switching the two numbers, Lemire shrank the registration failure by more than 90% -- leaving viewers with a dramatically understated picture of...

A Secret Service agent suspected of leaking details about Vice President JD Vance’s travel has been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation. The unidentified agent is believed to have been a source for an MS Now story published last week that claimed Vance’s protective detail was frustrated with the second family’s habit of making last-minute travel arrangements and special requests. “A member of the Vice Presidential Protective Division is the subject of an administrative investigation, and potential criminal inquiry, involving allegations of compromising operational and information security,” a Secret Service spokesperson told The Post Thiursday.

A contentious Senate hearing on a supplemental budget request of nearly $88 billion, largely earmarked to cover the ongoing war on Iran, revealed new figures about the war’s cost to date and the effects of the military’s Project Freedom initiative to escort commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz. The hearing did little, however, to provide concrete answers on what it would take to end the conflict. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Committee alongside the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, to defend the request, more than $67 billion...

Nearly half of Americans say they believe the Supreme Court is ruling on President Trump’s policies based on ideology instead of the law, according to a new poll. The Washington Post/Ipsos survey, conducted July 8-13, found that 46 percent of 2,648 respondents said they believe the nine justices are ruling on cases impacting the president’s agenda based on ideology. A quarter of respondents said the high court is ruling on those cases based on the law, while 28 percent had no opinion and 1 percent skipped the question.The Supreme Court has given Trump multiple unfavorable rulings during his second term....

Iran’s government is unlikely to feel significant impact or soften its negotiating position as a result of new rounds of U.S. military strikes like those now underway, according to a new intelligence assessment described by current and former U.S. officials.

BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey (AP) — The U.S. military said on Saturday that two additional service members were killed as part of the war with Iran, bringing the total number of deaths to 16.The deaths reflect the complicated reality that American boots don’t need to be on the ground for there to be lethal risks in a conflict that involves drones, missiles and airplanes. American forces are arrayed across the Middle East, making other nations targets of Iran as the fighting has escalated after a breakdown in peace talks.President Donald Trump has said the war is necessary to stop Iran from...

Longtime CNN political commentator and Democrat Van Jones rebuked far-left activists Saturday, warning that their positions on Hamas, prisons and immigration are regressive and threatened to steer the Democratic Party in the wrong direction as socialist-backed candidates celebrated recent primary victories. "Yes, we want our Democratic Party to be a big tent. But we don’t need 'party poopers. So STOP pooping in the punch bowl — and telling us the turds are ice cubes," Jones said on X, in reference to his Substack post. Jones accused some Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) activists of promoting positions involving Hamas, policing, prisons...

Trump says noncitizen voting is a widespread Democratic plot to influence elections. A Reuters data analysis reveals a far different picture: a small number of often inadvertent violations. The finding comes amid an expanding federal crackdown that has ensnared hundreds of people, many of whom never cast a ballot. According to U.S. President Donald Trump, America is a hotbed of voting fraud – and foreigners are major culprits. He has portrayed noncitizen voting as part of a broad Democratic Party conspiracy to dilute Republican power. He has claimed on social media that “Crazed” Democrats allow unvetted migrants to enter the...

Feckless and clueless, Donald Trump is lost in Iran, unable to find a way out of the disastrous war he started. Once again, the US military is pummelling the country and, increasingly, its civilian infrastructure. As before, this unlawful bludgeoning strengthens the resistance of a hardline regime that cares little for its people’s suffering. How often have Trump and Pete Hegseth, the Pentagon’s wildling lord of bones, hailed a bogus victory? The president claimed this week to be “winning big”. No one believes him. Even as it counts the vast human and economic cost of his Persian folly, a watching...

In its nationwide immigration crackdown, the Trump administration has charged hundreds of people with assaulting or impeding federal agents. President Trump has branded them “insurrectionists,” “animals” and “thugs,” part of a broader effort by his administration to cast protesters and immigrants as violent criminals.But a close examination of those cases reveals that in its rush to meet White House demands for deportations, federal law enforcement has engaged in extensive misconduct — ranging from attacking protesters to destroying evidence and misrepresenting facts in court.The New York Times found that the Trump administration has filed assault charges against more than 550 people...

Mass immigration doesn’t stand alone. Instead, Western governments, including ours, have much grander plans for the end of nations. One of the greater mysteries of our century may be why governments across much of Europe, North America, and even Australia adopted remarkably similar immigration policies seemingly at the same time. It is difficult to believe this happened by chance. And unlike Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand, which explains how complex order can arise without central direction, mass migration appears less like an organic historical development than a remarkably coordinated political calculus. There are many explanations; some point to economics, others to...

Karoline Leavitt has confirmed that Xi Jinping's September visit to the White House will still happen despite President Donald Trump's speech on Thursday, accusing China of election meddling. Trump spoke from the East Room last night, delivering a highly anticipated speech about the integrity of the U.S. electoral process, saying it was "catastrophically" short of standards of fairness and trust. "No country can be great without fair and honest elections," Trump said at the White House in an address that began with a familiar rehashing of his favorite campaign boasts, including claims of an unprecedentedly booming economy," he said. "If...

The View” co-host Ana Navarro praised Hunter Biden as “riveting” and “the biggest troll” Thursday on the ABC show’s “Behind the Table” podcast while previewing their 90-minute interview and arguing that scrutiny of his Burisma income paled beside the Trump family’s earnings during President Donald Trump’s second term. “The monetization of the presidency, the fact that Hunter got dragged through the coals and brought into a congressional hearing by Republicans for the money that he was making in Burisma, which is not even chump change in comparison to the billions of dollars that the Trump family has made off the...

The man who managed to slip past tight security at New York’s 30 Rockefeller Center and hurled a racial slur at “Today” show co-host Craig Melvin appeared before a judge on Friday to face charges stemming from the confrontation. Andrew Truelove, 41, was charged with burglary and menacing, both in the third degree as hate crimes, after investigators said he entered the lobby just before 9 a.m. Thursday and snuck behind an employee who used their identification card to swipe into a restricted area, according to the criminal complaint. Truelove was at the bottom of a stairwell when he spotted...

President Donald Trump in his primetime speech on Thursday is alleging vulnerabilities exist in American election systems, using a large trove of newly declassified documents as evidence to suggest future elections could be at risk of foreign interference, particularly by China. Though the documents are newly declassified, they largely discuss vulnerabilities that have been known for years and election officials around the country have tried to address. None of the declassified information supports the claim that any previous election results — including the 2020 presidential contest that Trump lost — were manipulated by foreign interference or fraud in a way...

The bottom 50% of households in the U.S. own only $4.27 trillion of the nation's $174 trillion in available wealth. By contrast, the top 0.1% own $25.07 trillion, and the top 99 to 99.9% own a little under $30 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data. With AI now supercharging the stock market, and richer families already owning the majority of those assets, that divide is only likely to widen. Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is well aware of this phenomenon. In fact, the man worth more than $3 billion according to Forbes says he understands why people are "anti-rich."...

Brian Poindexter had just finished wolfing down a Reuben sandwich in a deli outside Cleveland when he delivered a message that, coming from a Democratic House candidate in the year 2026, sounded almost provocative. “There’s nothing wrong with being masculine,” Poindexter told me. It’s okay, he said, to be “a manly man.” Poindexter’s own manliness credentials are fully in order. The 46-year-old started working in a machine shop as a teenager and spent years hauling furniture across the country before finding stability as a union ironworker. He drives a Ram Big Horn pickup truck and built, with his buddy turned...