Free Republic

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on Monday became the second senator to call for a cease-fire in Gaza amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas militants. “I am calling for a ceasefire — a cessation of hostilities by both sides,” Merkley posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “To endure, the ceasefire and the following negotiations must accomplish other essential objectives, including the release of all hostages and a massive influx of humanitarian aid.” Merkley’s call comes after Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the second-highest ranking Democrat in the Senate, became the first senator to back a stop in...

Secret video recordings have been leaked exclusively to The Gateway Pundit from deep within the walls of the DC Gulag. See the series of eight videos below. This filthy facility is notorious for inhumane and torturous conditions. It is where many Political Prisoners from January 6th are being unconstitutionally detained by the United States Government pre-trail. The video recordings below feature Brandon Fellows, a 27 year old January 6th prisoner who has been in the Gulag since last June of 2021. According to Fellows, his crime was “taking two hits of marijuana in the Capitol after having a conversation with...

The FBI arrested the president of the Philadelphia Proud Boys on Wednesday morning at his Port Richmond home, weeks after photos and videos emerged placing him at the front of the organization’s presence during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. ---snip--- Prosecutors have charged at least two other men with trashing Merkley’s office, including Brandon Fellows, 26, of Schenectady, N.Y., who was arrested within two weeks of the attack. He told CNN on his way out of the Capitol Jan. 6 that he and others were smoking weed in “some Oregon” room. Merkley later posted a video to Twitter showing the...

Key members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressed outrage at revelations made in newly released emails showing ex-IRS official Lois Lerner coordinating with the Department of Justice on prosecuting nonprofit groups. One committee member said the emails prove why the IRS is “scared to give up the rest of Lois Lerner’s emails.” IRS commissioner John Koskinen was recently threatened with contempt for stonewalling the committee’s investigation. Koskinen claimed in a hearing that it could take years to provide the documents requested by Oversight. “The release of new documents underscores the political nature of IRS Tea Party...

As Vladimir Putin mobilizes forces on the Ukraine border and Chinese submarines patrol the Taiwan Strait, President Joe Biden’s State Department has made its priorities clear: The slave-made solar panels must flow. Republican senator Marco Rubio (Fla.) and Democratic senator Jeff Merkley (Ore.) introduced a bill in January prohibiting the importation of goods made with forced labor from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where a genocide perpetrated by the Chinese government is afoot. It passed the Senate in a voice vote in July. It was more controversial at Foggy Bottom, where we now know that Deputy Secretary of State Wendy...

Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) are urging President Biden not to nominate Jerome Powell to serve another term as chairman of the Federal Reserve, warning that his refusal to use the Fed to prepare the economy for the impact of climate change is a major problem. The Democratic senators join Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who are trying to steer Biden away from Powell, who was appointed chairman by President Trump, and toward picking Lael Brainard, the only Democrat on the central bank’s seven-member board. “Jerome Powell refuses to recognize climate change as an urgent and systemic economic...

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) said Wednesday that he will oppose Rahm Emanuel’s nomination to be ambassador to Japan. “Black Lives Matter. Here in the halls of Congress, it is important that we not just speak and believe these words, but put them into action in the decisions we make,” Merkley said in a statement. “I have carefully considered Mayor Emanuel’s record—and the input of civil rights leaders, criminal justice experts, and local elected officials who have reached out to the Senate to weigh in—and I have reached the decision that I cannot support his nomination to serve as a U.S....

Senate Democrats have reached an agreement on a new set of federal voting rules again, but this time it is more worrisome for Republicans because a key Democrat is on board. In fact, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who has not been a fan of previous voting bills, spearheaded this effort along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and a group of cosponsors, NPR reported. The package is the latest attempt by Democrats to counteract Republican-led measures at the state level to restrict voting access and alter election administration. The new legislation, unveiled Tuesday morning by Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar...

Apple spent $90,000 lobbying against past version of the bill.. A bipartisan group of senators on Friday introduced a bill that would stop U.S. companies from relying on Chinese slave labor. Introduced by Sens. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) and Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act would require companies to ensure forced labor is not used in their supply chains. It would also direct federal departments to produce a strategy for cutting Chinese forced labor out of the U.S. supply chain. Up to one million members of the Uyghur ethnic minority have been placed in "re-education camps"...

As wildfires ravage the American West Coast, with more than four million acres burned and at least 33 people dead, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee and Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., slammed President Donald Trump for his comments redirecting blame for the wildfires away from climate change. "We know that climate change is making fires start easier, spread faster and intensify. And it is maddening right now that when we have this cosmic challenge to our communities, with the entire West Coast of the United States on fire, to have a president to deny that ... these are climate fires," Inslee told...

