Free Republic

Former Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake won a straw poll for the Republican vice presidential pick during the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC) this weekend. Among a field of 28 candidates, Lake won the poll with 20 percent of the vote, beating former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis received 14 percent of the vote, and Haley, who announced her bid for the White House last month, won 10 percent. Lake, who was also a featured speaker at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan Dinner over the weekend, has refused to accept her loss in the governor’s...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has faced fierce criticism for taking “personal travel” and leaving the state while residents beg for help after a series of devastating storms. At least 13 people have died since a powerful blizzard dropped 17 feet of snow on the mountains of Southern California. Some have resorted to writing “help us” in the snow. Fox Business’ Sean Duffy, however, said Newsom’s presence may be unnecessary. “Do I really care that Gavin’s not there? You have homelessness, drugs, crime, power outages. He’s on a climate crusade. Taxes are going up. People are fleeing. Is Gavin Newsom...

Cyabra researchers identify 3 networks of potentially hundreds of thousands of fake accounts criticizing DeSantis and Haley, in manipulation of mainstream US Republican sentiment. WASHINGTON (AP) — Over the past 11 months, someone created thousands of fake, automated Twitter accounts — perhaps hundreds of thousands of them — to offer a stream of praise for Donald Trump. Besides posting adoring words about the former president, the fake accounts ridiculed Trump’s critics from both parties and attacked Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador who is challenging her onetime boss for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. When it...

Fresh off his huddling with donors last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is teeing up a jammed-pack week as he seemingly lays down the groundwork for a 2024 bid. DeSantis will deliver his hotly anticipated State of the State address to the Florida legislature, which is set to convene Tuesday, and start his mad dash to wrangle through a bevy of big-ticket items. Then, DeSantis will close off the week with a trip to the early primary state of Iowa to promote his new book. "Gov. DeSantis has said he is going to have the most productive and successful legislative...

New Yorkers are being charged millions every day to house, feed, and care for newly arrived border crossers bused from Texas. Since the spring of last year, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and other governors have bused nearly 50,000 migrants to New York City — a sanctuary jurisdiction that has long prided itself on shielding illegal aliens from arrest and deportation. New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office confirmed that New Yorkers are being charged close to $5 million every day to provide housing and food for the roughly 30,000 migrants who remain in the city’s care.

Kellyanne Conway's daughter, Claudia Conway, has lashed out at other social media users amid the news that her parents are set to divorce. Kellyanne Conway, 56, and her husband George Conway, 59, married in 2001 and have four children. They are reported to have retained lawyers as they plan to end their marriage after years of speculation about their relationship. After the New York Post reported on Friday that the two were divorcing, the pair released a joint statement on Saturday, in which they confirmed the news. "We are in the final stages of an amicable divorce," read the statement....

Atlanta police charge 23 protesters with domestic terrorism after clashes at the planned site of a police training facility. NBC's Guad Venegas reports.

Don Lemon didn't hold back when discussing Donald Trump after his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). The embattled anchor addressed the ex-president on Monday's CNN This Morning, calling #44 "low energy" as he scrambles to stay ahead as the Republican frontrunner for the 2024 presidential run, RadarOnline.com has learned. Lemon, 56, spoke up about his feelings on Trump after political commentator John Avlon claimed the former commander-in-chief comes off as "someone who is not well" but is likely to win over his party. Discussing Trump's CPAC speech over the weekend, in which he spouted wild inaccuracies about...

Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett is so disgusted by woke critics condemning her new movie, Tár, she’s ready to leave Hollywood for good, RadarOnline.com has learned. In the psychological drama, the acclaimed Aussie actress, 53, who was nominated for an Oscar for the role, plays the first female conductor of a German orchestra, a power-mad, abusive lesbian. But showing a homosexual woman in such an unflattering light has sparked outrage among the Tinseltown thought police. “Cate was really hurt and bothered over the way woke Hollywood trashed Tár,” spilled an insider. “She’s accused of being ‘anti-woman’, which she finds ridiculously...

A top aide to Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said that he is “well on his way to recovery” as he remains hospitalized to receive treatment for clinical depression and will return to work in the Senate “soon.” Adam Jentleson, Fetterman’s chief of staff, tweeted three pictures of the freshman senator during a meeting on Monday with him at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where they discussed a number of items Fetterman is expected to work on in the coming months. “Productive morning with Senator Fetterman at Walter Reed discussing the rail safety legislation, Farm Bill and other Senate business,”...

