Free Republic

Democrats improved in the third quarter, but Republicans still have more money. After just one vulnerable House Democrat raised $1 million in the second quarter, four members targeted by the NRCC raised at least that total in the third quarter. That group includes Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who represents a district President Donald Trump won by 10 points and also faces a primary challenge. Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.), Derek Tran (D-Calif.) and Eugene Vindman (D-Va.) each also each raised more than $1 million.“Americans are tired of the disastrous GOP agenda of higher costs, broken promises, and tax breaks for billionaires....

National Guard troops are typically under the control of state governors, but federal law empowers the president to call them into federal service if there is a danger of foreign invasion or “rebellion against the authority of the government.”Trump has pointed to immigration-related protests in Chicago and other cities to justify his attempts to use the guard. But the 7th Circuit judges rejected that rationale.A protest does not transform into a “rebellion” just because protesters are well-organized, advocate to overhaul the structure of government or use civil disobedience, Judges Ilana Rovner, David Hamilton and Amy St. Eve wrote. Nor do...

NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway. They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the...

Another round in the generational fight within the Democratic Party is coming to Massachusetts.Rep. Seth Moulton will challenge Sen. Ed Markey for his Senate seat in 2026, setting up one of the biggest tests of Democratic voters’ appetite for generational change following the 2024 presidential election.Moulton, who turns 47 this month, is putting age at the center of his announcement, saying in a campaign video to be released Wednesday that Markey is “a good man” but he should nevertheless move on after decades in Congress.“We’re in crisis, and with everything we learned last election, I just don’t believe Senator Markey...

Knives are coming out for former Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.) in the California gubernatorial race after several videos released this week generated widespread criticism over her behavior. Porter’s opponents and other Democrats rebuked the former congresswoman this week after she sought to end an interview early over a question that was visibly frustrating her.Shortly after, Politico obtained a video of Porter berating a staffer in 2021 for entering her live shot while she was recording a video with then-Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm (D), fueling further backlash. Though the California primary is months away, the incidents are threatening to hinder her...

House Speaker Mike Johnson said he spoke with Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) last week to tell her Republicans are “working around the clock” to bring healthcare prices down, after she vocally criticized Republicans throughout the week for the government shutdown and split from her party in deploring rising costs. “I had a thoughtful conversation with her on the phone the other night,” Johnson told host Shannon Bream on “Fox News Sunday.” Johnson said Republicans on the committees of jurisdiction were the ones leading discussions on the shutdown and healthcare subsidies — committees he said Greene isn’t a part of but...

On September 1862, weeks before he issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln wrestled with the enormous dilemma of whether to change the stakes of the Civil War…In a private document found after his death, the president struggled to understand what God expected of him and of the nation. “The will of God prevails,” Lincoln began. “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God can not be for, and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is...

In a stunning rebuke of the rising anti-Semitism spreading across Europe and the West, the CEO of one of the most liberal media companies in the U.S. is coming out in defense of the Jewish State. Mathias Döpfner — CEO of Politico and Business Insider's parent company Axel Springer SE — penned an October 7 op-ed dissecting his discussions with Nova Music Festival co-founder Ofir Amir, a survivor of the wanton slaughter terrorist organization Hamas unleashed upon the Jewish people two years earlier. Döpfner speculated on how survivors like Amir are able to deal with European leaders and others grotesquely...

Katie Porter’s “unhappy experience” in a viral interview has become the news cycle from hell. The bipartisan pile-on following the widely-circulated clip of her contentious sit-down with a local CBS news reporter was only hours old when a new video surfaced from POLITICO of the former House member berating a staffer in 2021 — the two clips fueling long-simmering concerns about her temperament and judgment. Together, they suddenly boiled over into the broader political zeitgeist, raising questions about just how durable Porter’s lead in California’s gubernatorial race really is. “Is this a disaster? Yes,” said Gale Kaufman, a veteran Democratic...

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...

President Donald Trump said Thursday that he will use tariff revenue to offer cash bailouts for farmers who are struggling with trade uncertainty and other economic headwinds. “We’re going to take some of that tariff money that we made, we’re going to give it to our farmers, who are, for a little while, going to be hurt until the tariffs kick into their benefit,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “So we’re going to make sure that our farmers are in great shape, because we’re taking in a lot of money.” Trump officials expect that Congress will need to...