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., pushed mail-in voting as a way to counter alleged Republican attempts to suppress minority votes. “It's really a great system," Merkley said, referring to mail-in voting. "One of those valuable things, which will become more and more important is it stops so many forms of voter suppression and voter intimidation. The Republicans are trying to stop poor people from voting, they’re trying to stop college students from voting, people of color from voting, Indian tribes from voting." He made those comments during a Tuesday interview with Sirius XM host Dean Obeidallah. Merkley added that mail-in balloting...

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) may very well have just ended the Senate impeachment trial of President Trump. Late Thursday, the Tennessee Republican announced he would be voting "no" on witnesses. "I worked with other senators to make sure that we have the right to ask for more documents and witnesses, but there is no need for more evidence to prove something that has already been proven and that does not meet the United States ConstitutionÂ’s high bar for an impeachable offense," Alexander said in a statement. His vote will put the nail in the coffin, essentially, for witnesses, even with...

The Senate confirmed former Army Lt. Col. Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense Tuesday, making him the first permanent Pentagon boss since James Mattis resigned last December. Esper, who served 10 years on active duty and 11 years in the National Guard and Army Reserve, was Acting Secretary before his nomination, and Patrick Shanahan had been Acting Secretary prior to that. The vote was not close, with the Senate confirming Esper by a vote of 90-8. The no votes included 2020 Democratic presidential candidates Cory Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, suggested Friday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hurt the progressive cause when she downplayed the influence of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and other freshman lawmakers. Pelosi told The New York Times last week that Ocasio-Cortez and Reps. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., "have their public whatever and their Twitter world, but they didn’t have any following. They’re four people, and that’s how many votes they got.” “I don’t think those comments were helpful to a broader picture of how we build progressive power...

Climate isn't the same as weather -- unless, of course, weather happens to be politically useful. In that case, weather portends climate apocalypse. So warns Elizabeth Warren as she surveyed Iowan rainstorms, which she claims, like tornadoes and floods, are more frequent and severe. "Different parts of the country deal with different climate issues," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-Malthusia, cautioned as she too warned of extreme tornadoes. "But ALL of these threats will be increasing in intensity as climate crisis grows and we fail to act appropriately." Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., recently sent a fundraising email warning Democrats that climate change was...

Democrats will introduce legislation to mandate zero-emissions vehicles make up all new car sales by 2040. The bill is co-sponsored by three Democrats running for president in 2020 who support the Green New Deal. The internal combustion engine has long been a target for environmentalists. Democrats will introduce legislation to completely phase out the use of gasoline-powered cars by mandating that only zero-emissions vehicles can be sold by 2040. “When I take a lungful of air in this moment, it has 30 percent more carbon in it than when I was born,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the bill’s main sponsor...

Terrorists need their guns more than their victims need surgeries. In 2002, Shmuel Waldman, an American from New Jersey, was shot while boarding a bus in Israel. The terrorist attack killed 2 people and left 40 injured. Among that 40 was Shmuel whose leg was blown apart, forcing him to undergo multiple surgical procedures, and leaving him suffering from PTSD. The terrorist who shot him was Said Ramadan, a “police officer” working for the terrorists who run the Palestinian Authority. The attack had been planned by senior Palestinian Authority officials and the Palestinian Authority viewed Ramadan as a hero. Waldman...

The US Department of Agriculture bought dozens of cats from Chinese meat markets, butchered the felines — and then fed their parts to healthy kittens at a Maryland lab for twisted experiments, according to a disturbing new watchdog report. The experiments, which took place as recently as 2015, were aimed at studying toxoplasmosis, a common parasitic infection that causes food-borne illness.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers will introduce legislation Thursday to prevent the Department of Agriculture from continuing deadly experiments on kittens. "The USDA's decision to slaughter kittens after they are used in research is an archaic practice and horrific treatment, and we need to end it," Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., the Senate bill's lead sponsor, said in a statement to NBC News. The agency has been breeding kittens in Beltsville, Maryland, and infecting them with a parasite that can cause toxoplasmosis, a food-borne illness. Scientists harvest the parasites from their stool for two to three weeks, and then euthanize and...

March 14, 2019 (Family Research Council) — What do cats have that newborn babies don't? Democrats' support. In one of the sickest ironies no one is talking about, Senate liberals picked this moment — 17 days after they voted to kill America's perfectly healthy infants — to fight for the humane treatment of kittens. Maybe the DNC's strategists are out to lunch, or maybe the Left really is this shameless, but I can't wait to see some of these politicians standing on debate platforms next year telling the American people that when it comes to protecting living things: We chose...