Free Republic

President Trump casts a long shadow over the Republican Party even as his attempts to cling to power look doomed to failure. Trump could run again in 2024. If he does, it is hard to see anyone beating him for the Republican nomination. Although Trump lost the presidential election by around 7 million votes, he is by far the most popular figure in the nation with GOP voters. He has enormous fundraising prowess — he raised about $170 million in the month after the election — and he can drive media attention like no one else.

As of now, we can’t know with absolute certainty what’s going on with those Georgia ballots, but we can say that it screams out “consciousness of guilt.” In the aftermath of the election, the Democrats who control the election machinery in the disputed states have gone out of their way to avoid scrutiny. Americans have been inundated with stories of shredded mail-in envelopes, lost thumb drives, wiped computers, and slow-walked requests for documents that states are required to preserve for post-election reviews. No state, however, has acted with such heavy-handed desperation as Georgia when it comes to hiding ballots. We’ve...

The current president of Planned Parenthood is unafraid to use the word "abortion." In a Christmas-season interview with The Washington Post, Alexis McGill Johnson scolded those who would downplay the importance of abortion in her organization's work. She says it is "stigmatizing" to do so. For those who oppose abortion, this is a cause for gratitude. For decades, abortion has been subject to euphemisms from its advocates. "Choice," "freedom," "health," are all used to avoid saying the actual word "abortion." Which makes sense: Polls consistently suggest Americans don't like abortion. And why should we? We know in our hearts that...

The “old nomal” had power and was based in reality. It’s up to us to restore those values. Listening to the media today, one sometimes hears the phrase “new normal.” The dictionary defines normal as “conforming to a norm or standard.” That means it is society that determines what is normal and what is not, depending on what is happening in the country. SNIP All of us have seen and heard things during this past year that would have been unimaginable in 2019, but which today are almost a daily occurrence. We call these transformative events “the new normal.” Examples...

After putting on a big show of shutting Times Square down for New Year's eve and telling New Yorkers that staying home is better, Mayor Bill de Blasio was out hoofing it up with his wife in the square: *snip* Basically, he converted the ball-dropping event into his own private party, and expected all of the New Yorkers to watch him instead, beating their mittens to applaud. Like he was some kind of Dear Leader. *snip* But De Blasio was out there, carving out an exception for himself, and not even trying to hide it. Other blue-state mayors and governors...

“In what is becoming all too common for Congress, the COVID-19 relief bill was dumped on the President’s desk filled with pork spending and pet projects, which significantly reduced the meaningful support that struggling Americans deserve. It is clear President Trump recognized the immense flaws of the bill but was backed into a corner due to Congress running out the clock and sending him an all-or-nothing proposal.” (Texas Speaker of the House Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, Dec. 28.)“The bill they are now planning to send back to my desk is much different than anticipated. It really is a disgrace… it has...

According to the constitution the President of the Senate, vp Pence, presides over the electoral vote on January 6. But what if he resigns instead? Right then and there. There is no President of the Senate then. So what is the constitutional remedy and what do you suppose will happen?

On 28 September 2020, a warrant was served in Jacksonville Florida, just before 8 a.m. The warrant was not a no-knock warrant. There is evidence the officers serving the warrant attempted to announce themselves with loudspeakers and by knocking. The warrant was served by a Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) team and the DEA. When they did not get an answer, they started to break in. They were not wearing body cameras. Diamonds Ford started shooting at them. She hit one officer in his vest, which saved him from a bullet wound. She called 911 and told the operator her...

The late, great urban theorist, Jane Jacobs, wrote in her seminal The Death and Life of Great American Cities that, "there is no leeway for such chancy trial, error, and experimentation in the high-overhead economy of new construction. Old ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings." She was explaining that people with innovative business ideas need an inexpensive place to get started. After all, the founders of Apple, Google, and Disney birthed their enterprises in garages. In California, these days, the cost of real estate—and everything else, for that matter—is so high, that few people...

In early December, Netflix dropped its highly anticipated musical comedy “The Prom,” starring Meryl Streep, Nicole Kidman, Andrew Rannells and James Corden asfading Broadway stars who set out to help a lesbian teen take her girlfriend to the prom. The film, helmed by out director Ryan Murphy, got mixed reviews, but some lambasted it as “homophobic” and “offensive” because of the casting of Corden, a straight actor, in what they saw as an “aggressively flamboyant” caricature of a gay man. Erik Anderson, who runs the film site Awards Watch, called “The Prom” a “gorgeous and vibrant production” but tweeted that...

