Free Republic

Chuck Schumer handed his head on a plate to President Trump last night as he surrendered on shutting down the government. After 40 days of slithering to the microphone each day with a new rant to an increasingly bored media about our favorite president, Chuck realized the futility of shutting down the government because all he did was anger the Democrat Party’s key constituent—welfare recipients—and leave helpless airline passengers stranded in city after city. Trump meanwhile went about his life as usual, savoring every minute of his final presidency. He went to Asia and signed historic peace and trade agreements....

How do I begin to cover today’s latest development: President Trump, having imposed steep tariffs on Chinese goods—tariffs that reached a staggering 145%—is now signaling a substantial reduction. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has acknowledged these tariffs are "unsustainable," hinting at a likely de-escalation in the trade war with China. Yet, in a twist of political theater, this retreat is being celebrated by supporters as a strategic masterstroke. The same voices that once championed the tariffs as a bold stand against China now laud their rollback as a savvy move, all without a hint of irony.​ I say this a lot,...

Much like the entirety of this year, social media timelines were flooded with “horrifying” videos of Border Patrol and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arresting illegal aliens, with liberal users often not providing the full facts of what was actually happening with the arrests. The first case that caused high levels of outrage was that of a Colombian illegal immigrant who was caught and released at the southern border by the Biden administration in 2023. Videos started circulating of federal agents rushing into a daycare and arresting the woman, who was trying to resist apprehension. The liberal narrative was...

VIDEOThe mayor of Uruapan, Carlos Manzo, pleaded with Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum for help in his fight against the cartel which was extorting and killing people in his area. She denied him such help and on the important Mexican holiday of El Dia De Los Muertos he was brutally assassinated by the cartel in front of his family and his fellow citizens. In response, President Sheinbaum has declared herself completely helpless to fight the cartels. Really? Perhaps she should have informed the people of Mexico about her self-declared incompetence last year BEFORE she became President.

William F. Buckley Jr. once quipped that he would rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the Boston phone book than by the Harvard faculty. New York City is about to be governed by the Columbia University student body. A city that used to think of itself as grown up has just elected a mayor who seems the very embodiment of the American college student: uninformed, entitled and self-important, enjoying a regal quality of life that depends parasitically upon a civilization about which he knows nothing, yet for which he has nothing but scorn. American college students regularly...

ZOHRAN Mamdani has won the mayorship of New York City, the most valuable metropolitan area in the world accounting for 4 per cent of American GDP, even though he promises socialism. In his acceptance speech, he thanked voters for ‘a mandate for change’ and ‘a new kind of politics’. On one hand, Mamdani has benefited from a leftist shift beyond NYC. Leftists won most of the elections on Tuesday. (These elections are asynchronous with midterm and general elections, as chosen by the states.) This shift is not necessarily personal. The nationally governing party is normally punished in local elections, despite...

The success of this bullying, foul-mouthed ‘commentator’ speaks to a sickness on the contemporary American left.Until about four days ago, I was blissfully unaware of the existence of one Jennifer Welch – a former reality-TV personality turned Democratic propagandist for the podcast age.I now look back on my pre-Welch days as something like the Garden of Eden, a place I wish I could return to. I spend a lot of time keeping tabs on libtard excess, but this Welch lady really takes the biscuit.It is hard to shake the suspicion that Welch has been designed in a progressive laboratory. Her...

And deserves to get it good and hard.Last night was the (well, not mid-term elections — those are next year — “quarter-term” elections?) and the areas that thought that Kamala Harris was a damned fine pick for POTUS last cycle stayed Blue. That should not have been a big surprise to anyone with a licence to adult..In Newt Yack City, a CAIR1-funded communist Democratic Socialist is now mayor.Whee. As long-time readers of my little scribblings have probably already figured out, I doubt that Mamdani will be as bad as his detractors say; but I damned sure don’t think he’s going...

In the four minute video posted below, the housing conditions at a three bedroom apartment at a public housing project in the Bronx in New York City are absolutely horrible.There are rats, roaches, and black mold.There are leaks in every room.And every time the tenant calls maintenance to ask for repairs, the government employees always make up some bogus excuse for why they can’t fix anything.And why should the government employees fix anything, when they know they can’t get fired?And as all of this is going on, the federal government is giving them $30 million per week to make these...

Another election day, and I have to sit here for 16 hours and check-in nothing but dem voters in this RED county. You wonder why we lose? THIS IS THE NUMBER ONE REASON!!

