Free Republic

New York City officials plan to reraise a pride flag at the federal monument at Stonewall in Manhattan, setting up a potential fight with the White House at the birthplace of the modern gay rights movement nearly 60 years ago. Federal officials quietly took the flag down after the Trump administration in January issued guidance drastically limiting the types of flags that could be displayed at sites managed by the National Park Service. But Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal said in an interview Tuesday that he and other New York City-area politicians would reraise the flag at the federal monument...

Devotees of the health secretary’s Make America Healthy Again movement say they oppose the Louisiana senator’s reelection.Bill Cassidy seemed aware of the political peril when he decided, a year ago, to challenge Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s skeptical views about vaccines.“My phone blows up with people who really follow you and there are many who trust you more than they trust their own physician,” the Louisiana Republican told Kennedy during his confirmation hearing, before reluctantly voting to make him health secretary.Now, as Cassidy seeks a third term, Kennedy’s followers haven’t forgiven the senator for grilling Kennedy at that hearing or for...

"Trump, like Clinton, has not been implicated of wrongdoing, and the president has said he had a falling out with Epstein years ago."And with that brief observation by Politico on Friday by Hailey Fuchs in "DOJ announces full release of Epstein files," all their absurdly frenetic efforts last year to somehow implicate President Donald Trump via the Jeffrey Epstein files look like they came up empty. Millions of the Epstein files were released and as Politico sadly conceded, Trump was not implicated of wrongdoing (although for Clinton that might not be the case due to the Clintons refusing to testify...

The new lawsuit is part of a wave of litigation seeking fines for undocumented immigrants for failing to depart the country.The Trump administration sued a Virginia woman for almost $1 million as part of an escalating drive to get undocumented immigrants to leave the U.S. by levying court-imposed fines.The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Richmond, seeks $941,114 plus interest from Marta Alicia Ramirez Veliz for allegedly failing to leave the U.S. for more than three years after a Justice Department appeals panel ruled against her in an immigration case in 2022.Officials appear to have arrived at...

Few things better illustrate the laughably absurd levels of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has infected Politico than the accompanying screenshot (as of this writing) of three Politico magazine stories featured on the front page of that biased periodical.The screenshot reveals a trifecta of magazine stories reflecting negatively on President Donald Trump, "Trump’s Greenland Gambit Has Broken Brains Across Washington," "Europe Could Kick Trump Where It Hurts: The World Cup," and "‘They Have This Combination of Grandiosity, Narcissism and Sociopathy’."You don't have to go much further beyond the title of the first Politico Magazine story to see it is the work...

Most in the GOP are silent or backing the Trump administration, but a conspicuous few are speaking out. A small but growing number of Republicans are raising public concerns about the killing Saturday of a 37-year-old Minnesota man by federal agents.Hours after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street, one House GOP chair called for the top ICE leader and other Trump administration officials to publicly answer lawmakers’ questions. GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina called for independent probes into the shooting, with Cassidy arguing the integrity...

Politico, leaning entirely on the results of a focus group consisting of nine (count 'em, NINE) people has been able to somehow determine what they see as a big political trend out there reflected in the title of this story on Friday by Samuel Benson, "These Gen-Z Trump voters don’t want JD Vance in 2028."The subtitle reinforces what looks to be a dire (as projected by Politico based on the focus group NINE) political future for Vance: "A recent focus group of 18- to 24-year-old Trump voters suggests weaknesses for Vance among young Republicans."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage said he doesn’t like banks and will scrap interest payments British lenders receive through the Bank of England’s quantitative easing program. The Reform Party included the proposal to end the practice of the U.K. central bank paying interest on the reserves placed with it by banks in its 2024 manifesto, which it claimed would bring in up to £40 billion for taxpayers. “We are going to do it. Some of the banks won’t like it. Well, I don’t like the banks very much because they debanked me, didn’t they?” Farage said in an interview with...

The administration’s arguments that offshore wind farms present a national security risk failed to convince judges in three separate courts. President Donald Trump’s long-running quest to demolish the U.S. offshore wind sector is facing some serious blowback in federal court. Three different judges — including one appointed by Trump — last week allowed construction to resume on multi-billion-dollar offshore wind projects off the coasts of New England, New York and Virginia that the Interior Department was trying to idle. After Congress shredded incentives for wind last year and the administration imposed new permitting roadblocks, the industry’s streak of victories this...

Many of the troops and ships once at the president’s disposal have shifted to the Caribbean.The Trump administration has insisted it has numerous military options to deploy against Iran if the regime uses force against demonstrators. But that menu is far more limited than it was even a year ago. The U.S. troops and ships that were once at the president’s disposal have shifted to the Caribbean. A major American defense system sent to the Middle East last year has returned to South Korea. And administration officials say there are no plans for the movement of major assets. The president...

