Free Republic

The president in recent days is leaning even further into using the National Guard as a glorified police force, visiting the troops and allowing them to be armed. He’s suggested he’s eyeing Chicago and New York next for their next deployment. On Sunday, he needled Maryland Gov. Wes Moore for Baltimore’s notorious crime statistics, hinting he could send troops there as well. It's a sign that despite polling showing how unpopular Trump’s moves are in Washington, the president is playing to a national audience — and betting this is a battle he and the GOP can win. If his recent...

Politico in its absolute obsession with pushing Jeffrey Epstein stories has broken its old record of five stories a few days ago and has now pushed out upon its readers six, six, SIX Epstein stories in a 24 hour period. A symptom of its laughable urgency to hopefully make its readers forget all about the Russia Hoax revelations by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.In fact, Politico has barely touched upon that more impactful scandal while shoveling up one Epstein story after another. It all makes one wonder if the Politico reporters are paid an Epstein bonus for writing about...

Katie Porter was the biggest beneficiary of Kamala Harris passing on a run for California governor, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners, with the former representative now holding a commanding lead in the race. Thirty percent of registered voters who said they’d vote for Harris if she ran for governor now plan to support Porter, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found. Sixteen percent of Harris supporters said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was their second choice, while 11 percent said their new favored candidate was former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra. Porter’s...

The Trump-despising Politico senior writer, Ankush Khardori, has found four, count 'em, FOUR, foreign diplomats who are remarkably all worried about the rule of law under President Donald Trump. Also very conveniently, all these diplomats happen to be unnamed. And Khardori milked them to warn about Trump on Monday in "‘We Still Don’t Know How Far They’ll Go’."Was that quote by the unnamed diplomats given to Khardori in unison or separately? The subtitle warns "Foreign diplomats are growing nervous about the rule of law in Trump’s America — and it could complicate law enforcement across the globe." So are those...

It's a very strange reaction by Politico's senior editor Michael Schaffer to the federal takeover of the Washington, D.C. police force. In fact you could categorize that reaction as disappointment as you can see in his Thursday piece expressing amazement as to "Why Washington Residents Aren’t Flooding the Streets to Protest Trump."As if to emphasize that disappointment, the subtitle chimes in with this frustrating (for Schaffer) observation: "DC is built for protests. But after Trump’s takeover, they aren’t happening."Where, oh where are the mass protests against the federal takeover of the DC police? Let us take a journey with poor...

Meetings between NATO and U.S. defense officials left allies concerned that President Donald Trump would leave Europe to ensure a lasting peace in the war-scarred country.“There’s the dawning reality that this will be Europe making this happen on the ground,” said a NATO diplomat who was briefed on the talks. “The U.S. is not fully committed to anything.” The meetings — which occurred days after Trump and European leaders met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in a sign of unity — underscore the massive task ahead for allies as they weigh plans to send a peacekeeping...

Democrats are tortured by what they should stand for now and heading into the 2028 elections. But a number of current trends suggest a likely answer: their own version of a populist, anti-establishment, MAGA-like makeover.Why it matters: The debate is usually framed as liberal vs. centrist, Rahm versus AOC. But big, fast changes in AI, media habits and general public angst point to a more sweeping shift in ideas and attitude.Four megatrends that are already shaping Democrats' efforts to remake their image and rewrite their agenda:Media: MSM is fading in its mesmerizing hold over liberals. At the same time, the...

Special envoy Steve Witkoff says the White House extracted critical wins from its Friday summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, even as President Donald Trump failed to walk away with the ceasefire he was loudly advocated for. Security guarantees offering Ukraine “Article 5-like protections” are the real prize, Witkoff told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday. They’re “game-changing,” he said. “We didn’t think that we were anywhere close to agreeing to Article Five protection from the United States in legislative enshrinement within the Russian Federation, not to go after any other territory when the peace deal is codified,” Witkoff said on...

The Sierra Club’s board of directors voted to fire Ben Jealous, its executive director, on Monday, according to multiple reports. Jealous began to helm the environmental nonprofit in early 2023 and was reportedly on leave for several weeks before he was let go after an “extensive” review of his behavior, according to multiple reports. Jealous reportedly made several staff cuts during his tenure and had a contentious relationship with some of the staff, according to Politico. VIDEO AT LINK................ “[Sierra Club’s board] unanimously voted to terminate Mr. Jealous’ employment with the Sierra Club for cause following extensive evaluation of his...

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his administration will release new rules and regulations on migrant farm labor, as the country’s need for workers and the food they help produce clashes with his vow to deport undocumented immigrants. Trump said his administration will continue to deport criminals, but that he wants to “work with” farmers to find a solution for their workers, oftentimes immigrants who have lived in the country illegally for decades and are paying taxes. He suggested the White House was working on a touchback program for some workers, requiring them to leave the U.S. and reenter through...

