Free Republic

The nation’s largest TV station owners want Carr’s Federal Communications Commission to loosen the rules that limit how many stations a single company can operate, a goal that many conservatives have been pressing for years. But they have a formidable opponent in Trump confidant Chris Ruddy, the majority owner of Newsmax Media, who wants to keep the rules in place and now appears to be making headway with the president. “NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS,” Trump wrote Sunday on Truth Social, echoing Ruddy’s argument that removing the ownership cap would hurt conservatives. “If anything, make them SMALLER!” Since...

The number has skyrocketed in recent weeks and includes at least 20 judges appointed by Trump himself.The Trump administration’s bid to systematically lock up nearly all immigrants facing deportation proceedings has led to a fierce — and mounting — rejection by courts across the country.That effort, which began with an abrupt policy change by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on July 8, has led to a tidal wave of emergency lawsuits after ICE’s targets were arrested at workplaces, courthouses or check-ins with immigration officers. Many have lived in the U.S. for years, and sometimes decades, without incident and have been pursuing...

The White House is poised to put forward a two-year extension for the Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the month. Trump’s plan will attempt to take the healthcare issue off the table ahead of the midterm elections. Healthcare was a key part of Democrats’ successful campaign in the 2018 midterm elections. Trump’s proposal for ACA subsidies will include potential caps on income, limiting the recipients of the program, while also requiring that all enrollees pay some premium. According to the healthcare non-profit KFF, should the subsidies lapse, premiums will double for Americans and an additional 2...

Very sad news for those of you who have become connoisseurs of the hilarious inadvertent comedy provided by Politico's over-the-top obsession with the Jeffrey Epstein files the past few months. Those good times might soon be gone.No more laughs provided by a panicked Politico publishing FIVE stories last July 18 solely on the topic of the Wall Street Journal possibly tossing President Donald Trump a "lifeline" in the form of a probable fake news story about a birthday letter supposedly sent by Trump to Epstein. Yes, the fun has continued for months culminating with Wednesday's Politico announcement of a possible...

Politico's Playbook on Wednesday announced what could be the biggest world news story of the year. An end to the bloody Ukraine-Russia war via a peace deal negotiated by the Trump administration. So guess where the immediate focus of the story was? If you have been following the absurd obsessions of Politico recently you would know the answer despite not quite believing it: Jeffrey Epstein. In fact their obsession in the Playbook story by Jack Blanchard and Dasha Burns, "A peace deal ‘as soon as this week’," came immediately after their joyous announcement:

Fresh off their staggering electoral losses this month, Republicans are urging President Donald Trump to start hitting the campaign trail for them next year with control of Congress on the line. And in a sign of their rising anxiety over Democrats’ renewed enthusiasm, the requests for rallies have started rolling in. Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming said Trump’s team is “certainly aware” he wants to see the president visit the purple state next year, where he won by his thinnest margin in 2024 and his party is defending two competitive House seats and trying to win statewide races. Schimming plans...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the once steadfast ally of Donald Trump who has since fallen out with the president, said the saga around convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein has “ripped MAGA apart.” Greene made her comments while flanked by some of Epstein’s victims outside the Capitol on Tuesday, just hours before the House is set to vote on a bill that would force the Justice Department to release Epstein case files.

Emails revealed that Summers sought advice from Epstein on romantically pursuing a woman he referred to as his mentee.Summers’ comment comes after a senior Trump administration official and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) each called on institutions to sever ties with Summers.The statement leaves question marks hanging over the fate of several positions Summers occupies, which include a board seat at OpenAI, a tenured position at Harvard, an unpaid nonresident fellow position at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank and a paid contributor role at Bloomberg News. A Summers spokesperson declined to answer a direct question about those roles.Earlier...

A federal magistrate judge says “government misconduct” may have tainted the criminal case against former FBI Director James Comey, describing a cascade of apparent errors by lead prosecutor Lindsey Halligan. The magistrate judge, William Fitzpatrick, ordered prosecutors Monday to quickly turn over records of secret grand jury proceedings to defense attorneys as they seek to dismiss the false-statement and obstruction-of-Congress charges pending against Comey in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. Judge says possible errors by Lindsey Halligan could imperil Comey case In a rare move, the judge ordered prosecutors to hand over records of the grand jury proceeding to the...

President Donald Trump’s call for House Republicans to support releasing Jeffrey Epstein-related documents was a stunning capitulation after a months-long campaign to block the vote. It was also a specific defeat for Trump at the hands of a despised GOP opponent: Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. “He got tired of me winning,” Massie said of Trump’s U-turn in an interview Monday morning. Insisting “I DON’T CARE!” in a late-night Truth Social post, Trump was bowing to the inevitable — a broad House Republican mutiny on a vote that was only scheduled because Massie forced it. It was the result of...

