Free Republic

Gun lobbyists are expressing dismay with a compromise on silencers included in the fast-tracked budget bill and the GOP’s slow-walking of another demand to stop the taxing and registration of commonly owned AR-15 style pistols. On Monday, the House Ways and Means Committee released its plan, and while it stripped a $200 tax on the sale of silencers, it still required registration and sale approval by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. That angered some gun groups who have been calling for an end to the tax and ATF registration of suppressors, which many consider a hearing safety...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa slammed Afrikaner refugees who left for the United States on Tuesday, saying that it was “cowardly” for them to leave racial discrimination and threatened expropriation. Ramaphosa spoke the day after after the first flight of 49 white Afrikaners granted refugee status by the U.S. arrived in Washington, DC. As many as 70,000 more have sought to apply to enter the U.S. under the policy. Ramaphosa, who styles himself as a pro-business moderate, and is set to speak to U.S. President Donald Trump later this month, made the remark at a surprise visit to a local...

The circumstances ignited by the explosive incident at the ICE facility in New Jersey over the weekend could end up being EVEN MORE CATACLYSMIC than the initial melee. Here’s a quick recap to fill in the gaps before we get to AOC’s increasingly dangerous rhetoric. First, a group of Democratic lawmakers attempted to force their way into an ICE detention facility in New Jersey, ignoring protocol (24 hour notice) and ignoring the Agents’ clear orders to back down. Here’s a scene of the violent chaos intentionally caused by the Democrat lawmakers who showed up at an event where they knew...

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The Spin and the Win: Opposition to Trump may have jumped the gun on the doom and gloom forecasts. Trump's string of deals and demands have moved markets to recovery. Major indices have since exceeded both their April 1 closes and predictions. ================================================================ With April’s inflation report coming in below forecasts, the Trump economy appears to be defying analysts' and politicians' predictions of collapse in the wake of his “Liberation Day” tariffs and subsequent trade negotiations. As Trump adds more notches to his belt in deals with key trade partners, the stock market has rebounded to pre-tariff levels, even while...

TOM HOMAN on Ingraham Angle Show............. 1:03 VIDEO AT LINK..............

Moscow on Wednesday said it would send a delegation to Istanbul to meet with Ukrainian officials, potentially bringing diplomats from the two at-war countries together for the first known in-person direct talks in more than three years. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Wednesday that Russian diplomats would travel to Turkey, but didn't detail which officials would be present. The confirmation followed an act of one-upmanship from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who on Wednesday said he would be willing to meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin, should the latter decide to travel to Turkey. "We are ready for...

TULSA, Okla. — Leaders from various faith groups gathered together for an interfaith prayer vigil on Tuesday night to show their support for Tulsa's immigrant community. "The vigil tonight is an effort to just make a real public statement about how many people, in this city at least, support the immigrant community as our friends and our neighbors, as people we know and love," said Reverend Chris Moore from Fellowship Congregational United Church of Christ. "They make us a better place. The purpose of the vigil is for us to make that message loud and clear." Rev. Moore said Tuesday's...

The House’s big, beautiful budget bill is bigger than it is beautiful, so it’s worth noting the better parts of the draft. The House Agriculture Committee is moving on a modest welfare reform in food stamps that will resuscitate the program’s connection with work. Americans who manage to sift through the media distortions will approve. By one think-tank estimate, nearly 13 million able-bodied adults were on food stamps in 2022, and the benefit covers some 12% of the U.S. population. People are supposed to work as a condition of benefits, but millions don’t. Live in California? The Biden Administration in...

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) slammed Republicans on Tuesday for proposing major cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps an average of over 42 million Americans purchase food each month. “Folks who paid taxes and played by the rules, expecting that their government will help them if they fall on hard times and you guys want to tell them to all go screw themselves?” he said at a House Agriculture Committee markup meeting...... Experts warn that the bill could lead to more children facing food insecurity just as research shows that work requirements don’t actually lead to a...

