Free Republic

'Tis the season for Senator Rand Paul to air his Festivus grievances about government waste! It's out, and it's spectacular! We're proud that--for the 7th year straight--the report features wasteful animal tests exposed by WCW, including: 🐶 $5.2M to inject beagles with cocaine and meth (NIH) 🐕 $13.8M for Dr. Fauci’s ongoing maximum pain tick bite experiments on beagles (NIH) 🦆☣️ $1M for a dangerous USDA-CCP bird flu gain-of-function collaboration (USDA) 🦭🐬 $77M for the Navy’s outdated Marine Mammal Program (DOD) 🐁🤰$2.8M to implant bone, liver, and thymus tissue from aborted human fetuses into lab animals to create “BLT mice”...

Trump’s uncharacteristically wooden address to the nation revealed a panicked president

The ammunition boxes stacked on the stage opened up to reveal figurines of angels and an infant Jesus lying in his manger. Six actors sang plaintive carols, accompanied by readings of the brooding poetry of Kharkiv writer Serhiy Zhadan. The audience sat, transfixed by the almost unbearable intensity of the spectacle. The nativity play, performed on a recent evening at Kharkiv’s puppet theatre, was a reminder that conflict has seeped into the fabric of almost everything in Ukrainian life over the past four years. “We can’t just put on comedies and escape from reality,” said Oksana Dmitrieva, the nativity play’s...

PHOENIX — For a second day in a row, a long-brewing internal fight among MAGA influencers spilled onto the stage of Turning Point USA's first annual conference since the September slaying of Charlie Kirk, the organization's co-founder.Podcaster Ben Shapiro, speaking on the AmericaFest convention's opening night Thursday, ripped into right-wing broadcasters Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, as well as white nationalist Nick Fuentes.At the core of his argument is a case that Owens has peddled conspiracy theories, without objection from Kelly and other prominent conservatives, about Kirk's assassination. Those theories include suggestions that foreign governments —...

Summary A few Republicans join Democrats in criticizing Epstein release as inadequate Justice Department missed deadline for full Epstein file disclosure Critics say redactions fuel conspiracy theories, erode Trump support The U.S. Justice Department released a partial, heavily redacted set of Epstein-related files on December 19-20, 2025, missing a congressional deadline for full disclosure under a bipartisan law signed by President Trump in November. The release included approximately 300,000 pages of documents, photos, and materials, with extensive redactions—including entirely blacked-out sections—and featured prominent references to former President Bill Clinton but few to Trump. Criticism came from both parties: Democrats accused...

Inflation is only at 2.6% year-over-year. This means that nearly 100% of the cost of tariffs has been eaten by the foreign manufacturers and importers. Which is exactly what I’ve been arguing would happen. Let me explain what is happening: The notion that tariffs would be passed onto customers has always been laughable on its face, once you understand that manufacturing is only 20% to 40% of the price of an item for sale. The rest includes advertising, warehousing, transportation and sales markup. (Importers have high transportation costs to get the product to America, but that’s all part of replacing...

SummaryMarjorie Taylor Greene appeared on Alex Jones' show on December 16, 2025, to discuss her legislation, H.R. 3492, the Protect Children's Innocence Act, which aims to criminalize gender-affirming medical procedures (including puberty blockers, hormones, mastectomies, and genital surgeries) on minors under 18, making them felonies nationwide.She stated that the bill is scheduled for a House vote the following day after she delayed the NDAA by voting against its rule to force leadership (Steve Scalise and Mike Johnson) to schedule it. She accused Rep. Chip Roy of attempting to introduce an amendment in the Rules Committee that would limit the bill's...

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) slammed President Trump on Monday over the president’s remarks about the killings of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele. Reiner, a well-known Democratic donor and activist who had criticized Trump, and his wife were found dead in their home on Sunday in a suspected homicide. “Regardless of how you felt about Rob Reiner, this is inappropriate and disrespectful discourse about a man who was just brutally murdered. I guess my elected GOP colleagues, the VP, and White House staff will just ignore it because they’re afraid,” Massie wrote on the social platform X. “I...

