Free Republic

DETROIT (AP) — Power. Respect. Finally. When Eric Sheffield first saw Joe Biden take the lead in the vote count in Georgia, the 52-year-old Black man immediately thought about all the years he spent urging his Black friends and family to vote and all the times he saw his preferred candidate lose.

WASHINGTON - On a day meant for unity and celebration, President Donald Trump vowed to “safeguard our values” from enemies within - leftists, looters, agitators, he said - in a Fourth of July speech packed with all the grievances and combativeness of his political rallies. “We are now in the process of defeating the radical left, the anarchists, the agitators, the looters, and the people who, in many instances, have absolutely no clue what they are doing,” he said. “We will never allow an angry mob to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children. Even as officials...

The Department of Homeland Security and FBI warned states earlier this year that Russia could look to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections by covertly advising political candidates and campaigns, according to a law enforcement memo obtained by The Associated Press. The Feb. 3 document details tactics U.S. officials believe Russia could use to interfere in this year's elections, including secretly advising candidates and campaigns. It says that though officials “have not previously observed Russia attempt this action against the United States,” political strategists working for a business mogul close to President Vladimir Putin have been involved in political campaigning...

For the majority of people of color who believe Donald Trump is a racist unworthy of reelection, the Republican president can point to Alice Marie Johnson. The 64-year-old African American great-grandmother spent 21 years in prison for a nonviolent drug offense before Trump commuted her sentence in 2018. She then became the unwitting star of his reelection campaign’s $10-million Super Bowl ad, which featured footage of Johnson’s emotional release from prison as she praised “Donald John Trump.” “I’m an African American woman and he signed my paper. How could I turn around and say he’s a racist?” Johnson said in...

As Rudy Giuliani was pushing Ukrainian officials last spring to investigate one of Donald Trump’s main political rivals, a group of individuals with ties to the president and his personal lawyer were also active in the former Soviet republic. Their aims were profit, not politics. This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies, according to two people with knowledge of their plans. Their plan hit a...

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed revoking Obama-era regulations on climate-changing methane leaks from many oil facilities, a move that environmental groups said was meant to renounce the agency’s overall legal authority to regulate the gas in the fight against global warming. EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the proposed rule followed President Donald Trump’s directions to remove “unnecessary and duplicative regulatory burdens from the oil and gas industry.” The step would be the latest in a series easing the previous administration’s emissions controls on the oil, gas and coal industries, including a 2016 rule regulating oil-industry methane leaks as...

President Donald Trump is warning of an economic crash if he loses reelection, arguing that even voters who personally dislike him should base their ballots on the nation’s strong growth and low unemployment rate. But privately, Trump is growing increasingly worried the economy won’t look so good come Election Day. The financial markets signaled the possibility of a U.S. recession this week, sending a jolt of anxiety to investors, companies and consumers. That’s on top of concerns over Trump’s plans to impose punishing tariffs on goods from China and word from the United Kingdom and Germany that their economies are...

Iowa farmer Tim Bardole survived years of low crop prices and rising costs by cutting back on fertilizer and herbicides and fixing broken-down equipment rather than buying new. When President Donald Trump’s trade war with China made a miserable situation worse, Bardole used up any equity his operation had and started investing in hogs in hopes they’ll do better than crops. A year later, the dispute is still raging and soybeans hit a 10-year-low. But Bardole says he supports his president more today than he did when he cast a ballot for Trump in 2016, skeptical he would follow through...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Former Vice President Joe Biden charged Saturday that Jim Crow is “sneaking back in” as he emphasized voting rights at his first presidential campaign stop in South Carolina, where black voters play a key role in the South’s first presidential primary.In criticizing Republican efforts to adopt more stringent voting rules, including identification requirements and curtailing early voting hours, Biden recalled the racial segregation laws of the past.“You’ve got Jim Crow sneaking back in,” he said, referring to the era before the civil rights movement. “You know what happens when you have an equal right to vote?...

When Cheslie Kryst won the Miss USA crown, it marked more than a personal triumph: It meant that for the first time, three black women are the reigning Miss USA, Miss Teen USA and Miss America. The North Carolina lawyer completed the historic triple Thursday with pageant winners 2019 Miss America Nia Franklin and recently crowned 2019 Miss Teen USA Kaliegh Garris. “The three young women who have focused their energy on demonstrating how standards of black beauty speak for American standards of beauty are to be commended,” said Thomas DeFrantz, a professor in the Department of African and African...

