Free Republic

Into the depleted field of journalism in America, a handful of websites have appeared in recent weeks with names suggesting a focus on news close to home: D.C. Weekly, the New York News Daily, the Chicago Chronicle and a newer sister publication, the Miami Chronicle. In fact, they are not local news organizations at all. They are Russian creations, researchers and government officials say, meant to mimic actual news organizations to push Kremlin propaganda by interspersing it among an at-times odd mix of stories about crime, politics and culture. While Russia has long sought ways to influence public discourse in...

With all the talk about Hunter Biden these days, one might get the impression that he is the only child of a politician to benefit from his parents’ position and the last name they inherited. Before Hunter Biden, the son of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, got his strange but lucrative deal to sit on the board of energy company Burisma Holdings in Ukraine to the tune of $50,000 a month, there was Chelsea Clinton, the only child of former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She was similarly rewarded with jobs and board positions...

In his first 13 years on the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s main challenge was trying to assemble five votes to move the court to the right though there were only four reliably conservatives justices. Now he faces a very different problem. With the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and his replacement by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, the chief justice has the votes he needs on issues like abortion, racial discrimination, religion and voting. At the same time, he has taken Justice Kennedy’s place as the swing vote at the court’s ideological center, making him the...

The allure of a Mueller report lies in its imagined promise of a single, definitive truth capable of cutting through the haze of lies, confusion and “alternative facts.” But Mr. Corsi’s and Mr. Papadopoulos’s antics are a warning that this hope will inevitably fall short. Conspiracy theorists and prosecutors live in different worlds: The first, unmoored from truth; the second, devoted to proving facts beyond a reasonable doubt. Mr. Mueller has the power to charge Mr. Corsi for lying; he has already done so to Mr. Papadopoulos. Rather than crumbling, though, their falsehoods have continued to spread and grow —...