Free Republic

BUCKINGHAM, Virginia — Lindsey Taylor loved running elections here. The previous registrar had spent nearly three decades in the job, and Taylor, 37, hoped to do the same when she was first hired in 2019. She loved her staff and the volunteer poll workers, and she took pride in the detail-oriented work. She implemented dozens of new laws in 2020, ran elections through the pandemic and impressed many in the rural, conservative, tight-knit community of Buckingham County. But then the voter fraud claims started. In January, the GOP assumed control of the Buckingham County Electoral Board that oversees her office,...

What was the most gripping moment?The most emotional testimony of the day came from a former Georgia state election worker, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, and her mother, Ruby Freeman, a temporary election worker, who recalled the harassment they received after they were personally implicated in a baseless conspiracy theory about voter fraud.

More than 100 Republicans who won their 2022 primary elections have supported and amplified Donald Trump’s baseless assertion that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him, a fraudulent claim that fuelled riots at the US Capitol and is central to a House committee investigation into the attack. An analysis from The Washington Post, reviewing the field of candidates in this year’s races through 7 June primaries, has so far found that voters picked seven candidates for US Senate, 82 candidates for the House of Representatives, five for governor, four for state attorney general and one for secretary of state...

Following Tuesday's mass shooting at a Texas elementary school, Arizona GOP congressman Paul Gosar spread a false and transphobic claim that the suspected shooter was a "transsexual leftist illegal alien." Gosar tweeted the claim even though authorities had already identified the suspect as an 18-year-old male resident of Uvalde, where the shooting occurred. As of Tuesday evening, the GOP representative has not commented on his tweet, which was deleted about two hours after being published. This false claim has been proliferating on social media with photos of a transgender person unrelated to the attack. The images appear to have been...

This past Saturday, an 18-year-old white man went on a murderous rampage in a market in Buffalo, motivated by hatred towards blacks and others. Then, on Sunday, a Chinese man entered a Presbyterian church and killed one and wounded others, motivated by his hatred of Taiwan. And last month, a black man shot and injured 29 subway riders in New York City, motivated by racial hatred as well. Baseless hatred is destroying our nation. There is a fascinating Talmudic tradition that asked why the First Temple was destroyed (in 586 BC) and the Second Temple was destroyed (in 70 AD)....

A Danish soldier who volunteered to fight alongside the Ukrainian armed forces has made unverified claims that Ukrainian soldiers have been executing Russian prisoners of war. The Dane, who uses the pseudonym Jonas, has alleged that Ukrainian soldiers have killed Russian prisoners of war during the war, saying: “I have heard of one successful prisoner exchange, and that’s it,” and adding: “People are being killed.” Said to be a marksman, Jonas travelled to Ukraine to volunteer to fight alongside the Ukrainian armed forces and told state-owned Danish broadcaster TV2 he has also killed Russian soldiers — but never any captured...

KALININGRAD, Russia -- Igor Pleshkov owns a concrete factory in this Russian Baltic Sea exclave encircled by European Union members Lithuania and Poland. As tensions burn red hot between Russia and the West over Moscow’s military invasion of Ukraine, he is worried. “What will come next is hard to say,” he shrugged. “The situation is changing every minute -- for the worse.” Like Pleshkov’s factory, most businesses in the region of about 1 million people, depend on imports for raw materials, spare parts, and equipment. Residents are nervously watching the unfolding political situation and the alarming collapse of the value...

The House committee examining the Jan. 6 attack disclosed on Tuesday that it had interviewed the man at the center of a right-wing conspiracy theory about who provoked the violence, noting that he had denied reports he urged protesters into the Capitol at the behest of federal law enforcement agencies. The committee said its investigators spoke in November with the man, Ray Epps, who was seen on video urging people to march into the Capitol. Some Republican members of Congress and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump have promoted a theory that Mr. Epps was working for the...

Vice President Mike Pence has not ruled out an effort to invoke the 25th Amendment and wants to preserve the option in case President Donald Trump becomes more unstable, a source close to the vice president says. The source said there is some concern inside Pence's team that there are risks to invoking the 25th Amendment or even to an impeachment process, as Trump could take some sort of rash action putting the nation at risk. As of Saturday evening, Trump and Pence still have not spoken since the Wednesday incursion at the US Capitol that left five people dead,...

President Donald Trump's most fervent loyalists have been pushing a false narrative claiming that the U.S. Capitol building was breached by members of "Antifa" rather than violent Trump supporters who rioted in a failed attempt to overturn the presidential election outcome. A pro-Trump mob assaulted police officers and stormed the building on Wednesday as Congress convened to officially certify President-elect Joe Biden's victory. Video and photographic evidence shows the crowd carrying Trump banners and signs promoting unverified claims that the election was "stolen" from the outgoing president, but Trump loyalists baselessly alleged that the real perpetrators may have been disguised...

The House voted overwhelmingly Friday to condemn the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory as the online movement identified as a potential domestic terrorist threat by the FBI has gained traction with some in the Republican Party. The vote was 371 to 18 for the resolution sponsored by Reps. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) and Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) and came days after Malinowski said he received death threats from QAnon supporters after a false GOP ad accused him of lobbying “to protect sexual predators.” Seventeen Republicans and one independent voted against the resoultion condemning QAnon, a pro-Trump conspiracy theory that has been a central...

Waco, Texas (CNN)Texas law enforcement officials are investigating what they say are new threats against officers from biker gangs in the wake of a recent shootout in Waco. Members of the Bandidos biker gang who are in the military "are supplying the gang with grenades and C4 explosives," according to a bulletin issued Thursday by the Texas Department of Public Safety and reviewed by CNN. The bulletin warns of plots targeting high-ranking law enforcement officials and their families with car bombs. The bulletin is based on unsubstantiated information from an informant who claimed to have obtained it from Bandidos and...

Buddy of mine just heard it on a Dominican radio station Can anyone confirm this?

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "What the [bleep] is Politico doing?" said the man on the phone. "And how the [bleep] are they getting away with this [bleep]?" Reporters rival sailors for their proficiency in profanity, and one of the most experienced political journalists in Washington was cussing a blue streak Thursday evening as he railed against the shoddiness of Politico's reporting on the Herman Cain "scandal."

Herman Cain acted swiftly to put an end to speculation over the story about sexual-harassment claims during his tenure at the National Restaurant Association. After a few hours of confused response, Cain admitted that he had been accused, but falsely, of inappropriate conduct. He claimed that an investigation of those accusations showed at the time that they were “baseless,” and he seemed surprised by the news that the trade group settled the claims. “I hope it wasn’t for much,” Cain told Fox News, “because nothing happened”: “I have never sexually harassed anyone, but yes, I was falsely accused while I...

John McCain is seriously considering choosing a pro-abortion-rights running mate despite vocal resistance from conservatives, with former Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) very much in the mix, close McCain advisers say. Under strong consideration: former Pennsylvania Republican Gov. Tom Ridge, and Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate in 2000. Multiple GOP sources say that party officials in Washington and in the states have been contacted by the McCain campaign in the past two weeks and asked about the fallout from such a choice. One person familiar with the calls said the party was being instructed to...

<p>NEW YORK — Following is the transcript of a Fox News Channel exclusive interview with Sandy Banning, mother of the schoolgirl whose father brought a case to federal court resulting in a ruling that the Pledge of Allegiance in its current form is unconstitutional because it refers to the United States as a nation "under God."</p>