While media bias is obvious to those on the right, those on the left dwell in a sea of misinformation and exaggeration related to the activities of the President. Trump did not start a war in the Middle East with Iran. The Chicken Little "reporters" and "journalists" on NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, and the usual suspects in the newspaper business squealed on and on about the imminent possibility.Venting Their SpleensTrump did not start World War III with North Korea, although pundit after pundit on television, and innumerable journalists, at what used to be prestigious newspapers such as The...

Rep. Louie Gohmert has filed a new document in the lawsuit brought on by him and other Republicans to stop the Democrats from stealing the 2020 election. The new filing argues that Vice President Mike Pence has the authority to count Republican electors in contested states, or ignore the electors from those states altogether. The filing asked that the court displace Congress’s longstanding role in counting the votes of the Electoral College in Presidential elections, which would bring a “peaceful conclusion” to the presidential election process. On New Year’s Day Judge Jeremy Kernodle ruled that Republican lawmakers, led by Representative...

New York’s slow-footed COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been a mismanaged mess, critics said Friday, with recent data showing that even Florida has doled out shots at a faster clip than the Empire State. The harsh words come a day after The Post reported that New York State has injected less than a third of the vaccines it has - casting doubt on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s dream of jabbing a million city residents in January. “It’s chaos out there. The state has no idea what it’s doing,” said Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin, particularly taking aim at the leadership of...

Lin Wood’s prediction that Vice President Mike Pence could “face execution by firing squad” for “treason” is prompting Trumpworld to once again try and distance itself from the Atlanta attorney. Jenna Ellis, an attorney for the Trump campaign, declared in a tweet late Friday: “I do not support the statements from Attorney Lin Wood. I support the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.” Wood blasted Pence after his attorneys challenged a lawsuit from Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, which sought to force the vice president to block the counting of electoral votes for Joe Biden when Congress meets to ratify...

The end of televised cigarette ads changed everything from the entertainment industry to advertising itself. Tyler SageAt 11:50 PM on Jan. 1, 1971, the last television ad for cigarettes ran on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, signaling the end of an era and shifting the media world in ways that are still being felt today. You can see the minute-long spot below. It features Virginia Slims' controversial attempt to cash in on the women's liberation movement with the tag line "You've come a long way, baby." Tobacco has played a role in American life for almost as long as...

The ukulele is easier to learn than the guitar and other stringed instruments like the mandolin. Its soft nylon strings are gentler on your fingertips and don't create finger pain like guitars do. The small size reduces wrist tension because the notes are reachable without stretching. Plus, it only has four strings, which makes chord shapes and scales easier to learn.

There's a well-known saying that goes, "You don't choose a cat, a cat chooses you." So what should you do, asks Anisa Subedar, when a persistent pussycat in the neighbourhood decides to adopt you? For me, it began about 18 months ago, one long, hot summer evening when two huge wanting eyes, accompanied by serenading mews appeared at the kitchen door. It didn't recoil when I approached it. In fact it appeared quite pleased when I began speaking in ridiculously high-pitched baby speak (imagine the word "choochy-face" being used). Nor did it flinch when I softly stroked behind its grey,...

About 150 protesters blocked traffic in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral early on New Year’s Day — and someone marred the facade of the church with graffiti during the demonstration, according to cops. [cut] The protesters, affiliated with Black Lives Matter Brooklyn and Justice for George, started marching at the Stonewall Inn and had stopped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, police sources said. While inspecting the scene, cops found the letters “ACAB” — which stands for “All cops are bastards” — newly graffitied in pink, about 2 feet by 4 feet, on the facade of the cathedral, police said.

These are unique and rare stone axes from the Stone AgeA Saudi scientific team from the Heritage Authority discovered stone tools used by the inhabitants of Assyrian civilization in the Paleolithic period that date back to 2,00,000 years. The Heritage Authority said in a press statement that the discovered stone tools from the Shuaib Al-Adgham area, located east of the Al-Qassim region, are stone axes from the Middle Paleolithic period. These are unique and rare stone axes that were characterised by the high precision in manufacturing that these human groups used in their daily life. The abundance of stone tools...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials reported significant decreases in illegal border crossings and drug smuggling in sections where new barriers were built. Some sections reported nearly a 90 percent decrease in illegal entries compared to last year. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan tweeted a series of videos highlighting new sections of border walls. The commissioner said the completion of new walls decreased drug and human smuggling by significant numbers in these sections were no infrastructure previously existed.