Free Republic

The White House has cut or paused billions in funding to Democratic-run cities and states since the federal government came to a halt.President Trump has embarked on a legally dubious campaign to weaponize the federal budget during a contentious government shutdown, halting more than $27 billion in approved funding in a bid to punish Democratic-led cities and states. Rather than broker a legislative truce or seek to ameliorate the fallout of a costly fiscal stalemate, the president has leveraged the crisis to exact revenge on rivals, slash federal spending and pressure Democrats into accepting his political demands. Since the shutdown...

President Donald Trump’s second term had already brought misery to the nation’s 2.1 million civilian federal workers: unprecedented mass layoffs, strict return-to-office requirements and more red tape regulating everything from travel to printer paper. Now, with the government shut down, 750,000 federal staffers have been furloughed and many others are working without pay, even as Trump and his top lieutenants vow to put more federal jobs on the chopping block. “When did we become the enemy?” said one National Institutes of Health employee who, like other workers interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of...

The Trump administration is planning to roll out the first tranche of bailout payments for farmers in the coming weeks, likely using billions of dollars in funding from an internal USDA account, according to three people with direct knowledge of the matter. But it won’t be enough: USDA’s Commodity Credit Corporation fund — which President Donald Trump previously tapped to provide $28 billion in farm aid during his first-term trade war with China — has just $4 billion left in the account. Trump officials, including those at the Treasury Department, are looking at how to tap tariff receipts or other...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has identified real problems, veteran officers say, but by looking back 35 years for policy cues, he risks hurting, not helping, military readiness.A ban on beards. A focus on physical fitness, and more protections for unapologetically aggressive leaders. In an unusual speech in front of hundreds of generals and admirals, and in a flurry of memorandums afterward, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined his vision of a tougher and more disciplined military, without what he called “woke garbage” getting in the way. But former military officers took issue with Mr. Hegseth’s list of policy changes, saying that...

The Trump administration has telegraphed that mass firings are coming, but officials have cautioned that such moves could violate appropriations law.Senior federal officials have quietly counseled several agencies against firing employees while the government is shut down — as President Donald Trump has suggested he will — warning the strategy may violate appropriations law, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. The officials cautioned that firings — known as RIFs, or reductions in force — could be vulnerable to legal challenges under statutes labor unions cited this...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech to top generals was supposed to serve as a rallying cry for military exceptionalism — but it didn’t land that way with many of the people it was targeting. Numerous defense officials — who watched senior brass scramble to Washington and then sit through a partisan speech from President Donald Trump and a return to old-school military standards by Hegseth — were left wondering why the event had occurred at all. “More like a press conference than briefing the generals,” said one defense official, who, like others, was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution....

Zohran Mamdani was not asking for an endorsement. This seemed wise. Because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not offering. But sitting last year, at Mr. Mamdani’s request, at a kebab house in Queens — where he shared that he would like to be mayor of New York City — the nominal very-long-shot hoped that the national very-big-shot might at least think well of the idea. “It all started in a similar way that my race had started,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez recalled at a joint rally many months later. “We don’t have an entire political establishment behind us. But we know that running is...

Ukrainian intelligence has once again intercepted communications of the Russian military, in which a commander orders fire on his own troops, according to a post by the Defense Intelligence of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense on Telegram. Soldiers of the Defense Intelligence intercepted another conversation of the Russian military in the Donetsk region. The Russian commander orders the execution of subordinates who try to retreat from their positions.

While the world’s attention has been on the war in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank may have a longer-term impact on the future of a decades-long conflict that destabilises the entire Middle East. Western powers Australia, Britain, Canada and Portugal formally recognised a Palestinian state on September 21, a reaction to Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Most of the U.N.’s 193 member states already recognised Palestine and several others now plan to do so, a shift criticized by Israel’s staunchest ally, the United States. Netanyahu says a Palestinian state would be a security threat to Israel.Palestinian Foreign Minister Varsen...

Estonia has requested a consultation with other Nato members after Russian warplanes violated its airspace on Friday. Estonia's foreign ministry condemned the incursion as "brazen". It said three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered the Estonian skies "without permission and remained there for a total of 12 minutes" over the Gulf of Finland. A Nato spokesperson said the military alliance "responded immediately and intercepted the Russian aircraft", calling it "yet another example of reckless Russian behaviour and Nato's ability to respond". Italian jets responded to the incursion under Nato's mission to bolster its eastern flank, while Finland and Sweden also scrambled...

