Free Republic

President Donald Trump's military intervention in Venezuela has emerged as a flash point in the closely watched Republican primary campaign between Kentucky U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, a long-running Trump antagonist, and retired Navy SEAL officer Ed Gallrein, who has the president's backing. Massie, showing his non-interventionist leanings, fired off a series of social media posts criticizing the dramatic action that captured Nicolás Maduro and removed him from the South American country. “Wake up MAGA,” Massie wrote. “VENEZUELA is not about drugs; it’s about OIL and REGIME CHANGE. This is not what we voted for.” Gallrein responded that Massie had “shown...

The Republican establishment is on the verge of extinction. Donald Trump’s first term wasn’t enough to kill it off: Trump came into office in 2017 with establishment figures such as Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan leading the party in Congress, and Trump’s own vice president, Mike Pence, had been chosen for that role as a reassurance to the old guard... This time, though, things are very different. Though congressional Republicans have yet to become thoroughly MAGA, there’s no longer a sense that GOP leaders in the House or Senate represent a distinct political brand of their own, as McConnell and...

Recent polling has shown young voters overwhelmingly disapproving of Trump and the GOP amid increasing anxiety over the state of the economy, while young people played a big role in helping Democrats win in 2025’s off-year races. “If you’re 29 and you’re paying out the nose for health care, and you can’t own your own home and groceries are killing you, you don’t really care about the conversations about tariffs. That’s not where you’re living. You’re living at, ‘Hey, I need the price of eggs to drop,’” said Brett Loyd, a longtime Republican pollster who now works with an independent...

He is not a neoconservative in the sense we once knew: he does not cloak American interventions in the language of democracy promotion, human rights, or universal values. Instead, he is a neoconservative without the values. What makes him distinctive is not the substance of his policies, but the way he frames them, stripped of the moralizing tone. Oddly enough, this makes his foreign policy more transparent—and perhaps, in some ways, more refreshing. Classical neoconservatism was never only about hawkish foreign policy. It was about the marriage of power and ideals. The movement argued that American might was essential not...

Outgoing Ohio governor Mike DeWine has given his endorsement in this year's governor's race. DeWine has thrown his support behind Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and his newly-announced running mate, Rob McColley. DeWine's endorsement comes on the same day that Amy Acton announced her running mate, Cincinnati native and former city councilmember and Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper. Neither Ramaswamy or Acton are their official party nominees, but are expected to win their respective primaries.

Gov. Brian Kemp has set a special election for Tuesday, March 10, 2026, to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. On Nov. 21, 2025, Greene - who was elected to the northwest Georgia district in 2020 and overwhelmingly re-elected since - said she was resigning over her disillusionment with the nation’s current political climate, stemming from a recent political split with President Donald Trump. The election will decide who will fill the rest of Greene’s 2026 term. About an hour after Kemp’s announcement, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office announced the qualifying dates: Monday, Jan. 12,...

“Freedom-loving people everywhere can celebrate the downfall of dictator Nicolás Maduro and the possibility of Venezuela’s return to democracy, even if there are serious concerns about the constitutionality or legality of President Trump’s unilateral use of military force and its broader foreign policy implications.” “Trump stated that Machado does not have the support or respect of the Venezuelan people, so it would be difficult for her to govern. Nothing could be further from the truth. She is like the Lech Walesa of Venezuela. The United States would be wise to work with Machado and her team on a swift transition...

The word “Fascist” seems to get thrown around these days and utilized more often to shut down discussion than to encourage it. There are even groups out there calling themselves “anti-fascist” while simultaneously supporting a party and leaders that seek to eliminate freedom and impose increasing centralized federal power. However, as the great poet warrior Inigo Montoya once observed “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” So, what is fascism? Lieutenant Colonel James MacMillan established the definition as a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control of social...

President Donald Trump says he believes the 2026 midterm elections will center on “pricing” as Republicans head into a critical period with control of Congress on the line. Trump’s comments follow a string of favorable economic reports over the last two weeks showing inflation is cooling and the economy is hotter than expected. The White House is keen to tout the latest data as it confronts cost-of-living concerns that have underpinned a string of Democratic overperformances across the country. Still, polls show Americans are struggling. Nearly half of respondents said they find groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation...

