Free Republic

By most accounts, Speaker Mike Johnson inherited a House Republican majority in disarray after the sudden ouster of his predecessor last month. But as Johnson, R-La., tries to rebuild that slim majority, he’s fast running into the same hard-right factions and divisions that Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was unable to tame. That’s disrupting the party’s agenda, shelving priorities and leaving gnawing questions about any leader’s ability to govern. Capitol Hill devolved into fresh scenes of political chaos this past week as tensions soared. A Republican senator challenged a Teamsters union boss to a brawl, one of several outbursts involving lawmakers,...

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The intensive care rooms at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center are full, each a blinking jungle of tubes, wires and mechanical breathing machines. The patients nestled inside are a lot alike: All unvaccinated, mostly middle-aged or younger, reliant on life support and locked in a silent struggle against COVID-19. But watch for a moment, and glimpses of who they were before the coronavirus become clear. Artfully inked tattoos cover the tanned forearm of a man in his 30s. An expectant mother’s slightly swollen belly is briefly revealed as a nurse adjusts her position. The young woman...

Newly released records show the top Republicans in Arizona’s largest county dodged calls from Donald Trump and his allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election, as the then-president sought to prevent the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in key battleground states. The records — including voicemails and text messages — shed light on another state where Trump, his attorneys and others mounted a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign on Republican officials overseeing elections. Days before Congress certified Biden’s win on Jan. 6, Trump pressed Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find enough votes to overturn Biden’s win there. Trump tried...

<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Following in the footsteps of Arizona's Senate Republicans, Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Senate is considering an investigation into how last year's presidential election was conducted, a quest fueled by former President Donald Trump's baseless claims that fraud was behind his loss in the battleground state.</p>

As the search for survivors of a Florida condo collapse enters its second week, rescue crews and relatives of those still missing are scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden on Thursday, in a visit many are hoping will provide some measure of comfort to a devastated community. Biden and first lady Jill Biden, who left Washington early Thursday, planned to thank first responders and search and rescue teams....

BERLIN - U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Germany as the Biden administration presses ahead with a diplomatic charm offensive designed to woo back wary Western European allies after four years of turbulent relations under former President Donald Trump. That’s despite some lingering differences with key allies over energy and defense priorities. Biden is determined to assure Europe that Trump’s transactional approach to transatlantic ties is a thing of the past despite some significant lingering differences with core NATO allies. Those include a major dispute with Germany over the impending completion of a Russian gas pipeline and defense...

NEW RICHMOND, Wisconsin - For a few hours last weekend, thousands of Donald Trump’s supporters came together in a field under the blazing Wisconsin sun to live in an alternate reality where the former president was still in office — or would soon return. Clad in red MAGA hats and holding “Trump 2021” signs, they cheered in approval as Mike Lindell, the My Pillow creator-turned-conspiracy peddler, introduced “our real president.” Then Trump appeared via Jumbotron to repeat the lie that has become his central talking point since losing to Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes: “The election was...

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday praised the outcome of his summit with U.S. President Joe Biden and called him an astute and shrewd negotiator. The two leaders concluded three hours of talks Wednesday at an opulent villa facing Lake Geneva by exchanging expressions of mutual respect but firmly restating their starkly different views on cyberattacks, the conflict in Ukraine, political dissent and other issues. At the same time, they announced an agreement to return each other’s ambassadors and mapped more talks on arms control and cybersecurity. Putin, who hailed Biden as a highly experienced and constructive...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are accusing President Joe Biden of being weak on Russia after his summit with Vladimir Putin, conveniently ignoring four years of Putin flattery from former President Donald Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy said Biden had given Putin a “pass” at their summit in Switzerland Wednesday, while Trump said the U.S. “didn’t get anything” from the meeting. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a potential 2024 contender, declared, “America today is weaker than it was on the world stage just 48 hours ago.” It’s a curious line of attack from a party that largely turned a...

The United States’ image around the world has improved sharply since President Joe Biden took office, according to new surveys conducted in 16 countries, including many long-standing allies of the U.S. The Pew Research Center surveys show majorities of the citizens across the countries — more than 6 in 10 in each — express confidence in Biden to “do the right thing” in world affairs. Favorable ratings of the U.S. have started to rebound after declining considerably during Donald Trump’s four years as president, growing as much as 30 percentage points since last year in partner nations like France and...

