Free Republic

Last night I got to thinking about how many posts I’ve written for Hot Air. I’ve looked at the total before but it never sticks in my mind. Big numbers seldom do. My guess was 15,000. The reality: 36,590. That’s six per day, every day. For 16 years. My takes may be terrible but I make it up on volume. This post, number 36,591, will be the last. I’m the only member left from the team that launched this site in 2006. It’s always been owned by others, first by Michelle Malkin and then by Salem Communications, but when you’re...

Ukrainian accounts on social media are chattering excitedly this morning about activity in Kherson, the southern province that Russia has occupied since the start of the war. Ukraine’s government spent the last month warning that a counteroffensive to liberate the province was coming. Very soon. Any time now. Could be tomorrow! Could be the next hour! Tick tock.Time is not on Russia’s side in this war, as they’re running out of men and munitions and are unwilling to risk the political backlash that would come if they instituted a national draft. But time isn’t on Ukraine’s side either. Winter is...

Watch Dan Crenshaw do his level best a few days ago to defend Trump’s decision to withhold documents from the feds.Dan Crenshaw’s appearance on CNN is off to a shaky start pic.twitter.com/xzbqiuyGFd— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 21, 2022Trump has been cooperative, Crenshaw insists, so why didn’t the FBI just politely ask him to return the remaining documents he had?But as we’re finding out, he actually hasn’t been cooperative. And he was asked to return the material in his possession — many times, including via a grand jury subpoena. Why didn’t he?The latest scoop comes from WaPo, which obtained an email...

“Who killed her?” is the first question. The next question is “Did they intend to?”Dugina was a minor Russian fascist propagandist, sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury earlier this year for insisting that Ukraine must “perish” if it joins NATO. More recently she was heard claiming that Russia’s many war crimes in Bucha must have been Ukrainian false-flags aimed at capitalizing on the similarity between the town’s name and the English word “butcher.”Nice lady.Daughter of the prominent #Russia|n Nazi ideologist Alexander Dugin, Darya Platonova (Dugina) publicly described Ukrainians as “subhumans” and called for the Russian occupation of #Ukraine and extermination of...

You really covered yourself in glory this week, Wyoming.The right column is comprised entirely of blue states while the left column is comprised entirely of red ones — except for Georgia, which I suppose technically qualifies as blue for the moment given that it went for Biden and two Democrats in last year’s Senate runoffs. But let’s revisit that this fall, after Brian Kemp takes care of business against Stacey Abrams. Georgia may be the truest purple state in the union in 2022.The vaccine data comes from this fascinating survey by Morning Consult, which has been tracking public opinion on...

I was, am, and will remain bullish that DeSantis still stands a chance at the 2024 nomination, at least as long as you-know-who isn’t indicted. In the bizarro world of modern-day Republican morality, criminal charges against Trump really would seal the primaries for him.But I’m willing to admit it when I find evidence that undercuts my thesis. This new poll from New Hampshire isn’t great.After all, it was a poll of New Hampshire in June that set the commentariat on fire when it showed DeSantis leading Trump in a hypothetical primary there, 39/37. That survey was conducted by UNH whereas...

Democrats took the lead in FiveThirtyEight’s generic ballot average a few days ago but RealClearPolitics remained a stalwart holdout — barely. After months of the GOP leading comfortably in their average, once by nearly five points in April, the gap between the parties shrank suddenly over the last few weeks. As recently as July 24, Republicans led by 2.5 points. But falling gas prices and the deus ex machina of Build Back Better passing against all odds caused Democratic support to surge, shrinking the Republican lead to a tenth of a point earlier this week.Today Dems finally took the lead....

Allahpundit @allahpundit Personal news: My last day at Hot Air will be Friday, September 2 9:56 AM · Aug 3, 2022·Tweetbot for Mac

The word from Ukraine’s high command this morning was that nine Russian jets were neutralized in the surprise attack on Saki airbase on the Crimean cost.I invite you to enlarge the two photos in this tweet and compare the before and after. I count more than nine.Comparison of August 9th and August 10th imagery show very large craters, many destroyed aircraft, and destroyed buildings. It looks like a direct hit on the building on the left, so whatever it was seems accurate.pic.twitter.com/QyLn86PUjw— Eliot Higgins (@EliotHiggins) August 10, 2022Looks to me like 16 aircraft visible and intact in the “before” photo...

A striking bit of counterprogramming from Politico during “bedwetting season” for the GOP, as news sites are overflowing today with Democratic optimism. “With Deal in Hand, Democrats Enter the Fall Armed With Something New: Hope,” the Times proclaims. “Inside Biden’s hot streak, from the poolside to the Capitol,” WaPo promises. Politico itself has a piece headlined, “Biden suddenly is piling up wins. Can Dems make it stick?” It’s not just media hype. The latest generic ballot average at FiveThirtyEight shows, uh… That’s the first time Democrats have led on the generic ballot since mid-November 2021. Is the great red wave...

