Free Republic

NEW YORK (AP) — Just over a year ago, millions of energized young people, women, voters of color and independents joined forces to send Joe Biden to the White House. But 12 months into his presidency, many describe a coalition in crisis. Leading voices across Biden’s diverse political base openly decry the slow pace of progress on key campaign promises. The frustration was especially pronounced this past week after Biden’s push for voting rights legislation effectively stalled, intensifying concerns in his party that fundamental democratic principles are at risk and reinforcing a broader sense that the president is faltering at...

ATLANTA (AP) — An Associated Press review of every potential case of voter fraud in the six battleground states disputed by former President Donald Trump has found fewer than 475 — a number that would have made no difference in the 2020 presidential election. Democrat Joe Biden won Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and their 79 Electoral College votes by a combined 311,257 votes out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The disputed ballots represent just 0.15% of his victory margin in those states. The cases could not throw the outcome into question even if all the...

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia Republican David Perdue is furthering his embrace of debunked claims that Georgia's 2020 presidential election was wrongly decided by joining a lawsuit claiming that fraudulent or counterfeit ballots were counted in the state's most populous county in the 2020 general election. The suit, filed Friday, amplifies claims that the former senator has made this week since entering the 2022 Republican primary for governor on Monday, saying he wouldn't have certified Georgia's 2020 results if he had been governor then. Former President Donald Trump is backing Perdue in his challenge to incumbent GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, saying...

(CNSNews.com) - President and Mrs. Biden attended a "friendsgiving" celebration at Fort Bragg on Monday evening, giving brief remarks before the meal was served. First lady Jill Biden spoke first, then introduced her husband, who joked, "I'm Jill Biden's husband Joe Biden, as you can see. I continue to follow her." (Indeed he does follow her. At the conclusion of Joe's remarks, he wondered "where am I supposed to go?" looking to his wife for direction. More on that below.) Evidently at a loss without prepared remarks, Biden told the troops about his wife -- and Valentine's Day. The anecdote...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration on Friday recommended an overhaul of the nation’s oil and gas leasing program to focus on areas that are most suitable for energy development and raise costs for energy companies to drill on public lands and water. The long-awaited report by the Interior Department stops short of recommending an end to oil and gas leasing on public lands, as many environmental groups have urged. But officials said the report would move toward a more responsible leasing process that provides a better to return to U.S. taxpayers for oil and gas drilling on the nation’s...

The Western States Sheriffs’ Association has issued a declaration of “no confidence” in Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, saying he’s led a Biden team that has turned the southern border into “an invisible line in the sand.” The sheriffs, who represent 17 states, called on President Biden to oust Mr. Mayorkas and find a new department chief who will work with them to restore respect for the border and immigration law.... ...“America’s sheriffs have watched in disbelief as the southern border has turned into an invisible line in the sand,” the sheriffs said this week in a position paper signed...

House Republicans are demanding a probe into why federal taxpayer-funded election grants were given to politically connected Democratic operatives during the 2020 cycle. GOP lawmakers on the House Oversight and Reform Committee plan to send a letter on Friday to the inspector general of the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) requesting the probe. The EAC is a nonpartisan federal agency which helps states administer elections.... ...Of the $400 million, so far only $326 million has been accounted for by the EAC. Furthermore, the Government Accountability Office estimates there are questions raised regarding at least 20% of the grants disbursed....

Matías Romero (Mexico) (AFP) – Hungry and exhausted after three weeks walking across Mexico in a migrant caravan, Elsa Pineda implored US President Joe Biden to give her daughter a chance to escape the dangers of Honduras' gangs. "He has to help those of us who really need it," she said after a night on a concrete floor near the side of a road with hundreds of other migrants. Despite the perils of walking along busy highways through violence-plagued Mexico, sleeping outdoors at night, Honduras in comparison is "a thousand times" more dangerous, said Pineda, 35. "Although we've faced hunger,...

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Federal regulators have proposed suspending a Trump administration rule that would have allowed railroads to haul liquefied natural gas while they take a closer look at the potential safety risks. The rule, which was backed by both the natural gas and freight rail industries, had already been on hold because several environmental groups and 14 states filed lawsuits challenging it. The federal Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said the uncertainty about the rule also kept companies from investing in the specialized rail tank cars that were required, so railroads haven’t actually handled any shipments of...

