Free Republic

While future guests of the White House will be having a ball in its forthcoming ballroom, for which demolition began on Monday, the massive renovation isn’t the first of its scale at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Since its debut in 1800, and reconstruction in 1817, the presidential residence has seen a number of major facelifts.

President Trump on Wednesday showed off a model of what may be his next Washington, D.C., development project, an arch that resembles the Arc de Triomphe in Paris and is being referred to informally as the "Arc de Trump." The president showed off a model of the arch at a White House dinner Wednesday night for a group of wealthy donors who are funding his White House ballroom project. Mockups he displayed bore the caption "Independence Arch." "It's going to be really beautiful. I think it's going to be fantastic," Trump said, as he held a model of the arch....

DC ATTACKERS GO FREE, SHOWING LIMITS OF TRUMP CRIME CRACKDOWN. District of Columbia Superior Court Judge Kendra Briggs was quite understanding with the 15-year-old who had pepper-sprayed a man while a friend pummeled him, and while others in her group tried to steal his car.

NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The nation’s leadership called the new rules “common sense” to help regulate a “very disruptive” press. News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release. Many...

President Trump and FBI Director Kash Patel will deliver a press conference together in the Oval Office this afternoon. The topic of the presser remains unclear at this time, but this comes as the Trump Administration has said it is investigating and planning to take action against the violent leftwing terror network, Antifa. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed to The Gateway Pundit last week that the Trump Administration is “aggressively” investigating the Soros and far-left terror-sponsoring organizations that are funding Antifa and violent riots in liberal cities like Portland and Chicago. The FBI, Homeland Security, and even the...

Key Points A federal judge blocked the Trump administration, for now, from firing federal workers during the ongoing government shutdown. The order came five days after the administration issued reduction-in-force notifications to more than 4,000 federal workers.

Today President Trump, exhausted from his historic peace-making journey in Israel, returned to the White House to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Charlie's widow, Erica Kirk, on what would have been Charlie's 32nd birthday. Click on link to view the program, which begins around 1:08:40 on the video. The thread below will also contain an outpouring of tribute memes and toons gathered in this month since his untimely death. RIP

The Pentagon is telling beat reporters to sign restrictive new rules by Tuesday or surrender their press passes by Wednesday. Many news organizations are rejecting the ultimatum and saying they will not sign. The Pentagon Press Association, a body that represents the beat reporters, says the new policy championed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “gags Pentagon employees and threatens retaliation against reporters who seek out information that has not been pre-approved for release.” In a statement on Monday, the association said that “potential expulsion from the Pentagon should be a concern to all.” Last month, Hegseth’s press office outlined new...

Former President Barack Obama stated that President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to quell crime in Democrat-run cities is “inherently corrupting,” arguing that he would have received a different reaction from conservative media if he had sent the military into Texas during his tenure. Obama spoke with left-wing comedian Mark Maron for the final episode of his long-running podcast, published Monday, in which he shared several of his grievances about how Trump has been leading the country. “When you have military that can direct force against their own people, that is inherently corrupting. And so when you now...

Agencies have been shuttered going on three weeks with no end in sight as the White House and congressional Democrats continue their standoff.The ongoing government shutdown will collide with the U.S. economy this week, as missed paychecks and the absence of billions of dollars of government services reverberate beyond federal workers and sting the broader public.President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress remain deadlocked heading into a third week of shuttered federal agencies. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but lack the votes in the Senate to defeat a filibuster of legislation to fund ongoing operations. Democrats insist that Trump...

The Washington Post reviewed leaked audio from four off-the-record lectures the tech investor delivered in San Francisco over the past month that fused beliefs about religion and technology.Tech billionaire Peter Thiel recently warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of technology or artificial intelligence are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures on Christianity that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future, according to recordings reviewed by The Washington Post.In the four, roughly two-hour lectures, which began last month and culminated Monday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Thiel laid out his religious views to...

House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed on Fox News this morning that the Democrats will likely keep the government shut down for more than another week until after a scheduled “No Kings” protest against the Trump Administration on October 18. The shutdown is entering its tenth day on Friday as Democrats continue to vote against reopening. They are demanding taxpayer-funded healthcare for illegals, continued funding for leftwing PBS propaganda, and $1.5 trillion in additional spending. The No Kings group is planning its demonstration on the National Mall in DC, and "Some of the House Democrats are selling T-shirts for the event,"...

