Free Republic

Six states are holding primaries today (May 19), including Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. A good deal of focus will be on the Kentucky 4th District House race, where incumbent Republican Thomas Massie faces a challenge from the Trump-endorsed Ed Gallrein. We'll definitely be keeping tabs on that one, as well as the GOP House and Senate primaries in the Bluegrass State. (Trump endorsed Rep. Andy Barr (KY-06) in that latter race. Will he be the GOP nominee to replace the outgoing Mitch McConnell?) SEE: 'Get This Loser Out': Trump Now Demanding Massie Primary Defeat Judge With Notorious...

But if Massie loses, it's not just the end of his career. (He told Mangu-Ward that if GOP primary voters send him packing, he's going back to his plow and "nobody will ever hear from me again"). It would also effectively be the end of what used to be called the Tea Party, a loose conglomeration of Republican representatives and senators who rode a wave of anti-Barack Obama and anti-George W. Bush sentiment to office in the early 2010s. Although some said that the tea in Tea Party stood for the "taxed-enough already," the rallying cry of the early Tea...

The Atlantic magazine recently announced the People’s Choice for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. “Trump Voters Like Marco Rubio More and More (And J.D. Vance Less and Less)” the headline proclaimed, a ruling that deserves respect considering that this is the magazine that has spent the past decade ferociously denouncing Trump as a “racist,” “fascist kleptocrat,” “warped,” “corrupted,” an “authoritarian,” a “demagogue,” a “xenophobe” and a “liar.” The piece was written by Sarah Longwell, whose career as a Republican consists almost entirely of loathing Trump, calling him an “incomprehensible lunatic,” “an insane madman,” “corrupt” and an “authoritarian.” So you can...

Donald Trump was for the Iran war before he was against it. His latest post on social media about the conflict indicated that he is once more calling off a sweeping military action, this time at the behest of his Gulf allies who are apparently quaking at the thought of a renewed conflict. Trump’s initial sentence was quite a mouthful: I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold...

President Donald Trump has called for the Department of Justice to open an investigation into the state of Maryland for sending out mail-in ballots to individuals of the incorrect political party ahead of the state’s closed primary elections. #BREAKING: Trump demands DOJ probe into Maryland voting, allegedly 500,000 illegal mail-in ballots were issued.— Insider Wire (@InsiderWire) May 18, 2026After the mistake, the Maryland Board of Elections made the decision to mail out additional correct ballots despite having no ability to indicate which ballots were originally sent out incorrectly. Elections officials have not publicly released a plan for how to invalidate...

On a scorching hot afternoon in Havana, the line outside the state bakery stretches down the block. Inside, the shelves are almost bare. A man in a faded baseball cap tells me he’s been waiting for two hours for bread that might not arrive. Across the street, a gleaming black SUV with tinted windows idles outside a hotel mostly reserved for foreigners. Its lobby is stocked with imported whiskey; the air-conditioning is turned up to Arctic levels. This is not an unusual juxtaposition in today’s Cuba. I walk through Central Havana with Antonio Rodríguez, a 60-year-old university history teacher who...

This is a good interview with DOJ whistleblower Johnathon Gross discussing the failure of the DOJ to seriously address corruption and lawfare within its ranks. The video is over two hours long and covers a lot of material, but in summary, Gross was hired in the early months of President Trump's second term as part of a team tasked with addressing civil right violations relating to J6 and lawfare in general. He ended up being pushed out of his position for being too persistent in his efforts for accountability.

Republican Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert endorsed Republican Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie Friday despite President Donald Trump’s efforts to primary challenge him. Trump launched an aggressive effort to unseat Massie by endorsing his opponent, Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, and has harshly criticized Massie over his criticisms of the Iran war, his opposition of the big, beautiful bill and his push to release the files surrounding Jeffrey Epstein. Four days before Massie’s primary, Boebert said on X that Massie “loves America and is fighting to save it,” while also praising Trump in the same statement. “Below is my friend Thomas Massie. He...

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called off a planned special session to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, even as he said Mississippi could still revisit its congressional map amid a broader GOP redistricting push in the South. Reeves announced Wednesday that he would cancel the special session scheduled to begin next week, which had been called to address Mississippi Supreme Court districts. Several Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump had pushed Reeves to add congressional redistricting to the agenda as part of a broader effort to create safer Republican seats amid a nationwide redistricting battle. Reeves said the cancellation...

There are more than 1 million sexually explicit books in K-12 public schools across the country. These books aren’t just “sexually explicit,” they are boldly pornographic – lewd, obscene, salacious. And children not only have access to them, they are encouraged to read these books. Anyone – parents, teachers or school board members – who challenge sexually explicit curriculum and library book-selections, find themselves the recipients of rabid political hatred.

