Free Republic

Rest assured that Gov. JB Pritzker’s $1.4 million gambling win last year didn’t snatch away state tax revenue from any Illinois casino. The billionaire Democrat’s surprise windfall came from Las Vegas blackjack tables, Pritzker said Thursday, a day after his hot streak was revealed in 2024 income tax returns released by his political campaign. “I was incredibly lucky,” a smiling Pritzker said while being quizzed by reporters on his jackpot during an otherwise somber Loop press conference about the potential deployment of troops in Chicago. “You have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.” Fortune...

The Trump administration is using an imagined enemy—“antifa”—to justify turning ICE into an ultra-violent, unaccountable army invading US cities. Portlanders deploying inflatable animal costumes, a brass band, mass ukulele renditions of “This Land Is Your Land,” naked bike rides, and other tactics in their ICE protests are undermining the Trump administration’s lurid claims that Portland, Oregon, is a “war-torn” city under siege by a violent left. It’s hard to portray someone dancing in an inflatable frog or chicken costume as a terrorist. This, of course, hasn’t stopped the Trump administration from officially designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization. Secretary of...

Democrats have a problem, and his name is Hakeem Jeffries. The House Minority Leader, who supposedly represents the future of the Democratic Party, is facing a rebellion from within his own ranks that would make even Nancy Pelosi raise an eyebrow. According to an Axios survey of 113 Democratic incumbents and challengers in competitive House races, only 24 candidates are fully committed to backing Jeffries for another term. That's right: Fewer than a quarter of Democrats running in winnable races are willing to go all-in on their current leader. The numbers tell a brutal story. Twenty respondents flat-out said they...

... The elevation of environmentalism to the level of doctrine, the pseudo-pagan deification of the earth and the implication that those who do not believe in the environmental movement are heretics who need to undergo a conversion “that transforms both personal and communal lifestyles” which he equated to a conversion to Christianity and the claim that failure to participate in made it impossible for anyone to call themselves “disciples of Jesus Christ” were radical positions, but the real radicalism lay in the infrastructure of leftist political organizing. Pope Leo’s attacks on ‘climate blasphemy’ were accompanied by a meeting with “environmental...

Roughly seventy years ago, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover famously declared, “There is no organized crime in America.” Hoover’s stubborn denial of the existence of the mafia continued despite ample evidence to the contrary, from arrests to congressional testimony. Many have speculated on why Hoover maintained his stubborn denial. Perhaps, they say, he was trying to avoid the political embarrassment of long ignoring the single largest criminal network in the country. Many today seem to be adopting a Hoover-esque wilful blindness about another violent group: Antifa. Politicians and pundits are denying that the left-wing anarchist group exists, mocking President Trump’s...

Smith, who resigned from the Justice Department in January shortly before Trump returned to office as president, warned that attacks on public servants would have an “incalculable” cost on the country. “I think the attacks on public servants, particularly nonpartisan public servants — I think it has a cost for our country that is incalculable, and I think that we — it’s hard to communicate to folks how much that is going to cost us,” Smith said in an interview last week with former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman at University College London Faculty of Laws, where Weissman is a visiting...

Subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings’ bankruptcy is hitting big banks and asset managers. JPMorgan Chase on Tuesday reported a $170 million charge. One question: Did the federal government’s seal of approval for Tricolor cause investors to ignore hazard lights? Tricolor caught creditors off guard when it filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month. The Justice Department is reportedly investigating the lender for double-pledging collateral. But lapses in due diligence may also be to blame. JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon admitted Tuesday that Tricolor was “not our finest moment.” He also warned the failure could portend more problems lurking in credit markets....

WASHINGTON (AP) — For many years, American and Chinese scholars worked shoulder to shoulder on cutting-edge technologies through open research, where findings are freely shared and accessible to all. But that openness, a long-standing practice celebrated for advancing knowledge, is raising alarms among some U.S. lawmakers. They are worried that China — now considered the most formidable challenger to American military dominance — is taking advantage of open research to catch up with the U.S. on military technology and even gain an edge. And they are calling for action.“For far too long, our adversaries have exploited American colleges and universities...

Since Beijing announced a new visa to attract young science and technology graduates, a backlash has erupted online, forcing the government to respond.When the Chinese government announced a new visa to attract young science and technology talent, it advertised the move as another step toward becoming the leading scientific power, one to which people from around the globe would flock.To many in China, it was a gross mistake.In the days before and since Oct. 1, when the visa was supposed to come into effect, commenters have accused the government of inviting foreigners to steal jobs from Chinese people, at a...

The International Monetary Fund says the global economy is performing better than expected despite Trump’s tariffs, but future growth prospects are at risk.The global economy is performing better than expected amid a historic upheaval in U.S. trade policy, but President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are beginning to erode prospects for future growth, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday in its latest forecast. Global growth this year is projected at an annual rate of 3.2 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from the fund’s July forecast and 0.4 points higher than April’s, which was prepared as the president finalized his announcement of...

