Free Republic

May 16 (Reuters) - Moody's on Friday downgraded the credit rating of the United States by a notch to "Aa1" from "Aaa", citing rising debt and interest "that are significantly higher than similarly rated sovereigns". "Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs," Moody's said in a statement.

President Donald Trump’s approval rating in New Jersey bests that of Gov. Phil Murphy (D-NJ), according to a poll, marking a negative sign for Democrats. The Emerson College/Pix 11/the Hill poll, published Thursday night, finds that Trump has a neutral rating in the Garden State, with 47 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving of his performance. Another six percent did not have an opinion or had neutral feelings about his performance. Conversely, Murphy has a negative approval rating in the traditionally blue state. Of the respondents, 40 percent give him positive marks, while 45 percent disapprove. This equates to a...

Mayoral hopeful Andrew Cuomo bailed on a planned visit Friday to a Queens senior center as dozens of raging protesters were expected to confront the ex-gov over his botched handling of the nursing homes during the pandemic. About 25 protesters marched in front of Peter Cardella Senior Citizens Center in Ridgewood for over an hour as they eagerly waited to face Cuomo over his administration’s controversial directive to send infected COVID-19 patients into nursing homes — which resulted in thousands of deaths. “I’m still trying to process and come to terms with how to prevent that [a pandemic] from happening...

Verizon announced the termination of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in a Thursday letter sent to FCC Chairman Brandon Carr. The telecommunications company said it recognized that some of its DEI policies were "discriminatory" and vowed to terminate all company roles focused on DEI effective immediately. This comes after the Trump administration launched a probe into the company over such policies in February. Verizon cited Supreme Court rulings, President Donald Trump's executive orders, and federal mandates for its decision to eliminate DEI from the company. The company will no longer maintain workforce diversity goals and said it would...

Breaking- The Supreme Court ruled against the Trump administration, blocking them from deporting a group of Venezuelan illegal alien gang members in Texas under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act

The Trump administration has fired nearly 600 Voice of America employees as the president is working to overhaul the agency. The employees who were notified this week are mostly contractors, The New York Times reported. The 600 equals about one-third of the agency's staff. Those fired were told their last day of work will be May 30, which also will be the deadline to return badges, credentials, and other VOA property, The Hill reported. The firings follow U.S. Agency for Global Media senior adviser Kari Lake's announcement last week that One America News Network will provide news-feed services to the...

A Northern California businessman is making moves to get his company's products out of China and to the U.S. now that import tariffs are set to drop to 30% starting Wednesday. Price Johnson is the COO of Cephalofair Games. The company makes board games, including Gloomhaven and Frosthaven. The recent Trump administration trade deal to pause 145% tariffs and bring them down to 30% for the next 90 days has Johnson making moves to get his product out of a Shanghai warehouse and back to the US. "I'm talking to my freight partners. Half of them are telling me, 'I'm...

For years, Democratic state leaders believed their immigrant programs were free from federal interference. But Republicans in Washington are now threatening to penalize states that continue them.

Elite panic equates patriotism with fascism. We Study Fascism, and We’re Leaving the U.S.,” a Wednesday New York Times headline read. Sure, plenty of well-known Democrats (mostly from Hollywood and the media) vowed to leave the U.S. in the event of a second Trump presidency: Sharon Stone, Cher, Barbra Streisand, Raven-Symoné, Whoopi Goldberg, Elon Musk’s gender-confused son Xavier Wilson, and even Cardi B rank among those who’ve at least hinted at that kind of radical action. But few of them have actually done anything about it. But even the New York Times knows that nobody takes the vague premonitions of...

HealthWatch Weight loss drugs have "no end game" amid lack of data on long-term use, former FDA commissioner warns healthwatch By Edited By May 13, 2025 / 1:03 PM EDT / CBS News Weight loss drugs have transformed how Americans lose weight, including former commissioner for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration Dr. David Kessler. But, Kessler warns there are unknowns about long-term use of the drugs and how to get people off them. "There is no end game," he said on "CBS Mornings Plus" Tuesday. "FDA allowed these medicines out without a long-term strategy." Kessler faced unexpected weight gain...

The FBI Headquarters is leaving the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue in D.C., according to the bureau’s director, Kash Patel. Patel, who made the announcement in a short clip Friday on Fox’s Mornings with Maria, called the building “unsafe for our workforce.” The move would transfer 1,500 employees to various locations across the country.

