Free Republic

White smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday, signaling that a pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church. That means the winner secured at least 89 votes of the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis. The crowd in St. Peter’s Square erupted in cheers.

Minnesota state party chair Ken Martin was elected on Saturday to serve as the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). Martin, a longtime chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, secured more than 246 votes out of the 428 DNC members who voted, according to multiple reports. Martin has reportedly expressed a desire to see Democrats get “back to basics” and rebuild the Party’s image following the loss of so many working-class voters who have moved over to the political right and President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) will be the third-ranking Senate Republican, winning election to Conference Chair Wednesday. Cotton defeated Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) by a 35-18 margin, Politico reports. Conference chair’s primary duty is assisting conference members and their staffs with messaging. Cotton is known as one of Senate Republicans’ greatest weapons on the airwaves. “I’m grateful for the support of my colleagues and to the American people for trusting us with the majority,” Cotton tweeted. “We are ready to start working to enact President Trump’s agenda for a secure border, lower prices, and a peaceful world.”

An extremist Antifa leader who is on France’s national security watchlist has been elected to the National Assembly as a member of the New Popular Front leftist bloc. The official spokesman of the Lyon Antifa collective “Jeune Garde Antifasciste (Young Antifascist Guard) in Lyon, Raphaël Arnault will represent the first constituency of Vaucluse in Provence in the French parliament after beating out populist National Rally candidate Catherine Jaouen with 54.98 per cent of the vote in Sunday’s second round of legislative elections, Le Figaro reports. Arnault’s candidacy, which was backed by far-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI) party —...

Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), said President Biden will not be elected to another term “one way or another.” “Joe Biden can step aside for another candidate or lose in historic numbers in a few months — but one way or another he will not be President soon and this is something his family should start coming to terms with since they all seem to be living in a severe level of delusion,” McCain said in a post on social platform X Friday.

Michael Cohen, a former personal attorney for Donald Trump, said Saturday on MSNBC’s “Velshi” that if the former president wins the election, “people will start flying out of windows” or end up in prisons like in Russia. Cohen said, “State-sponsored news just like what you have in Russia and their station which is called Pravda and means truth which is ironic, right? All of this goes away under a Donald Trump administration. Why? Because he doesn’t want to hear anything negative being said about him. The fact that you have this television show, the fact that you have the ability...

Long-time political commentator Chris Matthews said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that it was “very reasonable to assume” former President Donald Trump will become a dictator if elected. After discussing former President Lyndon B. Johnson, Matthews added, “This is the opposite of Donald Trump, who wants to put them before firing squads basically. He wants put them all in jail. He’s unbelievable the way he talks about his opponents. This is exactly the choice we have a dictatorship, or a democracy. We have to choose. This election is about more than abortion, it is about the whole question of what...

Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that if former President Donald Trump is elected again, “our children’s ability to live in a free world” will be in jeopardy. Landrieu said, “What’s so critically important to remember is that elections are about choices. It’s about the past versus the future. It’s about values, and it’s critically important. When President Biden ran for office, he said, ‘I’m going to help restore the soul of the nation. I’m going to invest in the American people. I’m going to lower costs. I’m going to impact people’s freedoms.’ And he’s bringing...

Representative Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that if former President Donald Trump was reelected, he would “hand the keys over” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Slotkin said, “I think that it’s hard again to explain these big things, but, you know, best guess is that the Ukrainians could run out of ammunition in the spring. Our best guess is they will run out of capabilities to protect places like Kyiv from ballistic missiles probably by the summer. You should expect massive refugee flows, the grain deal that we have on the table to continue to get...

Vice President Kamala Harris said Wednesday on ABC’s “The View” that “we should all be scared” because if former President Donald Trump is elected again, our freedoms are at stake. Harris said, “I think most people don’t think of it in the context of democracy so much as freedom. The freedom of a woman to make decisions about her own body, the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride, the freedom to be able to be free from gun violence, these are fundamental freedoms that are at stake right now.” She added, “We’ve got a guy right...

Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, a former United Nations (U.N.) ambassador, vowed on Wednesday to defund the U.N. “as much as possible” if elected to the Oval Office, but stopped short of saying the U.S. should withdraw from the international organization. Fox News host Sean Hannity in an interview pressed Haley on whether she agreed with the statement that the U.N. has been “historically anti-American and anti-Semitic.”

Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” show regular Donny Deutsch offered a panicked warning to viewers about the possibility of a Trump victory in 2024. According to Deutsch, if former President Donald Trump were successful in his bid to reclaim the White House, freedom would be “over.” Deutsch also said that the program he was on, “Morning Joe,” could cease to exist. He said those potential consequences raised the stakes for the 2024 election.

Democratic strategist James Carville said Monday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” that left-wing academic Cornel West seeking the Green Party’s presidential nomination was a “threat to the continued constitutional order in the United States.” Carville said, “He’s obviously an accomplished scholar, academic. He seemed to be a very charming man and he’s also a menace, a threat to the continued constitutional order in the United States. and I say that because look what Ralph Nader, who’s directly responsible for the election of George W. Bush which brought about the horrific Iraq war and the horrific economic downturn we had among...

Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that if he were elected president that he would pardon former President Donald Trump if convicted in the Mar-a-Lago documents case. Anchor Dana Bash said, “So before you heard any details of the allegations in the Trump indictment, you put out a statement saying if you become president, you would pardon Donald Trump on day one. Now you’ve seen the allegations, and you’ve seen that he stored highly classified information like nuclear secrets and others in unsecured areas of his country club. Given everything that you’ve seen,...

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) dismissed Sen. Rick Scott’s (R-FL) Tuesday announcement that he would challenge McConnell for GOP Senate leader. “I have the votes. I will be elected,” McConnell told reporters during a Tuesday press conference. “The only issue is whether we do it sooner or later.”

House Republicans voted Friday to elect New York Rep. Elise Stefanik to the conference chair position after ousting Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney. Stefanik was elected to be the third-ranking House Republican after Cheney was removed from her leadership position by a voice vote Wednesday. Behind closed doors, Republicans voted Cheney out as the third-ranking House Republican. Texas Rep. Chip Roy came in second place with 46 votes. “I’m truly honored and humbled to earn the support of my colleagues to serve as House Republican Conference Chair. House Republicans are united in our focus to fight on behalf of the American...

Former House Speaker John Boehner wrote in his new memoir that the Republican Party has taken a stark turn since his time in politics, according to an excerpt reported by the Washington Post on Friday. "I don't even think I could get elected in today's Republican Party anyway," Boehner wrote. "I don't think Ronald Reagan could either."

INDIANAPOLIS  — The Democratic mayors of Indianapolis and Fort Wayne cruised to easy victories, denying Republicans their hopes of capturing leadership in either of the state’s largest cities. Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett declared victory over Republican state Sen. Jim Merritt in Tuesday’s local elections. Unofficial Marion County results showed Hogsett with 70 percent of the vote. Fort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry extended his 12-year tenure leading Indiana’s second-largest city with about 60 percent support

Andrew Yang, a businessman who is running for the 2020 Democratic nomination for president, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that his proposal to provide every American with a $1,000 guaranteed monthly income would help "solve the problems that got Donald Trump elected in 2016." "To me the main driver of his victory was that we automated away 4 million manufacturing jobs in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, the swing states he needed to win," Yang said.

The accomplishment realized by the election of Donald Trump last night, was that the Republic was not lost. This is for naught should the hot iron lie unstruck, and the swamp is fester undrained. Do it, and the 21st century will be an affirmation of our "shining city on a hill:" global leadership, peace, prosperity and justice. Do it not, and America may yet be subverted into a force for evil non-pareil. The Supreme Court must be restored to once again uphold the law - the intent of the law - under the Constitution - the intent of the Constitution....