Free Republic

Last year had the worst decline in credible elections and parliamentary oversight in almost a half-century, driven by government intimidation, foreign interference, disinformation and the misuse of artificial intelligence in campaigns, an organization promoting democracy said Tuesday. The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, or International IDEA, said election credibility is threatened by turnout dropping and results are increasingly being contested. One in three elections are being disputed in some way, it said. The organization with 35 member governments said the average percentage of the voting age population who actually cast ballots has declined from 65.2% in 2008 to...

The alleged gunman who authorities said targeted former President Trump while he golfed in Florida Sunday afternoon previously declared on social media that “Democracy is on the ballot” this year, and “we cannot lose” — echoing the anti-Trump rhetoric used by Vice President Kamala Harris and President Biden. Law enforcement sources identified the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58. Routh, who has a lengthy criminal record from North Carolina, frequently posted about politics and exclusively donated to Democratic candidates and causes dating back to 2019. He also bashed Trump in an April 22 post on X in which he declared,...

On MSNBC's "Morning Joe" program, host Joe Scarborough warned that "Trump will be a dictator if he gets back into office. He will censor TV stations that criticize his policies, prosecute his political opponents, and have government agents assassinate his enemies." CNN's Jake Tapper wryly observed that "President Biden didn't have to censor TV stations because we've all been on the side of the Democrats, but he did have the FBI pressure Facebook and Twitter to censor criticism of his covid policies and his Attorney General has been prosecuting Trump. On top of that, the Secret Service demonstrated extraordinary incompetence...

In his new book, the eminent law professor points to a source of growing disunion – the constitution itself. Among progressive scholars of the US constitution, Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, is widely considered pre-eminent. Now 71, he studied at Northwestern and Harvard and has also taught at DePaul, USC, Duke and UC Irvine. He has argued several cases at the US supreme court and written extensively about it. His last book, Worse Than Nothing, was a broadside against originalism, the doctrine touted by rightwing justices as they take an axe to hard-won rights. In his new book, Chemerinsky...

Jon Passantino, CNN's deputy managing editor for media and misinformation, expressed regret that "Meta-Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg openly admitted cooperating with the Biden Administration to censor content that the President found disagreeable. What had previously been a unanimous agreement that the enemies of democracy were spreading misinformation has been shattered." House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said "Zuckerberg's admission that he now realizes that what the FBI pressured his company to censor was accurate information confirms what FBI whistle blowers have testified to in our committee hearings that the Hunter Biden laptop the FBI seized in 2019 was genuine...

Hmm: Democrats are fighting to get third-party candidates Jill Stein and Cornel West off the ballot in multiple states — while simultaneously battling to keep RFK Jr. on some states’ ballot even after he’s withdrawn. “Defending democracy” sure is a tricky business. Of course, the “principle” at stake here is nothing but “what’s best for Kamala Harris.” Stein and West, both serious lefties, will siphon off votes likely to otherwise go to the Democrat; leaving Kennedy on (the calculation goes, anyway) will cost Donald Trump more votes than it does Harris. And never mind that RFK’s campaign had to battle...

Former State Department official, Mike Benz, the founder of the Foundation for Freedom Online posted a very interesting tweet today on the CIA, former President Jair Bolsonaro, the US State Department, and electronic voting machines in Brazil.Mike Benz sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson earlier in the week where he first discussed the Biden regime’s efforts to interfere in the 2022 reelection of populist favorite Jair Bolsonaro.The Gateway Pundit posted this morning on the Biden regime, the US Military, the State Department, and the CIA’s efforts to alter the election results in Brazil in 2022. The Biden regime decided...

Hollywood star Sally Field is claiming Kamala Harris stands for democracy even though she didn’t receive a single vote in the Democratic primary. Sally Field announced her return to social media over the weekend with two Instagram posts. In one, she trashed former President Donald Trump. In the other, she endorsed Kamala Harris, claiming a vote for the Harris-Walz ticket is a vote for “democracy.” “Hope is here,” the Norma Rae actress wrote, later adding: “Vote for our country, our children and grandchildren. Vote for the earth and women and human rights. Vote for democracy. Vote for @kamalaharris and @timwalz...

“Kamala, you are supposed to drink AFTER the speech.” — Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA. “The entire Democrat campaign will now be focused on gaslighting the country into believing Trump has been president for the last 4 years and Kamala has been an innocent bystander the whole time. They can’t run on her record, so they’re going to invent one and lie about it.” — Sean Davis, The Federalist. Get this: there is one thing, one lurking terror, behind every fake and desperate move the Democratic Party has made this dire election cycle: the fear that hundreds of high officials...