They arrive at the U.S. border from around the world: Eritrea, Guatemala, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ghana, Uzbekistan and so many other countries.They come for asylum, insisting they face persecution for their religion, or sexuality or for supporting the wrong politicians. For generations, they had been given the chance to make their case to U.S. authorities.Not anymore.“They didn’t give us an ICE officer to talk to. They didn’t give us an interview. No one asked me what happened,” said a Russian election worker who sought asylum in the U.S. after he said he was caught with video recordings he made of vote...

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump accused James Comey on Friday of calling for his assassination in a coded post on social media, rejecting the former FBI director's explanation that he was not aware of any violent connotation.U.S. law enforcement officials are investigating an Instagram photo posted by Comey of the number 8647 formed by seashells with the comment, "Cool shell formation on my beach walk."The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade and tariff news. Sign up here.In U.S. slang, the number 86 can be used as a verb meaning...

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will no longer recommend the COVID-19 vaccine to minors and pregnant women, a significant departure from government policy during the pandemic. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will remove the recommendations when it enacts new policies for approving vaccinations. The exact timing of the announcement wasn’t clear, the people said, though it was expected in the coming days. The CDC currently recommends that everyone six months and older, including pregnant women, receive Covid vaccines. It wasn’t clear if the department is planning to remove...

House GOP leaders discussed a new, heightened state-and-local-tax deduction with a group of Republican holdouts as they race to salvage their party-line megabill from ruin. A $40,000 cap on the key deduction for individuals and $80,000 cap for joint filers was part of a list of items GOP leaders raised overnight as they scrambled to shore up ultraconservative votes, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private conversations. The SALT cap increase is one of the biggest hangups in the bill, which is filled with President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. A band of SALT Republicans are publicly...

President Donald Trump is calling on Republican lawmakers to support “The One Big Beautiful Bill” that would cut taxes and stop illegal aliens from receiving Medicaid. Trump took to Truth Social to urge Republicans to galvanize behind the bill. “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’ Not only does it cut Taxes for ALL Americans, but it will kick millions of Illegal Aliens off of Medicaid to PROTECT it for those who are the ones in real need,” he wrote. “The Country will suffer greatly without this Legislation, with their Taxes going up 65%. It will be blamed...

She's been called 'ICE Barbie' for treating her Cabinet position like a TV production, but now Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is pushing for an actual reality show pitting immigrants against each other 'for the honor of fast-tracking their way to U.S. citizenship'. It may sound like a joke, but the idea is for real and is outlined in a 35-page program pitch put together in coordination with the DHS secretary, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal. Noem is even offering up officials from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to tally votes for the made-for-TV contest. The pitch comes from Rob...

Dear FRiends, We need your continuing support to keep FR funded. Your donations are our sole source of funding. No sugar daddies, no advertisers, no paid memberships, no commercial sales, no gimmicks, no tax subsidies. This means no spam, no pop-ups, no ad trackers. And because we are not a 501C, we have preserved our God-given, constitutionally protected right to free speech without government intervention. If you enjoy using FR and agree it's a worthwhile endeavor, please consider making a contribution today: Click here: to donate by Credit CardOr here: to donate by PayPalOr by mail to: Free Republic, LLC...

Eleven inmates considered "armed and dangerous" escaped a New Orleans jail Friday morning, the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office said. The inmates were discovered missing during a routine headcount conducted at 8:30 a.m. at the Orleans Parish Jail, according to the sheriff's office. They are believed to have escaped sometime just after midnight. New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said one inmate has since been apprehended in downtown New Orleans through facial recognition, caught by a surveillance camera. Louisiana State Police identified the escapee as Kendall Myles and said Myles tried to flee on foot before being apprehended "without further incident."...

WASHINGTON — In keeping with his penchant for shocking the defense industry, President Donald Trump today seemingly revealed plans to develop a twin-engine version of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter known as the F-55, as well as an upgraded “F-22 Super.”But former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said he was “mystified by Trump’s comments,” and analysts said that what the president described would be a highly challenging engineering endeavor on par with creating a clean-sheet aircraft. They also questioned the wisdom of spending scarce budget dollars on a twin-engine advanced F-35 when the newly announced F-47 is already planned to...