Free Republic

A group of 30 House Republicans is raising alarms about how the government shutdown is impacting gun owners across the U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., led his colleagues in a letter to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) Thursday urging its acting director to reclassify certain employees as essential workers, warning that current parameters are leaving many gun owners’ applications for certain items in limbo. “As a result of this Democrat-led shutdown, ATF, like most federal agencies, is operating at a reduced workforce. And while Democrats continue to fight for benefits for illegal aliens, the constitutional rights...

CNN data analyst Harry Enten reported Wednesday that Democrats are not matching their polling performance from the 2018 midterm elections, when they won control of the House. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN: New this morning, the race to control the House in the 2026 midterms has taken a turn and possibly brings with it a new warning sign for Democrats. Harry Enten running the numbers on this one and sneaking in at the last minute, just as usual. HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I've learned that way around. I've learned that. BOLDUAN: That was good. That was a good maneuver. ENTEN:...

Mike Johnson is angry today, or at least irritated. Some of his Democratic colleagues “stormed” his office, and he’s talking about what they did: berating a Capitol police officer who was posted to guard the place, tearing down a sign inside the office, and so on. There’s video at that link, if you want to watch Johnson expressing his disgust for this behavior. He’s Mike Johnson, so his outrage cranks all the way up to maybe a three, on a scale of one to ten. He’s a strangely Midwestern Loiusianan. But this is the thing he’s denouncing: [Video of noisy...

A Pennsylvania home where George Washington stayed during the Revolutionary War is for sale for $3.295 million. The house, in Fort Washington, served as the army commander’s headquarters during the White Marsh encampment, which spanned six weeks in late 1777 and culminated in the Battle of White Marsh, after which the British Army retreated to Philadelphia. Named the Emlen House, the original home was built in 1717 for the Emlens, a prominent Quaker family, to use as a summer retreat. The Colonial house has a fieldstone exterior, a portico and dormer windows. Sited on 2.64 acres, the three-story home has...

House GOP leaders are facing increasing pressure to bring the chamber back to Washington amid a shutdown fight with no end in sight. A growing number of GOP lawmakers are voicing frustrations with their leadership for prolonging the House recess, warning that the optics surrounding that inactivity could backfire on the party to the benefit of Democrats. The rumbling is creating a headache for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and his leadership team, who have made canceling votes a central part of the Republicans’ shutdown strategy. In doing so, they’re betting that an empty House will pile pressure on Senate Democrats...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Troops patrol train stations and streets in the nation’s capital. Masked federal law enforcement agents detain District of Columbia residents. Congress passes bills that further squeeze the city’s autonomy. And the one person who could act as a voice for Washington on Capitol Hill has been a rare sight. Even longtime allies say Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting delegate in the House, has not risen to the challenge of pushing back against the Trump administration’s intervention into her city. They cite her age, 88, and her diminished demeanor. That has raised questions about the 18-term...

Thousands of commuters cross the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge every day, but few realize that beneath its eastern span lies a piece of military history. The Nimitz House, officially named Quarters 1, is a Classical Revival woodframe rectangular house of 5,886 square feet. Quarters 1 was built as part of the initial wave of building construction that established the Naval Training Station, on what was then known as Goat Island, as an active base between 1900 and 1923. The first barracks and the Commander's Quarters were completed in 1900. Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet during WWII,...

Many experts are forecasting the end of a key provision of election law — enabling Republicans to shore up their advantage in the House, according to a new report. Democratic voting rights groups are preparing for a nightmare scenario if the Supreme Court guts a key part of the landmark civil rights-era legislation, the Voting Rights Act — a very real possibility this term. Ahead of the court’s Oct. 15 rehearing of Louisiana v. Callais — a case that has major implications for the VRA — two voting rights groups are sounding the alarm, warning that eliminating Section 2, a...

President Donald Trump's political muscle in Republican nomination races was on full display Tuesday as a candidate he endorsed last week won a crowded and competitive GOP special election primary for a vacant congressional seat in Tennessee. Trump-backed Matt Van Epps, a former commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, came out on top in a field of 11 Republican candidates vying to fill the seat in the state's solidly red 7th Congressional District, according to the Associated Press. Van Epps will now be the favorite in the Dec. 2 general election in the race to succeed former Republican...