President Donald Trump’s approval rating remains underwater. But Democrats are faring worse, according to a new poll from The Wall Street Journal released Saturday. The new survey, conducted by Democratic pollster John Anzalone and Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, found Democrats’ popularity at its lowest point in three decades of WSJ polling, with 63 percent of voters holding an unfavorable view of the party. Only 33 percent of voters hold a favorable view of Democrats, with a meager 8 percent holding a “very favorable” opinion, for a net negative favorability of 30 percentage points. While voters still have significant concerns over...

The preliminary agreement suggests there is a path forward to lowering the auto duties on other major trading partners, as well.President Donald Trump’s “massive” trade deal with Japan is buoying foreign carmakers — and alarming American car companies who fear they are now at a disadvantage.Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on all foreign auto manufacturers in early April, a duty that also applies to cars made by U.S. companies from parts imported from Mexico and Canada. But now, the president is planning to lower the tariff to 15 percent for Japanese autos and auto parts, the White House confirmed...

Epstein! Epstein! Epstein!Please keep your minds focused on Jeffrey Epstein and his connection to President Donald Trump! No other story should be allowed to divert your attention away from Epstein and Trump.That definitely seems to be the attitude with Politico which is now treating the unfolding of the shocking details of Team Obama and their role in basically staging a coup against incoming President Donald Trump in December 2016 as really nothing more than an annoying diversion away from EPSTEIN! That is the basic theme of Tuesday's article by Politico's White House correspondent Eli Stokols, "Deflecting Epstein questions, Trump urges...

Right-wing activist Laura Loomer warned that President Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein threatens to “consume his presidency” in an interview on Wednesday, a dramatic rebuke from a presidential confidante that illustrates the growing rupture in the MAGA coalition. She likened it to the intense media interest in ties between Trump’s first White House campaign and Russia, saying “I don’t want it to consume his presidency.” “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who...

Speaker Mike Johnson is calling for the Department of Justice to release all of its information on Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier who died in jail after being charged with sex trafficking, and wants Attorney General Pam Bondi to explain previous statements on the matter. The Trump administration this month declined to release additional information regarding Epstein’s death, with the Justice Department and FBI concluding there’s no evidence that Epstein had a list of clients or was murdered in his jail cell. Republicans blocked a House vote on Tuesday afternoon that Democrats tried to cast as a referendum to force...

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday he would hold off on advancing a closely watched package of sanctions targeting Russia’s trading partners after President Donald Trump said he was prepared to act himself later this summer if Russian President Vladimir Putin doesn’t move toward a peace deal with Ukraine. “It sounds like right now the president is going to attempt to do some of this on his own,” Thune told reporters. “If at some point the president concludes that it makes sense and adds value and leverage that he needs in those negotiations to move the bill, then we’ll...

As Elon Musk moves to create a third party to upend America’s political system, he’s spoken with one-time Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang about the nascent effort. Yang, the 2020 White House contender and founder of the independent Forward Party, said in an interview that he has been “in touch” with Musk and his team. “I’m excited for anyone who wants to move on from the duopoly,” Yang said. “And I’m happy to help give someone a sense of what the path looks like.” He did not respond to follow-up questions about when they spoke and what else they discussed....

Biden bombshell: Here’s one for the history books. This morning, Playbook readers can read the actual six-page memo that convinced President Joe Biden to push for an early debate with Donald Trump last June. And a quick trigger warning: Dems may prefer to read it through their fingers. With friends like these: In the ill-fated briefing document, dated April 15, 2024, Biden’s senior advisers told him not to wait for the autumn dates proposed by the Commission on Presidential Debates — the first of which, they noted, was scheduled after mail-in ballots would start going out — but instead to...

A federal judge in New York has blocked the Trump administration’s attempt to strip immigration protections from Haitians fleeing instability in their country. The ruling Friday from U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan preserves, for now, the Biden administration’s 2024 extension of the protections, known as “temporary protected status,” for up to 500,000 Haitians living in the United States. Cogan’s 23-page decision is the latest legal development in the administration’s efforts to roll back TPS designations and other immigration programs that allow immigrants from countries facing humanitarian crises to live and work here legally. In a separate case, the Supreme Court...

Driven by a desire to help ex-servicemembers with mental illness, GOP lawmakers led a failed campaign last year to persuade the Biden administration to approve psychedelic drugs. Now they may have found the ally they need in President Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A longtime believer in psychedelics’ potential to help people with illnesses like post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, despite the lack of supportive evidence Biden officials found, Kennedy is ramping up government-run clinical studies and telling the disappointed lawmakers doctors will be prescribing the drugs soon. “These are people who badly need some kind of...