Free Republic

AIN’T EASY BEING GREENE — Turns out it wasn’t a momentary lapse of judgment: DONALD TRUMP yesterday evening defended Speaker MIKE JOHNSON for the second time in as many weeks amid a swirl of speculation about his future atop the House GOP. After spending the day holed up in a Manhattan courtroom (more on that in a second), the former president told Real America’s Voice radio host John Fredericks that Johnson is “trying very hard” and “a very good person.” “Well, look, we have a majority of one, OK?” Trump said, extending Johnson some grace and echoing the speaker’s own...

<p>NEW YORK — A top aide to Mayor Eric Adams is facing another lawsuit alleging discrimination, sexual harassment and retaliation stemming from his stewardship of a mysterious mayoral office focused on policing city agencies from within.</p><p>And at one point that aide — Timothy Pearson, a former NYPD inspector — shared a desire to earn money from contracts doled out by the Adams administration despite his prominent role in City Hall, according to the suit filed in state Supreme Court in Manhattan Wednesday.</p>

For generations, American politics has been defined by the outsize influence of Christian conservatives, so much so that the intersection of religion and politics is often treated as the sole province of white evangelicals. And for generations, promises of a rising “religious left” have come and gone without any lasting political imprint. But to look at America’s religious left at this moment is to see something genuinely different. Places of worship are participating in demonstrations for civil rights larger than any protest movement in American history. Democrats like the Rev. Raphael Warnock and Joe Biden—political leaders whose faith isn’t just...

<p>A California judge on Wednesday recommended the disbarment of John Eastman, calling to revoke the law license of one of former President Donald Trump’s top allies in his failed last-ditch gambit to subvert the 2020 election.</p><p>Judge Yvette Roland, who presided over months of testimony and argument about the basis of Eastman’s fringe legal theories, ruled that the veteran conservative attorney violated ethics rules — and even potentially criminal law — when he advanced Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results based on weak or discredited claims of fraud.</p>

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has replaced one of his longest-serving officials, Oleksiy Danilov, who had earlier criticized a Chinese peace plan. Danilov’s firing came after he expressively criticized Chinese Special Representative for Eurasian Affairs Li Hui, as well as a Chinese peace initiative, on air during a Ukrainian national telethon. “As for Li Hui, I want to remind everyone: No one will decide our fate but us,” Danilov said on March 19. “I don’t understand who can trade our territories, our lands like that. Because some Hui, I’m sorry, or whatever his last name is, or someone else think they...

<p>Fellow Democrats are excoriating Rep. Katie Porter for saying her opponents, including rival Rep. Adam Schiff, sought to “rig” California’s Senate primary — language that echoes former President Donald Trump’s election denialism.</p><p>Porter finished a distant third in the Super Tuesday contest behind Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey. The swift reaction to her social media outburst underscores how California’s enormously expensive Senate race — for a likely safe Democratic seat — has left lingering bruises. It also raises warnings for Democrats tempted to use rhetoric they’ve condemned as undermining public trust in the nation's elections.</p>

Rep. Barbara Lee delivered election night remarks before any results dropped. Lee, who was expected to fall short in the race for California’s Senate seat, emotionally greeted phone bank volunteers at her campaign headquarters in downtown Oakland. She also passed a baton — literally and figuratively — to Lateefah Simon, her chosen successor to replace her in the House. “There is a woman who has inspired millions of women around the world, millions of women who decided to pull up our own table, our own chairs,” Simon said as the two women wiped away tears. Lee, a three-decade veteran of...

<p>A woman who allegedly tried to hit her ex-husband with a car. A 30-year-old who marketed a conspiracy-theory movie. A pastor whose previous campaign was mired in election fraud.</p><p>These are some of the candidates national Republicans are trying not to nominate this week.</p>

One year ago, I set out to learn how local Republican powerbrokers would shape the 2024 presidential race. What I found surprised me, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. As I surveyed GOP county chairs across the country, I thought they would provide an early signal as to where the Republican nomination would end up. County chairs are influential in local GOP circles, party leaders who can offer the kind of endorsements that candidates are eager to collect. They’re also still close to the rank-and-file grassroots, and their shifts, I imagined, would signal where the rest of the party was going....

