Free Republic

Earlier today the US House of Representatives passed a last-minute spending bill to keep the government funded for an additional 45 days, narrowly averting a government shutdown that would have commenced at 12:01 a.m. The bill, spearheaded by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to pass. With a 335-91 vote, the House approved a 45-day temporary funding measure that excludes border security and $6 billion in funding for Ukraine. The bill includes provisions for disaster relief funds that likely swayed some Democrats to vote in favor. Shortly after today’s vote news broke...

A well-funded group of anti-Trump conservatives has sent its donors a remarkably candid memo that reveals how resilient former President Donald Trump has been against millions of dollars of negative ads the group deployed against him in two early-voting states. The political action committee, called Win It Back, has close ties to the influential fiscally conservative group Club for Growth. It has already spent more than $4 million trying to lower Trump’s support among Republican voters in Iowa and nearly $2 million more trying to damage him in South Carolina. But in the memo — dated Thursday and obtained by...

WRITE THIS DOWN and force yourself to remember it every day. “The Republican Party priority is to retain their business, to control the outcomes, and this has nothing to do with winning elections.” The RNC would rather lose elections and retain power, than win elections and lose operational control over the apparatus. *snip* The business of buying, selling and controlling policy, is the core operation of people within the US political system. As an outcome, the business has two wings – the RNC and the DNC. Two private corporations inside the political industry who are in place to retain the...

LAHAINA, Hawaii (FOX26) — Update: Herman Andaya has resigned from his position as Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator as of Thursday evening. Original Story: Maui Emergency Management Agency Administrator, Herman Andaya, spoke during a news conference Wednesday following the devastating fire in Maui, Hawaii. During the conference, a reporter asked if he regretted not sounding an alarm as a means of alerting those within the impacted area. His response: “I do not.”According to Andaya, the siren is mostly used for tsunamis, and sounding the alarm during the fire would have put more people in danger.“Had we sounded the siren that...

CNN has made sweeping changes to its line-up in an effort to boost its ratings - following the departure of its CEO Chris Licht. Veteran journalists Chris Wallace and Christiane Amanpour will be the new faces during weekend shows in the reshuffle at the network. Abby Phillip will take the 10pm weekday slot, while Laura Coates will take the hour later, at 11pm. Kaitlan Collins will continue to anchor her 9pm show. Collins was previously sat with Poppy Harlow and Don Lemon on the morning show, before Lemon was sacked from the company in April. CNN This Morning is now...

The Disney+ streaming service lost 300,000 subscribers in the United States and Canada in the most recent quarter — an ominous sign for the studio as it continues to pour billions of dollars into new streaming content that is flopping with viewers. To make matters worse for its fans, the Walt Disney Company is hiking Disney+’s monthly subscription price to $13.99 from $10.99 — a 27 percent increase. Last year, the price rose to $10.99 from $7.99, which means Disney+ subscribers will see their monthly bill climb a total of 75 percent in less than two years. The new price...

Next to the dictionary definition of “poetic justice” should be a picture of Megan Rapinoe’s humiliated little face after whiffing a penalty kick that helped seal the fate of the U.S. women’s soccer team.In a shootout that ended the game 5-4, Sweden defeated the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT), sending them packing from the World Cup. Of course, the blue-and-yellow-clad fans and players were ecstatic. But the next most excited observers were actually Americans — specifically the ones who, you know, like America.Rapinoe’s fan club — which includes corporate media, LGBT advocates, and the stans in the White House, among...

President Trump actually predicted the demise of the U.S. Women’s Soccer team – warning that wokeness was not a winning formula. “Woke politics takes the life and joy out of everything. Woke-ism makes you lose, ruins your mind and ruins you as a person. You become warped. You become demented​,” he said in 2021 during the speech to the Turning Point Action​ political action committee in Phoenix.​​ Trump was right. The soccer team was eliminated from the World Cup – one of their worst losses since they were beaten by that group of 15-year-old boys in 2017. There was no...

Former President Trump knocked the “woke” U.S. women’s soccer team after its loss in the round of 16 of the Women’s World Cup over the weekend. “The ‘shocking and totally unexpected’ loss by the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team to Sweden is fully emblematic of what is happening to the our once great Nation under Crooked Joe Biden,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Sunday evening. “Many of our players were openly hostile to America – No other country behaved in such a manner, or even close. WOKE EQUALS FAILURE. Nice shot Megan, the USA is going to...

