Free Republic

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told reporters Tuesday that his panel will unveil changes to the House-passed bill to enact President Trump’s agenda that will be more “conservative” and propose dramatically less money for border security. Paul has argued for weeks that Congress doesn’t need to spend $150 billion to secure the border and beef up immigration enforcement since border crossings plunged after Trump took office in January. “It will actually be the conservative version of how much money we spend” on the border, Paul told reporters. He said the Senate’s text under...

Simone Biles apologized to Riley Gaines on Tuesday for their online spat over trans-identifying males in women’s sports, the Olympic gymnast adding that she believes the current women’s sports system is “flawed.” The two athletes clashed on Friday when Biles attacked Gaines seemingly out of the blue, calling the former University of Kentucky swimmer a “sore loser” and telling her to “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.” “I wanted to follow up from my last tweets,” Biles posted Tuesday on X. “I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport. The current...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) slammed Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) push for Russian sanctions, calling his bill “self-defeating economic warfare.” Graham’s sanctions bill on Russia would impose a 500 percent tariff on imports from any country that buys Russian oil, gas, uranium and other products. The legislation has more than 80 co-sponsors in the Senate, potentially making it veto-proof. But GOP senators are waiting on President Trump to move ahead with the legislation, and Trump said this week he hasn’t even looked at it. Trump has also said he doesn’t want to undermine the chances of a peace deal between Russia...

@RepThomasMassie Massie plan: Throw the big beautiful bill in the trash. Start over… skinny! Extend 2017 tax cuts End Green New Deal cold turkey No bloat for military industrial complex No SALT No pork Realistic border funding Serious Medicaid reform $1 spending cuts for $1 new tax cuts

CBO projects $3T added to debt from bill that tackles tax policy, border security, healthcare reforms President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" is projected to increase the debt by $3 trillion, with interest, or $5 trillion if made permanent, according to estimates. An estimate of the House-passed bill by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects it would add more than $2.4 trillion to primary deficits before interest over 10 years, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit public policy organization. As of Wednesday, the national debt, which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors,...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is using President Trump’s legislative agenda to “secretly explode” the Pentagon’s budget by adding $150 billion in military spending onto the national debt. “This bill is going to spend $300 billion in the first two years … $300 billion on military and border,” Paul, a critic of the House-passed version of the GOP mega bill, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in an interview on Wednesday. Paul said the spending cuts in the bill amount to $1.5 trillion over 10 years or about $150 billion per year. “In the first year...

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kentucky on May 30 dropped its lawsuit challenging two of the state’s pro-life laws, in a development Kentucky’s attorney general, the defendant, applauded as one that will save lives. The ACLU-KY had filed the lawsuit about six months ago on behalf of a Louisville woman who wanted to get an abortion, according to the Kentucky Lantern. The woman later traveled out of state for an abortion. ACLU-KY Executive Director Amber Duke announced the voluntary lawsuit dismissal in a May 30 statement and said the organization will not provide further details about dropping the...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said the debt limit increase included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is still a deal-breaker for him, saying it goes against conservative values, despite discussions with President Donald Trump about his concerns. Paul told reporters on Monday that the bill will increase the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, the largest debt increase in the U.S."We have never raised the debt ceiling without actually meeting that target," he said. "So you can say it doesn't directly add to the debt, but if you increase the ceiling $5 trillion, you'll meet that. And what it does...

The US House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a resolution expressing support for Israel in its war against Hamas. The resolution, titled “Standing with Israel as it defends itself against the barbaric war launched by Hamas and other terrorists”, passed by a majority of 412 to 10. Nine of the ten “no” votes were by Democrats: Reps. Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Andre Carson, Al Green, Summer Lee, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Delia Ramirez and Rashida Tlaib. The lone Republican no vote was from Rep. Thomas Massie. The resolution states that the House of Representatives “stands with Israel as it...

When Rep. Mike Johnson was elected speaker, he said that the House was getting right to work Wednesday afternoon. The first item on the agenda was to vote on a resolution to show support to Israel. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against it. Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), Al Green (D-TX), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Andre Carson (D-IN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Summer Lee (D-PA), Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) voted against the bill. Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Nydia Velazquez (D-NY), Greg Casar (D-TX), Chuy Garcia...

