Free Republic

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said Monday on CNN’s “News Central” that President Donald Trump “promoted” the violent environment that brought the shootings of Minnesota lawmakers over the weekend. Co-host John Berman said, “There was a state representative, Democratic leader of the state legislature in Minnesota killed over the weekend, a state senator shot. How would you describe the current political atmosphere in this country this morning?” Merkley said, “I feel like Trump has really popped the lid off of the rhetoric and the the sense of hate and violence and promoted this type of an environment. It’s profoundly disturbing for...

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) – Oregon Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are co-sponsoring a bill that would ban discrimination against transgender military members.The Fit to Serve Act would prohibit the Department of Defense from banning transgender service members from the military and would ban the department from listing gender identity as a qualification for service.The Fit to Serve Act was led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and co-sponsored by other senators, including Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.)

A bipartisan pair of senators is warning the White House that recent US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen risk “emboldening” the Iranian-backed group and flouted the law regarding congressional oversight of military operations. The letter from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., shared first with Semafor, concerns the strikes that have made headlines recently.... “Neither the U.S. strikes since October 2023 ordered by President Joe Biden, nor the previous years-long campaign against the Houthis conducted by Saudi Arabia were successful in establishing deterrence against the Houthis,” Merkley and Paul wrote in the letter sent to President Donald...

Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) said Thursday on CNN’s “The Arena” that his fellow Democrats need to “take on” President Donald Trump. He claimed the “best time” was “to take on a tyrant is as early as possible.” Merkley said, “You don’t stop a bully by giving over your lunch money and you don’t stop tyrant Trump by voting to give him more power. That is absolutely the wrong approach. There are others who say, you know, in a shutdown, the president may have more power than we’ve seen in any previous shutdown. There is a legitimate case to be made...

Anti-Israel protesters flooded Senate building in illegal protest urging members to vote for arms sale blockIn the Biden-Harris administration’s eleventh hour, Senate Democrats are launching a campaign against the Jewish state aimed at drumming up support for blocking arms sales to Israel.Led by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), the congressional offensive consists of three Senate disapproval resolutions that call for an immediate pause in American arms sales to Israel and accuse the United States of supporting mass war crimes in the Gaza Strip. Sanders—along with Sens. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), Jeff Merkley (D., Ore.), Peter Welch (D., Vt.), and...

The FBI seized Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan’s phone and electronics early Wednesday morning — just a week after the election-betting platform successfully predicted President-elect Donald Trump’s win, The Post has learned. The 26-year-old entrepreneur was woken up at 6:00 a.m. in his Soho home by law US enforcement officers who demanded his phone and electronics, a source close to the matter told The Post. It’s “grand political theater at its worst,” the source told The Post. “They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things. Instead, they staged a so-called raid so they can leak it to the...

As Election Day approaches, the prediction market Polymarket has drawn attention with its $2.7 billion betting pool on the 2024 presidential race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Currently, Polymarket’s odds show Trump with a 66% chance of victory. However, a recent analysis from blockchain experts suggests nearly one-third of this activity may be due to wash trading, casting doubt on the platform’s reliability as a predictive tool. Possible evidence of artificial trading on Polymarket Blockchain research firms Chaos Labs and Inca Digital, known for digital market security and data analysis, recently reported findings that question Polymarket’s reported $2.7 billion...

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.