Free Republic

At least 10 Les Miserables cast members are expected to boycott a June 11 performance of the musical at the Kennedy Center, which President Donald Trump is planning to attend. Following the controversies at the once-prestigious Washington, D.C. performing arts center since Trump appointed himself chairman, CNN reports that the musical’s cast was given the choice of whether or not to perform that night, with the performance doubling as a big-ticket fundraiser for the Kennedy Center.

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Fox News, Republican lawmakers, and countless prominent right-wing commentators across social media are pushing a ridiculous lie about the Biden administration funding the media. It started on Tuesday when staff at Politico reportedly didn’t receive their paychecks on time because of technical glitch. The right began speculating that the delay was related to Musk taking a blowtorch to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with many pointing out that the government had ferried $8.2 million to Politico over the past year.

President-elect Donald Trump’s choice to “Make America Healthy Again” as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services — petitioned the government to stop use of all Covid-19 vaccines in the heart of the pandemic. Kennedy petitioned the Food and Drug Administration in May 2021, asking that the agency revoke authorization for Covid vaccines, The New York Times reported Friday. Kennedy has a long history of spreading vaccine conspiracy theories, and was a vocal opponent of preventative measures during the pandemic. In 2022, at a rally organized by his group Children’s Health Defense, he compared measures around Covid...

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will soon head President-elect Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, have repeatedly demonized undocumented immigrants. In recent days, though, Musk and Ramaswamy have both argued Big Tech firms desperately need foreign workers — generating controversy among the MAGA base. Both Musk and Ramaswamy appeared to be expressing support for H-1B visas for high-skilled workers. These visas have often been criticized by the left and right for allowing companies to rely on cheaper foreign labor. Companies also maintain significant control over such workers; it’s difficult for them to switch jobs, and if they...

Americans are deeply dissatisfied with the brutal economy, and punished Democrats over it. It happened, again: Democrats lost a winnable election to a racist, orange-makeup-wearing carnival barker, despite his odiousness, immorality, and unbridled corruption. This time, Donald Trump campaigned on an even darker agenda — the mass deportation of migrants, calls for more violent policing, and demands of retribution against his enemies — and he didn’t have to try to steal the election in the courts or via a violent coup. In the battleground states, he appears to have run the table, and he will likely win the popular vote...

Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, the Roots, Jazmine Sullivan and more will take part in Kamala Harris Election Eve rallies in Pennsylvania, the Harris-Walz campaign announced Sunday. Oprah Winfrey will also make an appearance at the Philadelphia rally on Monday, which will also include performances or remarks by artists like Gaga, Sullivan, the Roots, Fat Joe, Freeway and Just Blaze, DJ Jazzy Jeff, Adam Blackstone, and DJ Cassidy.

SPRINGFIELD, OHIO - Before Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and other prominent conservatives started talking about their city, the volunteers and leadership at St. Vincent de Paul - a Catholic social services nonprofit serving the broader community and Haitian immigrants - never felt the need for the state's Department of Public Safety to visit their welcome center, to brief the staff on emergency and worst-case-scenario protocols. That all changed earlier this month, according to Casey Rollins, executive director of the Springfield District Council of St. Vincent de Paul. On Thursday, when Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine visited their building, he brought...

Since Vice President Kamala Harris took over the Democratic ticket, she’s received support from many prominent conservatives — who are largely endorsing Harris out of their opposition to Donald Trump. They have said that the former president is amoral, crude, and “simply untenable” — so much so that they will be defecting from their own party when they vote for president in November.

From "stolen valor" to petting the wrong dog, your guide to MAGA's bumbling attempts trash the Democrats' salt-of-the-earth VP candidate With his selection as candidate for vice president, Tim Walz has burst onto the national political scene as one of the most folksy and estimable Democratic standard bearers in recent memory. Walz’s background includes having been a teacher, a football coach, a National Guardsman, a member of Congress, and one of the most accomplished progressive governors in the country. In the aftermath of the Democratic convention in Chicago, Walz is the the only member of either ticket with a positive...

Francis Ford Coppola told Rolling Stone that his intention with “Megalopolis” was to make a movie that could not be deemed “some woke Hollywood production.” The cast includes controversial actors such as Jon Voight, who has turned heads in Hollywood for his conservative views and outspoken support for Donald Trump, and Shia LaBeouf, who was accused of sexual assault in 2021. “What I didn’t want to happen is that we’re deemed some woke Hollywood production that’s simply lecturing viewers,” Coppola said. “The cast features people who were canceled at one point or another. There were people who are archconservatives and...

He will round up the homeless and send the National Guard into cities to fight crime Trump claimed last year that our “once great cities have become unlivable, unsanitary nightmares, surrendered to the homeless, the drug-addicted, and the violent and dangerously deranged.” His solution is to ban urban camping and corral the unhoused into tent cities, which will be staffed by “doctors, psychiatrists, social workers, and drug-rehab specialists.” Trump says he will pay for all this with the money the U.S. saves from “ending mass, unskilled migration.”

