Free Republic

This past Friday, U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) formally qualified his candidacy for the U.S. Senate with the Alabama Republican Party. Brooks joins former Business Council of Alabama CEO Katie Britt and former U.S. Army aviator Mike Durant in officially qualifying his candidacy for Alabama’s open U.S. Senate seat. Brooks’ campaign in a release touted the endorsement he holds from former President Donald Trump. “Today, Congressman Mo Brooks officially qualified to be Alabama’s Republican nominee for the United States Senate. Congressman Brooks is the only proven Conservative, Trump-endorsed candidate in the race,” the campaign stated. Brooks seemingly took a shot...

Republicans Katie Britt and Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama are distancing themselves from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell after McConnell suggested there were no problems with the 2020 election. Britt and Brooks are competing, along with “Black Hawn Down” veteran Mike Durant, for the U.S. Senate seat that retiring Sen. Richard Shelby will leave open later this year. After South Dakota Republican Sen. Mike Rounds on Sunday dismissed election complaints and claimed the 2020 election “was fair, as fair as we have seen,” McConnell backed Rounds’ comments on Tuesday, telling CNN, “I think Sen. Rounds told the truth about what...

Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) has responded to the White House’s report on government corruption by calling for a full Select Committee investigation into Hunter Biden’s art dealings. Brooks said: “While Socialist Democrats claim you can identify as just about anything you want, everyone can agree that Hunter Biden can’t identify as an artist. “Despite this, his paintings sell for tens of thousands of dollars. “The White House released a report that the art market is ripe for financial corruption. “Yet somehow, they claim Hunter is immune from this. It’s quite apparent that people are not paying these outrageous prices for...

A federal judge in Missouri has issued a temporary hold on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in 10 U.S. states while litigation plays out.“We just beat the Biden Administration in court again,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced on Twitter late Monday. “This afternoon, we obtained a preliminary injunction against the vaccine mandate on federal contractors, halting enforcement of that mandate in Missouri and the other states in our coalition.”The preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge David Noce, applies to Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Schmitt...

An employee of the city of Birmingham Mayor’s Office was arrested over the weekend on felony charges. Uche Bean, 32, was arrested late Friday night by Birmingham police. Police officials have not yet responded to a request for additional information about the allegations and charges against Bean. Bean said she declined to comment at this time. Bean was held in the Birmingham City Jail until warrants were obtained Sunday charging her with second-degree domestic violence and third-degree burglary, jail records show. Bean, deputy director of Mayor Randall Woodfin’s Division of Social Justice and Racial Equity, was then booked into the...

Fifteen state financial officers sent a letter to U.S. banks last week noting $600 billion in assets they pledge to take elsewhere if the financial institutions embrace corporate wokeism and prohibit financing to the fossil fuel industry. Led by West Virginia Republican Treasurer Riley Moore, the group promised “collective action” in the form of an “economic boycott.” “Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws and economy, our actions will take different forms,” they wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist. “However, the overarching objective of our actions will be the same –...

Katie Britt’s getting a boost from her former boss, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, in her bid to replace him in the Senate. Sen. Richard Shelby plans to use his own campaign funds and sway with colleagues to help Britt overcome Donald Trump-backed primary opposition. Amid a whirlwind of fundraisers and meetings for Britt this month in Washington, many of Shelby’s colleagues described her as extremely well-qualified to succeed him after he retires next year and possibly even win a slot on the powerful committee that oversees $1.3 trillion in annual spending. Shelby’s made no secret of his...

An Alabama judge who called her fellow jurists “Uncle Tom” and “heifer,” and who allegedly put her finger on the scales in domestic cases has been yanked from the bench. A nine-judge panel found that Nakita Blocton, of Jefferson County, Ala., had a history of “inappropriate comments” and, as regarded her staff, a “pattern of abuse,” according to Law & Crime. That abuse included “excessive, unproductive, and unnecessary nights and weekends” she forced her underlings to work, according to the panel’s Dec. 10 judgment. Nakita Blocton Blocton called her fellow jurists “Uncle Tom” and “heifer.” Twitter And when her actions...

NASCAR denounced its association with the “Let's go, Brandon” political cry being used across the country as an insult directed at President Joe Biden. Steve Phelps, NASCAR's president, said Friday the top motorsports series in the United States does not want to be associated with politics “on the left or the right.” Phelps also said NASCAR will pursue action against any illegal use of its trademarks on merchandise boasting the slogan. Retired baseball star Lenny Dykstra posted a photo on Twitter this week of a man eating breakfast at a New Jersey hotel wearing a black “Let's go, Brandon” shirt...

Former President Trump and his allies are struggling to clear the Republican field in North Carolina’s wide-open U.S. Senate race and galvanize GOP voters around his preferred candidate, Rep. Ted Budd (R-N.C.). Despite winning the former president’s endorsement early on, Budd has so far failed to become the runaway favorite in the GOP primary and has regularly trailed his chief rival, former Gov. Pat McCrory, in polling. That set off an effort by Trump and Budd’s allies to nudge former Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) out of the race by promising an endorsement if Walker runs instead for a Greensboro-area House...

