Free Republic

I remember like yesterday when Dr. Paul called me into his Member office in 203 Cannon with a draft of his famous “What If” speech. He had written it in his own hand and he asked me to go over it and clean it up a bit. Not unusual for how he writes: from the heart. And afterward I spent a good deal of time in his office with a stopwatch making sure he could deliver it under the five minute rule. Shuffling the papers. What do we have to cut. Which paragraph could be spoken a bit faster. I...

@PeterSchiff If you were a customer of Euro Pacific Bank, make sure to follow the updates on the bank's website, now that I have regained control. Qenta—the company that purchased the right to custody the gold and silver previously held by the bank on behalf of customers (among other assets)—just told a federal judge that it should be allowed to keep all of the appreciation in the gold and silver since it was transferred to their custody, to be held for customers, on Sept. 30, 2022. The gold and silver were worth about $25 million then; they are now worth...

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...

Democrat Rep. Delia Ramirez (IL) sparked controversy after reportedly declaring at the second annual Panamerican Congress held in Mexico that she is a proud Guatemalan before she is an American. Ramirez, whose husband is a DACA recipient and defines her marriage as "mixed-status" on a campaign website, apparently made the controversial remarks this past weekend at what the Daily Caller has described as a "radical" summit organized by the director of an "anti-American organization." “I’m a proud Guatemalan before I’m an American,” she told the group while speaking in Spanish, according to the outlet's translation. The Daily Caller informs us...

Ron Paul is turning 90 on August 20. At 72, he was a revolutionary. Today, there is a raucous foreign policy debate within the Republican Party. Populist, realist and libertarian “America First” Republicans argue against endless wars and for fiscal responsibility, while holdover hawks continue to insist on a robust U.S. hand and military presence anywhere they can get it, no matter the cost. In 2008, there was no debate. While broad public opinion had soured on the Iraq War and President George W. Bush’s approval reached historic lows, the GOP of that era had spent nearly a decade marinating...

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...

When asked how far the US government has plunged into the red, many fiscally-conscious Americans will tell you the national debt has reached $37 trillion. As distressing as that official number is, America’s true fiscal situation is even worse — far worse. According to a barely-publicized Treasury report, the actual grand total of Uncle Sam’s obligations is more than $151 trillion.That huge discrepancy springs from the fact that the federal government doesn’t hold itself to the same accounting standards it imposes on businesses. Rather than using accrual accounting — which recognizes expenses when they’re incurred — our Washington overlords self-servingly...

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...

U.S. manufacturing contracted for a fifth straight month in July and factory employment dropped to the lowest level in five years amid tariffs that have raised prices of imported raw materials. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) said on Friday that its manufacturing PMI dropped to 48.0 last month from 49.0 in June. A PMI reading below 50 indicates contraction in manufacturing, which accounts for 10.2% of the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PMI edging up to 49.5. The weak PMI reading is consistent with economists' expectations for a slowdown in activity in the third quarter as...

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...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., spoke to Fox News Digital about the Federal Reserve, noting that he would support abolishing it if the nation stops deficit spending. "There is no more powerful and secretive organization than the Federal Reserve" ...

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...

President Donald Trump dropped a bomb on Air Force One, telling reporters that Jeffrey Epstein “stole” an employee from the spa at Mar-a-Lago — saying he “thinks” Epstein survivor Virginia Giuffre was one of the people he hired away. After three weeks of the Trump administration trying to bury the promised mountain of information on deceased sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein, the heat just keeps going up. At every turn, Trump’s efforts to quash the story have only intensified interest in it, and deepened Trump’s own association with it. As the president made his way to Turnberry, Scotland and his “Trump...

Ron Paul should have been president. That’s how I see it at least. On everything that has come to matter the most, he has been vindicated. The wars have been a disaster and Dr. Paul knew it. The money printing has run this country’s economy ragged and enriched its most deceitful. And Dr. Paul knew it. Our people are spied on, pried on, cajoled, mocked, and belittled by the intelligence agencies and federal bureaucrats who throw around words such as “terror” while targeting our civil liberties. And Dr. Paul knew it. When it wasn’t pretty, Dr. Paul would say it....

Sectarian fighting has highlighted just how combustible the country remains months after its authoritarian leader, Bashar al Assad, was toppled. Ahmad al Sharaa, who led Islamist rebels who overthrew the authoritarian leader, became the country's interim president in a transition that was initially mostly peaceful. He has pledged to protect Syria's diverse ethnic and religious groups since. However, a few months after the overthrow of Assad, government forces clashed with pro-Assad armed groups on Syria's coast, spurring sectarian attacks that killed hundreds of civilians from the Alawite religious minority to which the former president belongs. This left other minority groups,...

Trump’s political operation just dropped this ad against Thomas Massie in Kentucky:

@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

I honestly think to get the OBBB passed he's had to give up certain positions. How else do you explain it? The endorsement of Lindsey Graham, too? The resumption of aid to Ukraine? It's all very odd and timely. I think Trump has (had) a lot invested in getting OBBB done. Think about it. It was his signature bill. They held it hostage and now you see why... There is (was) a lot at stake.

Former Vice President Mike Pence praised President Donald Trump for his decision to resume military aid to Ukraine, saying “the time is now” to renew support. “I do believe the time has come for us to renew our military support for Ukraine, make it clear that we’re going to continue to provide that support, along with our European allies, until a just and lasting peace is achieved,” Pence said in an interview with CNN on Thursday. Pence has at times been a sharp critic of his onetime boss’ position on Ukraine during Trump’s second term. Trump has repeatedly reversed positions...

Republican senators aren’t happy about how President Trump treated Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), whom the president blasted last week on social media after Tillis said he wouldn’t vote for Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” Tillis is highly regarded among colleagues as a team player focused on getting results, and many Republicans thought he would have had the best chance of keeping the North Carolina Senate seat in GOP hands.