Free Republic

With their party facing record low approval ratings, many top Democrats are trying to reposition themselves from Biden boosters to truth-tellers of what really happened in 2024.In February 2024, when quizzed on President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ability to communicate his re-election message, Senator Chris Murphy, the Connecticut Democrat, quickly vouched for him.“I know that he is ready for this campaign,” he told CBS News. “I have seen how effective he has been up close and personal.”But five months into 2025, Mr. Murphy is on the leading edge of top Democrats aiming to Etch A Sketch away their past endorsements...

WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not really about the books.President Donald Trump’s abrupt firing of top officials at the Library of Congress and equally sudden attempt to appoint a slate of loyalists as replacements has instead morphed into an enormous fight over the separation of powers, as the White House tries to wrest control of what has for centuries been a legislative institution.It’s a power struggle with potentially vast consequences. The Library of Congress not only stores the world’s largest collection of books but also an office overseeing reams of copyrighted material of untold value. There is a research institute that...

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - The Trump administration is working on a plan to permanently relocate as much as one million Palestinians from the Gaza Strip to Libya, NBC News reported on Friday, citing five people with knowledge of the matter. Citing two people with direct knowledge and a former U.S. official, NBC also reported that the plan is under serious enough consideration that the U.S. has discussed it with Libya's leadership. In exchange for resettling the Palestinians, the administration would release to Libya billions of dollars of funds the U.S. froze more than a decade ago, according to NBC...

WASHINGTON, May 16 (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department plans to press ahead with a merger of its two agencies that investigate drug and firearms offenses, though the effort would still need approval from Congress, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.In a meeting on Thursday, officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were informed that the merger could be executed as soon as October, one of the sources said, speaking anonymously because the discussions are not public.The Reuters Tariff Watch newsletter is your daily guide to the latest global trade...

Herlyn Barrientos wasn’t happy to run into a fellow member of his gang in the produce section of his local grocery store.A burly man with tattoos inked on his head and face, Barrientos was from MS-13, a group notorious for savage killings. Federal prosecutors alleged the Honduran national, nicknamed “Doctorazo,” supplied methamphetamine to MS-13 members across Los Angeles, who sold the drug and kicked up a cut to the gang’s imprisoned leader. Charged with drug trafficking in 2023, Barrientos decided to turn on his gang and cooperate with the FBI. A judge signed off on his release from jail, and...

The justices did not address the broader question about whether Trump officials can legally invoke the Alien Enemies Act to target alleged gang members.A divided Supreme Court on Friday kept a block on the Trump administration’s use of a rarely invoked wartime power to deport migrants in Northern Texas and said administration officials had not given those targeted for removal last month sufficient time to challenge their deportations.The majority called the detainees’ interests “particularly weighty” because of the risk of removal to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador where the migrants could face indefinite detention.President Donald Trump’s use of the...

Amid long, uncomfortable pauses, Joe Biden struggled to recall when his son died, when he left office as vice president, what year Donald Trump was elected or why he had classified documents he shouldn't have had, according to audio Axios obtained of his October 2023 interviews with special counsel Robert Hur.

Russia told Ukraine it could fight for at least another 21 years during peace talks that ended in acrimony in Istanbul. Vladimir Medinsky, a Kremlin aide who led the Russian delegation, said Moscow wanted peace but would fight “however long it takes”. “We don’t want war, but we’re ready to fight for a year, two, three, however long it takes. We fought Sweden for 21 years. How long are you ready to fight?” he told the Ukrainian delegation. The Great Northern War, fought between Russia and Sweden, lasted for 21 years, from 1700 to 1721 during the rule of Peter...

Ed just wrote an excellent piece on the "Biden Nightmare" being an anvil around the neck of the Democrats. And it is true that both the media and the Democrats have taken a major hit in their approval ratings, and that some Democrats and left-leaning Independents have reconsidered their allegiance to both. And yet, many of those people who say they have lost trust in these institutions are still accepting their characterizations of what Trump is doing. This phenomenon is called the Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect. The Gell-Mann amnesia effect is a cognitive bias describing the tendency of individuals to critically...

The newly elected Pope Leo XIV has suggested that the Vatican could host high-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, as Istanbul talks were watered down following Russian President Vladimir Putin's refusal to come face to face with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. According to Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin's statement on Friday, the supreme pontiff plans to "if necessary, provide the Vatican, the Holy See, as a direct meeting (place) between the two sides." Parolin has also expressed his disappointment with the talks in Turkey, which took place on Friday. "It's all tragic because we hoped that a...

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...