Free Republic

FBI Director Kash Patel is facing withering criticism from an alliance of active-duty and retired agents and analysts, days after the White House denied media reports that the president is about to fire him. A troubling new report card on the first six months of Patel’s leadership concludes he is “in over his head” and his deputy, Dan Bongino, is “something of a clown,” according to the alliance, which in two previous reports warned about crippling DEI and politicization of the FBI during the Biden administration. The Patel-led FBI is described in the 115-page report as a “rudderless ship” and...

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Monday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the second, follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September following a bombshell Washington Post report that claimed he ordered the military to “kill everybody.” Leavitt told reporters at the White House press briefing that Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out the second strike, which reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel after an initial strike. “President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have made it clear that presidentially designated narco-terrorist groups are subject to lethal targeting...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing bipartisan scrutiny over his reported order to strike a boat in the Caribbean a second time, killing two survivors who were clinging to the ship’s wreckage on Sept. 2. The Washington Post reported Friday that Hegseth issued an order to “kill everybody” after the initial strike, the first of what is now more than 20 such attacks, did not immediately kill all 11 of the people on board the vessel, leading the Special Operations commander overseeing the attack to order a second strike. Some Democrats and a senior Republican said Sunday the strike was...

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...