Free Republic

Just over a quarter of Americans in a new poll believe House GOP leaders are focusing on the country’s most important issues, and Republicans, in particular, report dissatisfaction with the heads of their party. According to a new CNN poll, just 27 percent of Americans think House Republicans are prioritizing issues appropriately. The remaining 73 percent of Americans think the GOP leaders haven’t paid enough attention to the nation’s top problems. Almost half of the respondents who identified as Republicans and Republican-leaning independents — 42 percent — disapprove of their party’s congressional leadership, while just 22 percent on the Democrat...

During the week of January 16, CNN’s average primetime viewership cratered to only 444,000 viewers. Between Ukraine, the roil over House committee seats, and all the classified documents His Fraudulency Joe Biden scattered throughout the world, there was no shortage of news that week. After all, Fox News attracted an average of 1.996 million primetime viewers during that same week, nearly five times as many as CNNLOL. Even MSNBC attracted nearly a million, with 943,000 average primetime viewers.

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least three presidents. A vice president, a secretary of state, an attorney general. The mishandling of classified documents is not a problem unique to President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. The matter of classified records and who, exactly, has hung onto them got more complicated Tuesday as news surfaced that former Vice President Mike Pence also had such records in his possession after he left office. Like Biden, Pence willingly turned them over to authorities after they were discovered during a search he requested, according to his lawyer and aides. The revelations have thrust...

Former transportation secretary Elaine Chao fired back at former President Trump for his racist remarks about her — insisting his attacks reveal “a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.” Chao, 69 — who has been frequently been referred to by the former president as “Coco Chow” — issued the rare rebuke of the former president on Tuesday. “When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name,” Chao, who was born in Taiwan, said in a statement to Politico. “Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next...

2024 will mark a sorry anniversary for the Republican Party: 20 years since President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign won both the popular and Electoral College votes. That feat has since eluded three GOP presidential nominees and one incumbent. The critical question is, “Are Republicans capable of nominating a winning ticket to halt this embarrassing losing trend?” I doubt it since rapidly changing demographics are reducing the Republicans’ popular vote count in battleground states. In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president by winning only the Electoral College — a political fluke that he did not repeat in 2020. Moreover,...

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) that Republcans would not make cuts to social security or Medicare to offset the debt ceiling during a meeting on Tuesday, according to Punch Bowl News co-founder Jake Sherman. Sherman noted in a tweet that Manchin also “hopes” President Joe Biden will negotiate with Republicans, who want spending cuts in exchange for their help raising the debt ceiling.

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) claimed that Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) kicking Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and himself off the Intelligence Committee would ultimately bring “distrust” to the intelligence community that shares classified information with them. Schiff, who has already started to fundraise off of being blocked from the Intel Committee, led a press conference on Wednesday flanked by Swalwell and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), criticizing McCarthy’s decision. He stated:

Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton are sidestepping the classified documents controversies embroiling their successors, with staffers saying the former presidents all turned over their materials to the National Archives and Records Administration years ago when they left office. "That process was conducted in 2008 and 2009, and all Presidential records – classified and unclassified – were turned over to the National Archives upon leaving the White House," said Freddy Ford, Bush's spokesperson, when asked what Bush is doing to assess whether he has any classified documents in his possession, in light of recent discoveries that President Joe...

Centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D) met with Speaker Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) Wednesday to urge the House Republican leader to negotiate with President Biden on legislation to raise the debt limit, a sign the senior West Virginia senator could play a pivotal role in bipartisan talks. Manchin’s meeting with McCarthy comes at a time when other Democrats, including Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Rep. Brendan Boyle (Pa.), the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, say that Democrats should not negotiate over the debt limit.

Vice President Kamala Harris has been eerily quiet about President Joe Biden’s classified document scandal, causing at least some Republicans to believe Harris could be angling to push Biden out of the way for a shot at the Oval Office. Though Harris has delivered several public statements since the scandal was leaked to the press on January 9, she has neither supported Biden nor condemned any wrongdoing. Her public comments during this timeframe have largely remained on script, ranging from global warming, Venn diagrams, electricity, school buses, and the southern border invasion.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) this week announced members of Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, continuing in his vow to investigate the origins of the Chinese coronavirus. Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) is chairing the committee, which will also feature high profile Republican House members, including Reps. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). Other members of the subcommittee include: Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY) Rep. Mariannette Miller Meeks (R-IA) Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) Rep. John Joyce (R-PA) Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) Wenstrup, an army veteran and physician, is no stranger to the topic of investigating the...