AOC attacks Charlie Kirk on the House floor after voting no on the resolution honoring his life and legacy. What an absolute disgrace. “His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant, uneducated, and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans, far from the working quote, working tirelessly to promote unity, unquote, asserted by the majority in this resolution.” “It is equally important that Congress does unite to reject the government's attempt to weaponize this moment into an all-out assault on free speech across the country. All in the name of Charlie Kirk.”

Progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tore into Charlie Kirk during a speech on Capitol Hill after Congress voted to honor the late conservative activist. On Friday, the House officially passed a resolution honoring Kirk and his legacy, despite 96 Democrats refusing to explicitly condemn last week's heinous murder at Utah Valley University. A total of 60 Democrats voted against the resolution, with an additional 38 voting ‘present’ - or neutral - and 22 not voting at all. Although the resolution passed with a 310-58 vote, some have raised concerns about the stark difference in response compared to the June assassination of...

More On Nancy Pelosi's Socialist TiesSarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida) March 13, 1999What to call left-wing politicians I find it interesting that the mass media uses such terms as Christian radical right, radical right, far right, conspiratorial right, etc. When the left is mentioned, such terms as liberal, progressive, etc., are used. As an independent but conservative, I have found some information that I consider interesting. I wonder how many people are familiar with the Democratic Socialists of America, which is affiliated with Socialist International of London. At least 58 Democrats in the House of Representatives - about one-fourth of the Democrats...

President Donald Trump already has confirmed he would be on board with designating Antifa, and other far-left radicals across America, as domestic terrorists. His confirmation came in a response to a question from The Center Square. Now the House of Representatives is working on that very project. That same publication now is confirming that the House is expediting legislation brought by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., to do that.

Republicans jammed through a change to Senate rules on Thursday that will allow them to more quickly confirm many of President Donald Trump’s nominees. The move came over the objections of Democrats after bipartisan negotiations collapsed. The rules change will allow nominees to be considered en bloc, or as a group, as tensions have grown over several months between the two parties over the backlog of President Donald Trump’s nominees awaiting Senate confirmation. The vote was 45-53. Bipartisan negotiators worked furiously Thursday to reach an agreement that would head off Republicans from using the so-called nuclear option to allow the...

The House of Representatives burst into chaos as Speaker Mike Johnson attempted to lead a prayer for Charlie Kirk after he was assassinated in Utah on Wednesday. Father-of-two Kirk, 31, the founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative youth organization that regularly holds events on college campuses nationwide, was shot in the neck at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem and died about two and half hours later. His assassination not only devastated many members of Congress who knew the activist personally, but unleashed sadness, confusion and anger among lawmakers in the Capitol on both sides of the...

House Republicans release the first tranche of Epstein files The Justice Department delivered its first trove of files to Congress last month, after the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the department for the files. House Republicans on Tuesday night released the first group of files related to the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, which primarily includes information already publicly released.The Justice Department delivered its first trove of files to Congress last month, after the House Oversight Committee subpoenaed the department for the files. But the committee took over a week to review the 33,000 files, per Politico."This is the...

Yesterday, President Trump announced that he and his various campaign groups, including his Super PACs, have raised an unprecedented $1.5 billion dollars for the coming 2026 mid-term elections. This is all part of his campaign strategy to hold both the U.S. House and Senate. Of course, the former chamber, where the GOP currently has a 220 to 215 edge, is the one that is really in danger of flipping. Remember, this strategy includes: 1) push GOP redistricting; 2) minimize retirements; 3) spend big; 4) take primary challengers off the table; 5) raise gobs more money; 6) ramp up recruiting; and...

Andy Hopper @AndyHopperTX The Texas House Republican caucus just voted against holding the Dems who fled accountable in any real way. This motion did NOT pass by the required majority.

The committee will review the Justice Department’s production before releasing any material publicly.The Justice Department is expected to release a portion of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation files to the House Oversight Committee as soon as Friday, marking the culmination of a rare bipartisan demand for records. The scope and contents of the documents remain unknown. We don’t know if this information coming out is new. We don’t know if these are things that members of Congress have seen before. We don’t know if this is information that’s already made it out into the public eye through reporting or through previous...

In what looks like it might prove to be yet more good news for those Americans who want to learn the truth about what was going on with Jeffrey Epstein, the House Oversight Committee will now be able to release some of the documents it has pertaining to Epstein. The news follows the committee having issued a subpoena to the DOJ, in which it demanded the ability to release the documents. As background, the committee issued a subpoena to the DOJ earlier in August in which it requested from Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice information pertaining...