Free Republic

... Iranian nuclear proliferation is not just an existential threat to Israel, but also an American problem. We've let it go on for too long.

Our politicians are incapable of recognizing an obvious threat to the nation and addressing it, regardless of politics. This is despite an incident reported to have occurred last year, providing yet one more “dot” to be connected to substantiate the game plan China masterminded in 2003 to achieve the destruction of America. Congress fails to connect these dots, blinded by political motivations rather than our best interests. While the incident occurred in 2024, charges against those involved were just recently filed. Two Chinese nationals, Yunqing Jian, 33, and Zunyong Liu, 34, were caught smuggling a “dangerous biological pathogen” into the...

Former Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), who was the first Vietnam veteran to serve in the United States Senate, is the latest Republican to back Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, Politico learned Sunday. Pressler, who said that in addition to casting an absentee ballot for Obama he'd donated $500 to the Illinois senator's campaign, cited the Democrat's response to the financial crisis as the primary reason for his decision. "I just got the feeling that Obama will be able to handle this financial crisis better, and I like his financial team of [former Treasury Secretary Robert] Rubin and [former Federal Reserve...

The speaker is mounting a multi-front rebuttal to the billionaire’s criticism — and trying to keep the backlash contained.Mike Johnson has spent his 19 months as speaker forging a close relationship with President Donald Trump — in part to avoid the social-media bombshells that derailed so many Republican priorities during Trump’s first term.Now he has to deal with another, perhaps even more unpredictable online bomb-thrower.Elon Musk’s decision to launch a sudden scorched-earth campaign against the GOP’s domestic-policy megabill has forced Johnson into a sudden scramble to save the centerpiece of the Republican legislative agenda.Starting in the moments Tuesday after Musk...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — A former Republican congressman and vocal critic of Donald Trump says he wants to become governor in the president’s adopted home state of Florida, and that he’s running as a Democrat. David Jolly formally announced his bid Thursday, becoming the latest party convert hoping to wrest back control of what had been the country’s premier swing state that in recent years has made a hard shift to the right. Under state law, term-limited Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis can’t run for reelection in 2026. Even as Florida serves as a place for the Trump administration to poach...

Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-TX) Second Amendment weakness, the result of his high profile support for gun control under Joe Biden, is hampering his reelection prospects. On May 28, 2025, Texas Southern University’s Barbara Jordan Public Policy Research and Survey Center reported that Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has a nine percent lead over Cornyn in the March 2026 Republican primary. Five days later, on June 3, 2025, Punch Bowl News pointed to “a new independent poll” showing the Cornyn’s deficit had greatly increased, with Paxton ahead by 22. Breitbart News previously noted that Cornyn fell into low esteem with Texas...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) by double digits in the latest poll of the 2026 Senate GOP primary. Paxton garnered 50 percent of the vote compared to Cornyn’s 28 percent in an UpOne Insights survey of Republican voters, which was first reported in Punchbowl News. In another tough result for Cornyn, only 27 percent of those polled wanted to see him reelected while 54 percent indicated they wanted someone new. Cornyn, who has been in office since 2002, has a lifetime conservative scorecard of 64 percent, according to Heritage Action. The Texas Senator fares...

While President Trump is striving to bring about peace to one of the bloodiest wars on the planet, one of the Senate’s most notorious war hawks is rattling his sabers, angling for more turmoil. Senators Lindsey Graham (RINO-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) arrived in Kyiv to meet with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday. Per a press release from Zelenskyy’s office, the three discussed U.S. legislation that would strengthen sanctions against Russia, coordinating diplomatic efforts to achieve “a just and lasting peace,” and developing bilateral relations between Ukraine and the United States. Look at how warmly Zelenskyy and Graham greet each...

Establishment Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is giving is “more proof of who he is” with his recent visit to Ukraine, the senator’s GOP challenger, businessman Mark Lynch, said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday. Host and Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle asked Lynch to respond to the fact that Graham recently traveled to Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I mean, yesterday we were talking about it. When did he become our Secretary of State?” Lynch asked. “You know, like you said, a week ago, Zelensky and Lindsey were left there by themselves. Putin and...

Elon Musk said he is "disappointed" by the costs of President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" passed by Republicans in the House last week. "I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk told "CBS Sunday Morning" in an exclusive broadcast interview The remarks by Musk, who recently stepped back from running the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, are in contrast to Trump, who backed the legislation, which still needs Senate approval.