A Utah man missed his connection at Newark Airport, went to retrieve his checked luggage, which contained a properly declared, unloaded firearm, and got arrested. He did everything right. New Jersey didn't care. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) cited that case in a proposed rule published earlier this week that would amend existing Gun Control Act regulations to protect gun owners during routine travel interruptions — a missed flight, a hotel stay, a fuel stop, a medical emergency. The Utah case isn't an outlier. New York and New Jersey have made a prosecution racket out of...

I think it has been pretty obvious for a long time that AOC's fundamental belief about capitalism is that it's a bad system which only exists because rich people want to take advantage of poor people. Today, there's a new podcast out hosted by Ilana Glazer in which AOC goes on a rant about billionaires. Her basic argument is that no one can legitimately earn a billion dollars. It's simply impossible. AOC: “There’s a certain level of wealth and accumulation that is unearned. You can’t earn a billion dollars. You just can’t earn that. You can get market power, you...

The Trump administration is cracking down hard on radical gender policies in public schools. The Department of Justice has launched full investigations into 36 Illinois school districts accused of helping children “change genders” without telling their parents and pushing sexual orientation and gender ideology without proper opt-out notifications.While blue-state bureaucrats treat families as obstacles, the DOJ is stepping in to enforce basic accountability and Supreme Court precedent. The review is also looking at whether the district’s violated parents right to opt their child out of lessons on gender and s*xuality.”🚨 BREAKING: The Trump administration launches investigations into DOZENS of Illinois...

Ever since the Never Trumpers left the Republican Party and rushed into the arms, politically and financially, of the Democrats, it's been pretty clear that all the "conserving conservatism" talk was a smokescreen. They wanted to run the Republican Party, and when they were rebuffed, they exited to grift off the Democrats. I wrote about Jeb!'s former communications director now embracing Hasan Piker and Nick Fuentes because he wants to preserve "democracy" against Donald Trump, and we all know that David French, who ran into the arms of The New York Times, argued that the best way to fight abortions...

Venezuela’s deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, never enjoyed the charisma or genuine popularity of his predecessor, ‘El Comandante’ Hugo Chávez. So all the murals, billboards and installations dotted around Caracas urging the release of the 63-year-old statesman – along with his wife Cilia Flores – from American captivity, don’t exactly feel like a grassroots effort. ‘Bring them home!’ reads one mural, evoking the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas. Meanwhile, a stopwatch installed in Caracas’s Bolivar Square counts how long it has been since the presidential couple were abducted by the US army in early January. Maduro currently resides in the Metropolitan...

Budget carrier Spirit Airlines officially shut its doors Saturday, laying off its employees and cancelling all flights after rising fuel costs pushed the struggling company over the brink. The price of jet fuel has spiked since the American–Israeli war on Iran started in late February, leaving Spirit—which had already declared bankruptcy twice in less than two years—unable to sustain its business operations. “The sudden and sustained rise in fuel prices in recent weeks ultimately has left us with no alternative but to pursue an orderly wind-down of the Company,” CEO Dave Davis said in a statement released Saturday. Davis added...

Former Rep. Barney Frank spent decades as one of the Democratic Party’s most recognizable left-wing figures. Now, in what may be one of his final public warnings, he is telling Democrats that their loudest activists have pushed the party into territory the public simply is not buying. Frank’s warning, delivered as he enters hospice, is blunt. He is not attacking the left from the right. He is saying the left has made a strategic mess of things by turning its most controversial causes into purity tests and then acting surprised when voters balk. “I think we’re in a situation where...

“When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” — Maya Angelou If there is one thing that leftists are adept at doing, it is projecting who they are upon others, namely, their political opposition. How often have we had to endure the incessant droning of these maniacal totalitarians castigating everyone else as fascists, authoritarians and threats to democracy? It only takes one reading of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto to show you who these leftists are, along with a study of their history, in order for anyone to believe who they are. But, just in case there...

Druzhba means ‘friendship’, which is nowhere to be found these days. Today, Ukraine restarted the flow of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia through the Druzhba pipeline that it kept shut to further boost the election of Péter Magyar. In exchange for that, the EU was finally able to approve the long-awaited 90 billion Euro loan to Kiev – although it must be noted that both Budapest and Bratislava ‘opted-out’, meaning no Hungarian or Slovak money is part of it. But there isn’t time to celebrate because, also today, Russia announced that it will close a major oil pipeline into...

Huawei, China’s answer to Nvidia, is rapidly expanding its AI technology into other countries and signaling a rapid acceleration in the global AI race. It’s a move AI experts predicted would not occur. Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, South Africa, and Turkey will now be able to build on Huawei’s Model-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform, which includes AI models like DeepSeek. Much like individual consumers who become dependent on Apple’s ecosystem, companies that build on Huawei’s models and cloud infrastructure risk becoming deeply tied to that platform. At scale, this creates a ripple effect — as companies that...