Last week was a good one, so it’s kind of dickish to make fun, but it’s really amusing how quickly some of you went from, in 2016, “We’re gonna get tired of winning,” to nervously awaiting the Youngkin/McAuliffe results sweating bullets, fingers nervously crossed, “Oh please please please just give us this one victory!” Trump lost the House, then the White House, then he blew two potentially winnable Georgia races to lose the Senate, then he idiotically engineered a piece of pointless theater that turned into a full-on riot that morphed into an event that will never stop haunting the...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Political appointees in the Trump administration relied on faulty science to justify stripping habitat protections for the imperiled northern spotted owl, U.S. wildlife officials said Tuesday as they struck down a rule that would have opened millions of acres of forest in Oregon, Washington and California to potential logging. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed a decision made five days before Trump left office to drastically shrink so-called critical habitat for the spotted owl. The small, reclusive bird has been in decline for decades as old-growth forests disappear. The Associated Press obtained details on Tuesday’s...

Mollie Hemingway has written a blockbuster book about all the strands of deception and falsehoods that converged to take down Donald Trump on Nov. 3 and 4 and beyond (and before), in her book: Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech and the Democrats Seized Our Elections (Regnery, 2021). I twice asked two Barnes and Noble stores in two weeks whether they had it in stock, and each time -- no. So I finally had to order it online. It has ten chapters, plus a prologue and an epilogue. The total number of endnotes is 1,243 (I added them up), many...

The group New York Citizen Audit Research team has come up with another bombshell. Final vote counts derived from county records, published figures on the Secretary of State’s website, and information derived from the state Board of Elections, do not agree. For example, Dutchess county. According to the Secretary of State’s website, 151,889 voters cast a vote in the 2020 election. The Dutchess county voter rolls reflect 152,412 voters. The state BOE rolls have a count of 155,412 votes. Meanwhile, Dutchess County’s official certification of the election counts 151,122 votes. This is a range of 4,290 votes. It may not...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government will require companies with at least 100 workers to provide paid time off for employees to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and paid sick leave to recover from effects of the shots, a Biden administration official said Monday. Those requirements will be part of a pending federal rule that will spell out how large employers will meet a requirement that workers be vaccinated or tested regularly for the virus. The White House budget office has completed its review of the rule being written by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is expected to be...

Americans’ opinions on the U.S. economy have soured noticeably in the past month, a new poll finds, with nearly half expecting economic conditions to worsen in the next year. Just 35% of Americans now call the national economy good, while 65% call it poor, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s a dip since September, when 45% of Americans called the economy good, and a return to about where views of the nation’s economy stood in January and February, when the pandemic was raging across the nation. The poll shows a majority of...

ROME (AP) — President Joe Biden wrapped up his time at the Group of 20 summit on Sunday trying to convince Americans and the wider world that he’s got things under control — and taking Russia, China and Saudi Arabia to task for not doing enough to deal with the existential threat of climate change. Biden’s overall take on his efforts: On climate change, he’s got $900 billion planned for renewable energy, and Congress will vote this coming week. On supply chains, he has plans to make the ports run better and tamp down inflation. For workers, he’s building an...

NBC anchor Chuck Todd debuted a new poll on Sunday’s broadcast of “Meet the Press” which showed 71 percent of Americans believe America is on the wrong track. Todd said, “We have a brand new NBC news poll out this morning still with some scary news for the Democrats. The overarching message, Americans have lost their confidence in President Joe Biden and their optimism for the country. At least they have right now. Just 22% of adults say we are headed in the right direction. A shocking 71% say we’re on the wrong track and that includes a near majority...

Negotiations on the infrastructure and social program bills have consumed Capitol Hill for months. Still, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday finds Democrats are failing to sell the legislation to the public, who are broadly unaware of what is in the spending packages or skeptical they would help people like themselves, or the economy, if signed into law. Although a majority (55%) of the public is following news about the negotiations at least somewhat closely, about 7 in 10 (69%) Americans said they know just some or little to nothing about what's in both bills. Fewer than half (31%)...

Mesa County Colorado Clerk Tina Peters knew that the Colorado Secretary of State was most likely committing a crime when she ordered voting machines cleaned of 2020 Election results so Peters made a backup of her County’s 2020 voting machines. She was then targeted by the state for her actions. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters shared her story at the event Mike Lindell put on a few months ago in South Dakota. The Mesa County, Colorado data was recently reviewed by database and systems analyst Jeffrey O’Donnell. Numerous issues were uncovered. The accurate final vote for Mesa County cannot be...