Free Republic

The speaker is mounting a multi-front rebuttal to the billionaire’s criticism — and trying to keep the backlash contained.Mike Johnson has spent his 19 months as speaker forging a close relationship with President Donald Trump — in part to avoid the social-media bombshells that derailed so many Republican priorities during Trump’s first term.Now he has to deal with another, perhaps even more unpredictable online bomb-thrower.Elon Musk’s decision to launch a sudden scorched-earth campaign against the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill has forced Johnson into a sudden scramble to save the centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda.Starting in the moments Tuesday after Musk...

President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to attempt a deescalation in his mounting feud with Elon Musk, ignoring a jab about his presence in the Epstein files and focusing on the positive attributes of his legislative priorities."I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago," Trump posted. "This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress. It’s a Record Cut in Expenses, $1.6 Trillion Dollars, and the Biggest Tax Cut ever given. If this Bill doesn’t pass, there will be a 68% Tax Increase, and things far worse than that.""I didn’t create...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene vows to oppose the One Big Beautiful Bill when it returns to the House if there are no changes made to the artificial intelligence provision. Greene says she was unaware of the AI provision when she first voted for the bill and now argues it would endanger state rights, risk job losses in her manufacturing-heavy district, and open the door to forced property seizures. Facing criticism for missing the provision, Greene defended her transparency, claiming no other lawmakers publicly flagged the AI clause and pledging to fight any future legislation that limits state authority over AI...

In politics, they say you want your people all peeing out of the tent rather than into it. In this context, there is a case to be made for assigning Elon Musk a new task to keep his mind off the budget and keep him focused and on point. Here is the assignment. Give him a contract to develop the desalination technology that will increase the habitable size of the USA by one-third and double the habitable size of the Earth. This can be achieved by collapsing the cost of desalinating seawater to roughly $ 200 per acre-foot. (That would...

Stephen Colbert mercilessly mocked the breakdown in relations between Elon Musk and Donald Trump, even poking fun at the billionaire’s alleged drug habit. On Wednesday night’s Late Show, the host gleefully skewered the once-close bond between the president and the Tesla CEO, which appears to have collapsed in a cloud of disdain towards Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.” “There is now trouble brewing between the president and former first buddy Elon Musk,” Colbert announced. “No, no, I’m starting to worry that two narcissistic megalomaniacs with a total inability to see value in other humans might have a hard time making friends.”...

Tucker Carlson accused Fox News host Mark Levin of “lobbying for war” at the White House on Wednesday, before warning President Donald Trump that a strike on Iran would “end his presidency.” “Mark Levin was at the White House today, lobbying for war with Iran,” claimed Carlson in a social media post. “To be clear, Levin has no plans to fight in this or any other war. He’s demanding that American troops do it.”

Why we must tell the truth about what happened in Boulder.In 2021, a Syrian Muslim gunman opened fire at a Boulder supermarket killing ten Americans. Ahmad Al-Issa, the gunman, had been convinced that Americans were ‘Islamophobic’ and his family had moved from what would become the ISIS capital in Syria. The Al-Issa family lived in Arvada, a refugee sanctuary city near Boulder that had also previously produced Shannon Conley, an American convert to Islam who tried to join ISIS and scouted a local church.Boulder authorities blamed gun violence and mental illness.Now, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian Muslim, set elderly Jews...

Barret ‘Dr. Demento‘ Hansen will retire from his program when it reaches its 55th anniversary in October. On this week’s show, Demento announced that it was his final regular show with a series of retrospective episodes regarding the history of the show to air weekly until a final episode in October that will feature the top 40 songs in the show’s history. Hansen recently turned 84 years old. Hansen debuted his ‘Dr. Demento’ persona on Freeform Rock 106.7 KPPC Pasadena CA (now KROQ-FM) in October 1970 quickly converting to to focusing on comedy and novelty music. His show would be...

‘You can’t say that it’s OK to discriminate against someone because they’re white, but not OK because they’re black. We all know it’s wrong.’The U.S. Supreme Court should extend its prohibition on reverse discrimination to American schools, not only workplaces, Federalist CEO Sean Davis said on Thursday. The moment came during an interview Davis participated in on Fox News’ The Will Cain Show when the host of the same name asked The Federalist CEO to comment on a SCOTUS decision released on Thursday in a case known as Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services. As The Federalist reported, the...

It was always going to be thus. However, some who do not carry the mental fortitude to withstand the TRUTH, will proclaim they are witnessing some pre-scripted game of chess or something, where the Trump -v- Musk battle is coordinated. It is not.President Trump delivers some further consideration about Elon Musk from his perspective.Musk responds by accusing President Trump of being in the “Epstein files” and later calls for his impeachment and replacement with JD Vance.If you are a long(ish) time reader of CTH, what we are witnessing is exactly what we said we would see unfold. And it is...

