Free Republic

'Tis the season for Senator Rand Paul to air his Festivus grievances about government waste! It's out, and it's spectacular! We're proud that--for the 7th year straight--the report features wasteful animal tests exposed by WCW, including: 🐶 $5.2M to inject beagles with cocaine and meth (NIH) 🐕 $13.8M for Dr. Fauci’s ongoing maximum pain tick bite experiments on beagles (NIH) 🦆☣️ $1M for a dangerous USDA-CCP bird flu gain-of-function collaboration (USDA) 🦭🐬 $77M for the Navy’s outdated Marine Mammal Program (DOD) 🐁🤰$2.8M to implant bone, liver, and thymus tissue from aborted human fetuses into lab animals to create “BLT mice”...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that partisan gerrymandering will “lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence in our country,” urging restraint in the ongoing redistricting wars playing out in more than a dozen states. “I think there is the potential that when people have no representation, that they feel disenfranchised, that it can lead, it might lead to violence in our country,” Paul said in an interview with Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Paul’s warning comes as state lawmakers across the country consider redrawing congressional lines at the insistence of President Donald Trump, with Democratic-led...

A Republican-drafted proposal to set up health savings accounts for people who buy their health insurance on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace failed to advance on a largely party-line vote Thursday, The legislation, which needed 60 votes to advance, failed by a vote of 51 to 48. Every Democrat voted against it. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) was the only Republican to vote “no.” Paul argued in a post on social platform X that funneling ACA subsidies into HSAs instead of to insurance companies “may be a slight improvement.” “But it’s still a vote for ObamaCare — something conservatives would...

One of the big fights coming this January is how to reform the failing Obamacare program, aka, the Unaffordable Care Act. Without massive COVID-era subsidies, users will pay a lot more in 2026. The program itself has so many problems, beginning with the fact that many well-off people qualify, and so much money goes to directly fund insurance companies, no questions asked. It is more than past time to just let this whole mess disappear. But many working people who don’t qualify for Medicaid need some options. Sen. Rand Paul has perhaps the simplest and most effective answer, one that...

To order the killing of people shipwrecked is clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military laws. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don’t shoot people. We don’t shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors we don’t shoot those people. We don’t sidle up in a boat and take a nine millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that.” “But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn’t make it any...

Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) said Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth should testify before Congress “under oath” about the orders to strike suspected Venezuelan drug boa “I think he should testify under oath about the orders that were given, and I think that the video of the distressed, shipwrecked or incapacitated people on those boats being bombed, that video should be shown to every American,” Paul said

Several Democratic senators and one Republican, Rand Paul of Kentucky, filed a war powers resolution to prevent the United States from using its armed forces to engage in hostilities with Venezuela without congressional approval. The resolution was filed by Paul and Democratic senators Tim Kaine, Va., Adam Schiff, Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, N.Y. It directs President Donald Trump to stop using the military “unless specifically authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force,” according to The Hill.

If you think eggs are expensive, just wait until the new tariffs hit cars. Goldman Sachs estimates tariffs on imported vehicles could raise prices by $5,000 to $15,000. That’s because tariffs are taxes on foreign imports that are paid by American consumers. These tariffs apply to almost every conceivable product. As a result, energy will be more expensive, and gas prices in some parts of the country could see as much as a 70-cent increase in the cost per gallon. According to the National Association of Home Builders, the building of a single-family home could become up to $10,000 more...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) blasted Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Tuesday for his role in the controversy surrounding the strike on a suspected Venezuelan narcoterrorist cartel boat on Sept. 2. “Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen. It was fake news. It didn’t happen. And then the next day, from the podium at the White House are saying it did happen,” Paul said while speaking to reporters at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday. “So, either he was lying to us … or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.” Paul also...

Austin McCubbin, a longtime Trump ally who ran Mace’s 2022 House re-election campaign, wrote in a Dec. 1 post on X that he was breaking with the congresswoman “out of loyalty to the President” and encouraged voters to “scratch her name from the list” of GOP contenders. McCubbin pointed to the recent discovery of an alleged tie between Mace and a PAC affiliated with Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) McCubbin claimed it became clear she “totally embraced” the funds and that she told him she directed a friend to write a seven-figure check to the PAC. “She distanced herself, and...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) warned that President Trump calling Democratic lawmakers “traitors” is “reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible” “But if you take it at face value, the idea that calling your opponents traitors — and then specifically saying that it warrants the death penalty — is reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible.” “It’s not something that is helping the country heal wounds. I think it stirs things up,” he added. The president vented his fury after the Democrats posted the video in which they urged members of the military to refuse unlawful orders. “It’s called SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL. Each one of these...