It turns out that the services benefiting the well-to-do are most impacted by DC’s ICE crackdown.According to Yesim Sayin, who studies the city economy at the D.C. Policy Center think tank, this is all terrible news for the municipal economy, coming at a moment when federal job cuts have made the tax base ever more reliant on hospitality and real estate. “All these actions with ICE are like putting additional weight on something that’s about to break,” she said.But the identity of the most prolific consumers of the impacted industries is also likely to shape the politics around the immigration...

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy pressed FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday to continue the release of files in the Jeffrey Epstein case, specifically information about who other than Epstein, if anyone, was on the receiving end of girls and women being sex trafficked. “The issue’s not gonna go away,” said Kennedy during the Senate Judiciary Committee’s FBI oversight hearing, where Patel was testifying. “I think you’re gonna have to do more to satisfy the American people’s understandable curiosity in that regard.” Kennedy’s comments were notable as the Trump administration battles complaints about the Justice Department’s slow, piecemeal approach to...

A group of GOP senators are working on legislation to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies with policy changes designed to win over conservatives, according to four people granted anonymity to disclose private discussions. This group has gotten “technical assistance” from the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the subsidies, according to two of the sources. The Obamacare subsidies are set to expire at the end of this year. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican running for governor, said in an interview Monday he was “part of that group that’s working on the wording to make sure we do it...

The AI argument kicked off in late July, just a day after Trump announced his AI plan — a 28-page strategy to accelerate the technology and build new power infrastructure to supply it. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) fired off a tirade on X, complaining that AI could create mass poverty by replacing human jobs, and giant AI data centers could have potentially devastating effects on the environment and water supply. In the days that followed, GOP strategist Steven Bannon chimed in, comparing the pursuit of AI superintelligence to “summoning the demon.” And since then, think-tankers and populist conservative outlets...

The House Oversight Committee released over 33,000 pages of records related to Jeffrey Epstein. Unfortunately, when I try to download the documents, I am told that the download quota for the papers has been exceeded. Therefore, I cannot view or read them. From Politico: This batch, subpoenaed by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, contains almost exclusively information that has already been released publicly; Oversight Committee Democrats say that, based on their initial review of 33,000 files, only three percent of the documents contained new details. Many of the files appeared to be regular court filings, including, for example,...

The majority of California Democrats do not want former Vice President Kamala Harris to make another White House run in 2028, according to a UC Berkeley/Los Angeles Times poll released Tuesday. Almost two-thirds of registered voters in California and 51% of Democrats said Harris should not seek the presidency again following her two failed White House bids in 2020 and 2024, according to the survey. Meanwhile, roughly 45% of California’s registered voters said they were “very” or “somewhat” enthusiastic about the prospect of Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom running for president, while 36% said the same about Harris. “She [Harris]...

A nomination hearing for Trump's pick to fill a vacant Fed board seat is expected next week.Key Republican lawmakers have long warned against any move to encroach on the Fed’s independence from the executive branch. The Cook firing, which is almost certain to spark a landmark legal fight, could complicate the path forward for Miran — and provide an avenue for any concerned Republicans to dissent from the president’s campaign against the central bank.“Now it’s like a political stand and a referendum on Trump,” a GOP congressional aide who was granted anonymity to speak candidly said of the Miran nomination....

The president in recent days is leaning even further into using the National Guard as a glorified police force, visiting the troops and allowing them to be armed. He’s suggested he’s eyeing Chicago and New York next for their next deployment. On Sunday, he needled Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for Baltimore’s notorious crime statistics, hinting he could send troops there as well. It's a sign that despite polling showing how unpopular Trump’s moves are in Washington, the president is playing to a national audience — and betting this is a battle he and the GOP can win. If his recent...

Politico in its absolute obsession with pushing Jeffrey Epstein stories has broken its old record of five stories a few days ago and has now pushed out upon its readers six, six, SIX Epstein stories in a 24 hour period. A symptom of its laughable urgency to hopefully make its readers forget all about the Russia Hoax revelations by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.In fact, Politico has barely touched upon that more impactful scandal while shoveling up one Epstein story after another. It all makes one wonder if the Politico reporters are paid an Epstein bonus for writing about...