The National Weather Service in Houston issued a Tornado Emergency for the first time in the office’s history Tuesday for a twister that tore the southeast side of the Houston metro area. The tornado was reported by both spotters and was confirmed by radar, according to NWS officials. Reports of tornadoes traveled east into the evening in Louisiana. Pictures and videos show the damage that was left behind. “Holy crap. I’ve got a tornado on the ground right in front of me,” said storm chaser Brad Arnold. “People are driving right into it. Hold on, it’s going to get wild.”...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ripped Republicans after multiple mass shootings shook the state in the span of three days, saying they are standing in the way of gun safety measures. “You just gotta call some folks out. I’m still waiting for Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the House of Representatives, who purports to represent the people of the state California,” Newsom said at a news conference on Tuesday after meeting victims’ families, referring to California Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R), who just took the gavel as Speaker for the new Congress. “Not one expression of prayers, condolences, nothing. And it’s...

Vice President Kamala Harris is traveling to California on Wednesday in the wake of several mass shootings that have shocked the state and the nation — but which defy talking points about gun control or extremism. The Los Angeles Times reports: Vice President Kamala Harris will travel to Monterey Park on Wednesday to honor the victims of one of the three mass shootings that have left her home state reeling this week. Harris will lay a wreath at a memorial in honor of the 11 people killed by a gunman at a dance studio during a Lunar New Year celebration...

Former President Barack Obama's office declined to answer questions about whether it is searching for classified documents at his residences after documents have now been found in the homes and offices of President Biden, former President Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence. "We have nothing for you at this time," Hannah Hankins, the communications director for Obama, told Fox News Digital when asked if searches for classified material were underway. Five batches of classified documents from President Biden have been discovered since November from his time as Obama's vice president. One batch was located at the Penn Biden Center...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation Monday to ban “205 military-style assault weapons by name” and prohibit transfer of “high capacity” magazines. Feinstein cited the January 21, 2023, Monterey Park shooting as the impetus for the reintroduction of the “assault weapons” ban. She said, “We were tragically reminded this weekend of the deadly nature of assault weapons when a shooter used one to kill 11 people and injure 9 more at a Lunar New Year celebration in California.”

CLAIM: White house press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed the result of the 1994-2004 “assault weapons” ban was that “mass shootings went down.” VERDICT: False. Jean-Pierre opened Tuesday’s press conference by talking about the mass shootings that have been occurring in California, the state that has more gun control than any other state in the Union. Ironically, one of California’s gun controls is an “assault weapons” ban. Nevertheless, Jean-Pierre pushed for an “assault weapons” ban at the federal level, saying, “The last time we had an ‘assault weapons’ ban on the books, thanks to the President and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA)...

Former President Trump called former Vice President Mike Pence “an innocent man” on Tuesday following revelations that classified documents were found at Pence’s home in Indiana. “Mike Pence is an innocent man. He never did anything knowingly dishonest in his life. Leave him alone!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. Earlier on Tuesday, revelations emerged that classified documents had been found at Pence’s Indiana home. Pence attorney Greg Jacob told the National Archives earlier this month that “a small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information interspersed throughout the records” had been found in his...

During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan bestrode the political landscape like a colossus. After two Reagan landslides, the Democratic Party was on its heels, having lost one-in-four of their supporters to the popular Republican. Democrats took pains to study the so-called “Reagan Democrats” and learn what made them tick. Leading the charge was the Democratic Leadership Council, which advocated that the party abandon its Big Government, New Deal-like approach to problems and support a strong national defense and middle-class tax cuts. Bill Clinton, Al Gore and Joe Biden were among its prominent members who liked to call themselves “New Democrats.” Reagan...

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that he believed Republicans’ refusal to pass “common sense gun safety” was a “dereliction of duty.” Booker said, “There are common sense gun safety things that we can do in this country that majority of Americans agree on, like universal background checks, gun safety locks. There are things we agree on. The problem in America is that we have a major political party that is not willing to do the common sense things that would make us safer.