Free Republic

Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said Tuesday he has recordings of business associates of President Trump’s pick to lead the IRS, former Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), saying they expect to get favors from him once he is in office. Wyden cited recordings of two instances of people saying they expect to receive favorable treatment from Long. “Our staff investigators have on tape now tax promoters saying you met with them at the inauguration and promised [them] a favorable private letter ruling,” Wyden said Tuesday during Long’s confirmation hearing in the Senate Finance Committee....

President Trump has returned from the Middle East to mounting questions about whether it’s appropriate for him to accept a luxury Qatari jet to serve as the next Air Force One, including from Republicans increasingly dubious that the move is a smart and worthwhile idea. Republicans have given the president a wide berth on a multitude of issues throughout his first four months in office as they push to enact his agenda. However, very few are rushing to his defense after he made clear he plans to accept the $400 million gift. “It’s an unnecessary distraction,” one Senate Republican told...

"GOP Sen. Rand Paul says he expects to have enough votes in Senate to pass resolution to effectively block Trump’s tariffs. But Paul, who expects the vote Wednesday, attacked Speaker Johnson’s move to block such resolutions as “dishonesty.”" *** The background to this, via Politico: The White House warned that Trump will veto a bipartisan Senate resolution that would terminate his sweeping global “Liberation Day” tariffs. The statement of administration policy from the Office of Management and Budget, sent to congressional offices Monday, comes ahead of an expected vote this week forced by several Democrats led by Sen. Ron Wyden...

So far, American consumers have been shielded from much of the impact. But as the world of international shipping adjusts to his policies, the president is facing a potential reckoning. With the US-China trade war starting to gum up container traffic between the world’s two biggest economies, freight companies are warning of plunging bookings and a surge in “blank sailings” – where ports are skipped or voyages are called off altogether. Earlier this week, America’s most powerful retail executives trooped into the White House to deliver a blunt prognosis: tariffs on Chinese goods risked causing “empty shelves” in two weeks...

Vladimir Putin initially denied having anything to do with Russia's capture of Crimea in February 2014, when mysterious masked commandos in unidentified green uniforms seized the local parliament and fanned out across the peninsula. Those "little green men" marked the start of Russia's war on Ukraine, which culminated in the 2022 full-scale invasion. The future of Crimea is now at the centre of President Donald Trump's peace plan and has prompted Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky to rule out recognising Russian control of the peninsula. The exact terms of his plan have not been published, but reports suggest it would include the...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing his push against President Donald Trump's tariffs, with legislation he is co-sponsoring against them to come before the Senate next week. Paul says lawmakers should be in control of tariffs, rather than Trump, through the use of a national-emergency law. The discussion will come less than a month after Paul was one of the only two chamber Republicans to vote against his party's budget, which is seen as a key part of the president's tax cuts, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. "I don't have any bad feelings towards the president, but this is...

WASHINGTON — Many Republican lawmakers lie low when they have differences with President Trump. Sen. Rand Paul has taken the opposite approach. “Congress needs to grow a spine, and Congress needs to stand up for its prerogatives,” the Kentucky Republican told reporters, complaining that Trump relied on a national-emergency law to impose tariffs that Paul believes should be controlled by lawmakers. His comments came just days after he was one of only two GOP senators to vote against the party’s budget framework that is key to Trump’s tax cuts, saying it didn’t do enough to reduce the deficit. The libertarian...

President Donald Trump’s unprecedented tariffs, particularly on China, and recent attacks on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell caused alarm among some of his top advisers and America’s biggest CEOs, who warned of financial chaos and store shelves that could go bare, people familiar with the conversations said. The warnings — and the markets’ own volatility this week — seemed to have broken through. Trump backed down Tuesday from his threats to try to remove Powell from the job, telling reporters in the Oval Office: “I have no intention of firing him.” That prompted sighs of relief on Wall Street. A...

@PeterSchiff Gold is not just any commodity, it's money. Under normal circumstances gold does not move the way it is now. It's already up another $58 tonight, trading above $3,483. This is the end of the U.S. dollar's dominance. Life in America is about to change in ways few can imagine.

