Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Brandon Straka recalls being bullied as a young gay person in the ’80s and ’90s, the homophobic slurs routinely used as taunts in his small Nebraska town. At age 22, Straka left the state for New York. He felt that it would be easier to be himself and fit in with the political leanings of the big East Coast city.

CBS News political analyst admits media will focus on coronavirus which is a ‘very bad issue’ for Trump CBS News’ John Dickerson said Friday that the ongoing controversy surrounding a laptop — purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that allegedly contained damaging emails and photos of the Democratic presidential nominee’s son — are unlikely to hurt Joe Biden's campaign because he “has an ally in the news cycle.” [Cut] “Joe Biden has an ally in the news cycle, which is, if President Trump tries to shift the turf onto the Biden family, for the purposes of muddying Joe Biden, the...

Sudan is to normalise relations with Israel, US President Donald Trump says - the latest in a series of Arab League countries to do so. There had been growing speculation Sudan would announce ties in return for being removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan had been a foe of Israel since the latter's founding in 1948. It comes weeks after similar moves by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain. The two Gulf states became the first in the Middle East to recognise Israel in 26 years. Jordan signed a peace deal with Israel in...

Chris Hayes said South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem is "making bad decisions," CNN's Don Lemon reminded his viewers about that supposed "super spreader" motorcycle rally in Sturgis, Rachel Maddow fumed that the governor "refused to order any statewide COVID restrictions." And we could go on. Gov. Noem has plenty of cable news critics. It's true. In terms of COVID restrictions, Gov. Noem has been pretty laissez faire. Instead, she thought it might be wise to let citizens live their lives and keep their jobs. And so South Dakota has an unemployment rate that is the second lowest in the country...

For CNN’s liberal fact-checker Daniel Dale to admit that President Donald Trump was “correct” about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s fracking stance must have been a hard pill to swallow for the network. During CNN’s post-debate analysis, Anderson Cooper 360° anchor Anderson Cooper pointed out that Trump went after “Biden on the issue of fracking to extract oil and gas.” Cooper then showed a clip of the Trump-Biden exchange on fracking, where Biden claimed that he “never said ‘I oppose fracking.’” Cooper then appeared to try to lead Dale into giving the answer he wanted by saying, “Daniel, he [Biden]...

The final debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, held on Thursday evening, was the first one of the entire campaign that actually felt like a debate. The first debate was a chaotic disaster thanks to Trump’s constant interruptions... This time around, better moderation and the handy use of a mute button allowed both candidates to express their thoughts — leading to a mix of actual substantive policy exchanges and personal mudslinging. The format seems to have suited Biden, who seemed energized and on-target — getting in a number of strong attacks on Trump’s record on...

In 1987, Robert Bork was denied confirmation to the Supreme Court because his originalist beliefs were deemed a serious threat to constitutional rights. Originalism is no less dangerous for those rights today, yet Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s repeated statements professing her belief in originalism have been met with little objection. Originalists believe that the meaning of a constitutional provision is fixed when it was adopted and that it can change only by constitutional amendment. Under this view, the First Amendment means the same thing as when it was adopted in 1791 and the 14th Amendment means the same thing as...

in my view, President Trump’s performance was measured, on message, and controlled. Thus, for any remaining undecided voters and Republican-oriented voters who may have been discouraged by the president’s chaotic first debate, Trump’s performance Thursday night likely reassured them and may even have led some to resolve to cast ballots in his favor. Moreover, the president’s performance reinforces an argument I made in a Fox News op-ed earlier this week: that Biden is ahead, but his victory is not a forgone conclusion. And make no mistake, it is within the realm of possibility that Trump will stage a comeback that...

Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! #MAGA

Trump just keeps on keeping his promises. – True to his promise made yesterday, President Donald Trump tweeted out the full, unedited version of his interview with old “60 Minutes” hack Lesley Stahl earlier today. This is a very wise move by the President, given that he know “60 Minutes'” habit of heavily editing its interviews of not just Trump, but any Republican in order to portray them as negatively as possible. CBS also edits these interviews to cover up the sorry behavior of their own fake journalists, so Stahl is seen live and unedited in all her vicious, rude...