The world wants an American climate leader, and Gavin Newsom is happy to play the part — even if the country he represents isn’t quite ready to follow.BELÉM, Brazil — Gavin Newsom can’t get out of a meeting or a talk at the international climate talks here without being swarmed by reporters and diplomats eager for a quote, a handshake, a photo.On a tour Tuesday of a cultural center with Gov. Helder Barbalho, the leader of the Brazilian state hosting the talks, a passerby recognized them both. “There’s the governor,” he exclaimed. “And there’s the California governor.” Later in the...

Arizona Democrat Adelita Grijalva was sworn in to the House Wednesday after a record 50-day wait, vowing to immediately join an effort to disclose files related to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Grijalva had expressed no special interest in the Epstein case prior to her Sept. 23 election. But she became intertwined in the fate of a bipartisan effort to disclose Justice Department files related to the disgraced financier after it became clear she could provide the final necessary signature on a discharge petition forcing a House vote on the matter.

Trump haters always think they haven't been aggressive enough in taking Trump down. Politico senior writer Ankush Khardori posted an article on Election Day headlined "Avoiding Merrick Garland’s Mistakes the Next Time Democrats Hold Power." The "mistakes" Khardori sees are that Garland did not push hard enough nor fast enough in his politically motivated lawfare against Trump, even though it resulted in two federal indictments as well as two federally influenced state indictments.Khardori's thirst for lawfare vengeance in the next future Democrat DOJ was inspired by a newly published book. Leftist journalists scold Garland as a spineless jellyfish.

Senator Rand Paul is tired of being the only Republican senator willing to stand up to President Trump. The libertarian spoke with Politico’s Dasha Burns just days after being deliberately left out of Trump’s gathering of GOP senators in the Rose Garden. “We have everybody but one person here,” Trump said Wednesday. “We’re just missing one person. You’ll never guess who that is. Let me give you—he automatically votes no on everything. He thinks it’s good politics. It’s really not good politics.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham on Sunday defended the White House’s decision to strike Venezuelan boats, hinting that President Donald Trump may even “expand” military operations in the region. In an interview with CBS’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation,” the South Carolina Republican said Trump is “doing the right thing.” “President Trump told me yesterday that he plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia,” Graham said. “So there will be a congressional briefing about a potential expanding from the sea to the land. I support that idea.

Social and religious conservatives spent more than a year lobbying first the Trump campaign and then the administration against mandating or subsidizing insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, which they consider akin to abortion.Last week, their work paid off.President Donald Trump unveiled policies to lower the cost of fertility drugs and to create a new pathway for optional employer-based coverage of IVF, arguing the moves would make it easier for couples to have children. But Trump, who promised on the campaign trail to make fertility treatments free for all patients, will not have the government pay for it or require...

Senate Republicans are discussing voting on a bill that would prevent millions of low-income Americans from losing access to food aid on Nov. 1.The bill from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) would fund Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for the duration of the shutdown, which on Wednesday entered its 22nd day. The Department of Agriculture warned earlier this month that if the government shutdown dragged on “there will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the Nation.”Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in a brief interview that senators were discussing “some options,” though...

Was it only weeks ago in mid-September that I wrote a column about Democrats embracing the assassination culture that took the life of young Christian evangelist Charlie Kirk? And now in Virginia they’re doubling down. Virginia Democrats are endorsing the murderous candidacy of Jay Jones, who comes from a prominent black Virginia Democrat family. You see Jones in the photograph above, applauding the Democrat candidate for governor, former U.S. Rep Abigail Spanberger. You’ve heard of Jones and his dark fantasies over texts to a colleague, seeking the murders of his Republican opponents. And their children. Yes, their kids who he...

The president's one-man-show approach to policy has sidelined Congress, agencies — and a whole K Street culture.Intel Corp. looked like a winner in the Washington lobbying game at the start of 2025.The federal government was set to funnel more than $10 billion to the American microchip giant, thanks to a long influence campaign by the company’s executives and hired Washington hands, who spent three painstaking years lobbying Congress, federal agencies and White House advisers.Just a few months later, when a political controversy over the CEO’s links to Chinese companies put Intel’s deal with Washington in jeopardy, the whole drama was...

President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court, for the first time, to clear the way for him to use National Guard troops to support the president’s immigration enforcement and mass deportation drive.Solicitor General D. John Sauer filed an emergency appeal with the high court Friday, seeking to lift lower-court rulings that are currently preventing Trump from deploying National Guard troops he pressed into federal service to aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel in Illinois.Sauer argued that a temporary restraining order issued by a federal district judge in Illinois “improperly impinges on the President’s authority and needlessly endangers federal personnel...