Free Republic

President Trump continues to walk back his original tariff assault, and markets are pleased. They rose again Wednesday after Mr. Trump said he won’t fire the Federal Reserve Chairman and is likely to retreat from his highest China tariffs. Is this Mr. Trump’s François Mitterrand moment? Readers of a certain age will recall how the French Socialist President swept into power in 1981 promising a far left agenda of government control over the private economy. The market reaction was brutal. Within a year he had put socialism on pause and by 1983 he had abandoned most of it. He went...

After the 29-year-old Kilmar Abrego Gracia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, made the first appearance since his arrest, US President Donald Trump took to social media to share an alleged altered photo of Kilmar's hand and linked it to the MS-13 gang, stating he is “not fine and innocent”. The photo of Abrego Garcia w/Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) from Thurs clearly shows no “MS-13” tattoo shop on either hand - nor in earlier photos”. Another said, ”Why did Donald Trump just lie to the American people even more about Kilmar Ábrego García being a gang member? Just...

VICE President JD Vance has fumbled college football's biggest award.

We all know that President Donald Trump has the capacity to say stupid things every now and then, which is not (by the way) unique to him. Joe Biden took non compos mentis and babbling idiocy to a whole new level, and then of course there was Kamala. But I digress. Back to Trump. During his first administration, for instance, the dumbest things President Trump both said and did were in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic. On April 23, 2020, during a White House coronavirus task force briefing, Trump made comments that sparked widespread mockery (deserved in my...

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) endorsed Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears (R) for governor on Monday ahead of the state’s gubernatorial race in 2025. “Winsome has been an outstanding Lt. Governor, and she will be a great governor,” Youngkin wrote in a post on X. “She has been an outspoken advocate for commonsense conservative principles and policies, a passionate voice for our military and veterans, and a relentless advocate for educational freedom and economic opportunity. She brings the fighting spirit of a Marine to the office every single day,” he said. Sears was elected lieutenant governor in 2021 when Youngkin was...

In his future policies, including those on the Russian track US President-elect Donald Trump will rely on the commitments to the forces that brought him to power, rather than on election pledges, Russian presidential aide Nikolay Patrushev told the daily Kommersant in an interview. "The election campaign is over," Patrushev noted. "To achieve success in the election, Donald Trump relied on certain forces to which he has corresponding obligations. As a responsible person, he will be obliged to fulfill them." He agreed that Trump, when he was still a candidate, "made many statements critical of the destructive foreign and domestic...

[T]he 20-year-old gunman once mocked him over his support of former President Donald Trump and had a general disdain for mainstream politicians across the political aisle. brought up the fact that I'm Hispanic and, you know, I'm for Trump. And he said, 'Well, you're Hispanic, so shouldn't you hate Trump?'" Vincent Taormina told Fox News Digital Tuesday. "No. He's great. He was a great president. He called me stupid – or insinuated that I was stupid."

Fifty-six years ago in August 1968, Richard Nixon achieved what The New York Times called “the greatest reversal of fortune in American political history.” Times columnist James Reston went further, calling it “the greatest comeback since Lazarus.” This from a newspaper, along with The Washington Post, that hated Nixon, as they now hate Donald Trump. How did he do it and could presumptive Republican presidential nominee and former president Trump learn anything from Nixon’s seeming transformation? First, the parallels between Nixon and Trump are striking. Nixon, like Trump, believed America was in bad shape. In 1968, crime, the war in...

Celebrity chef and World Central Kitchen founder José Andrés said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that Israel was committing a “war against humanity.” Discussing World Central Kitchen workers being killed in Gaza, Andrés said, “Every time something happens, we cannot be bringing Hamas the question. I think the IDF knows better than anybody that they can be a better army. There should be protocols. There should be rules of engagement, that somebody has to be making sure that the happen in a war zone, is way too many cases now of humanitarians dying.”

"A district the Republicans should have won." That's how, on today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough described yesterday's special election in New York's 3rd district, won by the Democrat, Tom Suozzi, who represented the district from 2017 to 2023, and so was the virtual incumbent in the race. He won the district in 2018 by 59-41 percent, and in 2020 by 56-43. The election was held to fill the seat vacated by serial fabulist Republican George Santos, only the third person since the Civil War to be expelled from the House. There was surely significant voter sentiment wanting to punish Santos...