<p>The bad polls for President Joe Biden came one after the other this weekend.</p><p>A day after Democrats dragged a New York Times/Siena College poll that showed the president falling 4 points behind his likely Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, in a general election matchup, Sunday brought an additional three major surveys also showing Trump leading amid broad and deep dissatisfaction with the incumbent.</p>

<p>House Republicans are facing a growing exodus of experienced and talented members that adds up to an alarming political maturity drain. A growing number of their well-respected members are fleeing Congress as the conference pulls further to the right, and the departures are starting to spark worries about a further erosion of GOP lawmakers' appetite for the basic tasks of governing. After a brutal year of their party's shaky stewardship of the House, 21 House GOP lawmakers have already announced their plans to retire at year's end — including five committee chairs. Many of the departing members share a common trait: They’re part of a loose coalition of governing-minded Republicans who are still willing to generally back leadership, support bipartisan deals and even defy former President Donald Trump at times. And while some Republicans have cited personal or health reasons for leaving office, others in the group are blunt as they lament their party’s inflated expectations for what’s achievable when the GOP controls just one half of one branch of the government.</p>

A conflict between Russia and NATO would be inevitable if Western troops go to Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said today. The Kremlin's comments come after French President Emmanuel Macron did not rule out putting boots on the ground in Ukraine as Kyiv struggles to fend off Russia's full-scale invasion. While Macron noted that there was no consensus about troops at this stage, Ukraine has not asked allies for soldiers to fight its cause and other Western governments even scrambled Tuesday to insist troops were not set to be deployed, the mere suggestion sparked a furious response from Moscow....

Under intense pressure from farmers, the European Commission has dropped key passages in a proposal for a new 2040 goal for cutting greenhouse gas pollution. “All sectors” would need to contribute to the effort, the EU executive's plan says. But a mention of a possible 30 percent cut to agricultural pollution between 2015 and 2040, which was in previous drafts seen by POLITICO, had been removed. Also excised were recommendations for citizens to make changes to their behavior, like eating less meat, and a push to end fossil fuel subsidies. Farmers' protests have broken out in many countries across Europe...

As Twitchy reported, Ray Epps' sentencing Tuesday was a clown show. Epps, who is on video inciting people to enter the Capitol, was sentenced to a year's probation and a $500 fine. President Joe Biden gave his January 6 anniversary speech a day early and bragged last week that the "insurrectionists" had been sentenced to a collective total of 840 years in prison. That total stands, as Epps won't spend a single day in jail. Grandmothers who simply walked into the Capitol Building a stood there have been sentenced to a year's probation and a $500 fine after being found...

David Siders is POLITICO's Politics editor. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A visit to the border city of El Paso shows how the politics of immigration are shifting — and what’s really underneath it. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EL PASO, Texas — Soon the sun would set over West Texas and the Rev. Rafael Garcia would slip into his white robe and walk to the front of his cavernous church to say mass. It was the feast of the Immaculate Conception, and he was going to talk about Mary. But before that, Garcia’s mind was on more terrestrial concerns. On a couch in a room off the...

Haley recently received a coveted endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu.Nikki Haley is closing the gap on former President Donald Trump in a key early voting state.A CBS News/YouGov poll released Sunday found that 29% of likely GOP primary voters in New Hampshire would vote for Haley, while 44% said they’re backing Trump. It’s the latest good news for Haley out of the Granite State, where she recently received a coveted endorsement from Gov. Chris Sununu, who has pledged to put “110 percent” behind the former South Carolina governor in the run-up to the state’s Jan. 23 primary.

DURHAM, New Hampshire — First Donald Trump’s Republican critics banked on one of his opponents catching a spark in Iowa. Then they said New Hampshire was where they’d make their mark. Eventually, advisers to Trump’s rivals maintained, someone would emerge from the field of lower-polling candidates to get a clear shot at Trump. After the past week, that idea has never looked more out of reach. In Iowa, new polling shows Trump not only maintaining his enormous lead in the first caucus state, but expanding on it — stretching his support to 51 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers. And in...

The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department on Wednesday, the officials said.Biden openly decried the treatment his aides were...

Then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump railed against “so-called Christians” and “pieces of s—” evangelicals who supported Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) in the 2016 Iowa caucuses, according to a forthcoming book. At the time, allies of Cruz had been making hay of Trump’s flub before an audience at Virginia’s Liberty University, a conservative evangelical college, in which he botched a question about his favorite Bible verse and replied that it came from the book of “Two Corinthians,” rather than “Second Corinthians.” “The laughter and ridicule were embarrassing enough for Trump,” Tim Alberta writes in his new book, “The Kingdom, the Power,...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will appoint EMILY’s List President Laphonza Butler to fill the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, elevating the head of a fundraising juggernaut that works to elect Democratic women who support abortion rights, according to a person familiar with the decision. Newsom is moving swiftly to name the next senator, two days after Feinstein’s death and just as a perilously split Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown. Senate Democrats are in need of every vote in the closely divided chamber. The announcement was expected to come Monday, and an adviser to the governor, Anthony York,...