Free Republic

There’s no end in sight for the current government shutdown, which entered its third week on Wednesday. While Democrats are clinging to their $1.5 trillion demands—and Republicans, for once, are refusing to capitulate—there has been a palpable shift in the government shutdown state of play. This week, Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla., joins “The Signal Sitdown” to discuss the evolving dynamics of shutdown politics. “Historically it should be a surprise,” that Democrats have opted to shut down the government, Haridopolos told The Daily Signal. “The Democrats historically have always got along with a clean [continuing resolution],” he added. That’s especially the...

The United States government shutdown drags on, marking a pivotal moment in America’s fiscal and constitutional history. President Donald Trump, the negotiator-in-chief, isn’t blinking. He’s swinging the axe at bloated, Democrat-run bureaucracies that have taken trillions from hardworking Americans for decades. While Nancy Pelosi and her party claim "chaos" and Trump is turning crisis into clarity — freezing $26 billion in blue-state pork, halting green-energy pet projects and directing departments to prepare reduction-in-force plans as part of a broader review of spending and accountability. Those plans are now in motion: the Office of Management and Budget confirmed that federal layoffs...

A long weekend away from Washington, D.C., did little to soften Senate Democrats’ resolve as they again blocked an effort to reopen the government for an eighth time Tuesday. The beginning of mass firings promised by the Trump administration and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Russ Vought over the weekend also failed to sway Senate Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. One pressure point was alleviated for both sides, however, with President Donald Trump’s directive to move money around at the Pentagon to pay military service members. Their paychecks are due Oct. 15. Still, another...

ATLANTA — An initiative by insurance companies to reduce high-cost doctor visits could cause physicians to abandon private practice and work for big hospital chains, independent practitioners are warning. They say the trend could drive up patient costs. Cigna implemented a policy last week to flag bills that appear to be too high. The insurance company may reduce payouts by one billing level “when the encounter criteria on the claim does not support the higher-level” payment code, the new policy says. Dr. David Eagle, vice president of the American Independent Medical Practice Association (AIMPA), expects the new cost containment approach...

The Trump administration revealed in a court filing that more than 4,000 federal workers were fired Friday as a result of the ongoing partial government shutdown. The mass layoffs will affect government workers in at least seven Cabinet-level agencies, according to the document filed in the District Court for the Northern District of California, where federal employee labor unions are suing to stop the Trump administration from downsizing amid the lapse in federal funding. The bulk of the layoffs took place at the Treasury Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, where approximately 1,446 employees and up to...

A Democrat-led bid to force through a bill to pay the military during the government shutdown was blocked in the House on Friday. Democrats and some Republicans have been demanding a House vote on ensuring U.S. troops do not miss their coming Oct. 15 paycheck or any others as the government shutdown barrels into a third week. But GOP leaders have largely dismissed the request, panning it as a Democrat bid to save face after rejecting Republicans' funding bill that would have kept the military and other federal workers paid. Rep. Sarah Elfreth, D-Md., attempted to ask for unanimous consent...

WASHINGTON — The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is among the offices being permanently downsized as a result of the ongoing partial government shutdown, The Post has learned. The RIFs (reductions in force), which started Friday, will fire many of CISA’s 2,540 employees as well as thousands more within the federal bureaucracy — after President Trump repeatedly threatened to target offices cherished by Democrats if the party’s senators refused to reopen the government. In an indication of the possible scale of the RIF, CISA had planned to keep just 889 employees on duty during a shutdown while furloughing 65%...

Gold is in the middle of what looks like an unstoppable bull run. It has already punched through $4,000 an ounce. At the rate the price is rising, it may well go to $5,000 within a few weeks, and perhaps even $6,000 as the next year unfolds. There have been lots of different explanations for this, from the looming collapse of the dollar, to secret Chinese buying, to the conspiracy theories circulating on the wilder fringes of the internet, such a secret plot to re-establish the gold standard, or attempts to replace all the metal that is meant to be...