The United States and Saudi Arabia reached a $142 billion arms deal, President Donald Trump shared on Tuesday. Trump’s announcement came during his speech at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, amid his state visit to the Middle East. “In addition to purchases of $142 billion of American-made military equipment by our great Saudi partners, the largest ever, this week, there are multibillion dollar commercial deals with Amazon, Oracle, AMD…Uber, Qualcomm, Johnson & Johnson, and many, many more,” the president said. The commander-in-chief touted the quality of American military products moments earlier. “Nobody makes military equipment like us;...

Another bunch of third world "refugees" in France waiting to hop on a boat and make their way to the UK because they will "get everything for free". On the backs of British tax payers of course, who will pay for free hotels, free health care etc etc for these grifters. Worth watching. Starmer must pay for this outrage in the next elections.

SUMMARY Donald Trump has met the Syrian interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia this morning The brief meeting came after the US lifted sanctions on Syria - Trump said the move is designed to "give them a chance at greatness" Until December, the US offered a $10m reward for al-Sharaa's arrest, our correspondent Lina Sinjab writes from Damascus Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attended the US-Syria meeting, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined remotely Trump then addressed a Gulf leaders' summit - saying again he wanted a deal with Iran, but they must stop "sponsoring terror" After...

Paul Tudor Jones on Tuesday said artificial intelligence (AI) posed an "imminent" security threat and that there was a 10% chance in the next two decades that AI would kill half of humanity. Jones, the founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment, was speaking in a CNBC interview. Jones told of an event he had attended which had a technology panel consisting of four of the leading modelers of popular AI models used today. One of his takeaways from the panel was that "AI clearly poses an imminent threat, security threat - imminent - in our lifetimes, to humanity."

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 13 (Reuters) - In a sprawling warehouse in a Shanghai suburb, dozens of humanoid robots are manoeuvred by their operators to carry out tasks like folding a T-shirt, making a sandwich and opening doors, over and over again. Operating 17 hours a day, the site's goal is to generate reams of data that its owner, Chinese humanoid startup AgiBot, uses to train robots it hopes will become ubiquitous and change the way humans live, work and play.

During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israel managed to capture a local Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent, who admitted during his interrogation that he had been operating as a double agent. The agent revealed that his role was to lull Israel’s defense establishment into a false sense of security on the eve of Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. According to a report published on Channel 12 News on Tuesday evening, the agent lied to Shin Bet officials in a conversation held just hours before the attack. In that conversation, he stated, “There is no preparation...

Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region, speaking at an investment forum during a White House-led trip to the kingdom on Tuesday. Starlink is the satellite internet service owned and operated by Musk's aerospace and defense contractor, SpaceX. Musk also briefly discussed his other business ambitions in the region, promising to bring Tesla robotaxis to Saudi Arabia at an unspecified date. "I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom, indeed, if you're amenable," Musk said. Musk also said he showed several of Tesla's Optimus...

A 79-year-old Army veteran was brutally murdered on Monday during a carjacking in Southern California. James Norman was at a gas station in Norco, California, cleaning his Chevy Trailblazer with the engine running when 29-year-old Ryan Hewitt jumped in the driver’s seat and drove off. Norman was hanging out the back door and was dragged and then thrown from the vehicle. His family said he was just too frail to get out in time. Hewitt was charged with felony carjacking and second-degree murder. He is being held on $1 million bail. ... James Norman is survived by his beloved wife,...

We obviously have no dog in this fight, though some have noted the Soviet-style treatment David Hogg is getting at the Democratic National Committee. This party is a total mess, and the vote to put his ouster as vice chair on the fast track only added another chapter to the ongoing ‘Dems in disarray’ soap opera. The credentials committee paved the way to remove Hogg, though they claim it’s not about politics. It is—it seems this was done to appease the Native American woman who lost to Hogg (via Semafor) [emphasis mine]: The DNC’s credentials committee will meet virtually on...