Free Republic

he Associated Press and other news organizations are asking a judge to unseal records in special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation. The media coalition argued in a court filing Wednesday that Mueller's probe is "one of the most consequential criminal investigations in our nation's history" and that there's overwhelming public interest in records from the case. The news organizations are specifically asking for transcripts of hearings in the ongoing prosecution of President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. They also want the judge to unseal law enforcement applications for search warrants, including on Manafort's home and a storage unit.

Democrats' path to take over the House in November took a sharp right turn last night as a Republican won a special congressional election in Arizona's 8th Congressional District. Debbie Lesko, a former state senator, bested Democrat Hiral Tipirneni, a physician, by about 10,000 votes. Donald Trump won Arizona by 21 points in 2016. Lesko will serve out the term of Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in disgrace.

Democrats' path to take over the House in November took a sharp right turn last night as a Republican won a special congressional election in Arizona's 8th Congressional District. Debbie Lesko, a former state senator, bested Democrat Hiral Tipirneni, a physician, by about 10,000 votes.  Donald Trump won Arizona by 21 points in 2016. Lesko will serve out the term of Rep. Trent Franks, who resigned in disgrace. CNN: Lesko will fill the seat through the end of this congressional term in January and must run for re-election in November to continue serving. Even though Republicans avoided another stinging loss...

Republican Debbie Lesko won the House special election in Arizona Tuesday night, holding off a closer-than-expected Democratic challenge in a district that President Donald Trump won by 21 points in 2016. Lesko had 53 percent of the vote when The Associated Press called the race an hour after the polls closed, with over 155,000 early votes tallied. Democrat Hiral Tipirneni had 47 percent of the vote. But Lesko’s single-digit margin is the latest evidence that Republicans face a punishing midterm environment, even in Trump-friendly territory. Lesko’s victory comes on the heels of losses for Republicans in southwestern Pennsylvania, where Democratic...

Hank Azaria says his "eyes have been opened" and he's willing to "step aside" from playing his controversial "Simpsons" character. The actor appeared on Tuesday's episode of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and talked about the fallout surrounding the character he voices, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon. Comedian Hari Kondabolu's documentary "The Problem with Apu" debuted last November and looked at the character as a negative, stereotypical representation of South Asians. Nahasapeemapetilon, a Indian-American character with a thick accent, operates the Kwik-E-Mart convenience store in the fictional town of Springfield. The show recently aired a response to complaints about him.

A New Jersey police department has released a video showing a former Port Authority commissioner and ex-Hillary Clinton aide trying to use her position to threaten officers who pulled over her daughter’s friend during a traffic stop on Easter weekend. The remarkable video released by the Tenafly Police Department shows Caren Z. Turner, 60, a Democratic Party lobbyist, flash her badge and boast of her connections to the chief of police and the local mayor while berating two officers who pulled over a car whose Nevada registration had expired. The car was driven by a male friend of her daughter,...

The United States is at the brink of a widespread environmental revolution, former Vice President and environmental advocate Al Gore said at an event Monday afternoon in Gaston Hall. “We are now in the beginning stages of a global sustainability revolution,” Gore said. “It has the magnitude of the industrial revolution but the speed of the digital revolution.” Gore attributed the prospect of a high speed environmental revolution to increased technological capabilities. “It’s powered by new digital tools like the Internet of Things and machine learning and artificial intelligence that are giving CEOs and executive teams the ability to manage...

The Trump administration has removed mentions of climate change from federal government websites, yet the air and water continue to warm and sea levels keep rising. Data on climate change is buried on those sites where it used to be displayed prominently, and still glaciers melt and animals appear where they weren’t before. No, climate change doesn’t stop just because you ignore it — like tooth decay or that weird rattle in your car, it only gets worse, until you can’t possibly look the other way any longer. In this case, however, the stakes are much higher than a blown...

Just as the first casualty of war is truth, so too the first casualty of hyper-partisan politics is civil liberties. Many traditional civil libertarians have allowed their strong anti-Trump sentiments to erase their long-standing commitment to neutral civil liberties. They are now so desperate to get Trump that they are prepared to compromise the most basic due process rights. They forget the lesson of history that such compromises made against one’s enemy are often used as precedents against one’s friends. As Robert Bolt put it in the play and movie “A Man for all Seasons”: Roper: So now you would...

By inserting negative search suggestions under the name of a candidate, search engines like Google can shift the opinions of undecided voters by up to 43.4 percent, according to new research by a team at the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology and reported exclusively by Breitbart News. The lead author of the study, Dr. Robert Epstein, has previously conducted research into what he calls the Search Engine Manipulation Effect (SEME). This research showed that the manipulation of results pages in search engines can shift the voting preferences of undecideds by anywhere between 20 and 80 percent, depending on...

