Free Republic

For months, Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been under intense pressure from scores of its own members to demonstrate more robust support for Palestinians, especially in Gaza. But a terrorist attack at a synagogue on Thursday in Manchester, England, which led to the deaths of two people during prayer services on Yom Kippur, exposed a competing political reality for Mr. Starmer: the growing anger among Jews in Britain who believe his government is doing far too little to protect them from hate and antisemitism. The police have said the synagogue attack was carried out by Jihad al-Shamie, a...

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...

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...

Texas Republicans redrew the lines for House races in 2026. For one Houston district, that means two elections in the next few months using two different maps, with a generational fight to come.First came the Republican gerrymander in Texas. Now comes the Democratic chaos in Houston. When Republican lawmakers, at the behest of President Trump, successfully redrew the congressional map of Texas this summer, the explicit aim was to grab as many as five U.S. House seats from the Democrats to try to preserve the Republican majority in the 2026 midterm elections. But well before then, the repercussions are being...