Free Republic

Send in the clowns. The Washington Post published an opinion piece defending the good name of clowns everywhere — fervently insisting President Trump doesn’t deserve the harlequin moniker his rivals frequently foist upon him. “Donald Trump is not a clown. I should know,” reads the headline of the missive penned by Tim Cunningham — a self-described professional clown of 24 years and board president of the not-at-all-terrifying-sounding nonprofit Clowns Without Borders. The article cites a few examples lefty commentators disparagingly painting Trump or his administration as clowns over the years, including MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell and political strategist James Carville. But...

EXCLUSIVE: Former President Trump and a number of his top national security and defense officials refuted Biden administration officials' claims that Chinese surveillance balloons briefly transited the continental United States during the Trump administration, saying it "never happened." A defense official on Saturday said Chinese spy balloons briefly traveled over the United States at least three times during the last administration.But Trump and his officials said that did not occur and criticized the Biden administration for spreading disinformation."This never happened. It would have never happened," Trump told Fox News Digital on Sunday morning, adding that Beijing "respected us greatly" under...

...and the reasons why there is less space for any debate or dissent since at least 2002: [link to deBoer article at URL and below]

In the span of a week, the White House went from struggling to explain a rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan to beating its chest. Top Biden officials and administration allies have begun aggressively touting the success of their evacuation efforts in the war-torn country, offering frequent updates on the number of evacuees. They’ve framed the operation as historic —in line with the Berlin airlift — declared that they’re “over performing” their own metrics, and trumpeted the president as “defying expectations.” It’s a startling 180 from the defensive crouch Biden and his team occupied just days ago...