President Donald Trump weighed in Friday on the most recent controversy involving Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar, retweeting video edited to suggest that the Minnesota congresswoman was dismissive of the significance of the Sept. 11 attacks. The video pulls a snippet of Omar’s speech last month to the Council on American-Islamic Relations in which she described the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center as “some people did something,” as well as news footage of the hijacked planes hitting the twin towers. Trump tweeted, “WE WILL NEVER FORGET!” Omar’s remark has drawn criticism largely from political opponents and conservatives who say...

Two young men were found dead inside torched cars. Three others died of apparent suicides. Another collapsed on a bus, his death ruled an overdose. Six deaths, all involving men with connections to protests in Ferguson, Missouri, drew attention on social media and speculation in the activist community that something sinister was at play. Police say there is no evidence the deaths have anything to do with the protests stemming from a white police officer’s fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, and that only two were homicides with no known link to the protests. But some activists say their concerns...

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation is not expected to be delivered to the Justice Department next week, a senior department official told The Associated Press on Friday. The official could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear when the report might come, though Mueller is showing signs of concluding his probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election and ties to the Trump campaign. […] On Friday, six House Democratic committee heads called on Barr to make Mueller’s full report public, including any “evidence...

WASHINGTON — Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe said in an interview that aired Sunday that a "crime may have been committed" when President Donald Trump fired the head of the FBI and tried to publicly undermine an investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia. McCabe also said in the interview with "60 Minutes" that the FBI had good reason to open a counterintelligence investigation into whether Trump was in league with Russia, and therefore a possible national security threat, following the May 2017 firing of then-FBI Director James Comey.

A top adviser to President Donald Trump indicated Sunday that Trump is prepared to issue the first veto of his term if Congress votes to disapprove of his declaration of a national emergency along the U.S.-Mexico border. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller told “Fox News Sunday” that “the president is going to protect his national emergency declaration.” Asked if that meant Trump was ready to veto, Miller added, “He’s going to protect his national emergency declaration, guaranteed.” Trump declared the emergency Friday in an effort to go around Congress to fund his border wall. It would allow him to...

President Donald Trump plans to nominate David Malpass, a Trump administration critic of the World Bank, to lead the institution. That’s according to a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to comment publicly on personnel decisions.Trump is expected to make an announcement later this week. Malpass, the undersecretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department, has been a sharp critic of the World Bank, especially over its lending to China. …

With a number of probes moving closer to the Oval Office, President Donald Trump and his attorney unleased a fresh series of attacks Sunday on the investigators, questioning their integrity while categorically ruling out the possibility of a presidential interview with the special counsel. Trump and Rudy Giuliani used Twitter and television interviews to deliver a series of broadsides against special counsel Robert Mueller and federal prosecutors in New York. Giuliani said he was “disgusted” by the tactics used by Mueller in his probe into Russian election interference, including in securing guilty pleas from the president’s former national security adviser...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s relationship with the truth tends to be borderline, at best, when it comes to the border.So it was this past week when he made a flurry of false or unsupported statements about immigration. He said, with no evidence, that migrants are plagued with disease. He asserted that Mexico has in effect agreed to pay for his border wall, even as he threatens a partial government shutdown if Congress doesn’t approve billions of dollars to build it. He twisted federal statistics to claim the recent arrest of 10 terrorists who don’t exist. On another front,...

Some Democrats who will take the House majority in January are willing to say that President Donald Trump may have committed impeachable offenses. But that doesn’t mean they will try to impeach him — at least not yet. For several reasons, Democrats have been extremely cautious about the “I” word. They know it could backfire politically, and many of them were in office during President Bill Clinton’s impeachment 20 years ago. New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee and the panel’s likely incoming chairman, has called impeachment a “trauma.” Nadler told CNN on Sunday...

Top House Democrats on Sunday raised the prospect of impeachment or almost-certain prison time for President Donald Trump if it’s proved that he directed illegal hush-money payments to women, adding to the legal pressure on the president over the Russia investigation and other scandals. “There’s a very real prospect that on the day Donald Trump leaves office, the Justice Department may indict him, that he may be the first president in quite some time to face the real prospect of jail time,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, the incoming chairman of the House intelligence committee. “The bigger pardon question may come...