Free Republic

Eddy County Sheriff Matthew Hutchinson is blasting U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez after the Democrat congressman’s delayed response to National Police Week, accusing Vasquez of treating law enforcement like an afterthought while officers in southern New Mexico face the daily consequences of crime, fentanyl, and the border crisis. In a new opinion column titled “Our congressman won’t back the badge,” Hutchinson said Vasquez remained silent for the first two days of National Police Week, which ran May 10-16, before finally posting a message after being publicly called out by Republican congressional candidate Greg Cunningham. “For two full days, our congressman said...

U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury is doubling down on her gerrymandering fundraising pitch, again accusing Republicans of trying to “deny representation” while ignoring the political reality right here in New Mexico: Democrats used total control of Santa Fe to redraw the state’s congressional map and help wipe out Republican representation in the U.S. House delegation. In a new campaign email with the subject line “A lack of representation,” Stansbury claimed, “Republican gerrymandering is an attempt to deny representation for Americans.” The email asked supporters to “rush $10 right now” to help Stansbury support Democratic women, saying her campaign needed to raise...

Subtraction, not addition, is emerging as the central threat to Republicans in the 2026 election. Polls suggest that’s a greater danger for the GOP than the possibility that Democrats will add a big cache of new votes... “When both parties are viewed negatively, you are probably going not to see a lot of new voters,” said Texas-based GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak, with a view widely shared on both sides. Instead, this year’s result could turn on which side suffers greater falloff among the voters who backed it in 2024. And all signs so far indicate that Republicans now face the...

Interviews with six chapter leaders of the youth conservative movement Turning Point USA in swing states revealed a striking level of frustration. “From a lot of my peers, especially in Gen Z right now, there is a lot of frustration and now, distrust, in our current administration over the decisions with the war in Iran,” said Rebekah Bushmire, vice president of the University of West Georgia’s Turning Point USA chapter. Connor Darby, vice chair of a TPUSA chapter at the University of North Georgia, pointed out Trump’s comments about pre-war strikes having destroyed Iran’s nuclear capabilities. “I thought that was...

Over the past decade, the Lehigh Valley has voted narrowly for Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and then Trump again. In that time, the district has elected both Republicans and Democrats to the House, also by thin margins. If any place represents the changeable character of American politics over the last 10 years, surely it’s Pennsylvania’s 7th Congressional District. This fall, Democrats are hoping to take back the seat, which encompasses the population centers of Allentown and Bethlehem. This district’s voters elected Democrat Susan Wild to three full terms in Congress, starting with her party’s wave election in 2018, but the...

‘Hey, you promised lower gas prices. You promised the economy would be better.” Christian conservative influencer Savanna Faith Stone...is one of a flurry of influencers who flocked to San Antonio to gather under a bevy of bright pink lights at Turning Point USA’s Women’s Leadership Summit. “It’s harder than ever for a young couple to be able to buy a home." “I cannot express to you the level of alarm bells that should be ringing for the GOP,” conservative influencer Alex Clark told POLITICO. "Young women are looking at everything from the ongoing war in Iran to the persistence of...

"Prime Minister Netanyahu, look, he governs a country that has obviously been a very close partner of the United States. But, even when we've been close partners, sometimes we have interests that are perfectly aligned and sometimes we have interests that are misaligned," Vance told Robert Costa in an interview airing this week on "CBS Sunday Morning." Asked whether Netanyahu has made any mistakes in how he's approached his relationship with the U.S. on Iran, Vance said, "he's certainly gotten some things wrong." Vance declined to give examples, saying those conversations "are better left in private." "But what I would...

Alarmed by Trump’s public flirtation with supporting a Florida abortion-rights ballot measure, Live Action founder Lila Rose traveled to the president’s Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club in September 2024 for a private intervention. During a sit-down that lasted more than two hours, Rose tried to persuade the president to adopt a stronger pro-life position on the campaign trail. She showed Trump videos narrated by former abortion doctors explaining how procedures are performed in graphic detail, hoping to convince him not to abandon a social-conservative movement that had stood by him for three presidential campaigns. But his response unsettled her... “That...

One potential coalition, which would be healthy for both the party and the country, would be between social conservatives and antiwar voters. In the time since the election, both of these groups have been repeatedly disappointed, especially by the [Trump] administration’s war with Iran and its approval, through the FDA, of a new form of mifepristone, a dangerous abortion pill... These two disappointed factions are naturally complementary coalition partners, particularly on the pro-life issue. There is a natural connection between the defense of innocent human life at home through pro-life policies and protecting it abroad by avoiding unjust wars. There’s...

Cassidy signaled in his concession speech, without mentioning Trump, that he could spend the final months of his term being more of a thorn in Trump’s side – or at least more openly critical of his party. “Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution,” Cassidy said. “And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to...

