Free Republic

It’s unclear whether the measure will pass after administration officials tried to reassure Republicans who signaled they may support the effort.The Senate will vote Thursday on a bipartisan measure to block President Donald Trump from attacking Venezuelan territory in a new test of Republicans’ willingness to oppose his use of military force in Latin America. It is unclear whether the largely symbolic effort will attract enough GOP support to pass, or whether a recent push by the administration to walk back Trump’s repeated threats of escalation has reassured those lawmakers who have suggested they might join the effort. On Wednesday,...

It’s too good. It’s beyond comical. For the past week or so, liberal America has been apoplectic over President Trump’s new addition to the White House. He’s renovating the East Room so that a proper ballroom can be on the grounds, a venue that can accommodate at least 650 people. The president of the United States will forever have a place for official state dinners and other events—no more tents on the lawn. And yet, you’d think Trump ordered a slash-and-burn of the entire residence. Other presidents have done this—it’s not a big deal. The project is being funded by...

The White House announced plans to construct a 90,000-square-foot ballroom that will cost approximately $200 million. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said construction will begin in September. “President Trump, and other patriot donors, have generously committed to donating the funds necessary to build this approximately $200 million dollar structure. The United States Secret Service will provide the necessary security enhancements and modifications,” the White House said in a release. 🚨Just in: The White House has announced plans to construct a new 90,000 sq. ft. ballroom, with construction set to begin in September. The $200 million project will be fully...

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt has praised a piece published in a liberal news outlet about Trump's ballroom project. 'First dose of common sense I’ve seen from the legacy media on this story,' Leavitt wrote on X, sharing a Saturday piece from the Washington Post Editorial Board, which has been revamped in 2025 to share more libertarian views. The Board used the editorial piece to push back on the 'Not In My Back Yard' crowd, often called NIMBY's. 'In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible,' the Board writes, while...

The Washington Post editorial board defended President Donald Trump's ballroom construction on Sunday and argued that the next Democratic president would be happy to have the ballroom."In classic Trump fashion, the president is pursuing a reasonable idea in the most jarring manner possible. Privately, many alumni of the Biden and Obama White Houses acknowledge the long-overdue need for an event space like what Trump is creating. It is absurd that tents need to be erected on the South Lawn for state dinners, and VIPs are forced to use porta-potties," the editorial board wrote.Construction crews began demolition of the East Wing...

The Washington Post's boastful front-page slogan is "Democracy Dies in Darkness." But on today's Morning Joe, Post columnist David Ignatius kept viewers in the darkness regarding his own paper. The show devoted yet another long segment to denouncing President Trump's ballroom project, and in particular, his decision to demolish the East Wing that was deemed necessary. [snip] Ignatius offered a metaphorical analogy of his own: "This is the presidency as wrecking ball." He went so far as to claim that "the destruction of the East Wing has really upset people in a way that even Trump's most outrageous other actions...

Ex-White House residents Bill and Hillary Clinton were mocked on social media Tuesday after the former first lady criticized President Trump’s latest construction project at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Hillary took issue with the demolition that began Monday on the East Wing of the White House to accommodate Trump’s massive $250 million ballroom, making it clear that she’s no fan of the renovation. “It’s not his house. It’s your house. And he’s destroying it,” she wrote on X Tuesday morning. Hillary included an image taken from the Washington Post’s coverage of the partial teardown in her tweet, showing rubble piling up...

A California Democrat has called on presidential hopefuls in the 2028 race to vow to 'tear down' Donald Trump's $250million golden ballroom 'on day one.' Eric Swalwell demanded fellow Democrats considering running in the next election take a firm stand against the ballroom, which is already under construction and has been funded by private donors. 'Don't even think of seeking the Democratic nomination for president unless you pledge to take a wrecking ball to the Trump Ballroom on DAY ONE,' he wrote on X. Alternatively, he said nominees could consider renaming it to the 'Barack Obama Ballroom' after reports emerged...

Ethics experts and Democrats say they are eager to know whether private donors behind the planned $300 million ballroom are poised to receive any benefits in return.President Donald Trump’s swift demolition of the White House’s East Wing this week stunned conservationists and many Americans. But ethics experts and Democrats say they are turning to a question related to the next phase of the project: whether the donors behind the planned $300 million ballroom that will replace the demolished annex will receive any benefits in return.Tech companies and defense contractors such as Google, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft, as well as wealthy...

Was it only weeks ago in mid-September that I wrote a column about Democrats embracing the assassination culture that took the life of young Christian evangelist Charlie Kirk? And now in Virginia they’re doubling down. Virginia Democrats are endorsing the murderous candidacy of Jay Jones, who comes from a prominent black Virginia Democrat family. You see Jones in the photograph above, applauding the Democrat candidate for governor, former U.S. Rep Abigail Spanberger. You’ve heard of Jones and his dark fantasies over texts to a colleague, seeking the murders of his Republican opponents. And their children. Yes, their kids who he...

