Free Republic

Numerous officials, lawmakers and strategists in President Biden’s own party increasingly see his candidacy as unsustainable — and their private anxieties are slowly but steadily spilling into public view, interviews with more than 50 Democrats this week showed.Growing swaths of Democrats now believe that by remaining on the ticket, the president is jeopardizing their ability to maintain the White House and threatening other candidates up and down the ballot. The moment is setting up an extraordinary clash between a defiant president of the United States who insists he is not abandoning his re-election campaign and members of his party who...

CHICAGO -- At least 71 people have been shot, 11 fatally, in gun violence across Chicago since Wednesday evening during the extended Fourth of July holiday weekend, police said. The violence includes three mass shootings, one in which two women and an 8-year-old boy were killed and two young boys were left in critical condition after multiple shooters opened fire into a Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood home on the South Side. At least 19 of those shot were in mass shootings in Austin, Greater Grand Crossing and Little Italy.

A top advisor to former President Obama offered a dismal assessment of President Biden’s make or break interview on ABC. David Axelrod, the architect of Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns, called the Friday sitdown “sad” to watch. “When George Stephanopoulos asked him if he’d be willing to take a cognitive test, he said, ‘I take a cognitive test every day.’ Well, the fact is, that may be true, but 75% of the American people think he fails,” Axelrod said in post-interview analysis on CNN Friday. While Biden again rejected calls to leave the race, saying only the “Lord Almighty” could...

President Joe Biden, on Saturday, lost the support of yet another Democrat member of Congress, the first to do so in the aftermath of Biden’s too-little-too-late Friday ABC News interview, which failed to assuage his critics. Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) officially asked Biden to step aside early Saturday morning, saying, “As an elected leader, I feel a responsibility to be honest about what I believe, even when it’s hard to hear.” Craig is the fifth member of Congress to demand Biden step aside since his disastrous June 27 debate. The battleground district lawmaker hails from Minnesota, a state unexpectedly in...

<p>Minnesota Rep. Angie Craig became the fifth sitting House Democrat to urge Biden to call it quits.</p><p>Meanwhile, David Axelrod, the architect of Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns, was far more blunt. He called the Friday sit-down “sad” to watch.</p>

First Lady Jill Biden’s ex-husband said he is getting “even more worried” about the state of the country after watching President Joe Biden’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. “I wish he would have the cognitive test,” Bill Stevenson, who was married to Jill Biden from 1970 to 1975, told The Post Saturday. “George asked him about three or four times. It’s what the whole world is thinking about. I feel badly that this guy is someone who now can’t make a decision in the middle of the night.” “Watching…it was clear Joe Biden has deeper issues,” Stevenson added. “He was...

Just over three decades after Russia decriminalised homosexuality in 1993, three people have been arrested and charged under the country’s harsh new anti-LGBT laws and could face ten years in prison for membership of an “extremist organisation”.The arrests are a clear indication of how Russia has come full circle on its persecution of sexual minorities under Vladimir Putin.On March 21, the district court of Orenburg city in south-western Russia ordered the arrest of nightclub owner Vyacheslav Khasanov. The nightclub, which is called Pose, has never explicitly identified as a gay club – styling itself as a “parody theatre bar”, it...

Chase Bank customers could see some additional charges in the not too distant future. The country’s biggest retail bank is warning that it might begin charging customers for their accounts. That would impact some 86 million customers. The potential charges, says Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan, are a result of new regulatory rules that cap overdraft and late fees. Lake says Chase will be passing along those increased expenses to customers, which would put an end to now-free services such as checking accounts and wealth management tools. And she says she expects other banks will...

President Biden rejected concerns about his fumbling performance in the first presidential debate last month in a prime-time interview on Friday. In the interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Mr. Biden downplayed and misstated polls showing him falling farther behind former President Donald J. Trump since the debate, exaggerated Mr. Trump’s proposals and made hyperbolic statements about his own record and recent events. Here’s a fact check.