During a 15 May 2026 interview, the president discussed maintaining foreign enrolment. He argued institutions rely on international tuition.Speaking to Fox News presenter Sean Hannity on 'Hannity', he articulated his perspective. 'But if you don't have those students — good students, by the way — if you don't ... if they're good and they want to stay in America, we won't give them a green card and things like that,' Trump explained… 'Frankly, I think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture, and many of them want to stay here. I think it's...

More Perfect University (MPUniversity), founded by the liberal media group “More Perfect Union,” made its big launch...saying students in all 50 states joined MPUniversity in the six days leading up to it. The launch featured a livestream and interview with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose advisors founded More Perfect Union. “Mainstream media, politicians, and universities are bowing down to the 1%. We’re organizing on college campuses to fight corporate greed and build student power,” MPUniversity said in a post on X. The group will do on-campus events and debates while creating an online community through discord and email. It will...

The conventional liberal take on the Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais to limit the use of race in drawing congressional districts is that it is a defeat for minority political influence… But the fact that it will no longer be permitted doesn’t mean that Black voters will necessarily have less influence. They could even have more. The key to understanding why is the tried-and-true power of the swing voter… The alternative to race-based districts, after all, is those that are “geographically compact”—in which the shared concerns of neighbors about their communities are at issue. Those could include race-related...

In a report from The Bulwark on Republican sentiment on soaring gas prices… Cornyn, R-TX, said the hike in gas is a "small price to pay" to continue the war. "If the American people understood," Cornyn said, "they would certainly agree." “After 40 years in public office, John Cornyn still doesn’t understand that working Texans are drowning because DC politicians like him are driving up the cost of everything," said Talarico campaign spokesperson J.T. Ennis in a news release… Cornyn is set to face Attorney General Ken Paxton in a May 26 runoff. The winner of that contest will face...

I hear a lot from young people about their hopes, their dreams, and their fears. You see, young people are idealists. They respond to vision. For the past four years, they’ve seen the vision of the Biden-Harris regime. That vision is you’ll own nothing and be happy. The Democrats say instead of owning a home, you’ll rent a 400 square foot studio apartment. Instead of owning a car, you’ll rent a scooter using some app. Their vision is this, limit your dreams, give up, aim lower, be content with less. If you’re a twenty-something in America, life has been really...

White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, one of President Donald Trump’s most influential but least public-facing advisers, launched an X account Tuesday to share updates from inside the administration. "I’m joining X to share occasional updates about the work we do at the White House. We are relentlessly focusing on advancing President Trump’s agenda and delivering on promises to the American people," her first post read. "I welcome different viewpoints. Follow along for insights and information." Her newly formed account has amassed nearly 300,000 followers since its launch this week. Wiles is seen very often with the president, sitting...

Senators Elizabeth Warren (D, Massachusetts) and Josh Hawley (R, Missouri) introduced the Break Up Big Medicine Act, legislation aimed at prohibiting the joint ownership of health insurers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), providers, and wholesalers to reduce health care costs and restore competition... The legislation comes amid growing concerns about consolidation in the health care industry. In the US, 3 PBMs currently manage 80% of prescription drug claims, 2 and 3 wholesalers control 98% of prescription drug distribution... These entities are often vertically integrated, meaning a single parent company can own every component of the health care supply chain, from the...

Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is pushing back on a Republican proposal to spend up to $400 million in federal funds on President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom, citing the nation’s mounting debt and deficit spending. Scott’s comments came after Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) announced legislation Monday that would help finance the ballroom project with federal dollars. Graham argued the facility would serve security and operational purposes beyond hosting events. “Underneath it will be a lot of military stuff. There will be a Secret Service annex, and we pay for it by offsetting it with customs fees,” Graham said at...

The president of Turning Point USA’s University of Georgia chapter says the organization has strayed from the mission it had under the leadership of Charlie Kirk. Caroline Mattox wrote on Instagram that she could not in good conscience stay with an organization that has “strayed so far from its original purpose and principles.” Mattox is not the first TPUSA chapter president to express dissatisfaction with the organization’s current direction. The University of Arkansas chapter cut ties with TPUSA last month. Former President Dino Fantegrossi also expressed the sentiment that TPUSA had strayed from its original mission.

Turning Point USA CEO and chair Erika Kirk helped organize the White House listening session this month that put disgruntled Make America Healthy Again advocates in the same room with President Donald Trump, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and their leading advisers, according to two people inside the Trump administration and two people familiar with the meeting, granted anonymity to discuss the details. It’s one of the first and most prominent examples of Kirk helping the Trump administration keep its coalition together ahead of what is expected to be a difficult midterm election cycle. Some of Kirk' supporters see...