Virginia Republicans scored a monumental victory in 2021. After 12 years of sustained statewide losses, the party emerged from the wilderness and swept the three statewide races that year, led by outsider Glenn Youngkin, who became the commonwealth’s first Republican governor since Bob McDonnell left office in 2014.Virginia’s gubernatorial elections are unique in American politics in that no other state makes its governor a lame duck the moment he is sworn in, as term limits prohibit consecutive terms. No Virginia governor has ever run for reelection as an incumbent, although two governors have succeeded in winning nonconsecutive terms.The commonwealth’s proximity...

If their plan is just to rely on Trump’s overreach, then they’ll be repeating Biden’s mistakes.Voters certainly seem to be going south on President Donald Trump’s war on non-White immigrants. In a New York Times poll conducted in late September, a slim majority of registered voters said the president had gone too far in aggressively trying to ferret out and deport non-Americans — and that was before federal agents started using tear gas and pepper spray on the streets of Chicago.It’s a rare glimpse of bluer skies for Democrats since last year’s presidential election. But if their plan on immigration...

The International Monetary Fund says the global economy is performing better than expected despite Trump’s tariffs, but future growth prospects are at risk.The global economy is performing better than expected amid a historic upheaval in U.S. trade policy, but President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs are beginning to erode prospects for future growth, the International Monetary Fund said Tuesday in its latest forecast. Global growth this year is projected at an annual rate of 3.2 percent, up 0.2 percentage points from the fund’s July forecast and 0.4 points higher than April’s, which was prepared as the president finalized his announcement of...

Republicans have tried more than 70 times over the past 15 years to weaken or kill Obamacare. But their campaign keeps backfiring. The sweeping tax and spending bill President Donald Trump signed this summer got his party closer to that goal than ever before. Though never marketed as a repeal, it unraveled much of the law and is expected to eventually push millions of people who gained insurance since the Affordable Care Act’s passage off the rolls. Even that legislative achievement is proving politically fraught. As the partial government shutdown stretches into its second week, the White House and a...

Agencies have been shuttered going on three weeks with no end in sight as the White House and congressional Democrats continue their standoff.The ongoing government shutdown will collide with the U.S. economy this week, as missed paychecks and the absence of billions of dollars of government services reverberate beyond federal workers and sting the broader public.President Donald Trump and lawmakers in Congress remain deadlocked heading into a third week of shuttered federal agencies. Republicans control both chambers of Congress, but lack the votes in the Senate to defeat a filibuster of legislation to fund ongoing operations. Democrats insist that Trump...

The Washington Post reviewed leaked audio from four off-the-record lectures the tech investor delivered in San Francisco over the past month that fused beliefs about religion and technology.Tech billionaire Peter Thiel recently warned that Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and critics of technology or artificial intelligence are “legionnaires of the Antichrist” in private lectures on Christianity that connected government oversight of Silicon Valley to an apocalyptic future, according to recordings reviewed by The Washington Post.In the four, roughly two-hour lectures, which began last month and culminated Monday at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, Thiel laid out his religious views to...

His Gaza agreement, though still fragile, adds to an unprecedented peacemaking record.Not only does Donald Trump deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, but there has arguably never been an American president who deserved it more.Four of his predecessors have won the prize. Barack Obama won seven months into his presidency essentially for not being George W. Bush — and even he said he didn’t deserve it. Woodrow Wilson won for creating the League of Nations, which proved to be a feckless disaster that the United States never even joined. Theodore Roosevelt won for ending a single conflict, the Russo-Japanese War, which...

What in the Benjamin C. Bradlee is going on with The Washington Post editorial board? After shocking the internet by conceding that Obamacare was really just an expensive mess, the newspaper seems to have red-pilled itself hard again. The Post once again tackled the ongoing political standoff between the GOP and Democrats over the Schumer shutdown, surprisingly chastising liberal lawmakers for being stubborn by continuingly voting down the Republican clean continuing resolution (CR). Then came a jaw-dropping admission from the liberal newspaper: “The government is too big. There is plenty of fat to cut.” But the newspaper even took it...

Terradot, a carbon removal company, is using “enhanced rock weathering” to sequester carbon by spreading crushed volcanic rock over farmland.STATE OF SÃO PAULO, Brazil — Across vast stretches of farmland in southern Brazil, researchers at a carbon removal company are attempting to accelerate a natural process that normally unfolds over thousands or millions of years. The company, Terradot, is spreading tons of volcanic rock crushed into a fine dust over land where soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are grown. As rain percolates through the soil, chemical reactions pull carbon from the air and convert it into bicarbonate ions that...

Police arrested a New Jersey man who allegedly had a Molotov cocktail near St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC, on Sunday.The arrest occurred just before the church was set to hold its Red Mass to celebrate the beginning of the new Supreme Court term.The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) said it “engaged an individual who set up a tent on the steps of the Cathedral,” according to a press release.SNIPThe suspect, identified as 41-year-old Louis Geri of Vineland, New Jersey, is preliminarily charged with Unlawful Entry, Threats to Kidnap or Injure a Person, and Possession of a Molotov Cocktail. SNIPhttps://x.com/_ellepurnell/status/1975037735816908980