Hours after a battle in eastern Ukraine in August, a wounded and unarmed Russian soldier crawled through a nearly destroyed trench, seeking help from his captors, a unit of international volunteers led by an American. Caspar Grosse, a German medic in that unit, said he saw the soldier plead for medical attention in a mix of broken English and Russian. It was dusk. A team member looked for bandages. That is when, Mr. Grosse said, a fellow soldier hobbled over and fired his weapon into the Russian soldier’s torso. He slumped, still breathing. Another soldier fired — “just shot him...

Gov. Gavin Newsom of California continued his show of support for President Biden on Saturday, praising the Biden administration’s track record in front of an enthusiastic crowd of Pennsylvania Democrats who appeared to remain firmly behind the president despite rising calls for him to leave the race. Newsom’s optimism and his message of Mr. Biden’s proven success were welcomed by the crowd in Doylestown, Pa. Many in attendance said they were tired of the discussion over whether the president should continue his campaign — even staunch supporters of Mr. Newsom, who is considered a potential replacement for Mr. Biden atop...

R A W S A L E R T S @rawsalerts 🚨#BREAKING: A group called the Patriot Front are have (sic) been spotted marching down in downtown Nashville 📌#Nashville l #Tennessee Approximately 150-250 individuals identified as members of the "Patriot Front," recognized as a right-wing organization, were seen marching in downtown Nashville, Tennessee this evening. As Numerous sightings were reported by people inside buildings and on the streets as the large group marched with shields, banners, and Confederate flags. Nashville police officers were seen monitoring the situation and escorting the group, working to maintain separation between them and any counter-protesters...

... “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, referring to the tasks he faces daily in a rigorous job. “Every day, I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world.” ...

Marie-Antoinette (born November 2, 1755, Vienna, Austria—died October 16, 1793, Paris, France) was the Austrian queen consort of King Louis XVI of France (1774–93). Her name is associated with the decline in the moral authority of the French monarchy in the closing years of the ancien régime, though her courtly extravagance was but a minor cause of the financial disorders of the French state in that period.

First lady Jill Biden is unleashing fury at those who are trying to force President Joe Biden to quit his re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. ABC News host Martha Raddatz said following Biden’s interview with the network on Friday that sources inside the White House have told her that Biden’s “very tight inner circle” is pushing Biden to stay in the race and that he will win as long as he keeps going. “This of course includes his wife Jill who they said is lashing out at those who want him...

Once you see the strings on the marionettes you can never watch the performance and not see them.Last weekend James Clyburn visited 10 key ballot counting precincts in Wisconsin {link}. On Friday George Stephanopoulos interviewed Joe Biden from Wisconsin {link}. Today, the media is full of the story about how the Wisconsin Supreme Court has reversed its own prior ruling and will now expand the use of ballot collection boxes.MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that officials can place ballot drop boxes around their communities in this fall’s elections, overturning its own ruling two years ago...

A simmering rift between Joe Biden's family and staff has finally boiled over after his disastrous debate performance last week. The president blamed a cold and a generally 'bad night' for looking frail, confused, and struggling to finish sentences during the showdown with Donald Trump. Biden defiantly declared he would contest the November 5 election and win, despite a push by some top Democrats to convince him to stand aside.

Insiders have revealed the shocking comments Democrats made behind the scenes of his 'sad' 22-minute interview. The president sat down with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Friday as part of a damage control strategy following his disastrous debate against Donald Trump last month. But his muted performance once again failed to convince even those in his own party that he has the mental fortitude required for four more years.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is advocating a peace deal to end the war in Ukraine, revealed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made clear that peace talks can only happen after Ukraine essentially surrenders. "If we sit in Brussels, we won’t be able to get any closer to peace. Action must be taken," Orban said during a regular interview on Hungarian state radio following his visit. Orban turned heads this week when he made back-to-back trips to Kyiv and Moscow just days before a major NATO summit in Washington, D.C., next week.

A second local radio host on Saturday told ABC News that he was provided a list of questions in advance of his interview with President Joe Biden this week. "Yes, I was given some questions for Biden," Earl Ingram of CivicMedia told ABC News. Ingram, a prominent host of a Wisconsin radio station, interviewed Biden this week in the wake of his debate performance. Ingram said he was given five questions and ended up asking four of them. "I didn't get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted to ask," he said. Ingram is the second interviewer...