Free Republic

Asking basic questions about the $40 billion blank check to the Ukrainians is just one of several savvy moves by the Kentucky senator on the political rebound.PHILADELPHIA—It’s been almost seven years since the dumbass livestream, a United States senator’s words, not mine. “The third question, most popular question from Google is: ‘Is Rand Paul still running for president?’” Sen. Paul read out from the campaign trail. “And, I don’t know, I wouldn’t be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren’t. So, yes, I still am running for president—get over it.” It wasn’t the official end of the Rand Paul for...

Nazis Are Actually Fine Now, According to the Southern Poverty Law Center and Anti-Defamation League Michael Tracey If you happened to be alive during the years of 2016 to 2020, you can probably recall the routine issuance of frantic bulletins that “Nazis” were suddenly on the march in the US. Not just that some ludicrous, ragtag group of self-identified Nazis could be occasionally spotted in the wild — which had always been a somewhat regular, albeit freakish occurrence. Rather, the idea was that full-bore ideological “Nazism” had surged as a genuinely formidable political force, and everyone needed to be extremely...

@costareports To recap: Many outlets, inc @CBSNew, arrived around 12 noon in Bucks County to cover surging Sen. candidate Kathy Barnette at an event publicly listed as her final rally before she faces voters. From the start, a security team of at least 5 physically blocked us from entering... The guards refused to give names or say whether they worked for Barnette or Trump-endorsed PA GOV candidate Mastriano. Whenever we stepped forward, they blocked us. We were civil & careful to not physically provoke in order to avoid altercation, but still rep. tried to move fwd. We pushed for a...

@ChadPergram 1) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and 3 GOP senators just met Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Also there: John Barrasso (R-WY) Susan Collins (R-ME) John Cornyn (R-TX) 2) Note this comes as the Senate is trying to align with the House and approve $40 billion in Ukraine assistance. There is a procedural vote Monday night to break a filibuster. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky) is singled-handedly holding this up. 3) If Paul sticks to his guns, it may take the Senate until the end of next week to approve the bill. Paul wants an inspector general to oversee the money...

Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Kathy Barnette on Thursday denied writing a tweet that claimed “pedophilia is a Cornerstone of Islam,” saying that she “would have never said that.” In an interview with NBC’s Dasha Burns, Barnette, a conservative commentator who is running for the GOP Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, flatly rejected the notion that she had authored the 2015 tweet, despite the fact that the post still exists on her Twitter account. “Yeah, no, I don’t think that’s me,” Barnette said. “I would never have said that. OK, I would have never said that, because I don’t believe that.” Barnette’s...

On May 12th, the United States Senate sought to unanimously pass a $40-billion-dollar aid package that would have funded Ukraine because of their ongoing war with the country of war. Unfortunately, the House of Representatives had already resoundingly passed the bill, with only 57 Republicans voting against it. The vote was met with extreme criticism by most conservatives, as the senate prepared the legislation before many legislative offices were even able to understand exactly where the funding was coming from. It seemed that Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Majority Leader Chuck Schumer thought this would be an issue both parties...

@ClarityToast This guy was never qualified to manage a gumball machine. Now he's teetering on a multi-billion dollar margin call.

NAZI LAVROV | Cartoon Movement

VLADIMIR Putin is set to undergo an operation for cancer and will hand over power to his hardline spy chief, a Kremlin insider has reportedly claimed. The Russian tyrant’s health has been source of considerable speculation amid reports that he is battling both abdominal cancer and Parkinson’s Disease. But now it has been reported that 69-year-old Putin could soon vanish as he goes under the knife, with power transferred to Nikolai Patrushev. Shadowy Patrushev, 70, is seen as a key architect of the Ukraine war strategy and the man who convinced Putin that Kyiv was awash with neo-Nazis. The claim...