The United States has crashed out of the Women's World Cup after losing a dramatic penalty shootout against Sweden. The Americans created most of the chances during the match – but were foiled at key moments by Swedish goalkeeper Zećira Mušović, who made crucial stops against Lindsey Horan and Alex Morgan. The Swedes will play Japan in the Women’s World Cup quarterfinals on Friday.

Erick Erickson’s upcoming sold-out conservative conference, The Gathering, is shaping up to be a magnet for 2024 White House hopefuls, as long as they’re not named Donald Trump. The WSB host unveiled the lineup for the three-day conference on Tuesday, which includes six top GOP presidential contenders and more than a dozen other prominent conservative figures. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former Vice President Mike Pence, U.S. Sen. Tim Scott, executive Vivek Ramaswamy, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and ex-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are all set to address the Atlanta event, which runs from Aug. 17-19.

When will shareholders ask Ford to choose between Klaus Schwab and their money? No one except the state wants them. And who cares what consumers or shareholders want? Not Ford. Back in March, I wrote that, “Ford reported that it’s going to lose $3 billion on electric cars in 2023. Unlike most automakers, Ford reports its electric vehicle numbers separately, but experts estimate that most car companies are losing similar amounts on the dead end business.” “Ford plans to make 2 million electric cars every year by 2025. That would be impressive considering that Ford only sold 61,575 of them...

Former NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio and his lesbian wife have announced their separation after almost 30 years of marriage in a deeply personal interview. De Blasio, 62, and Chirlane McCray, 68, divulged a variety of causes for their split - from Covid to the pressure of her previously declared sexuality - and said they are still going to live together in Brooklyn while seeing other people. In a notably gentle interview with the New York Times, where they were asked to disclose details of their non-divorce, de Blasio also spoke of his recent decision to start dyeing his hair....

If Republicans step back and look beyond the legal and social-media spectacle of Donald J. Trump, they'll see screaming political sirens everywhere they gaze. Why it matters: The GOP's political trouble has been unfolding slowly but unmistakably, starting even before Trump's loss to Joe Biden in 2020. First, the 2018 House elections were a disaster for Republicans: Democrats had a net gain of 40 seats to take over the House — their largest gain since the post-Watergate election of 1974. Then Trump lost the presidency. Next, Republicans blew two runoff elections in Georgia and lost control of the U.S. Senate....

Former President Donald Trump boldly proclaimed that the Republican Party is “never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush” during his Saturday speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Trump listed numerous “villains and scoundrels” from whom he hopes to liberate the United States, including globalists, communists, and the fake news media. Trump told the CPAC crowd: With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the war mongers. They are people that don’t get it, although in some cases they get it, they get it for their...

In 2020, the Air Force conducted a classified war game which showed Communist China launching a biological attack and then invading Taiwan. And we lost. “At that point the trend in our war games was not just that we were losing, but we were losing faster,” Air Force Lt. Gen. S. Clinton Hinote stated. With abysmal readiness rates that have an average of only 7 out of 10 planes operational, and down to 50% for the F-22 stealth fighter, 50% for the CV-22 Osprey and 40% for the B-1 Lancer, the Air Force isn’t even trying to win a possible...

Fending Off Weirdos on Dating Apps? Tinder Now Lets You Go Incognito (Cannot be posted.)

COVINGTON, Ky., Jan 4 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell made a rare joint appearance on Wednesday at a bridge in Kentucky in a display of bipartisanship that offers a guide to how the White House hopes to govern in months to come.... ...Both veteran politicians have political reasons for appearing together. McConnell wants credit from voters in his home state of Kentucky for the spending project, while Biden wants to highlight the on-the-ground impacts of lawmakers working together. "The country needs to see examples like this," McConnell says of the bipartisanship that led...

@ChadPergram 18 GOPers voted yes on omnibus: Blunt Boozman Capito Collins Cornyn Cotton Graham Inhofe McConnell Moran Murkowski Portman Romney Rounds Shelby Thune Wicker Young

Ukraine needs “about two billion cubic meters” of additional gas to get through the winter, President Volodymyr Zelensky told G7 nations on Monday.During a video conference he also urged the G7 to send more weapons to Ukraine, including “modern tanks” as well as “rocket artillery and more long-range missiles”. “Unfortunately, Russia still has the advantage in artillery and missiles. This is a fact. These capabilities of the occupying army are the ones to fuel the Kremlin’s arrogance,” Zelensky said.