Summary European markets open higher and major Asian markets make gains following days of losses in the wake of Donald Trump's tariffs The UK's FTSE 100 opens 1% up, with France's Cac 40 index up 1.8% and Germany's Dax opening 1.3% higher China says it will "fight to the end" after Trump threatened to hit Beijing with an extra 50% tariff if it doesn't withdraw its retaliatory levy on Tuesday Beijing's commerce ministry accuses the Trump administration of blackmail and says his tariffs are "a typical unilateral bullying practice" The new tariffs could leave some US companies bringing in certain...

Republicans who are evidently not too comfortable with President Donald Trump’s decision to announce large new global tariffs have tried plenty of hints to push him in a different direction. And one of Trump’s most vocal tariff critics on the GOP side, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, tried a relatively novel one on Wednesday. He pointed to electoral peril for the GOP. “Tariffs have also led to political decimation,” Paul told reporters. “When [William] McKinley most famously put tariffs on in 1890, they lost 50 percent of their seats in the next election. When [Sens. Reed Smoot and Willis C....

@CollinRugg NEW: Jim Cramer warns of a 1987 "Black Monday" style stock market crash on Monday, says he is about to be super mad. "Black Monday" was a global stock market crash where the Dow Jones tanked almost 23% in a single day. "If the president doesn't try to reach out and reward these countries and companies that play by the rules then the 1987 scenario..." "The one where we went down three days and then down 22% on Monday, has the most cogency." "I will contain my anger... and if Europe moves against our fabulous tech companies next week,...

A bipartisan pair of senators is warning the White House that recent US strikes on the Houthis in Yemen risk “emboldening” the Iranian-backed group and flouted the law regarding congressional oversight of military operations. The letter from Sens. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rand Paul, R-Ky., shared first with Semafor, concerns the strikes that have made headlines recently.... “Neither the U.S. strikes since October 2023 ordered by President Joe Biden, nor the previous years-long campaign against the Houthis conducted by Saudi Arabia were successful in establishing deterrence against the Houthis,” Merkley and Paul wrote in the letter sent to President Donald...

@YALiberty “One person is not allowed to raise taxes—the constitution forbids it.” @SenRandPaul slams Trump’s tariffs as unconstitutional, calling them a tax on Americans— and he’s right.

@IanCarrollShow BREAKING- The RFK jr blackmail story is breaking from multiple angles right now It’s bad. Even worse than I say in this video. Blackmail by… certain people… at the highest levels of American politics. Right now in 2025. Buckle up. It’s about to get weird.

Senate Republicans had gathered for one of their regular private lunches last Wednesday when Rand Paul commanded their attention. As Senators sipped diet sodas and grazed on sandwiches, the Kentucky lawmaker went through a slide deck with charts and statistics in service of a bold proposal: come out against President Trump’s tariffs. The arguments in Paul's presentation, which has not been previously reported, were not a surprise to his audience. One of the most prominent libertarians on Capitol Hill, he’s a fierce proponent of free trade. But his attempt to corral colleagues against the Trump trade agenda was seen as...

@RepMTG I have not heard a single American say they want another war in the Middle East or anywhere else. Not one. All I’ve heard is a loud cry demanding our government and its leaders “PUT AMERICA FIRST!” I don’t support going to war on behalf of other countries. I support peace and fixing our own massive problems for our own people. It’s literally my job title. U.S. Representative.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump said he ordered a series of airstrikes on Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, on Saturday, promising to use “overwhelming lethal force” until Iranian-backed Houthi rebels cease their attacks on shipping along a vital maritime corridor. “Our brave Warfighters are right now carrying out aerial attacks on the terrorists’ bases, leaders, and missile defenses to protect American shipping, air, and naval assets, and to restore Navigational Freedom,” Trump said in a social media post. “No terrorist force will stop American commercial and naval vessels from freely sailing the Waterways of the World.” He also...

Sorry but it has to be said. His endorsements suck once again. He's terrible at them. He's supporting Mike Rogers the Bush-era Neocon in MI who is basically responsible for FISA and its very use against him when he was president. He's supportive of Mike Johnson the RINO/Democrat Speaker and was said to have intervened last week to get that foreign aid package passed! NOT HELPFUL DON ...Why is he cosying up to these people?

@cb_doge BREAKING: Elon Musk confirmed that Nick Fuentes will be reinstated on X. He is a political commentator and live streamer. He was suspended by Twitter 1.0. He was also banned on YouTube in 2020 for violating their hate speech policy.