Trump’s unorthodox mix of pressure, power, and pragmatism shattered old diplomatic molds—delivering a rare moment of calm to the world’s most combustible region. What did Donald Trump do differently to obtain at least temporary calm in the Middle East compared to the failed efforts of past administrations, foreign powers, and the United Nations? Let us count ten different approaches. 1. Trump curtailed a considerable amount of Iranian oil income and its dispersal. He stopped, for the near future, the Iranian effort to build a bomb. Trump also allowed Israel to destroy Tehran’s air defenses, humiliate it militarily, and eliminate many...

The Washington Post revealed on Saturday that, despite fierce public condemnation of Israel by Arab governments during the Gaza war, several of those same countries secretly maintained close military and intelligence cooperation with Jerusalem. According to leaked U.S. documents obtained by the newspaper and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), at least six Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Qatar — took part in a classified regional defense framework known as the “Regional Security Construct.” Kuwait and Oman were listed as potential future partners.The mechanism, established under the coordination of U.S. Central...

The New York Times poll asked 1,313 registered respondents if they approve of Trump’s policy of “Deporting immigrants living in the United States illegally back to their home countries.”Fifty-four percent approved, including 38 percent who strongly approve.But just 24 percent — or one-in-four — strongly disapprove of the opportunity program. That bloc includes 25 percent of independents, one percent of Trump voters, and 43 percent of voters who backed Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024The New York Times poll was conducted September 22-27. Fifty-six percent of 2,413 registered voters support Trump’s policy of “Deporting all immigrants who are here illegally,”...

~As you know, I regret that Donald J Trump is susceptible to the blandishments of the Royal Family. Likewise, I regret that he seeks the validation of the King of Norway and the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. I have had little regard for the latter at least since they enNobelled the world's Numero Uno celeb terrorist and Slav rent-boy addict Yasser Arafat. By comparison, this year's winner, the little-known Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, seems a more or less deserving winner. As for Trump getting frosted out, Reuters reports: Ahead of the Nobel announcement, experts on the award had...

Brick by brick, President Donald Trump is building a wall around the world’s largest economy. As America’s tariff barriers on everyone else have gone up, so has the drawbridge, making it harder for migrants to enter the country. The president wants to turn America into a fortress that keeps out foreign incursions. In fact, he is cutting America off from the very goods and talent that helped make its economy the envy of the world. Already the damage is starting to show; once wreaked, it will not easily be reversed. That is not how investors see it. In the six...

The Illinois governor, a potential presidential candidate, is fighting the presence of National Guard troops and the activities of ICE agents in Chicago.When President Trump ordered the National Guard to Chicago last week, Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois became the latest Democrat to bear the brunt of managing an aggressive federal government. He has concluded it must be combated with a national campaign. Aside from instructing his attorney general to file a lawsuit to block troops from other states coming to Illinois, Mr. Pritzker has few formal options to resist what he described this week as an “unconstitutional invasion of...

Van Jones blames “the Jews” for media silence on Nigerian massacres—but the real reason isn’t anti-Semitic conspiracy; it’s the left’s selective outrage and ideological blind spots. Van Jones, the CNN host and commentator, recently complained that neither the global left nor the mainstream media are covering the horrific violence against Nigerian civilians by Islamic terrorists. True, they are not reporting the slaughter. Truer still, they should be. However, Van Jones went completely off the rails when he blamed “the Jews.” Or as he put it, “No Jews, no news”—a stereotyped statement as anti-Semitic as it is untrue. In truth, lots...

Summary BLS loses senior leaders as Trump targets agency's integrity About 12 of 35 senior leaders have left amid Trump's criticism Modernizing data collection suggested to improve response rates WASHINGTON, Oct 8 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's unwarranted attacks on the integrity of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics were undermining trust in economic data and had accelerated retirements of key personnel at the agency, former BLS commissioners said on Wednesday. During a discussion at the libertarian Cato Institute, Erica Groshen and William Beach, who headed the agency under presidents of both parties, said the BLS had lost 12...

The longer the government stays shut down, the shorter House Republicans' patience seems to be getting with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). Why it matters: Johnson's decision to keep his chamber on an indefinite break in the middle of a government shutdown isn't sitting well with some in his conference — and that could put pressure on the speaker to change course. From frustration over the stalled vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, to questions about whether — as Johnson argues — the chamber really has no business to attend to in Washington, GOP lawmakers are beginning to get antsy....

Alaska's City of Fairbanks Mayor David Pruhs, a Republican, conceded to Mindy O'Neall, a Democrat, in the mayoral election on Tuesday night. According to unofficial election night results made available by the city of Fairbanks, O’Neall received 1,808 votes (54 percent) and Pruhs received 1,528 votes (45.7 percent). Newsweek has contacted Pruhs and O'Neall for comment via emails sent outside regular business hours. Why It Matters The ballot in mayoral elections in Fairbanks does not list party affiliations next to candidates’ names, but Republicans have held the role in Fairbanks for nearly a decade. Pruhs, a conservative backed by local...