MARGARET BRENNAN: ... Is the President holding himself to the same standard that he is asking of others when it comes to dialing back dangerous rhetoric? PAUL: You know, everybody knows that the President is famous for his unfiltered social media. But if you take at face value the idea that calling your opponents traitors and then specifically saying that it warrants the death penalty is reckless, inappropriate, irresponsible, there are a number of other ways to describe it, but it’s not something that is helping the country heal wounds. I think it stirs things up and- and really, I...

In the hope of shifting the debate on divestment from Israel to the real issue—the nature of the divestment campaign—and not the specious accusations regarding University President Lawrence H. Summers’ speech on the issue, I would like to suggest why I believe the campaign is properly characterized as “anti-Semitic in effect, if not in intent.” I would like to look carefully—if necessarily briefly—at the strategy of the campaign and the rhetoric of the petition, in order to show how it implicitly demonizes Jews. Supporters of the divestment campaign insist they seek to protest the policies of the Sharon government, and...

"Danny argues that the truth about the Ukraine–Russia war can no longer be concealed: Ukraine is heading toward a strategic and battlefield defeat, a reality now acknowledged even by strongly pro-Ukraine voices like journalist Julian Röpcke. According to the commentary: Western and Ukrainian leaders have long misrepresented battlefield conditions, offering “PR” optimism while ignoring deteriorating realities. Russia prioritized destroying Ukraine’s armed forces over capturing territory, but is now accelerating territorial gains as Ukrainian capacity collapses. Ukrainian reports and government messaging continue to “sugarcoat” the situation, preventing honest assessment and prolonging unnecessary losses. Russia maintains overwhelming advantages in drones, glide bombs,...

The hemp industry is gearing up for a lobbying effort following a provision in the recent government funding package meant to stop the sale of intoxicating hemp products but could inadvertently destroy a legitimate $28 billion industry and kill 300,000 American jobs. The new ban tucked into the spending bill prohibits products containing more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container and is aimed at stopping the sale of intoxicating products often sold in gas stations and convenience stores. While the spending bill was still in the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) unsuccessfully offered an amendment to remove the language,...

For over three months, the U.S. military has repeatedly struck boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, claiming that the vessels were intending to carry drugs into the United States. Since the first attack was announced on Sept. 2, these strikes have occurred nearly every week, killing dozens of people. NPR compiled a list of these boat attacks using posts on Truth Social and X by President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. These posts show grainy video footage of vessels being blown up. The administration has not publicly released further evidence that the boats were actually carrying drugs...

Nov 11 (Reuters) - Venezuela is deploying weapons, including decades-old Russian-made equipment, and is planning to mount a guerrilla-style resistance or sow chaos in the event of a U.S. air or ground attack, according to sources with knowledge of the efforts and planning documents seen by Reuters. The approach is a tacit admission of the South American country's shortage of personnel and equipment.

Paul and the Kentucky Hemp Association say McConnell’s language banning the sale of hemp-derived products that include more than .4 milligrams of THC per container will destroy the entire hemp and CBD industry — in a blow to farmers, businesses and consumers. McConnell says his provision targets “intoxicating THC products” that were made legal in the 2018 Farm Bill that launched the hemp industry, closing what’s often been referred to as its “loophole.” He says that would crack down on synthetic products with intoxicating amounts of THC — the psychoactive component in cannabis plants — while preserving non-intoxicating CBD and...

The lunch was intended to be a display of unity within the Republican conference and President Donald Trump, but Paul has been consistently voting against a continuing resolution that would restore federal funding through Nov. 21. Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul on Tuesday claimed that he had not been invited to a Rose Garden lunch at the White House with his colleagues in the upper chamber to discuss the ongoing government shutdown.The lunch was intended to be a display of unity within the Republican conference and President Donald Trump, but Paul has been consistently voting against a continuing resolution that...

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said he would oppose a package that would end the shutdown because it closes a loophole that has enabled the proliferation of widely available intoxicating hemp products, hurting a growing industry in his state. “I detest the tactics that are being used to try to get this ban enacted into law,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told POLITICO. “Kentucky benefits from hemp production, and I fully support Senator Rand Paul’s efforts to strip the unrelated hemp ban from the Senate funding bill.” The new Senate language would restrict the amount of intoxicating cannabinoids that can be in...