Free Republic

Former Vice President Mike Pence did not mince words about the mass exodus from the influential Heritage Foundation to his own group, Advancing American Freedom, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The Journal reported that AAF was “slated to hire about 15 of Heritage’s employees including several of its prominent leaders” on Monday, and Pence told the outlet that he believes Heritage has “fallen” and “abandoned its principles” in recent years. “Why these people are coming our way is that Heritage and some other voices and commentators have embraced big-government populism and have been willing to...

Members of the MAGA faithful gathered here Thursday to kick off Turning Point USA’s America Fest, the largest meeting for the organization since its founder, Charlie Kirk, was shot to death on a Utah college campus in September. Despite that somber backdrop, the event quickly devolved into a spectacle of MAGA infighting.

House Republicans passed a bill they say will lower healthcare costs for a broad swath of Americans by roughly 11%. It's a victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has been managing deep divisions within the House GOP on the topic of healthcare as insurance premiums are set to spike across the country in a matter of weeks. One glaring issue that remains unresolved is Obamacare subsidies, which were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic but are set to expire at the end of this year. The legislation passed 216 to 211. Just one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted against...

A few weeks ago, I gave the Republican Party some unsolicited advice about what they should do if they want to get back into the saddle and start winning elections again after this year’s string of off-season/special election losses. Essentially it boiled down to using power to fight the Democrats while giving your own client base the things that it wants. In other words, what people throughout history, in every era, in every type of political system from the most despotic to the most egalitarian, would recognise as basic political acumen. The Democrats, despite their complete disconnection from several basic...

The House voted 231-195 on Thursday to pass legislation that would nullify President Trump’s efforts to strip more than 1 million federal workers of their collective bargaining rights, sending the measure over to the Senate, where its prospects are less rosy. Twenty Republican lawmakers broke ranks to support the Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550) on the floor. Introduced by Reps. Jared Golden, D-Maine, and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., the measure effectively nullifies Trump’s March executive order barring unions at more than 40 federal agencies under the guise of national security and bars federal agencies from terminating any union contracts that...

Donald Trump is the only President in history that has had recess appointments blocked by his own party.Think about that.Traitors.They held 2 minute pro forma sessions every few days during vacation to block recess his appointments.Sickening.Video at link.

They call their newsletter "Politico Pro," but it can sound more like "Politico Promo." Take reporter Andrew Howard with his embarrassingly unskeptical pitch for funds on Monday, "Anti-Trump former Republicans have a multimillion-dollar plan to save House Democrats."When you hear the name "Lincoln Project" you should check your pocket to make sure the contents of your wallet are still intact. A co-founder of the Lincoln Project, Steve Schmidt, is back at the political money trough searching for funds using the name of the Save America Movement (SAM). And all they say they need is about $100 million.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should testify before Congress “under oath” about the orders to strike suspected Venezuelan drug boa “I think he should testify under oath about the orders that were given, and I think that the video of the distressed, shipwrecked or incapacitated people on those boats being bombed, that video should be shown to every American,” Paul said

Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee and Co-Chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission, Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Western Hemisphere Subcommittee, have introduced a War Powers Resolution to block the Trump administration from engaging in hostilities within or against Venezuela absent congressional authorization. The Constitution does not permit the executive branch to unilaterally commit an act of war against a sovereign nation that hasn’t attacked the United States,” said Rep. Massie.

Former President George W. Bush and his family are reportedly planning to retake the Republican Party from President Donald Trump once he is out of office, according to a recent report. There are allegedly “rumors” stirring that there is a “plot to end the so-called ‘Bush Exile'” as part of an effort to take control of the GOP from Trump and his Make America Great Again (MAGA) policies […] One person, who is described as a “former Bush official,” told the outlet that Trump “knows that there’s no third term option,” while admitting that Vice President JD Vance “has a...

