Free Republic

The Senate blocked an effort Friday to prevent President Trump from taking future military action against Iran without authorization from Congress, less than a week after he directed strikes aimed at the country’s nuclear capabilities. Senators voted 47-53 largely along party lines against the war powers resolution. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) was the lone GOP lawmaker to vote with Democrats. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), an ardent backer of Israel, voted with Republicans.

It’s getting late early for John Cornyn. Yet another poll shows the four-term incumbent lagging well behind his hard-right challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, in next year’s primary. The poll, conducted on behalf of a Paxton-allied super PAC, shows the Texas attorney general with a commanding 19-point lead over the incumbent — 57 to 38 percent — in a head-to-head matchup of Texas Republican primary voters. It’s the latest data point for national Republicans who see Cornyn flailing with primary voters but worry about the general election prospects for Paxton, who has faced both indictment and impeachment. The race...

Important newsflash for the Senate GOP: the recommendations of the woke Senate parliamentarian, who is trying to ensure that absolutely no financial reform is enacted, are not binding. ... John Thune .. not going to challenge the outrageous decisions of the Senate Parliamentarian, and no doubt he’d like you to believe there’s no option otherwise. That is simply untrue. There are multiple ways of overruling the unelected Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s decisions. As voters, it’s very important we understand the legal realities of our system and not give our elected representatives a pass just because they claimed helplessness. ... “The...

DEVASTATING BLOW: Unelected Harry Reid-appointed Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough just STRUCK DOWN the DEFUNDING OF MEDICAID FOR ILLEGALS in the Big Beautiful Bill...AND defunding "gender-affirming care" under Medicaid and CHIP! No, I am not joking! A 2012 Democrat lackey is gutting the bill right before our very eyes! She says the provisions that limit federal dollars for states that give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits require 60 votes, not 50+1. She also struck out limits on Medicaid, Medicare and ACA premium tax credits for non-citizen immigrants, per Punchbowl. IGNORE THIS, OR FIRE HER, Mr. Thune ... The Senate Parliamentarian must be...

Concord N.H. — Scott Brown is in. The Rye Republican is launching another campaign to return to the U.S. Senate, WMUR Political Director Adam Sexton was first to report on Wednesday. "The reason I am running is a kind of fed up with the federal delegation. We've been blessed here in New Hampshire. We've had Gov. Sununu, Gov. Ayotte, the Legislature, the Executive Council all working very hard for years to protect the New Hampshire advantage -- while we see in the federal delegation the over-taxation, overregulations," Brown said. "On the policy stuff, the open borders, the sanctuary cities, zealously...

Grok @grok · 25m The news of Chuck Schumer's hospitalization on June 25, 2025, is confirmed by credible sources like Newsweek and X posts from reporters. He was treated for dehydration after feeling lightheaded at the Senate gym and has returned to work. Public reactions vary

The Senate parliamentarian has rejected several more provisions in the Republican megabill to enact President Trump’s agenda, including language authorizing states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement, which traditionally have been duties of the federal government. Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough also ruled against language in the bill that would increase the Federal Employees Retirement Systems contribution rate for new civil servants if they do not agree to give up civil service protections to become at-will employees. Additionally, the parliamentarian advised against a section of the bill that would allow the executive branch to reorganize federal government agencies — or eliminate...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who once claimed to be Israel’s “guardian” in Congress, put out a statement late Saturday night opposing President Donald Trump’s airstrike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, was not briefed before the US strikes on Iran — even though his GOP counterpart on the panel, Chairman Rick Crawford, was in contact with the White House, per a person familiar. Sen. Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, also was not briefed before the attack, per a source familiar, but the GOP chairman, Tom Cotton, was briefed. Both Democrats are in the “Gang of Eight,” which typically would be briefed before a significant US military engagement. The Gang of Eight includes the House and Senate...

The person many regard as the dumbest senator in America ended up red-faced after trying to humiliate the nation’s secretary of defense with an inane question at a congressional hearing on Wednesday. As NBC News reported, Pete Hegseth testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee regarding the Pentagon’s budget request. During the hearing, he was hit with multiple questions regarding the Iran-Israel conflict and military deployments in Los Angeles. The latter became particularly fiery once dim-witted Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI) got her chance to interrogate the defense secretary. Hirono decided to try to humiliate Hegseth with a sick question designed...

Democrats left a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday after delivering their opening statements, refusing to participate in an inquiry into whether their party helped conceal President Biden’s cognitive decline. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Peter Welch (D-VT) attended the opening statements of Wednesday morning’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on President Biden’s cognitive fitness. Durbin walked out shortly after delivering remarks, during which he played a video montage attempting to portray former President Donald Trump as mentally unfit. He had already dismissed the hearing, stating, “It a waste of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s time.” Senator Welch echoed those concerns, saying:...

The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing on the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline. The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m.

Aprovision added to the Senate iteration of Republicans’ proposed budget reconciliation package would give the White House $100 million to reorganize federal agencies as President Trump sees fit, without congressional input in what critics decried as an “abrogation” of Congress’ power and responsibility. The measure appeared in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee’s portion of the legislation aimed at reducing federal spending in order to partially pay for tax cuts for the ultrawealthy and increased immigration enforcement, alongside proposals to make future feds pay more towards their retirement benefits, particularly if they wish to retain protections against being...

Cory Booker, AKA Spartacus, Has a Full-Blown Meltdown on the Senate Floor Over Alex Padilla

You could be forgiven for believing that the California senator got himself handcuffed on purpose. After “sitting U.S. senator” Alex Padilla barged into Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem’s press conference and got himself forcibly (and rightly) tossed out of the room and handcuffed, leftists across America (again!) want us to be aghast at the Trump administration. It almost seems as though the whole episode was planned! Knowing Democrats as we do, almost certainly it was a planned stunt, done solely for political theatrics. Democrats across the U.S. are desperate to sway the electorate in their favor, so I’m not surprised...

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...