When Holocaust scholars accuse Jews of becoming Nazis, moral clarity collapses into performance guilt.Every few months, another academic or journalist decides that the best way to honor Holocaust memory is to accuse Israel of repeating it. The latest comes from The New York Times, where Professor Marianne Hirsch, interviewed by Masha Gessen, claims we need to “rethink how we think about the Holocaust.” It’s a long conversation—ostensibly about pedagogy and post-memory—but it eventually lands in the same familiar place: Holocaust memory, they say, has been “misused” to justify Israeli actions in Gaza, while Israel itself now stands accused of committing...

Dear FRiends, To honor Jim, I’m about to donate beyond my monthly donation to FR, in lieu of flowers. Please join me if you’re able. It would be nice it if we could end a FReepathon early for a change. God bless you, JimRob, and your family. Thank you for all you have done for us.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune earlier this week,Tuesday’s Minneapolis election will be a battle among competing factions of Democrats.Yes, the city is ruled by Democrats, but the politics are largely split between moderates and a more progressive wing, anchored by a growing faction of democratic socialists like Sen. Omar Fateh, a candidate for mayor. As I’ve framed the contest: it’s a competition between gradually and suddenly. Frey, the two-term incumbent, represents the moderate wing, opting for a continued long and slow decline. Fateh offers the “suddenly” option of immediate collapse and utter devastation. And by “utter devastation,” I mean that...

Michelle Obama really wants you to know she's a victim. That's been the theme for her over the last several years, whether it be during interviews or on her incredibly grating podcast. Most recently, speaking to ABC News "journalist" Gayle King, who is always chosen for these softball sessions for a reason, the former First Lady decried her time in the White House, claiming she and her family were given a "lack of grace" that other presidential families received. KING: "We were all too aware that as the first black couple, we couldn't afford any mistakes." And you also say...

Transwomen who campaign against women’s rights are being elevated above actual women.Since 1999, Glamour magazine has celebrated its Women of the Year Awards – an initiative to honour ‘extraordinary and inspirational’ women from a variety of fields. This year, in a special Women of the Year feature, the UK edition has chosen to honour nine men.Glamour UK gathered nine dolls – transwomen working across fashion, music, publishing and activism’, who it deems to be ‘the community’s most ground-breaking voices’. Among these ‘dolls’ is actor Bel Priestley, model Munroe Bergdorf, as well as various other ‘content creators’ and ‘activists’. The cover-shot...

Below is a comprehensive, no-BS checklist for a solo, unguided, no-O2 climb of Mt. Everest from the Nepal South Col route (the only realistic solo option today). Reality check first: Solo Everest is illegal without a permit (you still need the $11,000 Nepal permit + liaison officer). No commercial operator will support a true solo climb; you’ll be self-sufficient from BC upward. 99.9% of “solo” claims used fixed ropes, camps, or O2 left by teams. Death rate for solo attempts is >50%. If you’re asking this question, you’re not ready.

Chandra Hooper-Barnett, an award winning black principal, lost her job after her controversial statements about the academic performance of black students. Will her departure help, or hurt, these black students? I asked Grok: “Fact check recent claims by a school principal named Chandra Hooper-Barnett. Also fact check the claims of her critics. Talk about her past awards as a teacher. Will the students be better off, or worse off, now that she is no longer working at the school?”This is Grok’s response:Here’s a news article about this:https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/dallas-principal-removed-calling-meeting-181828135.htmlDallas principal removed after calling meeting with only Black students about their grades: ‘You...

In response to recent articles in mainstream military journals discussing the use of the U.S. Army to quell insurrections on American soil, I offer an alternate vision of the future. Instead of a small town in the South as the flash point, picture instead a score of U.S. cities in the thrall of riots greater than those experienced in Los Angeles in 1965 (Watts), multiple cities in 1968 (MLK assassination), and Los Angeles again in 1992 (Rodney King). New Yorkers can imagine the 1977 blackout looting or the 1991 Crown Heights disturbance. In fact, the proximate spark of the next...

Late night comedy’s all-out effort to drag Zohran Mamdani across the finish line in New York City’s upcoming mayoral election continued on Monday on Comedy Central with its most direct bit of campaigning. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart welcomed Mamdani to tell him how much “I love hearing” about his campaign and to claim that he has been surprised establishment Democrats have not fallen in line behind him. Stewart insisted that he is not “blowing smoke,” but he clearly was, “And what I love hearing about this is, one of the things that has been so frustrating in our politics...

The only upside to living through this dark time is it pushes us to rethink and perhaps totally remake things we once thought immutable. Like the Democratic party. In case you hadn’t noticed, the current Democratic party is dysfunctional, if not dead. Better dysfunctional than a fascist cult like the Trump Republican party. But if there were ever a time when America needed a strong, vibrant Democratic party, it’s now. And we don’t have one. The brightest light in the Democratic party is Zohran Mamdani, the 34-year-old member of the New York state assembly who has a good chance of...