Free Republic

Source: Enterline Design Services LLCFormer Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, one of the first conservatives to be canceled back in 2010-2012 (along with me as collateral damage), has started a docuseries profiling other Christian conservatives whom the left targeted. “For many years, a quiet crisis affecting millions of Americans has grown and gone without remedy,” he opens. “In the early 21st century, a militant secular Left captured America’s centers of wealth and power. Because of prejudice and hostility from monied and powerful left-wing interest groups, those who publicly opposed the Left often lost their careers, businesses, livelihoods or reputations.” In...

We have been following a slew of defamation lawsuits by political figures over the last few years. (See, e.g., here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For torts scholars, it has been a bonanza of interesting issues touching on every element of defamation law. There is now an important ruling out of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit that could have enormous implications not just for the media but anyone who retweets stories or claims. The appellate panel ruled unanimously for Rep. Devin Nunes against journalist Ryan Lizza...

Amid all the verbose, consternated op-eds in fancy newspapers that certain writers have composed about left-wing cancel culture and nascent Stalinism growing among educated youth, nary a drop of ink has been spilled from their pens about a national constellation of College Republicans who have gone rogue — and fallen fast and hard into the arms of the far right. Earlier this month, on March 12, the College Republicans chapter at Iowa State University announced it had voted to cut ties with the group’s national committee — citing the College Republican National Committee’s supposed desire to “liberalize and destroy the...

Amador County Sheriff cites ‘misinformation’ that death was suicide; Investigation ongoing Philip Haney, the former Department of Homeland Security whistleblower, found dead in Amador County last month, was not a suicide but a murder, according to Reps. Louis Gohmert (R-Texas) and Steve King (R-Iowa), both friends of the deceased. “I don’t believe that Phil Haney committed suicide.” Rep. King said on the House floor this week, and as Cheryl Chumley reported in the Washington Times, Rep. Gohmert also disbelieved the suicide story. “I’d been concerned about his safety, with all the information he knew and people who could’ve gotten in...

DES MOINES – Republican Randy Feenstra has jumped out to a 20-point lead over second-time Democratic nominee J.D. Scholten in the race for Iowa's 4th District, a new poll shows. "It looks like Republicans can breathe a sigh of relief in the 4th District with Steve King out of the picture,” said Patrick Murray, director of Monmouth University Polling Institute, which released the independent poll Thursday morning. Feenstra, a state senator from Hull, defeated King, a nine-term incumbent, in the June primary. Scholten, of Sioux City, is hoping to improve on his narrow 3-point loss to King in 2018. However,...

**SNIP** In a major upset, activist, nurse, and pastor, Cori Bush won her second attempt to win the Democratic nomination for the 1st Congressional District against 10-term incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay. Clay is the seventh House incumbent to lose renomination from his own party this cycle, along with Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-VA), Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Rep. Scott Tipton (R-CO), and Rep. Steve Watkins (R-KS), who also lost his primary the night of August 4. Bush is part of a wave of progressive candidates cropping up around the country seeking to...

Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) and a host of other House conservatives introduced legislation on Wednesday that would block big tech giants from censoring lawful political speech on the Internet. Reps. Doug Collins (R-GA), Ralph Norman (R-SC), Lance Gooden (R-TX), Steve King (R-IA), Jim Banks (R-IN), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Ted Yoho (R-FL), Tom Tiffany (R-WI), Ron Wright (R-TX), and Gosar introduced the Stop the Censorship Act of 2020, which would revoke big tech companies’ Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act legal immunity if the tech platform were to remove lawful speech on their platform. The House Republicans’ legislation aligns with...

Steve King lost the Iowa GOP primary. That’s what we do. We vote racists out of office.

State Sen. Randy Feenstra defeated incumbent Rep. Steve King in Tuesday's Republican primary for Iowa's 4th congressional district, according to the Cook Political Report. Why it matters: King's history of racist remarks has made him one of the most controversial politicians in the country and a pariah within the Republican Party. House Republican leadership stripped the nine-term congressman of his committee assignments in 2019 after he questioned in an interview with the New York Times how the terms "white nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization" became offensive. The big picture: The Republican establishment coalesced around Feenstra beginning in January, when the...

Congressman Steve King trailing in returns in the Iowa primary...