“That is, unfortunately, the cancer known as white supremacy,” said the Texas congresswoman after learning about Kirk’s comments about her and the Democratic Party. A month before his shooting death, conservative activist Charlie Kirk attacked U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, blaming her and Democrats for being part of a “sinister” plan to replace white people in America. While discussing the issue of redistricting congressional maps, which played out dramatically in Texas last month, Kirk said on his Aug. 4 podcast show, “The great replacement of white people is far more sinister than any redistricting project.” “That is at the core...

President Trump has begun a major escalation in his long-running efforts to stifle political opposition in the United States, using the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to make the baseless argument that Democratic organizations and protesters are part of a violent conspiracy against conservative values and the American way of life.

'This shouldn’t even be a debate': Colorado students march against gun violence Denver7 was there when Jefferson County students walked out of class to demand more be done to stop gun violence in the wake of the Evergreen High School shooting By: Richard ButlerSep 12, 2025 WESTMINSTER, Colo. — Hundreds of students at Standley Lake High School walked out of class Friday afternoon, lining Wadsworth Boulevard with signs and chants calling for an end to gun violence. The demonstration comes just two days after two students were wounded in a shooting at Evergreen High School before the shooter turned the...

A bionic arm, a chicken coop and three botched arrests. As Kash Patel's reputation as FBI chief hung in the balance following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the alleged assassin's father turned him. Donald Trump on Friday announced that the suspect was finally in custody - 44 hours after the fatal shot that killed Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. A bionic arm, chicken coops and the wrong men: The wild 44-hour search that almost turned Kash Patel into a laughingstock The Assassination of Charlie Kirk: Listen to the latest on the Daily Mail podcast By JOE HUTCHISON, US...

Charlie Kirk’s accused killer, Tyler Robinson, doesn’t fit expected narratives—sparking fierce debate about race, bias, and political violence online It took less than 33 hours to identify and arrest the man suspected of shooting and killing conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at a Utah Valley University event on Wednesday (September 10). The news traveled quickly — not just through traditional media channels, but across the virtual corridors of Twitter, where an entirely different story was unfolding. The suspect’s name is Tyler Robinson. He’s 22 years old. A local. A gun owner. A practicing Christian. A self-identified conservative and registered Republican. And...

Rather than condemning violence and calling for unity, the president of the United States accused his political opposition of being accessories to murder. It is possible that, in the history of America’s radicalization spiral, the horrifying, cold-blooded assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk will be recorded as only the second-most-dangerous event of September 10, 2025. If so, the more significant development will instead have been the speech that evening by President Donald Trump. If you did not listen to Trump’s remarks, which have received only light attention from the media, you might have missed the chilling message they contained. Trump...

Kirk, like all victims of gun violence, was someone’s family member — a husband, a father, a son. He was a professed Christian and a provocateur who took his message to places that were often hostile; he welcomed a back-and-forth with those who disagreed with his views. He was a media savant who leveraged his views into the algorithms of young people, particularly men, who have been historically reluctant to engage in politics. Many people who couldn’t have picked Tucker Carlson or Candace Owens out of a police lineup knew Charlie Kirk. Turning Point USA, the political organization he co-founded...

Speaking with Rachel Maddow on Saturday night, MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin repeatedly suggested that Benjamin Netanyahu "dog-walked" President Trump into attacking Iran.Mohyeldin's dehumanizing claim was that Trump might have been unaware of Israel's intent to attack Iran, and that Netanyahu knew: "That at some point the political pressure domestically among Republicans, supporters of Israel and their base [the Joos!], are going to put this pressure on the president to get involved on behalf of Israel. Mohyeldin also suggested that Netanyahu was "running circles" around Trump. Shades of Ilhan Omar accusing Israel of "hypnotizing" the world. Those sly Jews, with their infernal...

As daily life becomes a struggle, Iranian authorities are tightening their grip, blacking out the internet and erecting more checkpoints.DUBAI — A week of Israeli strikes has upended the lives of Iranians, battering vital infrastructure like fuel depots, airports and public buildings, and shaking the population’s confidence that it could remain insulated from conflicts in the wider Middle East. Now, with President Donald Trump warning that U.S. forces could enter the fray if Iran doesn’t make significant concessions in nuclear negotiations, Iranians fear that another deadlier, even more destructive phase of the conflict could loom. “People are terrified. They don’t...

Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on Fox News Channel’s “The Will Cain Show” that the “Democratic Party has been the most effective political party in the history of the world.” Host Will Cain said, “I think you’ve got a deeper problem in the way that the left is talking about America.” Carville said, “If I take everything that they all said, it wouldn’t amount to what Mike Lee said, who’s actually a United States Senator who actually said something very harmful and very hurtful and is not apologize for it. So, I mean, we can go on. I mean,...