Free Republic

Voters in perhaps the most consequential special election ever held in Britain are angry, and they really want someone to feel their pain. That’s the clear verdict from a special focus group by Public First for POLITICO of voters in Makerfield, the former mining area in northwest England whose June 18 vote could determine the next prime minister. Some in the group said Andy Burnham, the Labour candidate who is hot favorite to succeed party leader Keir Starmer as PM if he can get himself back into Parliament, might make a difference. But the overwhelming mood during the 90-minute conversation...

‘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...

Pro-Palestine activists believe there could be a “sea change” in the Labour party’s approach to the crisis in the Middle East which could result in the government taking a tougher stance on Israel. Campaigners have pointed to the threat posed to Labour by the Green surge in the local elections, the likely departure of Keir Starmer from No 10, and new polling which shows an appetite among Labour members for a ban on all arms shipments to Israel. The relative optimism marks a mood swing for a campaign that has been hit hard by losing successive high court cases, the...

Candidate Nithya Raman in the Los Angeles mayoral race came in third place on election night, June 2, so far behind second place finisher Spencer Platt that she essentially conceded the election in a tearful farewell. And then, miracle of miracle, over the next few days as more and more mail-in ballots kept rolling in, Raman suddenly surged in the votes, often exceeding first place Karen Bass in some counts and doubling the percentage of her election day returns to the extent that by Sunday she surpassed Pratt in the vote, thus apparently landing a spot in the November runoff...

U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that, despite the exchange of strikes between Iran and Israel, a deal to end the war in the Middle East could be reached “in two or three days.” “They were going back and forth [with strikes], and now they both agreed, through me, to stop, and now we’re in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal,” Trump told reporters in New York, where he was attending the NBA finals in Madison Square Garden. Trump said the deal would stop Iran from having nuclear weapons and result in the...

North Korea is the world’s most unlikely growth story. Its economy is flourishing in ways not seen in years, aided by arms sales and troop deployments to Russia, supplies and financing from China, and the ability to flout international sanctions to import more energy, components and materials. Chinese leader Xi Jinping traveled to North Korea this week for his first foreign trip of the year. The Kim regime slammed its borders shut during the Covid-19 pandemic. It has since reopened to only a select few outsiders, including Russian and Western travelers and diplomats. Those visitors describe a North Korea unrecognizable...

The Iran war is on the ballot in South Carolina, where GOP primary voters will determine the political fate of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a steadfast ally of President Trump and one of the Senate’s most hawkish members. … Graham’s advocacy for the war has even extended to telling South Carolinians to prepare to send their sons and daughters to the Middle East.

Israel has hit southern Beirut in the first attack on the Lebanese capital since a truce brokered by the US last week. Two air strikes on two apartment buildings in a stronghold of Iran-backed Hezbollah killed two people and injured at least 20, including women and children, Lebanon's health ministry said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had struck "terrorist headquarters in the Dahieh district of Beirut, in response to Hezbollah's firing at Israeli territory". Israel had limited its Beirut attacks under US pressure over concerns strikes there could put a wider peace deal in jeopardy. But on Sunday night,...

A year ago, the White House was unleashing a blitz on higher education. At one campus after another, Trump officials opened investigations and cut federal funding unless schools fell in line with the Republican president’s political agenda. Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, President Donald Trump’s administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities. “We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas...

President Trump denied Friday that he campaigned on avoiding “endless” wars, as he seeks to reach a deal to end hostilities with Iran. “I didn’t promise anything. I don’t like these endless wars. This is not an endless war,” he told host Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” in an interview that aired Sunday. “We’ve been doing this for three months,” Trump added, referring to the Iran conflict that began on Feb. 28. “Much of it has been under… a pretty good form of ceasefire.” The president later said that he would “not have built the strongest military in...