The Chasing Hillary book by New York Times reporter Amy Chozick was released Tuesday and some really interesting tidbits from the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign trail have already been revealed. One such tidbit that appeared in the UK Weekly is that Hillary went on an F-word tirade during a mock debate against a mock Donald Trump:

In a Tuesday night special election race on Long Island, Democrats flipped a long-Republican State Assembly district to mark their 40th Trump-era takeover of a GOP-held seat. The seat had been held by a Republican since 1978. The New York State Assembly is firmly in Democratic hands, and control of the New York state Senate is caught up in intra-caucus weirdness, so the flip has no particular concrete result. But it does serve as a further sign of the strong wind at Democrats’ backs downballot in the Trump era, with their candidate Steve Stern running 11 points ahead of Hillary...

The New York state Senate will remain in control of the Republican Party despite two Democrats winning special elections Tuesday. That's because a key Democrat who has caucused with the GOP announced he'll stay put, keeping Republicans in charge at least until June. Brooklyn Sen. Simcha Felder has long sat with Senate Republicans, to the frustration of other Democrats. Democratic leaders had hoped Felder might return if they won Tuesday's elections in Westchester County and the Bronx.

Former DNC boss and longtime Clinton insider Donna Brazile found a new excuse for Hillary’s electoral disaster this week; suggesting that Democrats were “crime victims” during the 2016 race for the White House. Brazile weighed-in on Hillary’s stunning defeat on social media over the weekend; calling on President Trump to “protect elections” after “criminal” activities swayed American voters away from the Democratic nominee. “While President Trump and his allies like to dismiss the idea of Russian interference in our elections as a “hoax,” those of us who were at the Democratic National Committee know better. We were the victims of...

Democrats in New York flipped a New York Assembly seat on Tuesday, winning a seat that has been in GOP hands for nearly four decades. Democrat Steve Stern, a former Suffolk County legislator, beat out Janet Smitelli (R) for AD-10, a Long Island seat, with 59 percent of the vote, according to Daily Kos. The district has been represented by a Republican since 1978. Former presidents Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both won the district in the last two presidential elections, but the 18-point margin in Tuesday's election is indicative of a growing blue wave in the area.

The Trump administration is poised to legitimize Iran's ballistic missile program, granting the Islamic Republic the ability to produce and test a series of missiles capable of striking Israel, according to those familiar with U.S. concessions during ongoing talks over the future of the landmark Iran nuclear deal. After weeks of pressure from European countries, senior Trump administration officials handling the talks are said to have conceded to a demand that Iran only restrict ballistic missile activity to its longer range missiles, leaving untouched its mammoth arsenal of short-range and medium-range missiles that could easily hit Israel and other Middle...

The governor of Colorado does our nation a grave disservice by misleading the public about the impact of marijuana on his state in the April 9 interview in Rolling Stone magazine. Neither the governor's statements, nor the smoke rising from 4/20 events, can hide the fact that drug use and addiction, especially among youths, are a growing public health concern in communities across Colorado and the nation. ... According to the 2016 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, Colorado is a national leader among 12-17-year-olds in: (1) Last year marijuana use; (2) Last month marijuana use; and (3) The...

A first-year law student making this argument would have gotten a big, blazing “F” . . . On Ari Melber’s MSNBC show this evening, a former Watergate prosecutor—demanding that Sean Hannity be investigated—actually suggested that Hannity’s occasional use of the services of attorney Michael Cohen is evidence of wrongdoing. Said Nick Akerman: “The person who really ought to be investigated is Sean Hannity! He’s the person whose name was brought up on the Cohen search warrant as a client. Why did he even offer himself up as a client if there was nothing wrong?” Get the rest of the story...

A prominent Washington lawyer who authored a report that's a key part of the special counsel's investigation into Paul Manafort has left his law firm. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom confirmed Tuesday that Greg Craig, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, is no longer with the firm. His biography has been removed from the law firm website. The firm didn't immediately comment beyond confirming his departure. Craig wrote a report funded by the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice about the trial of a former Ukrainian prime minister.

Craig supervised Alex van der Zwaan, who has pleaded guilty to lying about communications regarding his work for Ukrainian politicians. Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig has left his law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm told NBC News. His departure comes after he and his law firm became caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Alex van der Zwaan, who had been a lawyer in Skadden's London office, pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about communications involving work the firm had been...