Free Republic

Luigi Mangione was roughed up by a group of transgender women during a wild night out in Thailand in the months before he allegedly gunned down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a new report claims. The 27-year-old accused assassin allegedly bragged to friends over WhatsApp about his raucous nightlife backpacking through Asia before he returned to the US in July 2024 and allegedly shot Thompson that December, the New York Times reported Tuesday. In one eyebrow-raising message, Mangione claimed he had been beaten up by seven “ladyboys” — a colloquial term for transgender women — in Bangkok and shared a photo...

Rising outrage by families of 9/11 victims and FBI agents involved in the original World Trade Center bombing investigation, along with attacks from political rivals and questions from the one or two media outlets not in the tank for his campaign, forced Zohran Mamdani to answer why he had campaigned at the Al-Taqwa Mosque, which had been under NYPD surveillance, and tweeted a photo of himself with Imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted coconspirator in the World Trade Center bombing. And Mamdani’s response was accusing critics of ‘Islamophobia’. “The same imam met with Mayor Bloomberg, met with Mayor De Blasio, campaigned...

Democratic social media influencer Harry Sisson told “Piers Morgan Uncensored” host Piers Morgan on Tuesday that he found no humor in the viral AI-generated video of President Donald Trump dumping a brown substance on him. The president posted the video on Truth Social Saturday, which consisted of Trump donning a crown and piloting a fighter jet over a “No Kings” protest, appearing to dump feces on demonstrators, particularly Sisson. When Morgan asked Sisson on the show whether he laughed as he initially watched it, the Democrat said he did not, saying it isn’t humorous for a U.S. president to post...

What drives Trump’s politics is nostalgia for the age of coal, when dirty fuel and no environmental regulations created his version of a great America.Arguably, no technology freed the world from the drudgery and cold of premodern times more than coal. It fueled the Industrial Revolution and rising standards of living that transformed what a human life meant after 1800. The cost of this freedom soon meant slaughtered workers, rising carbon dioxide levels, and the threat of planetary ecological catastrophe. Today, arguably no technology dooms the world’s future more than coal, with its environmental destruction, pumping of carbon dioxide into...

Graham Platner, the Maine Democratic Senate candidate backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), wrote in 2020 that he had an "antifa supersoldier" label on his "armor," according to an archived post reviewed by Axios. Why it matters: Progressives have elevated Platner as one of their top candidates in next year's midterm elections, but his old Reddit posts have thrown his campaign into turmoil. Platner is running to unseat Sen. Susan Collins, Senate Democrats' top Republican target next year. The contest for the Democratic nomination between Platner and Maine Gov. Janet Mills — who's preferred by Democratic Party leaders — already...

Watching the “No Kings” protests, a friend commented: “Democracy dies when the other side wins. Another rule they wouldn’t want to have turned back on them.” That does seem to be the animating spirit not only of the various marches around the country, but of the entire anti-Trump resistance. President Donald Trump’s crime isn’t anything he’s said, or done, or even believed (which, all too often, anti-Trump protesters can’t cogently describe anyway). It’s that he won, and he represents the other team. As Batya Ungar-Sargon put it: “The ‘No Kings’ rally isn’t protesting Trump but rather the agenda the majority...

Unicorns are supposed to be rare and mythical. But at Saturday’s No Kings protests I saw the largest outbreak in America outside a Lisa Frank store. They were everywhere, but I was surprised to see almost a dozen of them down in New Braunfels, Texas. As at many of the No Kings protests across the country, attendees embraced the example set by the taunting frog outside Portland’s ICE facility and came in outfits that you could find threatening in only the most silly and specific of contexts: Cookie Monster was there.But you don’t pass up a chance to meet a...

By the time the Pilsen Food Pantry opened on a recent morning, Ulysses Moreno had been there for two hours — with a line of people behind him that snaked around the corner. “This is a lifeline for me,” said Mr. Moreno, 39. He had lost his construction job a few days earlier, and with three teenagers at home, he wanted to make sure he could stock up. “Our food budget doesn’t stretch as far as it used to.” A few miles away, on Chicago’s glitzy Magnificent Mile, luxury hotels are bustling. Jewelry stores and designer boutiques do brisk business....

