Free Republic

Congressional Speech, Military Orders, and the Danger of Half-TruthsIn recent days, a group of six members of Congress created controversy by telling active-duty military personnel that they “do not have to obey illegal orders.” Their statement, while rooted in a true principle of military law, has caused confusion and concern among legal experts, Pentagon officials, and veterans. Understanding why requires looking at two separate systems: the constitutional protections granted to members of Congress, and the strict doctrine governing obedience to orders within the military.1. Constitutional Protections for Members of CongressThe U.S. Constitution grants members of Congress several key protections to...

Texas Baptists elected an ordained female clergywoman as convention president this week for the first time ever. Debbie Potter, children’s pastor at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio, was chosen as president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas in a race with Kevin Burrow, pastor of First Baptist Church of Eastland, Texas. The vote was 430 to 320. The BGCT is the largest and oldest of the two state Baptist conventions in Texas that relate to the Southern Baptist Convention. The other, Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, was formed in 1998 by conservatives who thought the BGCT was not...

President Donald Trump made a passionate post claiming that the Republican Party is "so UNITED" on Sunday night, amid internal divisions in the party over leadership, tariffs, and legislative priorities. In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that the GOP has "never been so UNITED AS IT iS RIGHT NOW!" "Other than Rand Paul, Rand Paul Jr.(Massie!), Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Brown, and a couple of other ‘lowlifes,’ and other than the fact that many want the Election threatening Filibuster TERMINATED (the Dems will do it in the first minute of their first chance!), and some don’t, there is great spirit and...

Infowars founder Alex Jones urged President Donald Trump to “stop attacking” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), and Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Tuesday, warning “it doesn’t help” anyone to push the MAGA movement further into civil war. “Trump is not God. We are big supporters, but we’re not Democrat cult members where we don’t question things,” said Jones during an appearance on Eric Bolling’s Real America’s Voice show Bolling! “When we think something’s wrong, we might be wrong too, but we’re gonna speak out about it.” He continued: He’s the best shot we’ve got at saving...

The “same kind of consequences” faced by Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein must be inflicted on “perpetrators of heinous crimes” linked to the disgraced financier in the United States, a congressman has said. Thomas Massie, a Republican representative, also pointed to the sacking of Peter Mandelson, the UK’s ambassador to Washington, as an example of the fallout faced by those with ties to the late pedophile. Speaking alongside survivors of Epstein at a press conference outside the US Capitol, Massie said: “There’s becoming a reckoning in Britain that needs to happen in the United States: a prince...

An old report has brought back a question Donald Trump’s team hoped would disappear: did the FBI work through the night to remove his name from the Jeffrey Epstein files before saying there was nothing left to release? The timing is important as Trump has suddenly reversed his stance on making the documents public. Sources familiar with the process told Bloomberg, “We know from news reports that Trump’s name was in the Epstein files. But what hasn’t been reported is that an FBI FOIA team redacted Trump’s name and the names of other prominent public figures from the documents.” The...

"I am not a conservative. I am a radical—a radical monarchist. I believe there are no rails—and never were any. America has no manifest destiny. Her constitution was not divinely inspired. No special providence was involved in her founding, nor has she discovered any unique principle of human governance. Nor can any theory of historical determinism, whether liberal, Marxist or libertarian, explain, predict or guarantee her future—which, like all future history, is a contingent and unwritten blank page in the hands of men only." Thus begin the self-revelations of Curtis Yarvin, radical monarchist and scorner of the American founding, in...

@RepThomasMassie I received this troubling letter today from the attorney representing the most recent FBI whistleblower regarding the J6 pipe bomb investigation. Just a reminder to @FBIDirectorKash, in case this letter is warranted, federal law prevents retaliation against whistleblowers.