Sen. Rand Paul expressed concerns Sunday over President Donald Trump’s threats to bomb Iran as the Middle Eastern country sees widespread protests continue. Speaking with ABC’s “This Week,” the Kentucky Republican said he is not sure striking Iran “will have the effects intended.” “We wish freedom and liberation the best around the world, but I don’t think it’s the job of the American government to be involved with every freedom movement around the world,” Paul said.Paul also expressed concerns over how the administration would distinguish between Iranian protesters and law enforcement if Trump were to approve military action in the...

The head of U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil on Friday told President Donald Trump that Venezuela is “uninvestible” under current conditions, saying major changes were needed before his company would return to the country that has seen its crude oil resources sink into disrepair. The comments by Exxon CEO Darren Woods were a blow to Trump’s hopes that American oil majors would move quickly to make big investments in Venezuela — and cast doubt on the president’s insistence that U.S. companies are prepared to spend $100 billion or more.

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok restricted access to a much-criticized deepfake generator on social media platform X following a surge of users creating nonconsensual nude images. Grok now says that "image generation is currently limited to paying subscribers" as "this helps ensure responsible use while we continue refining things," citing "recent issues and improvements to safeguards." The chatbot has drawn scrutiny from regulators and politicians across Europe after it enabled users to manipulate pictures posted online into a series of deepfakes, including depictions of undressed minors and public figures. Swedish Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch was one of the latest...

Tim Walz wants a third term. Donald Trump and Mike Lindell want to beat him. Minnesota has been the white whale for Republicans in the Trump era. And 2026 could be the year they finally break through — if President Donald Trump and one of the most prolific peddlers of conspiracy theories about the 2020 election don’t sink their chances. Republicans are growing optimistic about their chances of unseating Democratic Gov. Tim Walz next year, as he seeks a historic third term. But Trump’s increasingly caustic attacks on Walz and disparagement of Minnesota’s Somali community — and MyPillow CEO Mike...

“Make no mistake, the blame behind the skyrocketing health care costs millions are facing today is squarely at the feet of House Republicans, and the American people know it,” DCCC Chair Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “Instead of putting forth a serious proposal to address spiking health care costs, House Republicans chose to focus on delivering massive tax breaks for the wealthiest few — never even allowing a floor vote to save the tax credits before their expiration.”It is true no vote took place before the expiration, but jitters about an electoral backlash prompted a handful of House...

Josh Gerstein of Politico is facing an avalanche of critical responses on Twitter/X over a post he published on Monday night in which he implied that Somali daycare centers might start justifiably shooting people for knocking on their doors and asking questions, under ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws. He was responding to the explosive claims made by independent citizen journalist Nick Shirley and the revelations in his recent viral video exposing hundreds of millions in alleged fraud carried out by Somali-owned daycare centers in Minnesota. Here is Gerstein’s tweet (it’s a screenshot in case he deletes it): Liberal journalists support ‘Stand...

You simply cannot hate and/or mock the Left-dominated media enough. Even Christmas is not safe from being targeted by their joyless, ham-fisted propaganda to project their own campaign of cultural subversion onto some straw man they relentlessly label the “far-right.” Politico published an eminently mockable piece, just in time for the most wonderful time of the year, titled – brace yourselves – “How the far right stole Christmas.” By “far right,” of course, the Left means anything to the right of Chairman Mao. It means any political opponent who believes in upholding God, family, and country. It means any political...

Politico is framing the celebration of Christmas as a “far-right” front in Europe, arguing that Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her party have made it a “spectacle.” Conservative social media users blasted the left-wing outlet’s Wednesday article, “How the far right stole Christmas,” authored by Rome correspondent Hannah Roberts. […] In the Christmas Eve piece, Roberts wrote that the holiday “is becoming a new front line in Europe’s culture wars,” with so-called “far-right” parties and politicians “claiming the festive season as their own.” The evidence?: Meloni’s defense of public Nativity scenes and other long-standing Christmas traditions in her majority-Catholic...

Remember how Democrats once hailed ObamaCare as a "big f---ing deal?"Nowadays, as inadvertently revealed by Politico, many Democrats have turned their backs on the 15-year-old program they have come to loathe (while urging continued funding for it) and instead increasingly demand its replacement with Medicare For All.On Sunday, Politico reporters Lisa Kashinsky and Elena Schneider revealed the deep Democrat discontent with ObamaCare in "Democrats are united in bashing GOP on Obamacare. Medicare for All could reopen a rift."The article began with how fervently many Democrats are in their desire to ditch ObamaCare in favor of the entirely government-financed Medicare For...

At least six career staff were placed on leave after DHS opened an investigation into whether they misled the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, into taking the test. At least six career staffers at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency were suspended with pay this summer after organizing a polygraph test that the agency’s acting director, Madhu Gottumukkala, failed. The Department of Homeland Security opened an investigation into whether the staff provided “false information” about the need for the test — which was scheduled after Gottumukkala sought access to certain highly sensitive cyber intelligence shared with the agency. This article...