PHOENIX - Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced her candidacy for the Democratic nomination for governor in 2022 while denouncing the Republican-controlled state Senate’s ongoing audit of the 2020 presidential election. Hobbs said in a statement she was running for governor "to deliver transparency, accountability, and results for Arizonans" and would work as governor to "put aside our differences and work to solve the serious problems facing Arizona." The Arizona Senate’s audit of election results in Maricopa County was launched as supporters of former President Donald Trump suggested without evidence that the election was stolen, giving President Joe Biden...

IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said that AP Gaza-based journalists drank their morning coffee with Hamas operatives in the building the IDF flattened during Operation Guardian of the Walls, wittingly or unwittingly, Channel 12 News reported. “It came down for good reason,” Kochavi said, according to the report. “I don’t have a bit of regret.” According to the IDF, the Jala Tower was not only home to the AP, Al-Jazeera and other major media outlets but was also home to a Hamas intelligence office that controlled advanced military devices designed to interfere with the IDF’s GPS reception which could...

For an Associated Press "reporter" who moonlights as an MSNBC "analyst," Jonathan Lemire is turning out to be as predictably anti-Republican as anyone in the liberal media. Last week, we caught Lemire accusing Mitch McConnell of "yet another cynical political play" in regard to a possible January 6th commission. On Thursday, Lemire's goal was to deprive President Trump of credit for his early call in suggesting that the coronavirus originated in the Wuhan lab. On Morning Joe, Lemire described Trump and Republicans of "taking a victory lap," now that Biden and Fauci are belatedly recognizing the serious possibility that the...

George Floyd Square very quiet again now. But a fellow reporter just had her phone smashed because she took photos of a storefront hit by a bullet.

Typically, news organizations rush to cover crises, real or perceived. The Associated Press has taken a different tack, using its influential style guide to play down the human drama unfolding at the southern border. While internal Customs and Border Protection documents repeatedly refer to an immigration "surge" at the border, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon, the AP recommends journalists no longer use such descriptions to avoid offense and maintain supposed "neutrality." Other documents, circulated internally throughout Customs and Border Protection in May, instruct officials on processing "the surge of undocumented individuals as efficiently as possible." The...

PHOENIX (AP) — Firms hired to run a partisan audit of the 2020 election for Senate Republicans in Arizona said Tuesday that data was not destroyed, reversing earlier allegations that election officials in the state's most populated county eliminated evidence. The claim of deleted databases was amplified by former President Donald Trump and his supporters, who believe conspiracy theories about election irregularities.Ben Cotton, founder of a computer forensics firm working on the audit, told key senators that he had recovered all data. The revelation came a day after Maricopa County officials released a scathing letter saying the auditors couldn't find...

Georgia’s lieutenant governor, one of the most prominent Republicans to openly contradict false claims about fraud in the November presidential election, confirmed Monday as expected that he won’t seek reelection in 2022. Republican Geoff Duncan was among the most high-profile Republicans to openly oppose Trump’s claims, angering many in his own party. In Georgia, many other Republican officials have doubled down on unproven claims that Trump was cheated out of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in November. Duncan said Monday that he will focus on building an advocacy organization called GOP 2.0 that “will focus on healing and rebuilding a Republican...

Indiana will drop out of the federal program providing an extra $300 in weekly payments to unemployed workers and other programs that expanded unemployment benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, the governor announced Monday. The changes taking effect June 19 could cut off or reduce unemployment benefits to more than 220,000 people. Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb signed an executive order last week that reinstates a requirement that those receiving unemployment benefits will again have to show they are actively searching for work as of June 1. The changes come as many businesses blame the extra $300 weekly payment and the ease...

<p>The Republican who now leads the Arizona county elections department targeted by a GOP audit of the 2020 election results is slamming former President Donald Trump and others in his party for their continued falsehoods about how the election was run.</p>

Dear Associated Press, I understand that you’re upset because Israel gave you only a ONE HOUR WARNING to vacate the building you shared with Hamas. (And then they wouldn’t give you ten more minutes to go up and get more stuff. The importance of careful packing!) Your headline was “Shocking and horrifying: Israel destroys AP office in Gaza.” I’m a little shocked and horrified myself, but not for the same reason. I see that, in paragraph three of your piece, you did get around to mentioning *why* Israel took down your building - it also housed Hamas military intelligence! (It’s...