Free Republic

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) is standing in the way of a bipartisan push to tighten sanctions on the country of Georgia, which lawmakers and advocates say is the best way to stand up for pro-democracy forces and counter Russian, Chinese and Iranian influence in the country. Mullin is blocking passage of the Megobari Act — titled the Mobilizing and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence Act — bipartisan and bicameral legislation that codifies sanctions against officials in the ruling Georgian Dream party for human rights abuses, corruption, undermining democracy and deepening ties with American adversaries. In a...

A dozen federal judges across the political spectrum have spoken out against the Supreme Court’s handling of cases involving President Trump amid intense public scrutiny of lower court rulings. The 12 judges spoke to NBC News on condition that they not be identified out of fear of retaliation, so it’s unclear who they are or where they located. NBC reported the slate includes judges “appointed by Democratic and Republican presidents, including Trump, and serving around the country.” They pushed back on what they described as a pattern of emergency rulings from the conservative-leaning high court in response to lower court...

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) has apologized for incorrectly stating on a White House application more than a decade ago that he was a Bronze Star recipient. Moore, a rising star in the Democratic Party, served in the Army Reserve between 1996 and 2014. He was deployed to Afghanistan in August 2005 through March 2006. Though he has won multiple awards for his service, including the National Defense Service Medal, he stated on a 2006 application for the White House Fellowship that his service won him the award of a Bronze Star. “For my work, the 82nd Airborne Division have...

At least three senior CDC officials resigned on Wednesday after Dr. Susan Moranez was ousted as the CDC Director. According to The Washington Post, Monarez departed the CDC over RFK Jr.’s push to change vaccine policy. Following the departure of Dr. Monarez, three senior CDC officials resigned per The Hill and PBS: Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, and CDC Chief Medical Officer Deb Houry. The Hill reported: At least three top officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired less than a month on the job. CNN and The Washington Post and The Hill confirmed Dr. Monarez has been ousted. Details of Monarez’s departure from the CDC are not immediately available. The Hill reported: Susan Monarez, the longtime government scientist recently confirmed as director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has been let go from her position after less than a month in the role. A source familiar with the situation confirmed to The Hill that Monarez is ousted as CDC director. The Senate confirmed her on July 29. The...

I went to prison for defending the Constitutional separation of powers. John Bolton (an occasional contributor to The Hill) may well wind up in prison, too if investigators uncover evidence and prosecutors decide to bring charges over his alleged classified disclosures. When Bolton wrote his book, “The Room Where It Happened” — reportedly receiving a $2 million advance — he wasn’t just dishing gossip. He was sharing information about Oval Office conversations and national security that should have stayed secret — either by law or under executive privilege. A federal judge already spelled this out in black and white. In...

Fox Business’s Larry Kudlow expressed concern on Friday over the Trump administration’s move to take a 10 percent stake in mega chipmaker Intel. “I am very, very uncomfortable with that idea. I’m very uncomfortable with that one, but that’s a conversation for another meal on another day,” Kudlow told economist Stephen Moore, in an interview highlighted by Mediate. Moore himself, a Trump economic adviser, earlier in the appearance, also criticized the administration’s decision, calling it “terrible.” “I hate corporate welfare. That’s privatization in reverse. We want the government to divest of assets, not buy assets. So terrible, one of the...

President Trump on Monday bashed Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D) as “incompetent” amid threats from Trump to send National Guard troops into the Illinois city. “The incompetent Mayor of Chicago just stated that, in DC, where crime has been brought down to almost nothing, there have been no murders in 9 days, something which hasn’t happened in years, and people are safe again, only nine people have been arrested,” Trump said on Truth Social. “That is wrong, hundreds of criminals have been held, captured, and arrested, and their guns have been taken away. DC IS SAFE AND BOOMING!!!” As of...

Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R) on Saturday upped her crusade against conditions in the Gaza Strip following a declaration of famine in the region by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification. “U.S. taxpayers fund Israel $3.8 billion annually for military aid. That means every U.S. tax payer is contributing to Israel’s military actions,” Greene wrote in a Saturday post on X. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to pay for genocide in a foreign country against a foreign people for a foreign war that I had nothing to do with. And I will not be silent...

“Gavin Newsom is now trolling Trump. I’ve never seen a Democrat do this. I think it’s very funny… he’s imitating Trump’s exact style,” Maher said Friday during his “Real Time With Bill Maher” show. “This is Newsom: ‘And he will fail as he always does, sad. And I, the peacetime governor, our nation’s favorite, will save America once again. Many are calling me the, you know, Gavin Newsom, many say the most loved and handsome governor,’” Maher added, reading a post Newsom made on X. Newsom and his communications team have tried to mimic Trump’s rhetoric and social media persona...

