Free Republic

Last week the nuclear rhetoric between the US and Russia made some of us feel like we were transported back to 1962. Back then, Soviet moves to place nuclear-capable missiles 90 miles off our coast in Cuba led to the greatest crisis of the Cold War. The United States and its president, John F. Kennedy, could not tolerate such weapons placed by a hostile power on its doorstep and the world only knew years later how close we were to nuclear war. Thankfully both Khrushchev and Kennedy backed down – with the Soviet leader removing the missiles from Cuba and...

@NuryVittachi "The American empire is over," Richard D. Wolff, U.S. professor of international affairs, tells Al Jazeera. Already the biggest economic power on the planet is not the US and its allies, but China and the BRICS. But no U.S. politician dares to tell the people: "It's over."

Ron Paul is turning 90 this month. One of the most influential political figures of his time, Paul has meant many things to many people. Here’s at least a part of what he’s meant to me. When I was 20 years old, I supported Pat Buchanan for president. A southerner living in Boston, I was there for his 1996 Lexington battlefield campaign rally where Buchanan jeered at student protesters. “Come on, children, stop it or I’ll take away your Pell grants.” It was also exciting to see Buchanan on the covers of TIME and Newsweek, and to be living next...

Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted associate of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, has been moved from a Florida prison to a new minimum-security facility in Texas, authorities have confirmed. The move comes as Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking, has pressed the Supreme Court to overturn her conviction while also seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump. Earlier in July, Maxwell held two meetings with the Deputy US Attorney General, the details of which have not been made public. Maxwell has been at the centre of controversy surrounding the Trump administration's handling of the Epstein files, and the...

@RepThomasMassie Three billionaires from New York City and Las Vegas have funded a superPAC deceptively named Kentucky MAGA to run millions of dollars of negative ads against me because I vote against foreign aid for Israel and needless wars in the Middle East. Kentuckians aren’t falling for it.

President Trump is increasingly directing his frustrations at specific Senate Republicans, including turning his fire on key allies in recent days. The president this week publicly excoriated Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) over upholding the “blue slip” tradition and pushing a congressional stock trading ban, respectively. While Trump has long had a tendency of airing his grievances out in public — especially toward those he views as disloyal — the latest barbs about staunch backers are raising eyebrows and drawing questions about whether the strategy will continue to be effective in advancing his agenda. “I don’t think...

Republican senators were appalled by President Trump’s rough treatment of 91-year-old Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the Senate’s most senior Republican, on social media and are pushing back on Trump’s attempts to squeeze the senator into abolishing an arcane procedure known as the Senate blue slip. GOP senators were not pleased that Trump piled so much pressure on Grassley, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to get rid of a long-established Senate tradition. Trump piled on by reposting on Truth Social posts accusing Grassley of being a “RINO” and “sneaky” and standing in the way of Trump’s agenda. Sen. Thom...

Bill Cassidy is playing a gambit. The Republican doctor from Louisiana appears ready to fight for his Senate seat next year, a race complicated by his checkered history with President Donald Trump and a new primary system that could make reelection more difficult. His main hurdle? Convincing his Louisiana base that he’s gotten behind Trump’s agenda, despite his vote to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial. His GOP challengers have already seized on that vote, pitching themselves as better Trump loyalists. The gambit is that voters will be swayed by Cassidy’s late turn toward Trump, including support this year...

@RepThomasMassie 🧵 Foreign aid in DOD approps bill: $300 mil Syria & Iraq military $118 mil overseas disasters $15 mil AIDS in Africa $500 mil Israel $350 mil Kuwait $1.27 bil foreign security $500 mil Taiwan $500 mil Jordan $267 mil reimburse countries

President Donald Trump indicated Tuesday morning that he is open to deporting Elon Musk — amid his renewed battle with the Tesla boss. Speaking with reporters ahead of a flight to Florida on Tuesday, the president was asked about whether he would consider deporting the South African mogul. “We’ll have to take a look,” Trump said. “We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon! Wouldn’t that be terrible?” After a brief detente between the president and his former DOGE lieutenant, the war...

@RepMTG My thoughts on bombing Iran. I don’t know anyone in America who has been the victim of a crime or killed by Iran, but I know many people who have been victims of crime committed by criminal illegal aliens or MURDERED by Cartel and Chinese fentanyl/drugs. Almost everyone in our country can relate to this fact. However America has not dropped bunker busters on the Cartel’s sophisticated drug tunnels, launched tomahawks on massive cartel poisonous drug operations, or gone to war against the cartels international terrorists networks. Neocon warmongers beat their drums of war and act like Billy badasses...

@RepThomasMassie Start at 14:53 in this interview if you want to know about AIPAC, the group that gives millions of dollars to my colleagues so they’ll support things like US involvement in Israel’s war against Iran. FWIW, AIPAC spent $400k against me last election and is banned from my office.

@gc22gc BANNON: Iraq wasn’t a failure of intelligence. It wasn’t an honest mistake. It was a bald-faced lie. You were lied to. President Trump told the world that. Told the Bushes that. That’s one of the reasons he’s President of the U.S. And we’re getting bald-faced lies right now.

@RepThomasMassie This is not Constitutional.

The US joining Israeli strikes would cause "hell for the whole region", Iran's deputy foreign minister has told the BBC. Saeed Khatibzadeh said this is "not America's war" and if US President Donald Trump does get involved, he will always be remembered as "a president who entered a war he doesn't belong in". He said US involvement would turn the conflict into a "quagmire", continue aggression and delay an end to the "brutal atrocities". His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a...

@RandPaul Let me be totally clear: I will not vote to send one American soldier to Iran. Not one.

US President Donald Trump is considering joining Israel to strike Iranian nuclear sites, including in Fordow, sources familiar with the issue are quoted as saying by CBS, the BBC's news partner in the US. They say this was expected to be discussed in today's meeting in the Situation Room, adding that there is not a full agreement among Trump's closest advisers.

News broke late Thursday of a massive Israeli strike that killed several top Iranian military leaders and targeted key facilities. Secretary of State Marco Rubio scrambled to clarify the U.S. position, insisting the attack was a unilateral move by Israel and that America had no direct involvement. But Trump was already on the phone with a handpicked group of journalists, offering a very different message. He praised the strikes as “excellent,” made clear the U.S. had foreknowledge, and didn’t bother with diplomatic ambiguity. The U.S. didn’t pull the trigger — but Trump was riding shotgun, playing the eager sidekick without...

Political pundit Tucker Carlson doubled down on his criticism of Israel’s strikes against Iran, rebuking several media figures, including his former colleagues at Fox News, over what he described as their push for President Trump to engage in the region. “Who are the warmongers? They would include anyone who’s calling Donald Trump today to demand air strikes and other direct US military involvement in a war with Iran,” Carlson wrote in a post on the social media platform X. “On that list: Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Rupert Murdoch, Ike Perlmutter and Miriam Adelson. At some point they will all have...