Free Republic

Vice President Kamala Harris recently said her last “gut decision” was choosing Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) — a man who has lied about his military career for nearly 20 years — as her running mate. During Harris’s second solo TV interview of the campaign, she was asked what her last “gut decision” was. MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle asked her, “The economy is an unpredictable beast. And you are running for a job that takes extraordinary instinct and guts. When’s the last time you had to make a gut decision?” “Probably the biggest gut decision I have made most recently is to...

Significantly more women chose to end pregnancies themselves — using unsupervised and potentially dangerous at-home methods — in the year following the Supreme Court’s abolition of federal protections for abortion, a new study has found. An estimated 3.4 percent of all women of reproductive age reported having tried some form of at-home abortion in the year following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, according to findings published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open. That’s up from 2.4 percent of all women the year before — a trend that researchers projected...

President Biden’s decision to step aside as the expected Democratic nominee in November has “nothing to do with his health,” his top spokesperson said Wednesday ahead of his prime-time address to the nation. “It has nothing to do with his health. The president is going to speak to this directly to the American people in prime time,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters during a briefing. “In his letter he talked about the country, he talked about the party, he talked about the moment we’re in right now,” she continued. “It is not about his health. I can say no,...

Democrats implied Monday that former President Donald Trump could pursue his political opponents, legally, if he returns to the White House, following the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity in Trump v. U.S. If Trump ever becomes president, immunity wouldn’t matter. What does matter – American people should start to understand the authoritarian rule which this decision stems. If a president has seal team 6 kill his political opponents & mark them as official acts .. it’s over! — Deborah Fortkiewicz (@dfortkiewicz) July 1, 2024 Democratic Party activist and pundit Van Jones warned that the decision granted presidents a “license...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal law banning domestic violence abusers from having a gun, noting that it shows a “glimmer of hope” from the justices. Hochul joined MSNBC’s Alex Witt Friday to discuss the decision from the high court and her efforts to disarm abusers in New York state. Witt asked Hochul if she was surprised that the justices upheld the law, given the same conservative justices overturned other gun-related measures.

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday the “world is watching” his criminal trial in Manhattan and might decide not to do business in New York State because of its “rigged” judicial system. Trump made the comments before he walked into his courtroom on the second day of jury deliberations. “It’s all rigged. The whole thing, the whole system is rigged,” Trump told reporters. “It’s a disgrace.”

Former Republican National Committee (RNC) Chair Michael Steele criticized the New York appeals court’s decision to pause enforcement of the multimillion-dollar judgment against former President Trump and his company over deceitful business practices. In a terse order on Monday, a five-judge state appeals court panel said it would delay the enforcement of the $464 million judgment against Trump, the Trump Organization and top executives, plus interest, if they post bond within 10 days. The bond amount was also slashed by more than half. “Yet again, @realDonaldTrump gets special treatment with his own private system of justice,” Steele, a regular critic...

Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that if the Supreme Court did not act with “great speed” on the question of presidential immunity, they are “making a deliberate decision” to push special counsel Jack Smith 2020 election interference trial past the election. Anchor Dana Bash said, “It seems as though the Trump strategy to delay these cases is paying off. Do you think there’s a chance that he might not stand trial in any of these cases before election day?”

Vice Media announced in a memo this week that it will be laying off hundreds of employees as it faces a sale. Vice Media CEO Bruce Dixon said in the company-wide email that the decision to lay off “several hundred” staff members did not come lightly. “This decision was not made lightly,” Dixon wrote. Dixon added that fired staffers will be notified of the next steps next week.

Conservative attorney George Conway on Wednesday suggested former President Trump won’t be successful if he appeals the Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying him from appearing on the state’s ballot. “He lost, it’s over,” Conway, a prominent Trump critic, said during a panel on CNN, adding later, “He’s done in Colorado courts. He’s got no further avenue to review for those state law issues that the dissents raised.”

