Free Republic

In a vote that GOP leaders fought hard to avoid, a half dozen Republicans sent a blunt message to President Donald Trump that they do not support the tariff regime that he has made the centerpiece of his second term. Six Republicans joined with Democrats in a vote to effectively repeal the president’s tariffs on Canada, the culmination of months of consternation in the GOP over the president’s trade war that has quietly rattled even some of his staunchest loyalists in Congress. And it won’t be the last tough tariffs vote for Trump: Democrats have successfully unlocked a procedural power...

@BarronTNews_ BREAKING: Americans are FLOODING the phones of GOP Sen. Susan Collins after she REFUSED to support the SAVE America Act following House passage

President Donald Trump went off on Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) on Wednesday, branding him a “RINO” — Republican In Name Only — who got it all “WRONG” when he claimed the president was only inviting Republican governors to an upcoming annual meeting. Trump’s searing response came after the Associated Press reported the bipartisan meeting was “unraveling” on Monday. Stitt — who chairs the National Governors Association — said the group was ditching the annual meeting because Trump had not invited his Democratic colleagues, who are equal members of the group. Trump posted on Truth Social that he was only...

Think back to February 2020. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren't paying close attention. The stock market was doing great, your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning trips. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they'd been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and...

The House this week is set to take up the SAVE America Act (the SAVE Act 2.0), an election-integrity measure that some Senate Republicans can’t seem to get behind even though the vast majority of Americans already have. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office confirms the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register and photo identification to vote in federal elections, will hit the floor on Tuesday. While Democrats will spend hours making a mockery of truth and reality in opposing it, the legislation is expected to pass mostly along party lines — as the...

t should not come as a surprise to see the Senator who lost her 2010 primary, then refused to leave congress and ran as a write in candidate; then supported changing the state voting system to a ranked choice structure; who then lost again in 2022 but ultimately won because Democrats all listed her as their second choice in the new structure; come out against anything that would lead to stronger voting requirements. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski has now pledged to vote against the SAVE Act. The SAVE Act would bar states from registering a person to vote unless they...

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski became the first Republican senator to speak out against the SAVE Act, a sweeping election bill backed by President Donald Trump that would require proof of citizenship to vote nationwide.

Democrats seem to be getting their mojo back as the midterm season heats up. Democrats topped Republicans on the generic congressional ballot by a considerable six points, 52% to 46%, scoring the highest of any party on that metric in the history of the survey commissioned by Fox News.The minority party also made massive gains on key issues, crushing Republicans on affordability by 14 points, health care by 21 points, helping the middle class by 14 points, transgender issues by 22 points, and even taxes by one point.<“Democrats are taking back the House in November,” a confident Democratic Congressional Campaign...

With the clock ticking down to a potential government shutdown this Friday, Senate Republicans are reportedly considering a move that could leave the southern border wide open to invasion.A group of Republican senators is now openly discussing whether to split the Homeland Security appropriations bill away from a six-bill funding package in order to avert a partial government shutdown that would impact the Pentagon and several other major federal departments, according to The Hill.The six-bill package includes funding for the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Labor, Education, Transportation, State, and financial services-related agencies.DHS, the very agency responsible for...

New York Congressman Mike Lawler has said that President Trump’s deportation policy is “not working” and urged him to embrace a mass amnesty for illegal aliens.After the killing of another far-left protester who was trying to interfere with the work of federal immigration officers, Lawler has penned an op-ed in The New York Times urging Americans to “wake up after Minneapolis” and take a new approach to immigration.He wrote in his piece:The deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis this month were tragic and preventable. No matter where you stand on immigration enforcement, the shootings show that what...

Back in 2016, I, along with a lot of people, made the argument that that election was critical to the future of the country. It was and America made the right choice. I made the same argument in 2020 and while America made the right choice the Democrats ran a coup d'état and we suffered through four years of watching whoever was controlling Joe Biden basically run the country into the ground. Then, two years ago I made the same argument, that basically, if America made the wrong choice the Republic was going to soon find its end. Thankfully America...

One thing that’s overlooked in Rules for Radicals – even by Alinsky himself – is the key role played by what I call “Alinsky Republicans” or “Alinsky conservatives.” These are the people who, despite their professed opposition to everything Alinsky and his book were trying to achieve, act as the catalyst – the trigger or fuse – for the climactic events leading to victory for radical activists. These are the defeatists, the doom trolls, who, after being frozen and personalized in good Alinskian fashion, simply give up, throw in the towel and sell out the cause they supposedly represent. They...

A growing number of Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the killing of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as many Trump administration officials defend federal officers’ actions. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Mike Crapo of Idaho, John Curtis of Utah, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina have all said there needs to be a thorough probe into Saturday's fatal shooting of Pretti, a U.S. citizen, by Border Patrol. Administration officials overseeing immigration enforcement may soon face public scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats alike. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,...

Most in the GOP are silent or backing the Trump administration, but a conspicuous few are speaking out. A small but growing number of Republicans are raising public concerns about the killing Saturday of a 37-year-old Minnesota man by federal agents.Hours after the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on a Minneapolis street, one House GOP chair called for the top ICE leader and other Trump administration officials to publicly answer lawmakers’ questions. GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Thom Tillis of North Carolina called for independent probes into the shooting, with Cassidy arguing the integrity...

There have been times in the past when IÂ’ve gotten crosswise with certain segments of the conservative base and/or with the readership of National Review. And, because, like the Elephant Man, I am a not an animal but a human being, I have always had at least some self-doubt. ThatÂ’s as it should be. People who share principles should not only hear each other out when they disagree; they should be able to see each otherÂ’s points and hold open the possibility that oneÂ’s opponents have the better argument. This is not one of those times, at least not for...

When the people vote against democracy.The social media hashtag #NeverTrump first appeared in June 2015, days after Donald Trump announced his presidential candidacy. For the balance of that year, social media derision attracted less attention than Trump himself, mostly due to the widespread belief that Trump’s campaign was self-extinguishing, which argued against pointless efforts to bring about an already inevitable defeat. In election cycles since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 landslide victory, unlikely protest candidates for the GOP presidential nomination—Pat Robertson, Ron Paul, Herman Cain—had briefly surged in the polls, only to give way to a conventional politician who ended up as...

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...