The Republican Party should be a big tent, but that big tent shouldn’t include Democrats or Democrat collaborators. Members of our party, from weakness, malice, or delusions of moral superiority, have been betraying us left and right lately, with political mediocrities empowered by the fact that the margins are so close and the issues are so important that even the most ridiculous of these alleged Republicans can seize a moment of outsized power simply by sucking up to the regime media. Much of the focus lately has been on marginal twerps who aren’t even Republicans – that malignant rodent Nick...

Republicans in Columbus had one job: draw a congressional map that reflects the voters who elected them. When President Trump called on GOP-led states to fight as hard as Democrats do in redistricting, Ohio was supposed to be part of that charge. Instead, it answered his call with surrender, handing Democrats a "compromise" map they didn't even have to ask for.

Four Republican senators voted with Democrats on Thursday to approve a bipartisan resolution to repeal President Trump’s global tariffs, including steeper rates on long-time allies such as the European Union, Japan and South Korea. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), the GOP sponsor of the resolution, and Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for it. The same proposal failed in the Senate in late April on a 50-49 vote after Vice President Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to defeat it. Critically, McConnell and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), who voted Thursday for the resolution, missed the...

The Senate passed a resolution aimed at ending President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Canada, with four Republicans joining Democrats to rebuke the administration’s trade policies a day after they voted to terminate tariffs on Brazil. Sens. Rand Paul, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and former Republican Leader Mitch McConnell crossed the aisle to side with Democrats in the 50 to 46 vote. They all previously voted to block the Canada tariffs in April.

The Senate passed a resolution Tuesday aimed at ending President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Brazil, with five Republicans joining Democrats in a rare bipartisan rebuke of the president over trade policy. Sens. Rand Paul, Thom Tillis, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell sided with Democrats in the 52 to 48 vote. McConnell has long been critical of Trump’s trade policy, and said in a statement ahead of the vote, “Tariffs make both building and buying in America more expensive. The economic harms of trade wars are not the exception to history, but the rule.” The...

The House of Representatives voted along bipartisan lines on Wednesday to table a resolution to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., over comments about Charlie Kirk. Four House Republicans voted with Democrats to table the legislation, effectively blocking it from receiving its own House-wide vote. A vote to table is a procedural mechanism allowing House members to vote against consideration of a bill without having to vote on the bill itself. The measure was blocked in a narrow 214 to 213 vote. The four Republicans who voted to table the measure are Reps. Mike Flood, R-Neb., Tom McClintock, R-Calif., Jeff Hurd,...

Critics...have pointed to his record as evidence of failed leadership. Attorney General Ken Paxton blasted Phelan’s legacy as “one of betrayal,” citing his reliance on Democrat votes and his role in the impeachment. Phelan’s opponents have also noted the repeated special sessions called by Gov. Greg Abbott during his time as speaker due to a failure to pass conservative priorities.

Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama are once again joining forces to denounce President Donald Trump, this time for slashing international services they claim are critical to U.S. interests. Bush appears in a new video alongside Obama and U2 frontman Bono, a notorious Trump critic, praising the departing staffers of USAID, the international diplomacy arm that Trump gutted earlier this year. Bush was an advocate for funding the program to combat AIDS and HIV in parts of Africa. “Gutting USAID is a travesty, and it’s a tragedy,” Obama said in a video shown to departing USAID employees on...

Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama publicly condemned the Trump administration's dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), joining legendary singer Bono in an emotional farewell via videoconference to the shuttered aid service. Obama, a Democrat, called the decision "a colossal mistake," while the Republican Bush denounced the cuts to his signature HIV/AIDS relief program, asking, "Is it in our national interests that 25 million people who would have died now live? I think it is, and so do you." Bono, appearing as a surprise guest, fought back tears as he honored the agency's workers, calling...

Fox News contributor Ari Fleischer called out the GOP’s effort to implement a new congressional map in Texas for being an unfair power grab. In a post to X on Tuesday, the former press secretary for President George W. Bush spoke out against the GOP’s mid-decade redistricting plan — which would make five districts favorable to Republicans in areas currently represented by Democrats.