Free Republic

Yes, we'll build a wall. But we'll do it according to the map of Mexico from 1830

Minnesota state Rep. Kaohly Vang Her admitted Monday she is in the US 'illegally' in a shocking confession that rocked the nation as riots unfolded in Los Angeles over ICE deportations. Her, a Democrat elected in 2018, was discussing illegal immigrant eligibility for public health care when she disclosed personal details about her own family. She revealed that her father misrepresented his familial relations when he filed her family's immigration paperwork decades ago. 'Because his mother had died, my father - as the one processing the paperwork - put my grandmother down as his mother,' she said on the House...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) is using President Trump’s legislative agenda to “secretly explode” the Pentagon’s budget by adding $150 billion in military spending onto the national debt. “This bill is going to spend $300 billion in the first two years … $300 billion on military and border,” Paul, a critic of the House-passed version of the GOP mega bill, told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow in an interview on Wednesday. Paul said the spending cuts in the bill amount to $1.5 trillion over 10 years or about $150 billion per year. “In the first year...

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...

Oregon Senate Democrats passed a bump stock ban late last week and the legislation also allows local municipalities to ban the carry of firearms in buildings where public meetings are held. A bump stock ban once existed at the federal level but the Supreme Court of the United States struck it down on June 14, 2024. In the majority opinion for the bump stock decision, Justice Clarence Thomas made clear the ban faltered in claiming bump stocks turn semiautomatic firearms into machine guns: Semiautomatic firearms, which require shooters to reengage the trigger for every shot, are not machineguns. This case...

The Senate has voted to overturn the electric vehicle mandate in the state of California. This is going to cause some major anger and anxiety among the climate change activist community. The EV mandate was one of the last things Joe Biden signed before leaving office. You may recall a last minute push by Biden’s team to advance as much climate change related legislation as they could during his final weeks in office. The resolution to overturn the mandate passed along party lines with one Democrat senator voting for it as well. The Washington Free Beacon reported: Senate Votes To...

There is no more important place for senators to be than the Senate floor, doing the work they were elected to do so Trump can do the same.. The first American-born pope, Leo XIV, celebrated his inaugural Mass on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square before a large crowd that included Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, two prominent Catholics in the Trump administration. Missing, however, was our country’s official envoy. When the new pope met with the Vatican’s diplomatic corps on Friday, America’s ambassador wasn’t there. We don’t have one right now. Brian Burch has been...

The first American-born pope, Leo XIV, celebrated his inaugural Mass on Sunday in St. Peter’s Square before a large crowd that included Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, two prominent Catholics in the Trump administration. Missing, however, was our country’s official envoy. When the new pope met with the Vatican’s diplomatic corps on Friday, America’s ambassador wasn’t there. We don’t have one right now. Brian Burch has been nominated by President Trump to be the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, but his is one of nearly 80 nominations now languishing on the Senate’s Executive Calendar....

Russia is going after TV series Game of Thrones, Sex and the City, and the Harry Potter franchise in an effort to purge what it claims is the promotion of "childfree ideology." The development comes months after Russia passed a bill banning what state-run news wires describe as the "public propaganda of the ideas of voluntarily choosing not to have children." It comes as Russia grapples with a dwindling birth rate and as President Vladimir Putin scrambles to encourage women to have children.

The GOP-led Senate voted Thursday to take away California’s ability to set its own tailpipe emissions standards, effectively killing the country’s biggest driver of EV investment. The vote was 51-44. The move nullifies a measure, enacted by the state in 2022 and later adopted by 11 other states, banning the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. The House already passed the same resolution. Now it heads to President Trump for his signature. U.S. carmakers and auto dealers argued that keeping in place the waiver—which permits California to set stricter emissions rules than the federal government—could cripple the industry by...

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is blazing forward with a controversial move to repeal California's EV mandate — and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer is warning it will come back to bite him.Why it matters: Schumer (D-N.Y.) all but threatened to deploy similar strategies to get around opinions by key, nonpartisan rule makers if and when he grabs back control of the chamber."What goes around comes around," Schumer said on Tuesday. He and other Democratic leaders have described the GOP move as a "nuclear option."Thune (R-S.D.) accused Democrats of "throwing a tantrum."Driving the news: The Senate will vote as soon as...

Senate Republicans say the House-drafted bill to enact President Trump’s legislative agenda has “problems” and are taking a second look at breaking it up into smaller pieces in hopes of getting the president’s less controversial priorities enacted into law before the fall. Even if Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) manages to squeak Trump’s agenda through the House, it faces major obstacles in the Senate, where moderate Republicans say they oppose proposed cuts to Medicaid and fiscal conservatives say it doesn’t go nearly far enough in cutting the deficit. “There are still a lot of problems,” said one Republican senator who requested...

The race to take on vulnerable Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in Georgia expanded Monday after state Insurance Commissioner John King joined Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter in the Republican primary. In a social media post, King, a retired Army National Guard major general and former police chief, highlighted his journey from Mexican native to becoming Georgia’s first Hispanic statewide elected official and sought to tie himself closely to President Donald Trump. “I’m a lawman, soldier, and the first Hispanic elected statewide in Georgia history. Solving problems is what I do,” he wrote Monday on social media. “President Trump needs reinforcements...

The first Democrat is now officially running for Sen. Mitch McConnell's seat. Pamela Stevenson, the top-ranking Democrat in the Republican-led Kentucky House, has launched her bid for the seat. Stevenson, a retired Air Force colonel, has served in the state House since 2021. Republican and former attorney general, Daniel Cameron, is also running for McConnell's seat. There are several other Republicans considering running, including Congressman Andy Barr. McConnell announced in February he would not seek re-election. His term ends in January 2027.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr.'s Senate hearing on Wednesday was immediately thrown into chaos when several protesters, including a co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, began screaming, causing them to be removed. “You’re killing poor kids in Gaza and paying for it by cutting Medicaid for kids here,” Ben Cohen appeared to shout during the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing before being escorted out by U.S. Capitol Police officers.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s testimony before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee was interrupted today by protesters voicing opposition to his department’s recent policy changes. As Kennedy began his opening remarks this afternoon, unhinged leftist protesters shouted slogans critical of his leadership, prompting Capitol Police to intervene and remove the demonstrators from the hearing room.

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...

Majority Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson reportedly pushing back on Trumps EO on prescription drug prices. Since 1997, Thune has received over $1.2 million and since 2018, Johnson has received over $300,000 from the pharmaceutical companies. Hmm 🤔. ... 1. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI): $600,000 2. John Barrasso (R-WY): $500,000 3. Michael Bennet (D-CO): $1,500,000 4. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN): $600,000 5. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-DE): $320,793 6. John Boozman (R-AR): $200,000 7. Mike Braun (R-IN): $150,000 8. Katie Britt (R-AL): $50,000 9. Ted Budd (R-NC): $100,000 10. Laphonza Butler (D-CA): $50,000 11. Maria Cantwell (D-WA): $200,000 12. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV):...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading Republican Sen. John Cornyn by double digits in the 2026 Texas Senate race, according to a recent Republican primary poll. Paxton is ahead of Cornyn by 16 percentage points — 56% to 40% — in a two-way poll commissioned by the Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), Punchbowl News first reported on Monday. Meanwhile, in a hypothetical three-way matchup with Republican Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is reportedly considering entering the primary contest, Paxton notched 44% of the vote to Cornyn’s 34% and Hunt’s 19%. SLF, a super PAC that supports Republicans, is backing Cornyn’s...