Blackstone is restricting withdrawals from its flagship Blackstone Private Credit, or BCRED, fund following a spike in investor redemption requests, as fears over liquidity pressures rattled private markets. The asset management giant capped investor withdrawals from the $79 billion nontraded business development company at 5% of shares, after redemption requests hit 10% during the second quarter. It comes after U.S. private markets giants sold off on Wednesday after Switzerland’s Partners Group said it was curbing redemption requests in one of its European private equity vehicles. Partners Group said on Thursday it was prepared to restrict withdrawals in more of its...

Sen. Lindsey Graham held a campaign event in Downtown Charleston [last] Friday, where he outlined his political priorities and urged supporters not to back down heading into election season... Regardless of the topic being discussed, Graham found a way to loop in how his tight relationship with the President is a pillar voters should lean on when at the polls...

President Donald Trump reportedly walked out of a weekend interview with NBC News anchor Kristen Welker — some of which aired during Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press.” The interview was recorded in Wisconsin on Friday, and NBC News anchor Gabe Gutierrez revealed during a broadcast on Saturday that Trump abruptly ended the interview — after giving Welker nearly an hour of his time — as the two clashed over her questions about election integrity. WATCH: “As for that interview, Kristen and the ‘Meet the Press’ team conducted it here in Wisconsin inside a barn at the request of the...

Social Security is barreling toward a 24% across-the-board benefit cut in 2032 that would slash roughly $500 a month from the average retiree's check — a hit that totals about $345 billion a year nationwide, according to a first-of-its-kind report from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a Washington fiscal watchdog. Yet as that fiscal cliff draws closer, the Trump administration is simultaneously pushing Wall Street-style Trump Accounts and quietly reshaping the Social Security Administration in ways that already make it harder for millions to access disability benefits. The group warns that without congressional action, "no state would be...

President Donald Trump said on Friday that he is talking with the leaders of the largest artificial-intelligence companies about having the government acquire “pieces” of their firms. It could prove to be among the most significant federal interventions in the private sector in modern history. The president’s comment confirmed NOTUS reporting that he has been discussing the idea with tech executives for more than a year. He said he is aiming to invite “all of them” to the White House as soon as next week. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has talked to Trump about having shares of AI...

The Trump administration on Friday auctioned off rights to drill in a pristine wildlife refuge in Alaska, but the lease sale attracted only two bidders on a few tracts of land. Of the about 60 tracts of land opened up for leasing by the Trump administration, only five received bids.

The oil industry is warning the Trump administration that a Hormuz-sized hole in the world’s petroleum market is steadily draining inventories to levels that are likely to send global energy prices surging in the next several weeks, according to four executives. Industry executives have flagged the issue to senior White House officials and Cabinet members in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s ongoing dialogue with the U.S. energy industry, the people said. The warnings came as recently as late last month as data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and other sources began showing that fuel makers were...

Ukrainian soldiers are racing against time to achieve a breakthrough in the southeast before the rainy and cold weather kicks in and worsens fighting conditions, which could happen as soon as next month. The counteroffensive is unlikely to end just because of poor weather, but it is expected to complicate the fighting and slow down operations. Ukraine is stressing the weather will not impact the overall military operation, but some analysts expect the war could soon shift into a new phase. Mathieu Boulegue, a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy...

Republican Congressman Tom Kean Jr has not been seen in Washington or his New Jersey hometown for months, but he is expected to easily win his party's backing for re-election on Tuesday, after a recent endorsement from President Donald Trump. "Tom Kean has my Complete and Total Endorsement for Re-Election," Trump wrote on social media, adding, "HE WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" Kean is running unopposed so has not needed to campaign with voters. But US media report he also has not been in Congress, and has missed more than 100 votes. He was last seen on 5 March. His...

“You need Chevron, I need Chevron.” That’s the message from Democratic gubernatorial frontrunner Xavier Becerra, who’s making waves by breaking with the left on one of California’s most ambitious climate policies — as he refuses to fully back the state’s plan to phase out new gas-powered vehicle sales by 2035. The former Health and Human Services secretary, who leads polling ahead of the June 2 primary to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, stopped short of endorsing the state’s target to ban new gas and hybrid vehicle purchases starting in 2035. “California should transition from gas-powered vehicles when it makes sense —...