Free Republic

Most of the time, major political figures try to stay on the good side of the nation’s leading veterans’ organizations, but Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is comfortable going in a different direction. The Republican senator appeared on his daughter’s radio show late last week – just a few days before Memorial Day – and Meghan McCain asked about the need for improvements in the VA system. The GOP lawmaker, facing a tough re-election fight this year, didn’t hold back. JOHN MCCAIN: I blame some of the old veterans’ service organizations like the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Disabled American...

International human rights organization Free Tibet is urging Secretary of State John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz to end their financial investment in a Chinese-owned company that operates in Tibet. In a May 17 letter to Kerry, Free Tibet Director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren called the Kerry family investment in a Chinese company, called Tibet Water Resources, Ltd. “inappropriate” and encouraged Kerry to “ensure that this investment comes to an end.” The company bottles and sells premium “luxury water” in competition with brands like Evian and Fuji.

On Monday, the Illinois legislature passed a bill lowering the amount the city of Chicago has to pay into police and firefighter pensions in 2016. To do this, the legislature overrode a veto from Gov. Bruce Rauner, confirming what we already knew: It's really, really, really, really hard to agree with Rauner about anything at this point. For no one would it be harder than Mayor Rahm Emanuel, once Rauner's buddy in vacationing and wine-sipping. Rahm became basically apoplectic when Rauner vetoed the pension bill on Friday, saying in a variety of press statements that Rauner's veto would trigger a...

SACRAMENTO — When Bernie Sanders held a rally at an outdoor stadium here the other night, more than 15,000 people turned out in a display of cheering, chanting, singing and cartwheels. Gov. Jerry Brown, the state’s most prominent Democrat, was not there, but he might as well have been. Mr. Sanders’s speech was replete with the kind of to-the-barricades flourishes that have long been part of Mr. Brown’s campaign language. “The political establishment is getting nervous,” Mr. Sanders said. “The corporate establishment is getting nervous. And they should be nervous. Because real change is coming.” As the Democratic presidential primary...

Former President Jimmy Carter is resigning from his prominent role in the Elders, the international NGO announced Wednesday. The 91-year-old, who had played a large part of the group since its founding in 2007, announced in March that he no longer needed treatment for cancer, less than seven months after publicly revealing that doctors had found melanoma that had spread to his brain. Story Continued Below “From the Middle East to climate change, women’s rights to superpower diplomacy, Jimmy has brought the gravitas of his Presidential office but also the passion of an activist who believes the world can, and...

Gov. Jerry Brown’s solution to California’s affordable housing crisis is to build, build, build, and not let local politics get in the way. Earlier this month, the governor introduced a bill under which proposed urban housing developments that meet local zoning requirements and reserve some portion of their units for low-income residents would be exempted from any additional environmental or local government review. The governor’s theory is that neighborhood opponents and other parochial interests have consistently blocked or downsized badly needed development projects, leading to a housing crisis in which California's major cities are increasingly unaffordable for most of its...

House and Senate Democrats told Republican leaders Thursday to postpone a Memorial Day recess until their demands for Supreme Court nomination hearings and emergency spending to combat the Zika virus and other crises are met. From the opioids and heroin crisis to the lead-tainted water scandal in Flint, Mich., Congress faces a larger workload than ever but has opted to work less in a contentious election year, according to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. Congress is set to skip town Thursday for its Memorial Day break and will not return until the second week...

Last week’s unanimous passage of a Senate bill making it easier for 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia and other foreign terror sponsors was widely heralded as a major victory. It’s more of a cruel hoax. It turns out that just before the vote, Sen. Charles Schumer and other proponents of the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act stuffed an amendment into the final draft allowing the attorney general and secretary of state to stop any litigation against the Saudis in its tracks.

Two FBI agents were shot and a man they were seeking was found dead in a Park Forest home, authorities said. The FBI agents had been attempting to serve an arrest warrant at the time. The agents’ injuries were not considered life-threatening, according to the FBI.

Bill Cosby admitted to plying teens with booze and drugs before having sex with them, and to having girls regularly dispatched to him by a modeling agency, newly unearthed court papers show. The comic said that at one point in his career, the agency would provide “five or six” young women each week, according to depositions he gave in 2005 and 2006 for a lawsuit. Among other revelations made by Cosby under questioning by lawyers for Andrea Constand, who claims he sexually assaulted her in 2004, was the description of a 1976 encounter with a 19-year-old model named Therese Picking.