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has approved the sale of more than a billion dollars worth of advanced weaponry for Taiwan in a move that will enrage China and further exacerbate tensions between Washington and Beijing that have are already heated over issues such as trade, Tibet, Hong Kong, and the South China Sea. The State Department announced Wednesday it had greenlighted the sale of 135 precision land attack missiles, associated equipment, and training to Taiwan to improve its defense capabilities. The package is worth just over a billion dollars, it said in a statement. The missiles are made by Boeing. “This...

Days before the State of Wisconsin denied Foxconn's request for state tax credits - in the form of direct payments from the state to Foxconn's bank account - related to the "factory" built by the world's largest contract tech manufacturer in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin. The project was announced shortly after President Trump's upset election victory, but quickly ran aground as reporters complained that the facility being built by Foxconn bore little resemblance to the enormous Gen 10.5 LCD factory the company had promised. In fact, the factory isn't even big enough to serve as a smaller Gen 6 LCD...

CNN reporter Brian Stelter lost his temper during a BBC Radio 4 roundtable at the suggestion that mainstream media newsrooms had shown poor ethics and a double standard in their breathless reporting of the “Russia collusion” hoax. The panel discussion discussed censorship of the recent story about Hunter Biden’s emails, which many newsrooms ignored and the Silicon Valley social media companies actively suppressed. Stelter supported the suppression, saying that the tech companies needed to do more of it.

Explicit photos and emails purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden were circulating in Ukraine last year at the same time that Rudy Giuliani was searching for dirt there on former Vice President Joe Biden, two people approached about the material during that period tell TIME. The emails’ alleged availability, which has not been previously reported, comes to light in the wake of Giuliani’s recent claims that he obtained private photos and emails of Hunter Biden from a broken laptop abandoned in Delaware. Giuliani, who is President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, has passed this material to right-wing news outlets, which began publishing...

snip.....QAnon followers also believe there is a "Deep State" working against the president. The movement originated on online message board 4chan when an individual identifying themselves as "Q" claimed to be a government insider sharing information about what was secretly happening in the U.S. government and claiming prominent Democrats, such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, will be sent to Guantanamo Bay. snip.....Actor Bette Midler suggested to her two million Twitter followers that the timing was "convenient" because it meant Trump might not have to attend debates. Meanwhile, some QAnon believers thought Trump's announcement signaled the imminent arrest of...

VIDEO Okay, I am now convinced that the New York Times is NOT a partisan newspaper. How do I know this? Because a member of the New York Times Editorial Board told us so therefore it MUST be true. I am so relieved at finding out that the New York Times is as nonpartisan as ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube.

Facebook and Twitter's frantic attempts to stop the spread of the New York Post's Hunter Biden story didn't prevent the article from becoming the top story about the election on those platforms last week, according to data from NewsWhip. Why it matters: The data shows that even swift, aggressive content suppression may not be swift or aggressive enough to keep down a story with as much White House backing and partisan fuel as this one. By the numbers: The Post's story generated 2.59m interactions (likes, comments, shares) on Facebook and Twitter last week — more than double the next biggest...

Paul Sperry @paulsperry_ BREAKING: NBC correspondent Kristen Welker, a Democrat who's "moderating" Thursday's final presidential debate, was caught falsely reporting something Trump told her directly during press conference. WATCH: NBC Asked to Correct Fake Account of Trump Reaction to Shooting - National Legal & Policy Center nlpc.org 8:54 PM · Oct 20, 2020·Twitter Web App

I knew, shortly after scheduled debate moderator and C-SPAN anchor Steve Scully claimed to have been hacked, that it was all over for him. Scully, who had been tapped by the Commission on Presidential Debates to host the second showdown between President Trump and Joe Biden before its cancelation, was criticized on Twitter by President Trump as being a NeverTrumper. Scully, a veteran of a cable network beloved by wonks and political geeks alike, could have just about asked anyone orbiting the Beltway to advise him what to. Naturally, what he did was confirm he was a NeverTrumper by asking...

The topics have been announced for the third and final presidential debate. According to the letter addressed to the Commission on Presidential Debates from the Trump campaign, the third and final debate was supposed to focus on foreign policy. However, topics were announced today, and it sounds like a repeat of the first debate: * Fighting COVID-19 * American Families * Race in America * Climate Change * National Security * Leadership So, President Trump will be asked to denounce white supremacy for the six thousandth time and have to listen to Biden talk about the “very fine people” hoax...