While speaking at a campaign stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris appeared to stumble over her words while explaining what the 2024 presidential election is “about” and what the United States stands “for around the globe.” “Our election is about understanding the importance of this beautiful country of ours in terms of what we stand for around the globe as a democracy,” Harris told the crowd. “As a democracy, we know, there’s a duality to the nature of democracy.”

Many Americans in a new survey said they believe democracy could be at risk depending on who wins the presidential election in November. The latest poll from The Associated Press-NORC Research Center, published Thursday, found 59 percent of Americans believe democracy could be on the ballot at the election, including 67 percent of Democrats and 58 percent of Republicans. It also found that smaller shares of Americans believe the U.S.’s democracy is strong enough to withstand the potential results. According to the survey, just 21 percent of Americans believe the U.S. democracy is strong enough to withstand the results of...

Over the past decade, Clint Leavitt saw different models of how to mix his evangelical faith and politics, none of them — to his mind — good. His family’s dinner table was consumed with debate over whether Barack Obama was the Antichrist. Even as his Phoenix church avoided political issues, he saw Christians around the country turn Donald Trump into a religious idol.A drive to create a Christian political presence he calls “shaped by Jesus, not a partisan political ideology” led Leavitt, now 29, to seminary and then to pastoring a church filled with congregants who vote differently from one...

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that the Supreme Court was “actively undermining our democracy.” According to the Massachusetts Democrat, that required reforms. Warren said, “Yeah, well, I think we’ve got all the Democrats who are ready for meaningful ethics reform to bind the Supreme Court and we’re working on changes to the Supreme Court. It can be term limits, it could be adding the number of justices things we can do without having to have a constitutional amendment. I think what President Biden is doing is think about this moment, here is a...

Progressive issues are winning at the ballot level in states controlled by conservatives. And it’s been happening steadily since 2016. In response, conservative legislators have significantly intensified their opposition to ballot measures nationwide as we the people have successfully raised the minimum wage, expanded Medicaid, created fair redistricting maps and protected reproductive freedom. The battle for the future of direct democracy has come to the state capitol dome, where legislators have introduced bills that aim to complicate the process of passing ballot measures. These are deliberate, calculated, and organized tactics employed by conservative legislators to undermine the ballot measure process...

**SNIP** In sum, at the 11th hour of a two-year reelection effort, a cabal arbitrarily decided that Biden might well lose the Democrats the White House and the Congress. So they reversed course, now claiming his dementia was so acute as to destroy their November prospects. But, mysteriously, his decline was not severe enough to imperil the American people, whom Biden must continue to lead until January 20, 2025. Furthermore, the bosses’ replacement choice, Harris, had entered no primary. She never won a single delegate. Harris also never captured a single delegate in her first and only presidential run back...

Yes, it applies in this case -- although its usually 48 hours. First note: The White House lied straight up about the speech being delivered "live"; it was clearly not. How do we know this with absolute certainty? Biden had a watch on and it is visible in some of the shot -- and was not at the time of the speech. You'd think the production crew would have enough marbles rolling around to catch this but... nope. It thus was quite-clearly taped and therefore the obvious question is "how many takes were done and was it continuous?" One lie...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday on ABC’s “The View” that President Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race because “our democracy is at stake.” Jean-Pierre said, “What we saw from this president in the last couple days was a human decency, a good man, someone who decided not to put himself first –like we’ve seen before — but to put the American people first and this country first.” She continued, “I would also say folks who have not seen the letter that he penned on Sunday and shared and released, you should. I think the letter,...

American Federation of Teachers boss Randi Weingarten has been ripped as an “unhinged lunatic” after she delivered a wild, political rally-style speech suggesting that former President Donald Trump was an “existential threat” to democracy. The teachers’ union president screamed and shouted at her members as she warned of looming violence and fascism if Trump wins the 2024 election when she took the stage during the AFT’s annual convention in Houston, Texas, on Monday. “The November elections will determine which path we take as a nation. Progress is indeed possible, but so is the eradication of the rights and freedoms we...

President Joe Biden's reelection campaign officially ended on Sunday, July 21 when he announced that he was dropping out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. Harris has since picked up a lot of endorsements from fellow Democrats —including one from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) — and reportedly, Biden's announcement was followed by a cash haul of over $75 million in less than 24 hours. But some Republicans are accusing Democrats of not playing fair, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana). On X, formerly Twitter, Johnson posted, "At this unprecedented juncture in American history,...

Dave Portnoy, founder of Barstool Sports, said Democrats pushing Joe Biden out of running for reelection means they want to “hijack” democracy. As Breitbart News reported Sunday, Joe Biden issued a history-making decision unseen since Democrat Lyndon Baines Johnson refused to seek reelection in 1968. “It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” Biden’s statement read. “And while it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as...