The Democratic Party relies too heavily on superdelegates to pick its presidential nominees, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Thursday — though she downplayed the current dispute between party leaders and Sen. Bernard Sanders. Mrs. Pelosi called the fight between Mr. Sanders and party leaders a “family disagreement” and insisted it won’t dent the eventual nominee in the general election. She also dismissed comparisons to the riot-fueled 1968 Democratic convention. “This is an incident. That was a colossal … clash of people,” she said.

Besieged by federal and state investigators, Mayor Bill de Blasio turned Nixonian Thursday and declared five of his closest outside confidants exempt from public disclosure laws when they advise him on running the city. His administration extended the stunning “agents of the city” privilege to BerlinRosen co-founder Jonathan Rosen; Hilltop Public Solutions partners Nicholas Baldick and Bill Hyers; and AKPD partner John Del Cecato. All four worked on de Blasio’s political campaigns. Also included was Patrick Gaspard, US ambassador to South Africa and a former political operative at SEIU Local 1199.

Back when John Boehner was Speaker, he was the unpopular establishment figure fighting against a passionate Republican base that adhered strictly to conservative orthodoxy. Today, in a surprising turn of events, Boehner—who supports Donald Trump—finds himself in a more enviable position. Boehner has nothing to lose. He has no Speakership from which to be ousted. Meanwhile, many of his old adversaries—you know, the Ted Cruz  97% wing of the House GOP—suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of a passionate base that prizes Trumpian strength over ideological purity. The tables, it seems, have turned. Which brings us to this...

Another high-ranking NYPD officer has been disciplined amid the wide-ranging federal probe into alleged police corruption, law-enforcement sources said Wednesday. Brooklyn South Borough Inspector Peter DeBlasio was put on desk duty after he refused to answer questions before a federal grand jury hearing evidence in the case, sources said. FBI agents also had gone to DeBlasio’s home twice to interview him, the sources said. Captain’s Benevolent Association President Roy Richter said he was surprised by the department taking disciplinary action against DeBlasio.

One year after resigning in disgrace, Aaron Schock — the high-flying GOP congressman whose penchant for drawing publicity to himself was nearly unrivaled in the House of Representatives — has largely disappeared from view. But federal prosecutors still have their sights on him. There have been a few random glimpses of the Illinois Republican since his abrupt departure from Capitol Hill: having dinner with his father in Peru last summer, and snowboarding with a friend in Aspen, Colorado, in February. Just this month, Schock was seen lugging his gym bag outside the Longworth House Office Building. Sources say he is...

Washington (CNN)John Kasich signaled Monday that he still harbors deep uneasiness with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee, declining to endorse him and reiterating that he will not serve as Trump's vice president. Even now that he's left the race, Kasich is resisting calls to serve as Trump's No. 2, portraying his pitch and Trump's as fundamentally incompatible. Kasich said he was "not inclined" to run with Trump and that he had "not changed my mind."

House Speaker Paul Ryan has no issue with a national NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll released Tuesday that indicates that more Republican and Republican-leaning voters trust Donald Trump to lead the party than Ryan. “I hope it’s Donald Trump. He’s getting the nomination,” Ryan told reporters Tuesday in a clip aired by MSNBC. “He’s wrapping up the nomination.” Donald Trump has a lot to learn from Paul Ryan — and Ryan has a lot to learn from Trump. Nearly six in 10 Republicans and leaners said they trusted Trump, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee, more to lead the GOP, compared to 39...

A paramedic has been accused of swiping James Gandolfini‘s $3,000 Rolex as he laid dying from a massive heart attack. Claudio Bevilacqua, 43, allegedly stole the Submariner watch from “The Sopranos” star after he collapsed in the Boscolo Luxury Hotel Exedra in Rome during a family trip in June 2013, according to NBC News. He was rushing Gandolfini to the hospital that night when the timepiece disappeared, though it is unclear if it vanished from his hotel room or while the actor was wearing it

Marco Rubio fired off an extended series of tweets late Monday night, alternating between sharp jabs and light jokes, aimed at a pair of Washington Post reports about his plans for his political future and his alleged "hate" for the Senate, a word the Florida senator disputes. Criticizing the use of anonymous sources, Rubio, who has 1.36 million followers, took the opportunity to make an enigmatic joke about his political future, winking at his former rival Donald Trump. "As for future in politics, well it's nearly impossible for someone not in office to ever become a successful candidate for President....

The warning signs of a credit slowdown are beginning to appear. Late Friday, the Federal Reserve's weekly H.8 report showed that growth in lending for commercial and industrial (C&I) loans has significantly cooled off in recent weeks. According to Bespoke Investment Group, the annualized quarter-over-quarter growth rate of C&I loans fell to 15.17% based on Friday's data. Just two weeks ago this was 19.34%.