Virginia Republicans scored a monumental victory in 2021. After 12 years of sustained statewide losses, the party emerged from the wilderness and swept the three statewide races that year, led by outsider Glenn Youngkin, who became the commonwealth’s first Republican governor since Bob McDonnell left office in 2014.Virginia’s gubernatorial elections are unique in American politics in that no other state makes its governor a lame duck the moment he is sworn in, as term limits prohibit consecutive terms. No Virginia governor has ever run for reelection as an incumbent, although two governors have succeeded in winning nonconsecutive terms.The commonwealth’s proximity...

Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the “hate America” depiction advanced by senior members of the party. Instead of provocation, there were marching bands, huge banners with “we the people” references to the US constitution, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance. It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal...

TRENTON — New Jersey Democrats and prominent state leaders have expressed concern that Black and Hispanic voters — historically forming the backbone of the party — may not turn out for Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D) in her quest to succeed term-limited Gov. Phil Murphy (D). Some have chalked up the apathy as lingering from last year’s election between former Vice President Harris and President Trump, as well as years of failed outreach between the two parties. Others say Sherrill simply isn’t doing enough to court their votes.“I believe that although our next governor has to represent the entire state —...

More than 2,700 “No Kings Day” demonstrations are scheduled nationwide Saturday, four months after the first protests drew five million people. Organizers say Trump’s actions have escalated since June, including expanded immigration raids, prosecutions of political opponents and pressure on universities. Trump allies brand them “anti-American” When millions of demonstrators took to the streets in June for “No Kings Day” — depicting President Trump as a wannabe monarch intent on violating American democratic norms — it was still fairly early in his administration. The immigration raids in Los Angeles were just getting under way and Trump had deployed military troops...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Protesting the direction of the country under President Donald Trump, people gathered Saturday in the nation’s capital and communities across the U.S. for “ No Kings ” demonstrations that the president’s Republican Party disparaged as “Hate America” rallies.With signs such as “Nothing is more patriotic than protesting” or “Resist Fascism,” in many places the events looked more like a street party. There were marching bands, a huge banner with the U.S. Constitution’s “We The People” preamble that people could sign, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance in Portland,...

A spokesman for the British government said on Friday that the government is "working with policing and other partners" to ensure a soccer game between Aston Villa and Maccabi Tel Aviv can go ahead next month "with all fans present". "No one should be stopped from watching a football game simply because of who they are," the spokesperson said, as quoted by Sky News. "The government is working with policing and other partners to do everything in our power to ensure this game can safely go ahead, with all fans present. We are exploring what additional resources and support are...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The world is on track to add nearly two months of dangerous superhot days each year by the end of the century, with poorer small nations hit far more often than the biggest carbon-polluting countries, a study released Thursday found. But efforts to curb emissions of heat-trapping gases that started 10 years ago with the Paris climate agreement have had a significant effect. Without them Earth would be heading to an additional 114 days a year of those deadly extra hot days, the same study found. The international collection of climate scientists World Weather Attribution and the...

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...

Yes, we trash can. President Barack Obama’s austere new presidential library is getting roasted with comparisons to the Death Star, garbage bins and other domineering monoliths in a hilarious social media thread sparked by Sen. Ted Cruz. “Locating the Death Star in Chicago was a bold move,” Cruz (R-Texas) wrote on X Tuesday while reposting a video of the latest work on Obama’s Chicago presidential center. The facility, a slab of concrete and granite rising 225 feet above Chicago’s Jackson Park, has faced ridicule from critics since its design was first unveiled nearly 10 years ago — and the peanut...

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...

“China’s stance is consistent,” the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”China signaled Sunday that it would not back down in the face of a 100% tariff threat from US President Donald Trump, urging the US to resolve differences through negotiations instead of threats. “China’s stance is consistent,” the Commerce Ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.” The response came two days after Trump threatened to increase the tax...

This Saturday, mutants from coast to coast will assemble outside the basements and Pokémon clubs for the first time…since the last time this coalition of unlovable virgins and elderly, unliked parents gathered together to fool themselves into thinking they might not die alone and be eaten by a pet or a swarm of rats living under the hoarded mementos they haven’t been able to throw out since they peaked in high school. If that sounds cruel, good. These people have wasted more Saturdays this year than they’ve had visits from family or friends in the last ten. But they’re getting...