Far-left Democratic Boston, Massachusetts, Mayor Michelle Wu says that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who wear masks when they arrest illegal-alien rapists, murderers, and other thugs are neo-Nazis.During a television interview, the mayor likened the agents — who wear masks to protect their identity and families — to a little-known crackpot, neo-Nazi outfit NSC-131, or National Socialist Club 131.Wu’s remarks are nothing new, and build on similar comments, including one from recently failed vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, Minnesota’s radical leftist governor. He likened agents to the Gestapo, the secret police in Nazi Germany.The White House and Department of Homeland...

Firefighters were called to the scene after several eyewitnesses claimed to have seen President Trump setting fire to a local Tesla dealership this morning. The event seems to coincide with a bitter public falling out between Trump and Musk over a spending bill currently moving through Congress. "I thought we were friends, Elon! What happened to us?" President Trump reportedly cried as he lobbed a Molotov cocktail into the windshield of a 2025 Tesla Model 3. "I never liked Teslas. I always thought they were 3rd-rate cars anyway. And everything in them is computer, and I hate computers. Many people...

Starting a prayer thread for both these men of consequential influence and generational impact. Let’s lift up this unfolding situation (feud) to Heaven, the salvation of both their souls, and for God to work what the enemy intends for evil, out for good. Lasting good…

We saw it after Watergate. The parties involved with almost every aspect of the cover-up cut some sort of book deal. Woodward and Bernstein wrote All the President’s Men which amplified their involvement as members of the media. G. Gordon Liddy wrote Will where he accepted responsibility for his actions. John Dean penned Blind Ambition to paint himself in a favorable light. Most got hefty advances from publishers for their tomes, and a few got movie deals. After Watergate there were cries to prevent this kind of profiteering, but nothing was done.Now, with Biden’s mental collapse, we see the grifters...

The decision, finalized during the closing days of the 2025 legislative session, is expected to have wide-reaching impacts on collectors, investors, and coin dealers throughout the state and beyond. The tax exemption repeal is part of Engrossed Substitute Senate Bill 5794 (ESSB 5794), a broader revenue package aimed at adopting recommendations from the 2024 tax preference review process, eliminating obsolete tax preferences, clarifying legislative intent, and addressing changes in constitutional law. The repeal is set to take effect on October 1, 2025. The National Coin & Bullion Association (NCBA), which has championed the tax exemption since its inception, expressed deep...

According to an analysis released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would add $2.4 trillion to deficits over the next decade while forcing millions to lose health insurance coverage. In an interview with All Things Considered host Scott Detrow, the Wisconsin senator said Trump's bill — which narrowly passed the House — will not pass the Senate in its current form because it will "skyrocket" the deficit. "I can't accept this is the new normal," Johnson told NPR. "It's just unacceptable." Now that Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" is in the hands of the Senate, some...

For decades, grieving parents have been told their infants died of “sudden infant death syndrome” (SIDS), a vague diagnosis that conveniently absolves vaccine manufacturers of blame. But groundbreaking research now reveals the chilling truth: Vaccines are killing babies — and the medical establishment has been hiding it. A new study published in the International Journal of Medical Sciences uncovers the biological mechanisms linking vaccines to SIDS, proving that toxic vaccine ingredients overwhelm infants’ underdeveloped detox pathways, leading to fatal inflammation, brainstem damage and respiratory failure. Key points: Infants lack mature liver enzymes (CYP450) needed to process toxic vaccine ingredients like...

New data shows that CO2 levels have broken through 430 parts per million, an indication that human-caused global warming will continue to warp the environment.Earth’s atmosphere now has more carbon dioxide in it than it has in millions — and possibly tens of millions — of years, according to data released Thursday by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and scientists at the University of California San Diego.For the first time, global average concentrations of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas emitted as a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, exceeded 430 parts per million (ppm) in May. The new readings were...

A Harvard graduate, a doctor and an actress have been at the center of social media storms over perceived privilege. Some see economic anxiety behind it. What do a Chinese commencement speaker at Harvard, an actress posting selfies and a trainee doctor at a Beijing hospital have in common? Not much — except that they’ve all found themselves at the heart of fierce online debates in China about privilege and inequality. The three disputes, which have dominated Chinese social media in recent weeks, all featured accusations that the main players had gotten ahead by dirty means, whether that was true...

Elon Musk has threatened to decommission SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft, previously used in March to rescue astronauts that were left stranded by Biden, “immediately” in response to President Trump’s threat to terminate Elon’s government contracts and subsidies. Musk even agreed that Trump should be impeached and replaced with JD Vance! .... Snip.... The Gateway Pundit will continue to provide updates on the feud between Trump and his former ally.