President Trump referred to the late actor and director Rob Reiner as having “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” in a social-media post Monday less than a day after authorities said the Democratic activist and donor and his wife were found dead in their Los Angeles home. Trump said Reiner, a critic of the president, was “tortured and struggling” and attributed the death “to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump,...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that partisan gerrymandering will “lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence in our country,” urging restraint in the ongoing redistricting wars playing out in more than a dozen states. “I think there is the potential that when people have no representation, that they feel disenfranchised, that it can lead, it might lead to violence in our country,” Paul said in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Paul’s warning comes as state lawmakers across the country consider redrawing congressional lines at the insistence of President Donald Trump, with Democratic-led...

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem was mobbed and surrounded by a crowd of unhinged leftists after exiting a House Homeland Security Committee Hearing, where she testified on threats to the homeland and illegal immigration. Noem testified alongside National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent and FBI National Security Branch Operations Director Michael Glasheen on Thursday. She departed the hearing early to co-chair a hearing where she will receive a report from the FEMA Review Council on suggested changes to the program. Immediately when she exited the room, leftists could be heard on the hearing room’s feed screaming and interrupting the hearing. WATCH:...

Turncoat Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is earning her “traitor” nickname from President Donald Trump, posing with her new friend Susan “Medea” Benjamin, co-founder of the terrorist allied communist front group, Code Pink. Code Pink last made headlines by ambushing Trump at a D.C. restaurant in September, calling him “the Hitler of our time.”

The American Capitalist Party is beginning preparations for its first national convention. As part of general planning for 2026, the organization is also looking at establishing a state affiliate in Georgia. In its December newsletter, the party stated that it is looking to hold its national convention September 18–20 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, though details are still tentative. It would be the first national convention held by the organization since it announced its formation at LibertyCon earlier in 2025. The party plans to release additional information in the coming months. The email also outlined the agenda for the party’s December 20...

Democrats just flipped the Miami mayorship from 🟥🔜🟦. The last time democrats won Miami was 1998. Republicans are completely squandering all of the work we did to win the 2024 elections. It’s especially frustrating as democrats are raising taxes in New Jersey & Pennsylvania.

Democrat Eileen Higgins has flipped the Miami mayor’s office, defeating Republican Emilio Gonzalez and marking the latest sign of the party’s momentum heading into next year’s midterms, according to Decision Desk HQ. Higgins is the first Democrat to become mayor of Miami since 1997. She bested Gonzalez, a former Miami city manager who served on President Trump’s Homeland Security Department transition team, to succeed incumbent Mayor Francis Suarez (R). The race is technically nonpartisan.

Democrats continued their run of successes in special elections by flipping a state House seat in Georgia Tuesday, according to a projection from the CNN Decision Desk. The Democratic victory, in a district that voted for President Donald Trump by about 12 percentage points last year, comes ahead of next year’s critical midterms, when Georgians will vote in closely watched races for Senate and governor. Eric Gisler, a Democrat who owns a local olive oil store, will defeat Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest in the 121st House District, in the northeastern part of the state, near the college town of Athens....

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Tuesday for his role in the controversy surrounding the strike on a suspected Venezuelan narcoterrorist cartel boat on Sept. 2. “Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the White House are saying it did happen,” Paul said while speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “So, either he was lying to us … or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.” Paul also...

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...

“When I have a problem, I call up Marco. He gets it solved,” Donald Trump boasts about his Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. This week, Marco Rubio is putting that reputation to the test. He is the key man on the two major international fronts the United States is currently engaged in, and with two very different roles: in the negotiations over the war in Ukraine, he took the reins to balance out what was initially a clearly pro-Russian proposal and try to push through a peace plan acceptable to Kyiv; in the standoff with Venezuela, he is...