Free Republic

We humans are wired in such a way as to look out for our best interests. It's how we survive. But sometimes we go off the rails and do things that can cause us more harm than good. And yes, I'm thinking of the love and affection some Republicans still have for Donald Trump, despite all the harm he has done to them and the party. You'd think that after losing the House during his presidency, and losing the presidency itself..... Think about it this way: We are humans, after all, not robots. We don't always color inside the lines...

The media have been quick to rubbish Attorney General Merrick Garland for his failure so far to indict former President Trump over the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. They have tarred him with epithets worthy of Trump himself, such as "Merrick the Mild" and "Merrick the Meek." And a host of former prosecutors and law professors have criticized his inaction, saying that Garland needs to indict Trump to vindicate the rule of law. We don't know for certain, but it appears that Garland's Justice Department has yet to convene a grand jury to investigate the affair. Were they...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday said “vice presidents can't simply decide not to certify an election,” breaking with former President Trump after he suggested that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the ability to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Asked by moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if he agreed with Pence — who on Friday said he had “no right to overturn the election” — Rubio said that after examining the matter, he concluded that vice presidents do not have the power to not certify an election.

former girlfriend of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) testified before a federal grand jury on Wednesday as part of a sex crimes investigation into the congressman, according to NBC News. The House Republican is reportedly being investigated for several possible crimes, including obstruction of justice, the sex trafficking of a minor and violating the Mann Act, a federal law barring the transportation of prostitutes between states or countries, legal sources familiar with the investigation told the network.

A group of 11 North Carolina voters filed a legal challenge to disqualify Rep. Madison Cawthorn from running for a second term, arguing his involvement in a rally preceding the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on Capitol Hill constitutionally bars him from waging another campaign. Lawyers for the 11 voters filed the suit to the State Board of Elections, contending that Cawthorn’s comments in the speech shortly preceding the insurrection violate the 14th Amendment, which states in part that no person “who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress ... to support the Constitution of the United States,...

s the omicron variant of the novel coronavirus spreads across the United States, roughly 15 percent of adults remain unvaccinated. At the greatest risk for severe illness and death, they have already overwhelmed hospitals and intensive care units in many areas of the country, reducing services available to people who have non-COVID-19 related medical issues.

Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, an adviser to former President Trump, provided the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot with a trove of documents in response to a subpoena by the panel for efforts involving overturning the election. A letter from Kerik's attorney dated Friday indicates that Kerik wants to cooperate with the committee "and any investigators who are truly willing to move ahead swiftly and get to the truth."

Since the start of the pandemic, many 16- and 17-year-old Americans have proven that they possess the social responsibility and political maturity to help elect better leaders.

President Biden said he plans to run for reelection in 2024, assuming he's still in good health. “Yes,” he said when asked if he plans to run for reelection during an interview ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir that aired on Wednesday. “But look, I’m a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I’m in now, if I’m in good health, then in fact, I would run again,” he added.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, becoming the latest high-ranking individual in the political world to come down with a breakthrough infection amid a nationwide surge in cases. Hogan wrote on Twitter Monday morning that he received a positive rapid test for COVID-19 during his “regular testing routine.” He said he is vaccinated and received a booster shot and is “feeling fine at the moment.” The governor also encouraged individuals to get vaccinated or receive the booster shot “as soon as possible” as the omicron strain “becomes more dominant.”

You can rarely be sure that judicial incompetence will kill people, but Federal District Judge Terry Doughty crossed that line when he issued an injunction blocking the Biden administration's requirement that nursing home personnel be vaccinated for COVID-19.(The injunction, which the administration is appealing, has since been modified by a higher court to apply only in the 14 states that sued.) This week, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch produced something worse than incompetence. A recent study in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that nursing home patients are far more likely to die of COVID if there are many...

Former President Trump announced on Wednesday that he was endorsing controversial far-right GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) for reelection in 2022. "Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has done a fantastic job in her first term representing Colorado's Third District. She is a fearless leader, a defender of the America First Agenda, and a fighter against the Loser RINOs and Radical Democrats," Trump said in a statement issued through his Save America PAC. "She will continue to be tough on Crime, strong on Borders, and always protect our under-siege Second Amendment. Lauren has my Complete and Total Endorsement for her reelection!" the former...

Tensions that flared between Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) during the debt ceiling standoff revealed the two leaders’ differing styles and personalities and raised questions about their relationship going forward. The main source of division between the two top Republicans in Congress is their contrasting relationships with former President Trump, whose day-to-day comments on events in Washington have a major influence over the GOP. Trump called on Republican lawmakers to pull out all the stops to oppose raising the nation’s debt limit — even though it would have risked a federal credit...

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) on Wednesday suggested that standard mouthwash could treat COVID-19, and criticized federal agencies for telling people to "do nothing." "Standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus," Johnson said, according to The Washington Post. "If you get it, you may reduce viral replication. Why not try all these things?" "It just boggles my mind that the NIH continues to tell people to do nothing," he added of the National Institutes of Health, in a recording posted online by Heartland Signal. The mouthwash strategy has been refuted by both health experts and mouthwash brands themselves....

A majority of voters in Utah believe that former President Trump should not run again, according to a new poll released on Wednesday. A poll conducted by OH Predictive Insights indicated that 54 percent of registered voters in Utah believe that Trump should not run again in 2024 compared to 35 percent of those who believe he should. While the research firm indicated that the numbers differed along partisan lines, the percentage of Republican voters who said they would like Trump to run again was 53 percent, and OH Predictive Insights said was mostly driven by Republicans in the 18-year-old...

A group led by Sidney Powell, an attorney who claimed last year's election was stolen from then-President Trump, raised nearly $15 million in the months after Trump's defeat while contesting the election, an investigation by The Washington Post reveals. The Post cited a financial statement filed in Florida last month by the Powell group, Defending the Republic, that said it had raked in $14.9 million between Dec. 1, 2020 and July 31 of this year. Roughly $5.6 million of those funds were used to cover legal fees and finance unidentified awards and grants, according to the Post.

One-time White House national security advisor Michael Flynn, former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and former President Trump’s personal assistant Nicholas Luna have been granted a delay in their depositions with the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. A committee aide confirmed to The Hill that all three have been granted short postponements as they continue to “engage” with the committee. McEnany was scheduled to appear before the committee last Friday. Her subpoenas focused on false statements she made promoting baseless claims of voter fraud.

A North Carolina couple who brought their 14-year-old child into the U.S. Capitol amid the Jan. 6 riot is being slammed by prosecutors, who recommend the child's mother receive a prison sentence, according to The Associated Press. Virginia Marie "Jenny" Spencer and her husband, Christopher, brought their child with them as they pushed past police officers and invaded the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. The couple also had their child with them when they broke into Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office and attempted to enter the House chamber, prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memo, according to the AP's report.

Former Vice President Mike Pence said he believes he “did the right thing” when he certified the results of the 2020 presidential election in January, ignoring then-President Trump’s repeated requests that he object to the vote. Pence, in an interview with Christian Broadcasting Network that is set to air on Thursday, said that “in my heart of hearts” he knows he did the right thing on Jan. 6. He added that despite some concerns he had with the vote, his oath of office required him to protect and defend the constitution, which he believes he did by going against Trump’s...

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was a result of former President Trump's lies about the 2020 election being stolen, CNN reported. "I think everything that he was saying from election night forward incited people to that level of anger," Christie told CNN in his episode of the "Being..." series as the former governor mulls his own run for president in 2024. "I think people minimize what happened on the 6th by pointing to the speech that he gave on the Ellipse on the 6th," he added.