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) on Friday pushed back on President Trump’s threat to target Chicago next in the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime following a sweeping takeover in the nation’s capital. “As Donald Trump attempts to create chaos that distracts from his problems, we’ll call it out for what it is,” Pritzker wrote in a lengthy thread on social platform X “Trump and Republicans are trying to distract from the pain they’re causing — from tariffs raising the prices of goods to stripping away healthcare and food from millions.”

Russia is sending signals that it intends to slow-walk a peace deal on Ukraine, showing some daylight between the Kremlin and President Trump’s intentions to end the war. From a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to suggestions of security agreements for Kyiv, Russian officials have expressed doubt about some early prospects of a peace deal, parts of which are also being backed by a contingent of European Leaders. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov tamped down any progress made at a summit at the White House earlier this week where Trump met with seven foreign leaders as well as Zelensky,...

Syria is home to the world’s oldest existing Christian communities, which trace their lineage back to Apostolic times. According to Syriac Christian tradition, the Syriac Kingdom of Osroene was the world’s first political entity to declare Christianity as its state religion. King Abgar V — known as Abgar the Black — adopted the Christian faith after being healed from a devastating illness by the disciple Thaddeus in 33 AD. * On the road to Damascus, the former persecutor of Christians, Saul of Tarsus, was transformed into the Apostle Paul, further rooting Christianity in Syrian soil. * Syria has played a...

U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to “robust” security guarantees, including “effectively” offering Ukraine Article Five-like protection, during their historic Friday meeting. “We agreed to robust security guarantees that I would describe as game-changing,” Witkoff said in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” Witkoff explained that Russia agreed to allow the United States and other European countries to “effectively offer [Ukraine] Article Five-like language to cover a security guarantee,” referring to the provision of NATO that states an attack on one NATO member is seen as an...

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton are locked in a close battle in the state’s bitterly contested Senate primary, according to an Emerson College Polling survey released Friday. The poll showed Cornyn essentially tied with Paxton. He led by 1 point, 30 percent to 29 percent, with 5 percent saying they prefer another candidate and 37 percent undecided. The margin is much closer than numerous other past polls that have shown Paxton with a lead over the longtime incumbent. “Seven months ahead of the Republican Primary, the contest between the four-term incumbent and the Attorney General...

Democrats are making a play for Ohio in next year’s Senate race as former Sen. Sherrod Brown prepares an expected comeback attempt. The Buckeye State was once firmly purple but has become increasingly red in the Trump era. President Trump won the state in 2024 with 55 percent of the vote, and Brown lost his bid for reelection to Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), winning 46.5 percent of the vote. Those totals show Brown was much more popular with Ohio voters than former President Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Democrats think a lower-turnout midterm election could carry him...

The Capitol Hill battle over Jeffrey Epstein is poised to heat up when Congress returns to Washington next month. While GOP leaders left town early to avoid the radioactive issue, the conspiracy-ridden saga is set to ramp back up come September for a number of reasons. A bipartisan pair of lawmakers have vowed to force a vote on their resolution requiring the administration to release the federal files it’s withholding and plan to bring survivors of Epstein’s abuse to Capitol Hill in the first days of Congress’s return. Separately, a number of court cases surrounding the fate of those files...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) accused President Trump of a “raw authoritarian power grab” after the president moved to federalize the District of Columbia’s police department and call the National Guard to the District’s streets. “He’s playing dictator in our nation’s capital as a dress rehearsal as he pushes democracy to the brink,” Van Hollen wrote on social platform X. “And by the way, Trump couldn’t care less about safety in DC or the people of DC. If he did, he wouldn’t have blocked DC from spending $1 billion of its OWN money to fund its OWN police department, schools...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin “can’t tolerate” going “after his customers” ahead of an Alaska meeting between Putin and President Trump. “Putin could give a damn about sanctions. He evades them. He could give a damn about how many Russians die. The one thing that he can’t tolerate and live with, if we go after his customers,” Graham told NBC News’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “The whole goal is to crush his customers, India, and China, and Brazil. That if you keep buying Putin’s oil and prop up his war machine, you...

White-collar layoffs make headlines while tradesmen name their price. If your sink explodes at 3 a.m., ChatGPT can’t fix it. But that’s just the start. What comes next moves in slow, silent steps. It’s harder to notice, harder to fight. Even the skilled trades, once thought untouchable, won’t be immune for long. That’s because, in the age of AI, no collar is safe forever, no matter how dirty or clean. In other words, a blue-collar bloodbath is inevitable. For now, trades thrive because machines still fumble with fine motor skills. Plumbers, welders, electricians — these are jobs that demand real...