Israel's foreign minister has denounced as "unforgivable" remarks by his Russian counterpart that Nazi leader Adolf Hitler "had Jewish blood". Russian FM Sergei Lavrov made the comments to try to justify Russia's portrayal of Ukraine as "Nazi" despite the fact that its president is Jewish. Israel's foreign ministry summoned Russia's ambassador for "clarification" and demanded an apology. Nazi Germany murdered six million Jews in the Holocaust in World War Two. Mr Lavrov made the remarks in an interview with the Italian news channel Zona Bianca on Sunday, days after Israel marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, one of the most solemn occasions...

@JosephFordCotto So, Uncle Sam wants to send more than $30 billion to the Ukraine for its (doomed, impossible, Utopian) 'liberation' from Russia ... yet our dear uncle scoffs at spending $10 billion for a border wall? SlAvA UkRaNI!1!1! non-lefties need to realize they are getting scammed. Badly.

Rep. Gaetz: Mandel Tattling to McConnell on MAGA

Josh Mandel, once the flamboyant conservative frontrunner for the nomination who now looks threatened by the Trump-endorsed J.D. Vance, dished to GOPers in Washington that at least part of his absurd, extreme campaign rhetoric … is an act.From the book:Mandel, acknowledged to Republicans in Washington that he was parroting absurd rhetoric in the primary campaign out of a desire to court Trump and his supporters — but that was simply what he believed it would take to win.”In fact even as he publicly mimicked Trump’s incendiary rhetoric, Mandel would privately reach out to McConnell’s top lieutenants to alert them each...

@DonaldJTrumpJr Ohio friends - Meet the real @JoshMandelOhio The Club for Chinese Growth backed establishment candidate in the #OHSen race. Video...

"MOSCOW, Feb 1 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday it would insist that Western governments respect a 1999 agreement that no country can strengthen its own security at the expense of others, an issue it argues is at the heart of the Ukraine crisis. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he raised the matter in a conversation with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and that Blinken accepted the need to discuss it further."

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken appeared to contradict one of his top deputies in an exchange with Sen. Rand Paul before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday, re-igniting questions about the Biden administration’s diplomatic strategy in the months leading up to Russia’s illegal and aggressive war on Ukraine. Of course, the media chatter surrounding yesterday’s hearing largely ignored the latest evidence that U.S. diplomats missed a potential opportunity to prevent Russia’s war, focusing instead on conflating Paul’s attempts to explain Russia’s actions with efforts to justify them. I’d encourage you to watch their full exchange. Sen. Paul opened his comments...

The White House warned Tuesday that Iran is only weeks from a nuclear “breakout” and the Trump administration is to blame. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the time in which Iran could build a nuclear weapon is “down to a matter of weeks.”

Sen. Rand Paul got flak Tuesday for his comments on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with some people criticizing him for echoing one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points.During an exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Paul pointed out that Russia's attacks, in the recent past, have been on countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.Putin has publicly dismissed Ukraine's right to function as a sovereign nation separate from Russia.The Kentucky Republican's comments came during a Senate hearing with Blinken, during which Paul raised concerns about U.S. displays of support for Ukraine potentially joining the NATO...

The Israeli military responded with artillery fire on Sunday night after a rocket was launched into Israel from southern Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement. As calculations of the rocket’s trajectory indicated that it would come down in an open area, no sirens were triggered and the Iron Dome air-defense system did not intercept it, according to the IDF. The IDF Artillery Corps fired “tens” of shells at the launch site and open areas in southern Lebanon, and an “infrastructure target” was also attacked, the military said. There were no reports of casualties or damage, and no...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) pushed Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday over the risks of expanding the NATO military alliance, saying that Russia has in recent decades invaded countries that “were part of Russia.” At a hearing, Secretary of State Antony Blinken argued that Russia hasn’t attacked NATO countries “probably for a good reason” given their collective strength against Russia. Paul then responded, “You could also argue the countries they’ve attacked were part of Russia.” Blinken argued that it is the “fundamental right” of those countries, including Georgia and Ukraine, to decide their own future and independence. Paul said,...