Novak Djokovic has been forced to withdraw from this week’s ATP-WTA event in Indian Wells, Calif. after being denied entry into the United States due to being unvaccinated against COVID-19. The 35-year-old requested a vaccine waiver to enter the country, but the Biden administration and the Homeland Security Department rejected it. Most countries around the world have recognized that the pandemic is over and started to treat unvaccinated individuals like actual human beings, but the United States refuses to do so. In early January, five days before the vaccine requirement was due to expire, an emergency amendment was issued that...

A Florida bill that would require bloggers who write about the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, to register with the state proved a step too far even for the godfather of far-right Republicanism, the former US House speaker Newt Gingrich. “The idea that bloggers criticising a politician should register with the government is insane,” Gingrich wrote on Twitter. “It is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately.” The bill was introduced by Jason Brodeur. It states: “If a blogger posts to a blog about an...

Ice warnings for the whole of Ireland have been issued for tonight through to tomorrow morning by Met Éireann and the UK Met Office. Met Éireann issued a Status Yellow ice warning for Ireland until 10am tomorrow and the UK Met Office have a Yellow Snow and Ice Warning in place from 9pm to 10am tomorrow for all of Northern Ireland. Met Éireann warned of hazardous conditions, including icy stretches on roads and paths, due to the freezing temperatures. For Northern Ireland, snow showers and icy patches will likely cause some travel disruption. The outlook is for very cold weather...

Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist Gary Rossington, the southern rock band's last surviving original member, has died at the age of 71. "It is with our deepest sympathy and sadness that we have to advise, that we lost our brother, friend, family member, songwriter and guitarist, Gary Rossington, today," the band posted Sunday evening on Facebook. His cause of death was not immediately clear. Rossington cheated death on multiple occasions, Rolling Stone reported. In 1976, he survived driving his vehicle into the tree. One year later, he survived a plane crash that killed the band's lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve...

Joe Rogan slammed President Biden as mentally “gone” and gave a scathing review of his administration ahead of the Democrat’s expected re-election bid in 2024. The podcast host explained why he won’t vote for Biden — who will be a few weeks shy of turning 82 when voters go to the polls in 2024 — during a conversation with comedian Russell Brand on last Thursday’s edition of “The Joe Rogan Experience.” “I would vote for Trump before I’d vote for Biden. Just ‘cause I think with Biden, like he’s gone,” Rogan said. “Like, you know, he’s gone. You’re gonna be...

ABC's "The View" has apparently lifted its oft-criticized audience mask mandate three years into the pandemic, as the hosts acknowledged the crowd's smiling faces Monday from the table. Audience members for the New York-based program have had to don masks since the show returned to the studio in 2021. The audience wore masks during Friday's episode of "The View" but on Monday, the hosts saw the mandate was gone. "Look at y’all sitting up here with no masks on," co-host Whoopi Goldberg said as the audience applauded. "Wait a minute now. So I’m talking and in my mind I’m going...

The NHL has a culture problem. It oversees the only professional sport that condones fighting during games among its players, so much so that extracurricular fights are part of the game’s identity, its DNA. Case in point: It has a designated major penalty for fighting because fighting has always been prevalent. The time has arrived to stop such egregious endorsement and end fighting for good. Skill, rather than fights, has served other professional sports well, with fights during games frowned upon. Other sports leagues have instituted policies that address and deter fighting, using combinations of suspensions, fines and buy-in from...

Four men charged with the murder of Santa Cruz tech executive Tushar Atre are set to appear in court on Tuesday. The suspects are accused of killing Atre in October 2019, a highly publicized death that left the community shocked. Atre, a wealthy tech executive who had recently entered the cannabis industry, was found dead on one of his properties. The accused men were arrested in May 2020 after an investigation. The suspects were identified as Stephen Lindsay, Joshua Camps, Kurtis Charters and Kaleb Charters. Camps is accused of using an automatic weapon to shoot and kill Atre. The other...

President Biden faltered and nearly fell for at least the fourth time going up the steps of Air Force One on Sunday while boarding his flight back to Delaware from Alabama. Biden, 80, visited the town of Selma to commemorate the 58th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” march during the civil rights era and push for Congress to pass sweeping election reform before making his perilous way up to the plane hours later.

Washington, DC, Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) sent a letter to the U.S. Senate on Monday morning in an attempt to withdraw the city’s criminal code revision legislation before the Democrat-controlled Senate is expected to vote with the Republicans on a disapproval resolution that would overturn the bill. “On behalf of the Council of the District of Columbia, I am withdrawing my January 27, 2023 transmittal of D.C. Act 24-789, the Revised Criminal Code Act of 2022,” Mendelson stated in his letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, the president of the Senate. The attempt to withdraw the legislation comes after...