Lindy Blanchard, a nonprofit director, former ambassador and major financial supporter of former President Donald Trump, entered the gubernatorial race on Tuesday, hitting traditional Alabama Republican issues while sprinkling in the former president's name. In a 10-minute speech in downtown Wetumpka, Blanchard — who went by Lynda during her Senate campaign — said she would oppose federal COVID vaccination plans and accused Republicans in charge of state government of being out of touch with Alabamians. "I will stand up for our rights, against not just the liberal left, but the go-along, get-along so-called conservatives who have run things in Montgomery...

Republican Lynda Blanchard plans to end her Alabama US Senate bid and instead run for governor, according to three people familiar with the matter. She is expected to announce her campaign against GOP Gov. Kay Ivey next week. Blanchard served as then-President Donald Trump's US ambassador to Slovenia, former first lady Melania Trump's native country. She was a major donor to Trump and loaned her Senate campaign over $5 million. The Blanchard campaign declined requests for comment. CNN reported last week that Trump has met with Blanchard and has been receptive to the prospect of her running for governor. Trump...

No senator other than her former boss, Sen. Richard Shelby, has publicly endorsed Katie Britt yet. But she is quietly getting support from at least a half-dozen of Shelby’s Republican colleagues in her bid against Donald Trump’s pick in Alabama’s open Senate race. Five Republican senators — Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) — have donated to Britt’s campaign from their leadership PACs. None of them have done so yet for GOP Rep. Mo Brooks, who Trump endorsed in April to replace the retiring Shelby (R-Ala.). Sen. Tommy Tuberville...

In response to the recent tragedy in Oakland County, Michigan, what did the anti-gunners do? Following their standard course of action, they are politicizing the deaths of four high school teens in an attempt to undermine your constitutionally-protected rights. In fact, bowing to the will of their far-Left overlords, anti-gun senators are bringing H.R. 8 to the Senate floor—which is a bill to institute Universal Background Registration Checks (UBCs). And to make matters worse, they are trying to do this by unanimous consent—without an actual vote. Please, contact your Senators and make sure they know you’re opposed to H.R. 8...

OBILE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman who says she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the company after her case was dismissed has been awarded $2.1 million in damages. A Mobile County jury on Monday ruled in favor of Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, news outlets reported. Nurse said in a lawsuit that she was stopped in November 2016 when trying to leave a Walmart with groceries she said she already paid for, according to AL.com. She said she used self-checkout but the scanning device froze. Workers didn’t accept her explanation and she was...

Since the 2016 election, there has been no question about Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican Party. But generally speaking, we’ve learned about that through attrition — party members who run afoul of him voluntarily heading for the exits, rather than trying their luck with GOP primary voters. 1. GA - Brian Kemp 2. GA - Secretary of State Raffensperger vs Jodi Hice 3. WY - Liz Cheney vs Harriet Hageman 4. ID - Governor Little vs Lt. Governor McGeachin 5. AK - Lisa Murkowski vs Kelly Tshibaka 6. MI - Rep. Peter Meijer vs John Gibbs 7. WV -...

Some of them, anyway. Donald Trump has endorsed candidates in 15 Senate contests to date, according to Politico. Many of them are incumbent Senators. They are expected to cruise to renomination by the GOP. But, says Politico, some of the others are struggling. Politico cites Mo Brooks in Alabama, Kelly Tshibaka in Alaska, Ted Budd in North Carolina, and Sean Parnell in Pennsylvania (Parnell recently withdrew from the race due to allegations of spousal abuse). Trump hasn’t endorsed Blake Masters, but did appear at a Mar-a-Logo fundraiser for the Arizona Republican. Masters is also struggling, according to Politico. I don’t...

The Biden administration auctioned off over 80 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico for oil drilling Wednesday despite a campaign promise to ban new oil and gas leasing, the Boston Globe reported. The auction is the largest offshore oil and gas lease sale in the United States, according to the Boston Globe. The new leases will produce 1.1 billion barrels of oil and 4.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to a Department of the Interior estimate, the Globe reported.

A vengeful Donald Trump wants to drive Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey (R) from office because a July rally he wanted to hold at a memorial park in her state was canceled, The Wall Street Journal reported. Trump has reportedly reached out to a former ambassador in his administration, Lynda Blanchard, and promised her his endorsement if she drops her bid for U.S. Senate and runs instead against Ivey. The former president was planning to hold a rally at the USS Alabama Battleship Memorial Park in Mobile, Alabama, on July 3, but its permit was denied shortly beforehand. Once officials learned...

nearly half a decade ago, U.S. Special Operations Command with the help of U.S. Military Sealift Command began the task of quietly turning a modern roll-on, roll-off cargo ship into a highly customized, mobile special operations mothership and sea base. *** The question of how a vehicle so big and unique could simply disappear for years on end is what prompted our investigation. Upon reviewing satellite imagery, it was clear that ship left its pier in Mobile sometime between mid 2015 and early 2016. *** Over the next year and a half, the Ocean Trader's AIS transponder only popped up...