House Republicans nominated House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) for Speaker on Tuesday, making him the third GOP lawmaker who will attempt to get 217 votes to secure the gavel. The conference selected Emmer — the No. 3 House Republican — for the position in a secret ballot during an internal election that lasted three hours, choosing him over six other candidates vying for the job. Two Republicans withdrew their names from the race before voting began. Emmer, 62, will now take his nomination to the House floor, where he will have to muster enough votes to win the gavel...

The next Republican debate will be moderated by Dana Perino of FOX News, Stuart Varney of FOX Business, and Ilia Calderon of Univision. During one of the 2020 debates between Trump and Biden, Calderon said that Trump ’empowers white supremacists.’ Trump is probably not going to be at this debate, but he is the front-runner for the GOP nomination. Do you think Calderon can possibly be fair moderating a Republican debate? .... Snip..... Breitbart News reports: Second GOP Debate Co-Moderator Ilia Calderón Accused Trump of ‘Racist’ Rhetoric: He ‘Empowers White Supremacists’ Univision’s Ilia Calderón, who will co-moderate the second Republican...

Former Yale University volunteer and researcher Bandy Lee has lost yet another lawsuit against the school in relation to the non-renewal of her agreement with her. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a prior ruling that found Yale acted lawfully when it decided not to renew an agreement with Lee, who had an unpaid role at the Ivy League university. Lee (pictured) has not “adequately alleged a promise that Yale would not decline to renew her appointment on account of her public statements,” the three-judge panel ruled. The decision went on to review Lee’s claims and explain why...

The Drudge Report, Matt Drudge’s right-leaning news aggregator ran a headline on Friday declaring former President Donald Trump threatened Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg in a Thursday Truth Social post, which Trump deleted on Friday afternoon.

Over the last 24 hours, fans of ex-President Donald Trump have sat huddled in their chairs, waiting with bated breath for a supposed announcement the once tweeter-in-chief promised would blow their socks off. He posted a video to his Truth Social page showing an image of him in a kind of superhero garb, sporting pecs he most certainly does not have, as laser beams shoot from his eyes. What could this mean? What apocalypse was coming? On Thursday the grand surprise was finally revealed and it was nothing but another horrific NFT project that, in Trump’s words, featured “amazing ART...

Former Sen Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), who appeared in a new campaign ad for Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) released Tuesday, said that Cheney is “not after Trump or hating Trump.” The former Wyoming senator, who made those remarks to NBC News in an interview, argued “she is stating what is obvious to many Americans: That this is a wrecking ball of democracy.” Simpson – well-known within Wyoming after serving in the upper chamber for 18 years, including as the assistant Republican leader – also criticized former President Trump and told the network he would not be voting again for the former...

Vaccination reduces the risk of dying or being hospitalised with Covid-19 by 90%, a French study of 22.6 million people over the age of 50 has found. The research published on Monday also found that vaccines appear to protect against the worst effects of the most prevalent virus strain, the Delta variant. “This means that those who are vaccinated are nine times less at risk of being hospitalised or dying from Covid-19 than those who have not been vaccinated,” the epidemiologist Mahmoud Zureik, who oversaw the research, told Agence France-Presse. The study – the largest of its kind so far...

A pre-print study which claimed that there is a 1 in 1,000 risk of contracting a heart inflammation condition known as myocarditis has since been retracted due to a calculation. The study which was conducted by researchers at The University of Ottawa Heart Institute, was featured in numerous blogs and social media posts as proof that the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe for use. “New Study Shows 1 in 1000 Develop Heart Inflammation After Covid Vaccination; Myocarditis and Other Related Heart Conditions Have Increased Death Rate Within 5 Years,” the headline of an article published on September 21 on The Gateway...

Comedian Horatio Sanz allegedly groomed and sexually assaulted an underage superfan at a "Saturday Night Live" party — as cast members looked the other way, the woman claims in a lawsuit filed Thursday. The unnamed Pennsylvania teen, who was 17 at the time, was running an "SNL" fan site in May 2002 when Sanz allegedly took her on a limo ride then "digitally penetrated her genitals" at a post-show bash, according to the lawsuit, filed in Manhattan Supreme Court. The girl first met Sanz at age 15 — when he was 31 years old — in 2000 after he invited...

"Who Drew The Map of Canada??" - Jim Gaffigan Stand Up