@RandPaul Tonight the process of opening the govt begins, less chaos is a good thing but hidden deep in the swamp speak of the Republican bill will be a waiver of PAYGO the long-standing law requiring new spending to be offset with cuts. And so it goes, a trillion here a trillion there. $38 trillion in debt and counting. A depressing outcome

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., gives a mixed review of President Donald Trump, even as the president seeks to oust him from Congress. (Credit: Fox News Digital)

Donald Trump has exempted Hungary from sanctions the US has placed on top Russian oil producers as he met Viktor Orbán, the country’s prime minister, at the White House on Friday. The US president’s decision will be a huge relief for Orbán, a fellow rightwing populist, who had been angling for a reprieve after Trump imposed sanctions on Lukoil and Rosneft last month out of frustration with Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s reluctance to offer concessions for a peace deal in Ukraine. A White House official confirmed the exemption for Hungary on Friday evening, adding it would last one year. Trump...

The U.S. Army is not in “terminal decline” but at a “classical crisis”—a decisive turning point. Critics see an “obsolete” force, but the author points to historical parallels (post-WWI, post-WWII, and the post-Vietnam “Hollow Army”) where the Army successfully renewed itself. Signs of this “metamorphosis,” like the SkyFoundry drone initiative (aiming for 10,000/month by 2026), show the Army is adapting, not collapsing, and will emerge smaller but more lethal.

Ukraine now about where Japan was in July 1945...

Republican U.S. Representative Thomas Massie, a longtime critic of both President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, has accused America’s political and business elite of benefiting from “immunities and privileges exceeding those of Royalty in Britain," as the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein remained stalled in Congress. It comes after Andrew, a brother of Britain's King Charles III, was stripped of his title of "prince" and evicted from his residence in Windsor, England, amid scrutiny of his relationship with Epstein. In an email to Newsweek, Massie said: “On the day the House...

Leading 20th century Roman Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar contended that Protestantism had no place for beauty in its theology. “Contemporary Protestant theology nowhere deals with the beautiful as a theological category,” he wrote. “For the time being, the only question posed by Protestants is that concerning the relationship between revelation and this-worldly beauty—certainly a justified question, but not a sufficient one.” Dutch Reformed theological heavyweight Herman Bavinck seems to provide evidence of von Balthasar’s charge. Bavinck wrote, “It is not advisable to speak—with the church fathers, scholastics, and Catholic theologians—of God’s beauty.” Bavinck beautifully summarizes Augustine’s view that...

Four Republican senators voted with Democrats on Thursday to approve a bipartisan resolution to repeal President Trump’s global tariffs, including steeper rates on long-time allies such as the European Union, Japan and South Korea. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), the GOP sponsor of the resolution, and Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) voted for it. The same proposal failed in the Senate in late April on a 50-49 vote after Vice President Vance cast the tiebreaking vote to defeat it. Critically, McConnell and Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), who voted Thursday for the resolution, missed the...

A growing number of Republicans on Capitol Hill have raised concerns about President Trump’s expanding war against drug cartels carried out without consultation or authorization by Congress, and are pressing for more information and involvement in a campaign whose legal basis remains murky. Most in the group have not expressed explicit opposition to the strikes that have been carried out so far against boats in the Caribbean Sea and, this week, expanded to the Pacific. The vast majority of Republicans have enthusiastically rallied behind them, and this month, all but two of them voted to block a measure that would...

I thought, no way. This can't be real.It's real!Scroll down to the Major Events Timeline and flip through the various photos.I'm freakin' dying here!

@NuryVittachi "The American empire is over," Richard D. Wolff, U.S. professor of international affairs, tells Al Jazeera. Already the biggest economic power on the planet is not the US and its allies, but China and the BRICS. But no U.S. politician dares to tell the people: "It's over."

Everyone talks about Massie but MTG is also a massive rebel and true America First patriot. She has been nothing but fantastic the last week or so and it can't have been easy speaking out especially as a member of Congress in the president's party. I appreciate Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene 👏👏👏 Here's her latest Twitter post: - -- @RepMTG This is the side of Trump that got him elected in 2016 and earned him the support of Americans who had never voted and those who switched parties to vote for him in 2024. This is one of the reasons...