Democrats are wagering that Republican moderates will crack, but the gamble could play out in Trump’s favorThe surprising thing is not that the federal government has shut down. It would have been surprising if it did not. Each side thinks it has the cards and that it has put the other in a bad position. The result is that the budget feud could last for months, ending with a temporary armistice that satisfies no one. There is little incentive for either side to shut down the shutdown. Washington Post columnist Paul Kane notes that most Senators have little reason to...

The Senate Democrats’ campaign arm is planning a two-day getaway at a five-star resort in the heart of California’s wine country in early October — at the same time the country may be in the midst of a government shutdown — according to an invitation obtained by Politico’s “Playbook.” The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) is hosting its Napa Retreat from Oct. 13-14 at Hotel Yountville in Napa County, Politico reported Saturday. Democratic New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who has chaired the DSCC since January, circulated an invitation to the event which lists her, Democratic Maryland Sen. Angela Alsobrooks and...

The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to lift lower court rulings that have blocked President Donald Trump from firing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. The request, which was expected, came after Cook participated this week in a meeting of the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee, which decided to cut its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter percentage point. “This application involves yet another case of improper judicial interference with the President’s removal authority — here, interference with the President’s authority to remove members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for cause,” Solicitor General D. John...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, Religious Freedom and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

<p>Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.</p>

There is nothing more tragic than a life devoid of purpose. Without meaning, souls wither away. Anybody who has interacted with drug addicts whose only “purpose” is to secure another “fix” knows this to be true. The human part of those so afflicted steadily disappears as the body is overtaken by a desperate need to remain in a sedated state of oblivion. Almost every city in America has a “no-go” zone of hardcore homeless addicts who shuffle along the streets like zombies from a horror movie. The sight is surreal and a shocking reminder that even the most powerful country...

Donald Trump to Achieve the Largest Cut in Federal Workforce in 80 Years US President Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, US, onWill Oliver/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Lowell Cauffiel22 Aug 2025194 3:12 In what is being called the largest single-year cut in civilian federal employment since World War II, 2025 will end with 300,000 fewer workers employed by the United States government. New Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor told several news outlets, most recently the New York Times, that the federal workforce will drop from 2.4 million to 2.1 million employees,...

U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is looking into the federal government taking equity stakes in computer chip manufacturers that receive CHIPS Act funding to build factories in the country, two sources said. Expanding on a plan to receive an equity stake in Intel, a White House official and a person familiar with the situation said Lutnick is exploring how the U.S. can receive equity stakes in exchange for CHIPS Act funding for companies such as Micron Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing and Samsung. Much of the funding has not yet been dispersed.

I am massively excited to announce that triple-amputee Air Force veteran Brian Kolfage has been freed from prison. He is back in his home state of Florida. Brian arrived in Florida by plane on Tuesday, August 12, 2025. Having headed up the movement to get Brian freed on compassionate release, and a pardon from President Trump, I knew Brian would be freed on this date for about a month, but he told me we couldn’t say anything because leftists would try to screw up his release. It was a tough secret to keep I’ll tell you that.

When your daily life in a city is marked by a series of fearsome conversations, signs of squalor, and dangerous encounters, no rational person can call it safe.The Trump administration is confronting another major problem, so naturally, Democrats and the media are busy at work claiming the problem doesn’t actually exist or otherwise can’t be solved by any obvious solution. This time, it’s crime and disorder in Washington, D.C., something anyone who has lived there for 24 hours is appalled by.I lived there for 14 years. The decay and lawlessness are a primary reason I left.It was never worse during...

Vinay Prasad is returning to the Food and Drug Administration to resume his role overseeing vaccine, gene therapy, and blood product regulation. “At the FDA’s request, Dr. Vinay Prasad is resuming leadership of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research,” Health and Human Services spokesman Andrew Nixon told STAT on Saturday.

The Department of Health and Human Services will cancel contracts and pull funding for some vaccines that are being developed to fight respiratory viruses like COVID-19 and the flu. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary and a longtime vaccine critic, announced in a statement Tuesday that $500 million worth of vaccine development projects, all using mRNA technology, will be halted. The projects — 22 of them — are being led by some of the nation's leading pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer and Moderna to prevent flu, COVID-19 and H5N1 infections.