After a bruising presidential election loss in 2024, this year proved decisive for a Democratic Party looking to recover from its defeats and regain momentum. Heading into 2026, all 435 districts in the House of Representatives and 33 seats in the U.S. Senate are up for election in the midterms. Republicans currently have a three-seat majority in the Senate, while they hold 219 seats to Democrats’ 213 in the House. - Rep. Thomas Massie’s Primary Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican, has made an enemy of President Trump by leading the campaign for the release of the files relating to...

Witkoff and Kushner on one side, Rubio and Huckabee on the other: beneath the surface, the US administration is divided over who should be Israel's next prime minister… There was one moment in the Knesset speech on the day the war ended that particularly troubled Likud. It happened when the president spontaneously praised Yair Lapid. "He's a nice guy," he said to Netanyahu — and then jabbed the prime minister: "You don't need to be so tough now that the war is over." Was this a hint that the president intends, God forbid, to adopt neutrality in the upcoming election...

A 75-year-old woman named Jeanette Marken had her eye gouged out because Seattle refused to lock up a 42-year-old violent serial criminal named Fale Vaigalepa Pea. komonews.com/news/local/newly-released-video-75-year-old-downtown-seattle-police-department-spd-law-enforcement-king-county-superior-court-wooden-board-charges-filed-courthouse https://youtube.com/watch?v=Z95uGty1kAA

Most Americans are not antisemitic, but concerns over Israel reflect “a real backlash to consensus view in American foreign policy,” United States Vice President JD Vance assessed in a Monday interview… The vice president said Fuentes serves as a “useful foil” for some pro-Israel conservatives, allowing them to avoid a substantive discussion about US policy toward Israel. Vance said that while he believes “Israel is an important ally... we’re also going to have very substantive disagreements with Israel – and that’s OK.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi “whiffed” on understanding how much President Trump’s base of supporters cared about the release of the files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview published Tuesday. “I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as...

The House voted 237-140 to shelve Green’s impeachment resolution, with 47 Democratic lawmakers voting present… Republicans have begun to warn that Democrats are determined to impeach Trump a third time if they win the majority, pushing it toward the forefront of next year’s campaigns. Many of them dismissed Thursday’s vote as a distraction. Rep. Ted Lieu, a California Democrat and vice chair of the Democratic Caucus, said there are “a diversity of views” about impeachment in the caucus. He said that House Democrats intend to conduct oversight of the administration should they win a majority in next year’s midterms but...

- Turning Point USA raised $389 million from its founding in 2012 through mid-2023, according to its tax returns. - In its first year, Turning Point USA brought in just $79,000, but a decade later—after Kirk had become a conservative star—annual contributions had soared 1,000-fold to $80 million. - Turning Point USA’s first contribution, $10,000 from fund manager Foster Friess, came after Kirk met him at the 2012 Republican National Convention, and Friess ended up backing the group for years, with his widow pledging $1 million to launch new chapters after Kirk’s death. - The Wayne Duddlesten Foundation, founded in...

Republicans in key battleground U.S. House districts are working to contain the political fallout that may come when thousands of their constituents face higher bills for health insurance coverage obtained through the Affordable Care Act. One of those is first-term U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., whose victory for the Allentown-area seat last year was among the narrowest in the nation. “I think that we need to deal with the reality of where we are now and even if you have a broken system, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t provide or offer relief to individuals who are dealing with those...

We’re joined by Joe Gruters from the RNC to talk about the political landscape heading into 2026 and the challenges the party believes the country is facing. Gruters highlights what he sees as progress on affordability issues, praising the administration’s focus on lowering prices for everyday Americans while emphasizing that the effects of past economic policies take time to reverse. He also points to what he calls “world-class” cabinet leadership and insists that upcoming policy implementations will show measurable results. The conversation shifts to midterm dynamics, with Gruters expressing confidence that Republican messaging—and what he describes as missteps by Democratic...

Democrats just flipped the Miami mayorship from 🟥🔜🟦. The last time democrats won Miami was 1998. Republicans are completely squandering all of the work we did to win the 2024 elections. It’s especially frustrating as democrats are raising taxes in New Jersey & Pennsylvania.

"Here’s a hard truth Republicans don’t want to hear: Nancy Pelosi was a more effective House speaker than any Republican this century," she wrote. "I agree with her on essentially nothing. But she understood something we don’t: No majority is permanent." The congresswoman wrote that unlike Republicans, when Democrats hold the majority, "they ram through the most progressive policies they can," and "deliver for the coalition that elected them while they are in power." Continuing her criticism of Congress' dysfunction, Mace maintained that "the current House is restrictive and ineffective," producing "control with barely any results." She argued that "Republican...