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Source” that the Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying former President Donald Trump from the state’s 2024 ballot was “incoherent,” and he predicted it will be overturned. Partial transcript as follows: KAITLAN COLLINS: Ambassador Bolton, when you look at this, this measure that was put in place to to keep former confederates from returning to power, I mean, what do you make of it being used here? BOLTON: I think it’s completely misplaced. I think this this Colorado Supreme Court decision is badly wrong for multiple reasons. Number one, the...

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Tennessee and Kentucky’s bans on gender-related medical interventions, such as puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and gender surgeries on children. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to reject a challenge to the laws from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and families of trans-identifying children. “This is a relatively new diagnosis with ever-shifting approaches to care over the last decade or two. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for anyone to be sure about predicting the long-term consequences of abandoning age limits of any sort for these treatments,” wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey...

During an interview with PBS aired on Thursday’s broadcast of “PBS NewsHour,” former Attorney General Bill Barr stated that current Attorney General Merrick Garland can’t distance himself from the charging decisions on Hunter Biden and told him, “You own the decision. The decision has to be right in your judgment as Attorney General.” Barr stated, “I do think that Garland — Attorney General Garland, should — I think he needs to act swiftly to deal with the Hunter Biden thing, because I think it’s hurting the department a great deal. And I don’t think it’s possible for an Attorney General...

The move by market agency Fitch Ratings to downgrade the United States’ debt rating has startled lawmakers and policymakers alike, who said Wednesday that they were perplexed by the move amid strong recent economic indicators. In addition, news Wednesday that U.S. political instability reflected in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol was a factor in the downgrading has further confused the Beltway, which was already reeling from a third indictment of former President Trump. Fitch downgraded its issuer default rating for the U.S. on Tuesday evening, surprising investors, roiling equity markets and sending bond yields higher Wednesday morning....

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) said in a Friday interview he’s “not leaning” toward another term as governor, but he will make a “firm decision” this summer. Sununu, who is in his fourth term, said “I don’t think I’m going to run again” during an interview on “The Greg Hill Show.” “I’ll make a firm decision this summer, not leaning towards it,” Sununu elaborated later. “We just — we’re crushing it in New Hampshire, and I just believe that this isn’t a career, it’s public service.” “Could I win again? Of course, but it’s service and someone else needs...

The Atlanta prosecutor leading the probe into former President Donald Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results is expected to announce in August whether criminal charges will be brought. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told staff to work remotely from July 31 to Aug. 18 and has requested judges in a downtown Atlanta courthouse to not schedule trials between Aug. 7 and 14, according to a Thursday letter to county officials obtained by The New York Times. The moves are seen as signs that a grand-jury decision in the sensational case will be announced at that time,...

It is a “deeply disturbing” decision to release Russian arms deal Viktor Bout, Democrat Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said on Thursday, although he praised the news of former WNBA star Brittney Griner coming back to America as part of the Biden administration’s controversial prisoner swap. The former WNBA star was arrested in Russia in February and pleaded guilty to drug charges — possession of cannabis vape cartridges — at a Moscow airport. She was ultimately sentenced to nine years in prison for smuggling cannabis into the country. But, she has now been released in turn for a convicted arms dealer,...

President Biden will face mounting pressure to announce his intentions about whether he will run for reelection immediately after the midterm elections — pretty much regardless of the outcome. But pressure will only intensify, some Democrats say, if their candidates perform poorly on Nov. 8.

MIAMI — In her just over 20 months as a federal judge, Aileen M. Cannon worked mostly in obscurity, becoming nominated and appointed to her position during the height of the coronavirus pandemic and at the end of a turbulent presidency. Then, last month, she was assigned the most prominent case of her short judicial career, involving the very person who put her on the bench: former President Donald J. Trump. On Monday, Judge Cannon granted Mr. Trump’s request to appoint an independent arbiter known as a special master to review materials seized last month from his private Florida club....

The break-in at the Watergate complex 50 years ago today led to a sweeping government ethics overhaul that included a push to insulate the Department of Justice (DOJ) from politics. In a historical twist, this nearly half-century-old corrective may help frame the DOJ’s fraught decision over whether to criminally charge former President Trump for his effort to overturn the 2020 election results.