The promise of allowing China to enter “most favored nation status” in 1980 and entry into the World Trade Organization in 2001 was predicated on the notion that insurgent free markets would revolutionize and liberate the largest communist nation in the world. The economic reality of 2025 is that this project has largely failed. Dictator Xi of China embodies one of the most hardline manifestations of Communist Party power in a generation. Previous reforms are now repealed and a pattern of internal and global human rights abuses are better funded than ever and rationalized in a growing technological network of...

The “No Tax on Tips Act” passed in the Senate after a unanimous vote. At last, the Senate can agree upon one item. The legislation permits a tax deduction worth up to $25,000 for tips for workers earning under $160,000 as of 2025, with the figure expected to increase over the years along with inflation. The bill comes with a major caveat. The measure only applies to cash tips. It is well-known that service workers often underreport or fail to report their cash earnings. There is a high probability that this measure is to ensure that workers properly report their...

While tariffs make wars more likely, embargoes make wars difficult to avoid. Senator Lindsey Graham’s Sanctioning Russia Act calls for 500% tariffs on dozens of countries and essentially amounts to an embargo.If this bill were to pass, it would cause an economic calamity on a scale never before seen in our country.In its insistence that Moscow be a permanent enemy of the United States, the foreign policy establishment is pushing to impose more punitive measures on Russia should they refuse to negotiate a peace deal with Ukraine. The Sanctioning Russia Act seeks to inflict a series of additional sanctions and...

Friday, in a clip that aired on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said President Donald Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Big” was unacceptable in its current form, as passed by the House of Representatives. Johnson told a reporter on Capitol Hill, “I couldn’t care less if he’s upset. I’m concerned about my children, my grandchildren, and the fact that we are stealing from them. We are stealing from our children and grandchildren. $37 trillion in debt, and we’re going to add to it as Republicans? That is unacceptable.” He added, “And that’s why there’s no way I’m going to...

As President Donald Trump attempts to muscle his GOP agenda through a narrow House majority, Rep. Chip Roy is perhaps the most important holdout to win over. He may also be the toughest. Speaker Mike Johnson and his team have been confident they can pass Trump’s massive reconciliation bill, because they don’t believe any Republican will want to stand in the way and face Trump’s wrath. But Roy, the unapologetic fiscal hawk, is the rare GOP lawmaker willing to publicly challenge the president. He has already survived multiple calls by his own party to oust him — including from Trump...

Congressional Republicans are the absolute worst, for many reasons, but this time, it has to do with the “big” and “beautiful” tax bill that’s working its way toward Donald Trump’s desk—Republicans, despite holding both houses, as well as the Oval Office, are set to retain hundreds of billions of dollars in Green New Deal provisions, if they get their way.##According to Michel and Loucks, “conservative estimates” of the costs of the Green New Deal subsidies, provided by “government scorekeepers,” come with an $852 billion price tag for taxpayers—but that’s just between 2026 and 2035. As they note, “That’s up dramatically...

President Donald Trump today on Capitol Hill expressed frustration over Republican holdouts for his "One Big, Beautiful Bill." One Republican in particular found himself in Trump's cross hairs: Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who has criticized the bill. Trump laid into him saying, "I don't think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he's a grandstander, frankly. He'll probably vote [no] - we don't even talk to him much. I think he should be voted out of office. I just don't think he understands government." "If you ask him a couple of questions, he never gives you an answer... he just says:...

Former Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Donald Trump should not accept a jet from Qatar to use as the next Air Force One. Pence said, “First, we’ve got to remember who Qatar is. We’ve got a military base there. I have members of our immediate family that have deployed to the region. But Qatar has a long history of playing both sides. They support Hamas. They supported Al Qaeda. Qatar has actually financed pro-Hamas protests on American campuses across the United States.” Host Kristen Welker said, “So you are saying President Trump...

WASHINGTON — A key House Republican holdout on President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” to provide tax cuts, border security, defense spending and green energy clawbacks is still calling for deeper spending cuts to chip away at the national debt — as the legislation heads for a critical vote Sunday. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of several GOPers who tanked the bill in the House Budget Committee on Friday, says he and other fiscal hawks are still hoping for hundreds of billions dollars more in savings to help reduce the nation’s $36 trillion debt. The Texas Republican huddled with White House...

Texas Senator John Cornyn is facing stiff competition from Challenger Ken Paxton, who currently serves as the Attorney General of Texas. Many have criticized Cornyn for being a RINO, or a Republican in name only, and it seems that the public agrees, as Paxton has started to pull ahead in the polls. For context, even in deep red states like Texas, Republican lawmakers will compromise on their conservative principles to get ahead. Often derogatorily referred to as RINOs, these legislators see more in common with the DC sDCmp than their constituents at home. In any case, Punchbowl News reports that...