His Gaza agreement, though still fragile, adds to an unprecedented peacemaking record.Not only does Donald Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but there has arguably never been an American president who deserved it more.Four of his predecessors have won the prize. Barack Obama won seven months into his presidency essentially for not being George W. Bush — and even he said he didn’t deserve it. Woodrow Wilson won for creating the League of Nations, which proved to be a feckless disaster that the United States never even joined. Theodore Roosevelt won for ending a single conflict, the Russo-Japanese War, which...

What in the Benjamin C. Bradlee is going on with The Washington Post editorial board? After shocking the internet by conceding that Obamacare was really just an expensive mess, the newspaper seems to have red-pilled itself hard again. The Post once again tackled the ongoing political standoff between the GOP and Democrats over the Schumer shutdown, surprisingly chastising liberal lawmakers for being stubborn by continuingly voting down the Republican clean continuing resolution (CR). Then came a jaw-dropping admission from the liberal newspaper: “The government is too big. There is plenty of fat to cut.” But the newspaper even took it...

A 41-year-old man was arrested on Sunday outside the Cathedral of Saint Matthew the Apostle in Washington, D.C., on charges of possessing a Molotov cocktail and making threats to kidnap or injure people, according to police. The incident comes one week after a man rammed his pickup truck into the front of a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc, Michigan, and opened fire with an assault rifle, killing four worshipers and injuring eight others. The suspect was killed in a shootout with police after he set the chapel on fire, burning it to the ground, authorities...

Deep State prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia are leaking again – this time they are trying to defend Letitia James. A top prosecutor in the Eastern District of Virginia is refusing to charge corrupt New York Attorney General Letitia James. According to MSNBC, Elizabeth Yusi, a senior prosecutor who oversees criminal cases in the Norfolk office, is claiming there is ‘no probable cause’ that Letitia James committed mortgage fraud. TGP has extensively and exclusively reported on Letitia James’ mortgage fraud via Joel Gilbert: Big Development: Is Letitia James Guilty of Mortgage Fraud? Mortgage Fraud Alert: Did Letitia James...

It seems hardly a day goes by without some sort of attack or attempted attack, and not even houses of worship are excluded from the target lists of various wackos. On Sunday morning, a possible terror attack on Washington, D.C.'s St. Matthew's Cathedral was thwarted with the arrest of a man outside the cathedral. The man was in possession of what appeared to be fireworks and "vials of liquids."A man was arrested outside of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle Sunday morning before Red Mass started, according to D.C. police.Officers were assigned at the cathedral early Sunday morning for...

A 41-year-old New Jersey man was arrested outside Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Sunday for allegedly possessing a Molotov cocktail, authorities said. Louis Geri, of Vineland, had set up a tent on the steps of the Cathedral, which was due to hold its annual Red Mass, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said in a news release. Red Mass is a Catholic Mass that celebrates the start of the judicial year and offers prayers for wisdom, counsel, and fortitude for judges, lawyers and public officials. Officers assigned to a detail for the Red Mass spotted Geri and his tent...

WASHINGTON—In the parking lot of the Smithsonian’s smallest museum, 18 of 29 spots were full. But inside, there were no couples on first dates or hordes of tourists milling about the exhibits. In fact, there were no visitors there at all. Just 18 employees waiting for something to do. On a sunny, late-summer day, this reporter stood outside the museum — located in a Washington, D.C., slum, far from any tourists — from noon to 3:00 p.m., ready to count visitors. But there was no one to count. At 12:28 p.m., one woman entered while screaming into her cell phone,...

Conservative activist Cam Higby was attacked outside Washington’s Union Station this week while attempting to engage in peaceful political discussions. The incident comes as Higby launches his “Fearless Tour,” an effort he says that is inspired by the late Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated while engaging in similar dialogue. In the viral clip, a woman is first seen kneeling beside Higby, reaching for his MAGA hat. As Higby repeats, “Stop, stop, stop,” the woman, identified as Taylor Forte, grew more aggressive, standing up and trying to rip the hat from his head before knocking him over in his chair. Higby...