I went to bed early, before the returns from Arizona began streaming in, then woke up this morning and began scrolling my Twitter feed in chronological order. My eyes popped when I saw this:Robson by eight?! With three-quarters of the state reporting? Sweet fancy Moses. The polls had Kari Lake winning by double digits! Even the very best recent poll for Robson had her ahead by just one point.

We should reserve judgment on this one as I’m unfamiliar with the pollster, Blueprint Polling, apart from the fact that (a) it’s the “sister company” to a Democratic polling firm and (b) it’s the same one that recently found DeSantis leading Trump 51/39 in Florida.But the results here are grim enough to be noteworthy, particularly when we’re starving for data from Pennsylvania. There hasn’t been a public poll of the state since mid-June, when one survey found John Fetterman ahead of Oz, 50/44. A Democrat being up six in a swing state in a national environment as red as this...

Some fascinating data for you to chew on as Trump gets set to rally for Palin and Murkowski opponent Kelly Tshibaka in Anchorage tonight.In a traditional primary system, I’d expect Palin to win her House primary and Murkowski to lose her Senate primary — badly. (She lost a Republican Senate primary in Alaska once before, remember.) Palin is broadly unpopular in her home state but she has universal name recognition and Trump’s endorsement. Typically that would be enough to get her over the finish line in an all-Republican contest against less well-known competition.Murkowski, meanwhile, would be facing Republican voters with...

This poll is so obviously off the mark that I feel misgivings about bringing it to your attention. But since the wider media is destined to seize on it as a ray of sunshine in the darkening Democratic picture, let this serve as a fact check: There’s not a single Republican candidate in a competitive state this year who’s going to get landslided by a Democrat to the tune of 10 points. Not even a really bad candidate.Which Herschel Walker is, for the record.In fact, if you’re on the ballot in a cycle when a president from the other party...

I don’t know if this is a disaster for Cassidy Hutchinson’s credibility. But, assuming these reports are accurate, it’s a disaster for the January 6 committee.Maybe a major one.🚨 A source close to the Secret Service tells me both Bobby Engel, the lead agent, and the presidential limousine/SUV driver are prepared to testify under oath that neither man was assaulted and that Mr. Trump never lunged for the steering wheel.— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) June 28, 2022A USSS source confirms to me that Engel and driver are willing to give the testimony @PeterAlexander details below.The source has not responded to whether...

Short answer: Of course not. Neither Kavanaugh nor any other justice would pledge privately to rule a particular way in a future case. To do so would be unethical.…although Kavanaugh did pledge *publicly* to rule a particular way in certain future cases in yesterday’s Dobbs concurrence.Longer answer: If this NYT story is accurate, he strongly implied to Collins that he wouldn’t dump Roe. “Lie” is too strong a word, but you can understand why she feels misled.Jazz has a post coming up about the political predicament in which Collins now finds herself. She’s one of two pro-choice Republicans left in...

He’s not doomed, for the simple reason that no Republican is doomed in a year like this one unless they’re running in a D+15 jurisdiction. Pennsylvania is considerably redder than that. Oz will have a fighting chance all the way to Election Day.And there’s something else working for him, the John Fetterman health crisis. It may be that complications from his stroke will leave Fetterman unable to campaign in earnest this summer and fall, either forcing Dems to replace him on the ballot with someone less popular or asking Pennsylvania swing voters to gamble that he’ll be able to do...

How despairing you feel about these results depends on how charitable you want to be to Republican voters.But the fact that insurrectionist Doug Mastriano is closer to becoming governor than milquetoast centrist Mehmet Oz is to becoming senator should not fill you with warm and fuzzy feelings about the state of the GOP.The charitable explanation for Oz trailing John Fetterman by nine points while Mastriano trails Josh Shapiro by just four is that Fetterman is an unusually strong candidate and Oz an unusually weak one. The 46/37 margin between them doesn’t mean Republican voters prefer election truthers like Mastriano to...

I don’t mean to minimize a big win for sane Republicans by sharing credit for it with Democrats. Brian Kemp and especially Brad Raffensperger prevailing without runoffs is the most encouraging thing to happen in GOP elections since… I can’t even think of the last encouraging thing. Sometime in the Before Times. Anyone inclined to cite last night as proof that Trump is losing his grip on the party, though, should bear in the mind that we have yet to see a truly anti-Trump Republican win anywhere this year. Raffensperger himself is the closest thing, but even Raffensperger won’t rule...

Professor of strategy Phillips O’Brien calls this interview the best sign yet that Russia’s invasion is imploding.Alexander Lukashenko is the dictator of Belarus but probably wouldn’t be in power today if not for Putin’s help. He “won” what was almost certainly a rigged election in 2020; when protests erupted, his good friend Vladimir helped suppress them. Lukashenko has owed Putin ever since and has paid him back by allowing Russia to use Belarus as a staging ground for its war on Ukraine. Russian troops entered northern Ukraine by crossing over from Belarus, then retreated into Belarus once the campaign around...