Top Democratic operatives and donors have been hobnobbing in “luxury hotels” while trying to figure out why the party is shedding men and the working class — moves that have liberals have slammed as out of touch. In one instance, liberal super PAC Future Forward hosted a gathering in the Ritz-Carlton resort in wealthy Half Moon Bay, California, to apprise donors on what went wrong in 2024. Prominent figures such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) were reported in attendance. Some of the elite gatherings featured appetizers like short-rib tostones, mini lobster rolls, beef...

House Speaker Mike Johnson went to battle with Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., over spending cuts and the national debt in President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" this weekend. Johnson made the comments during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday" with host Shannon Bream, after Paul had called the spending cuts in the current version of the bill "wimpy." "It sounds like his biggest objection is the fact that we are extending the debt ceiling. That's a critically important thing to do. We have to do it. We're not going to get any Democrats to assist on that," Johnson said Sunday....

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Janet Lynn Stumbo leaned on her cane and surveyed the two dozen or so voters who had convened in a small Appalachian town to meet with the chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party.A former Kentucky Supreme Court justice, the 70-year-old Stumbo said the event was “the biggest Democratic gathering I have ever seen in Johnson County,” an enclave where Republican Donald Trump got 85% of the presidential vote last November.Paintsville, the county seat, was the latest stop on the state party’s “Rural Listening Tour,” a periodic effort to visit overwhelmingly white, culturally conservative towns of the...

After a marathon overnight session, House Republicans passed their multi-trillion-dollar tax breaks package, dubbed the "One Big Beautiful Bill." The bill passed the chamber by a single vote, 215-214, with Democrats unanimously opposing and only two Republicans voting against, one of which represents Kentucky. As expected, Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, of Kentucky's 4th District, which includes a lot of area just east of Louisville, was one of the two who broke from party. When Massie began holding out, President Donald Trump lashed out about him, saying, "he doesn't understand government," and other various insults. Read more here. Ohio Rep. Warren...

Sen. Rand Paul renewed his skepticism Tuesday of a U.S.-Mexico border wall, asserting that the Trump administration has not justified the $46 billion for construction included in the pending House budget reconciliation package. The Kentucky Republican, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, made the comments at the tail end of an oversight hearing intended to evaluate President Donald Trump’s fiscal 2026 budget request on homeland security and immigration.“So I know that the wall has a great symbolic value, but I think we should reassess … what we want to do and how much it costs,” Paul...

Officials are hoping to set the record straight that, despite recent cuts, the National Weather Service was not hindered from forecasting this weekend’s deadly storms.

President Donald Trump today on Capitol Hill expressed frustration over Republican holdouts for his "One Big, Beautiful Bill." One Republican in particular found himself in Trump's cross hairs: Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has criticized the bill. Trump laid into him saying, "I don't think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he's a grandstander, frankly. He'll probably vote [no] - we don't even talk to him much. I think he should be voted out of office. I just don't think he understands government." "If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer... he just says:...

Sen. Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy on Sunday — and agreed that the policies raise constitutional concerns. The Kentucky Republican said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.” “In the past, the court has allowed these things, but I think it’ll be an interesting thing because most tariffs in our history have been passed by Congress,” he said. “We’ve never had widespread tariffs that...

The first Democrat is now officially running for Sen. Mitch McConnell's seat. Pamela Stevenson, the top-ranking Democrat in the Republican-led Kentucky House, has launched her bid for the seat. Stevenson, a retired Air Force colonel, has served in the state House since 2021. Republican and former attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is also running for McConnell's seat. There are several other Republicans considering running, including Congressman Andy Barr. McConnell announced in February he would not seek re-election. His term ends in January 2027.

At least 14 deaths have been confirmed from violent tornadoes that swept through the commonwealth late Friday evening into early Saturday morning, causing significant damage in the London and Somerset areas. The wave of tornadoes flattened buildings, destroyed cars, kept thousands without power and collapsed homes and neighborhoods throughout southeastern Kentucky. The worry was that after the sun rose on Saturday more could be found injured or dead. It was the worst tornado in Somerset since 2012 when six people were killed. Gov. Andy Beshear issued a state of emergency Friday night in anticipation of the severe storms that were...