Donald Trump’s comments on Wednesday questioning whether Vice President Kamala Harris is Black were not an off-the-cuff expression of racism, but part of a broader campaign strategy that Trump and many of his key lieutenants plan to make a heavy focus of their final three-month sprint to retake the White House.Asked on Wednesday about Republicans accusing Harris of being a “DEI hire” or “DEI candidate,” Trump responded by questioning Harris’ racial identity. “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened...

A new article published in Rolling Stone magazine Monday accused the United States Supreme Court of being controlled by “right-wing” dark money interests. “The Most Ridiculous, Right-Wing Supreme Court That Dark Money Could Buy,” reads the headline.The magazine’s official X account wrote, “The Supreme Court has been successfully captured by right-wing, dark money interests. The result: a court that’s in your body, working to elect Donald Trump, and in-your-face corrupt.”The author, Andrew Perez, claimed SCOTUS has reshaped “our laws and society according to their reactionary, far-right vision” over the past twenty years.Touching on the fact that the court currently has...

Is Trump planning to take revenge? Trump has long teased that he will weaponize the Justice Department against his political enemies if wins back the White House, and Rolling Stone reported last year that his team has already trained its crosshairs on Bragg. Their sights have continued to focus on the Manhattan district attorney as the case has progressed. “Mark my word: Alvin Bragg, [prosecutor] Matthew Colangelo, and many others will face criminal prosecution,” Mike Davis, a lawyer and Trump ally, posted to X, formerly Twitter, in early May. (Members of Trump’s inner sanctum have frequently discussed Davis as a...

Rep. Nancy Mace incorrectly claimed that crime is "skyrocketing" across the United States under President Joe Biden, prompting X (formerly Twitter) to issue a community note correcting her. That note was later removed by the platform. "You're seeing, since Joe Biden took office, crime skyrocketing all across the country, and especially in big cities," Mace said in a campaign video posted to X on Saturday. "You see illegal immigrants coming in, beating up cops… You're seeing crime skyrocket." But data from the FBI shows that crime decreased significantly in 2023, including a 13 percent decline in murder, a 6 percent...

Russia’s leading opposition figure, Alexei Navalny, who united people in his fight against Vladimir Putin’s regime, died Friday in a remote Arctic prison, where he was serving a decades-long sentence on trumped-up charges. He is survived by his wife, two kids, and the millions of Russians at home and abroad who yearned for a better future. The Kremlin’s propaganda machine, now in overdrive, lists the cause of death as a blood clot, spinning a narrative that Putin — ever-so-popular with the people — didn’t need Navalny to die. In his 25 years in power, Putin has killed journalists, politicians, oligarchs,...

After a year of getting roundly humiliated by Donald Trump and failing to unseat him as the leader of the Republican Party, Ron DeSantis finally dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House. But while the former president publicly retired his “DeSanctimonious” nickname, Trump has privately made clear over the past two weeks that he’s not ready to let go of his grudge against the Florida governor and former ally. One of the sources, who has spoken to the ex-president about this topic recently, bluntly characterizes Trump’s attitude on DeSantis’ future as wanting to...

Mojo Nixon, the unapologetically brash musician, actor, and radio DJ, died of “a cardiac event” on Wednesday, Feb. 7, his family confirmed to Rolling Stone. He was 66. Nixon was aboard the Outlaw Country Cruise, an annual music cruise where he was a co-host and regular performer. “August 2, 1957 — February 7, 2024 Mojo Nixon. How you live is how you should die. Mojo Nixon was full-tilt, wide-open rock hard, root hog, corner on two wheels + on fire…,” his family shared in a statement to Rolling Stone. “Passing after a blazing show, a raging night, closing the bar,...

Rolling Stone led leftist celebrations of Henry Kissinger's death with a brutal headline that labeled him a 'war criminal' and declared 'good riddance' to the 100-year-old statesman. The outlet published a skewering obituary by Spencer Ackerman last night in which they said Kissinger's legacy should only be his 'confirmed kills'. 'Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies,' read the headline. Ackerman compared Kissinger to domestic terrorist Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber who killed 168 people, and said: 'The infamy of Nixon's foreign-policy architect sits, eternally, beside that of history's worst mass murderers.' Leftists applauded Rolling...

Donald Trump wanted to pull the United States out of NATO during his first term, but was repeatedly talked out of it by senior administration officials. For a possible second term in the White House, the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner is already discussing how he could actually get it done, if his demands aren’t met by NATO. He and his policy-wonk allies are also gaming out how he could dramatically wind down American involvement to merely a “standby” position in NATO, in Trump’s own words. When the former president has privately discussed the United States’ role in the transatlantic military...