BREAKING NEWS: Randy Feenstra defeats Congressman Steve King (-Inc) in GOP Primary

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King will face off against four other primary candidates Tuesday night, and the embattled congressman confirms the poll numbers between him and his closest challenger are tight. “Well, it's closer than we would like. But we've been on top in every legitimate number, and in absolutely every published poll, so that tells me that the voters are gonna make their decision,” he told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. “But one thing is that none of my opponents have criticized a single vote that I put up in 18 years in this Congress," said King, first elected...

A man who was arrested last year for throwing a glass of water on Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) was sentenced this week in a federal court to two years probation. Blake Gibbins, 27 of Lafayette, Colo., pleaded guilty in September to one misdemeanor count of assaulting a member of Congress, The Des Moines Register reported. Gibbins was arrested in March 2019 for throwing water at the lawmaker at the Mineral City Mill and Grill in Fort Dodge, Iowa. King was reportedly eating a group lunch when Gibbins approached the table and threw the water, hitting King and those at lunch....

Philip Haney, the author of “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad,” has died at the age of 73. In addition to being an author, Haney was a long-time Department of Homeland Security expert with a focus on Islamic extremism. Reports of Haney’s death first appeared on the morning of February 22. Fox News’ contributor Sara A. Carter tweeted regarding Haney’s death saying, “Somebody I deeply respected and considered a friend Phil Haney – a DHS whistleblower during the Obama Admin was apparently killed yesterday in Southern California. Pray for his family and...

The young, sandy-haired boy wears a self-satisfied expression. His small hand is clenched as if he is in the middle of a triumphant fist pump. By now, Laney Griner is used to seeing the photo she took of her son in 2007 when he was 11 months old splashed across the Internet or featured in various advertisements. The child’s name is Sam, but for years the world has known him as the popular Internet meme, “Success Kid.” Last week, Griner discovered her son’s copyrighted image in the last place she ever expected to find it: a campaign fundraising ad for...

Eighty-six percent of Democrats consider President Donald Trump "racist," according to a July 2019 Quinnipiac poll. By contrast, 91% of Republicans do not consider him "racist." Perhaps more disturbing, a November 2018 online Axios poll by SurveyMonkey found that a whopping 61% of Democrats believe Republicans are "racist/bigoted/sexist." A comparatively small 31% of Republicans feel the same way about Democrats. For a party that considers Republicans racist/bigoted/sexist, how do Democrats somehow, someway manage to tolerate, if not embrace, Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn? For a congressional first-termer, her list of cringeworthy, insulting and anti-Semitic remarks is impressive. Omar's latest occurred shortly...

Anti-immigrant author and activist Peter Brimelow is suing The New York Times for $5 million for dubbing him an “open white nationalist” in an article last year. Brimelow, who runs a website that has published pieces from white supremacists, is suing The Times over a January 15, 2019 article that detailed the chronology of racist comments from Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa). The story briefly mentioned Brimelow and noted that he and the lawmaker had appeared on a panel together at the 2012 Conservative Political Action Conference. Brimelow accused The Times of performing a “stealth edit” to the initial version of...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — In a story Aug. 14 about Rep. Steve King’s comments on banning abortion, The Associated Press, relying on a story by The Des Moines Register, inaccurately quoted King as saying, “It’s not the baby’s fault for the sin of the father, or of the mother.” Referring to House support for a ban on abortions, King actually said, “I’ve got 174 people who say they don’t want exceptions for rape and incest because they understand it is not the baby’s fault, to abort the baby, because of the sin of the father, and maybe sometimes the...

Some bad news for Republican Congressman Steve King of Iowa’s 4th District this week. As you may be aware, he’s been embroiled in some controversy in the media over a variety of remarks he’s made recently, ranging from opposing abortions stemming from rape and incest to saying that most of us wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for rape. How the voters back home have been viewing this dustup isn’t exactly clear, but we may be getting a hint from his fundraising numbers. Specifically, a number rapidly approaching zero in terms of how much campaign cash he has in...

<p>DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Rep. Steve King said Friday he stands by his recent comments about rape and incest that sparked bipartisan criticism but acknowledged he could have made his point in a "softer way."</p> <p>Backed by supporters at a news conference in Des Moines, the Iowa Republican affirmed his belief that abortion should be outlawed with no exceptions for rape or incest. King faced criticism for his comment Aug. 14 that questioned whether there would be "any population of the world left" if not for births due to rape or incest.</p>