Free Republic

Former Trump Justice Department head William Barr, in the course of reiterating his strong preference that his party nominate a less deranged presidential candidate next time, expressed a fear that has been in wide circulation: If defeated in the primary, Donald Trump “will burn the whole house down by leading ‘his people’ out of the GOP.” One version of this is that Trump will either form a third party or simply refuse to endorse another Republican, thereby dooming his party’s chances. Those of us considering the question from a less friendly standpoint than Barr — I consider the Republican Party...

State legislatures are often overlooked in the heat of campaign season, yet the laws crafted there have as much impact, if not more, on the average person’s everyday life as the ones passed by Congress. But for many Americans, ignoring elections for state legislatures is no longer an option. The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade this summer has them focused on state capitols, where abortion laws are now being decided. State legislatures also have a significant role in certifying the results of an election in most states. Certifying election results has been largely devoid of drama in...

Outdoor active-wear brand Cotopaxi is closing its San Francisco store after only a year following rampant theft that left the store’s staff “terrified.” The company’s founder, Davis Smith, announced the closing in a LinkedIn post Tuesday. “It’s sad, but San Francisco appears to have descended into a city of chaos,” he wrote. “Many streets and parks are overrun with drugs, criminals, and homelessness, and local leadership and law enforcement enable it through inaction. “One of the most beautiful and amazing cities in the world is now a place where many no longer feel safe visiting or living.” -snip “We opened...

Conservative lawyer George Conway said former President Donald Trump is inciting violence by telling millions of people that he's "being persecuted for no valid reason" in relation to the Mar-a-Lago probe. Conway, when asked by CNN in Friday interview if he would characterize Trump's response as a "threat," said that he would. "Yes, absolutely," Conway said. "I mean he's basically saying, 'What a nice country you have here, too bad if something would happen to it.'"

Seattle notched its deadliest month in recent history this August and is on track to set a 25-year record high in fatal shootings, according to police. "This is one of our highest years, and we are on pace to exceed the last two years, and this has been a concerning trend," Interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz said last week of fatal shootings in the city, according to King 5. "We are passing our 25-year high that happened just two years ago." The Seattle Police Department confirmed to Fox News Digital that it recorded 11 homicides for the month of August....

California Gov. Gavin Newsom clarified this week that when he called criminals accused of stealing packages from cargo trains in the state "gangs of people" he wasn’t implying the thefts were gang-related. This is not one-off," Newsom said in a news conference near Union Pacific Railroad tracks in Los Angeles on Thursday, according to the Washington Times. "This is organized theft. These are organized gangs of people that are coming out." "Forgive me for saying ‘gangs,’ that’s not a pejorative," he clarified. "They’re organized groups of folks that move from site to site."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) called on lawmakers in Washington, D.C., to pass gun reform after the city announced that one officer had been fatally shot and another remained in critical condition during a shooting in Harlem on Friday evening. “We don't make guns here. How are we removing thousands of guns off the street, and they still find their way into New York City? In the hands of people who are killers, constantly carbon highways of death, destroying our communities,” Adams said on Friday night. “We need Washington to join us and act now to stop the...

Seriously, this happened...and you wouldn't want your school to get sued, would you? An Illinois school district recently received some heat from parents for allowing flyers from the Satanic Temple to be placed in the lobby of Jane Addams Elementary School. The flyers invited students between the ages of 6 and 11 to attend an "after-school Satan Club" program being offered by The Satanic Temple. Not to worry, however. Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple's co-founder, says the Satan Club won't try to convert children to Satanism or force them to worship the devil. Greaves told WQAD: "This actually isn't a...

The priority deadline for Texas students to complete the Free Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA) is on January 15. Texas high school students are required to submit that application to graduate... “It was a great struggle filling out the FAFSA,” Martinez said. Millions of students face the same struggle of filling out the FAFSA. Some say that the application is too complicated for some. Congressman Doggett has been working for years to make it simple.

The euphoria around Rivian kicked into overdrive Wednesday as it debuted as a publicly traded company, with an opening share price of $106.75. If that sticks, it would give Rivian an implied valuation of $90 billion. The opening trade was nearly 37% higher than its listed IPO price of $78. That absolute eye-popping number makes Rivian one of the largest IPOs in U.S. history and puts its market cap above GM as well as one of its backers, Ford (GM’s market cap is $86.31 billion; Ford’s is $78.2 billion).That share price continued to rise after it began trading around 1...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk believes that electrifying personal transportation will require electricity generating capacity to double. And while ramping up output might feel daunting for anyone worried about the transition to electric vehicles, investors—and U.S. consumers turning on the lights—shouldn’t worry. “If we shift all transport to electric than electricity demand approximately doubles…this is going to create a lot of challenges with the grid,” said Musk on Wednesday at CodeCon, a conference held at the Waldorf Astoria in Beverly Hills, Calif. Now, Musk is no fool: He has built several entities worth tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars....

As one of the most popular sports brands in the world and in Israel, the loss of those sales will weigh heavily on the businesses of hundreds of sports stores across the country. Israeli retailers are fuming after international sporting goods giant Nike on Sunday said it will stop working with them to market its products. The measure will come into effect on May 31, 2022, Nike said. As one of the most popular sports brands in the world and in Israel, the loss of those sales would weigh heavily on the businesses of hundreds of local sports stores. In...

The Monarch’s lavish living quarters at Buckingham Palace are set to be reduced to little more than “a flat above the shop” when Prince Charles becomes King. The plan is part of a radical drive to overhaul the vast Royal estate, which will involve the official London residence being thrown open to the public more than ever before. Other changes being considered under Charles’ wide-ranging plans include turning Balmoral into a museum to the Queen and moving the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge into Windsor Castle, The Mail on Sunday understands. Charles is said not to want the Berkshire residence...

As parting shots go, it packed quite a punch. But then it had been coming for some time. In an open letter announcing his resignation from Portland State University in Oregon, assistant philosophy professor Peter Boghossian condemned his former employer as a “social justice factory, whose only inputs were race, gender and victimhood and whose only outputs were grievance and division”. What had once been a bastion of free inquiry was gripped by “a culture of offense where students are too afraid to speak openly and honestly”. His broadside echoed right across the United States. […] Today, most US universities...

Rep. Matt Gaetz called the Anti-Defamation League “racist” after it again called on Fox News host Tucker Carlson to be fired for promoting the white supremacist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida, also endorsed the conspiracy theory. On his popular show Wednesday, Carlson trumpeted the idea that Democrats are working to bring foreigners into the United States in order to weaken the voting power of white people. He said,”this policy is called the ‘Great Replacement,’ the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far-away countries.” The “Great Replacement” is a term used by white...

Republicans say a new non-partisan report indicates President Joe Biden improperly avoided paying Medicare taxes before he took office — raising eyebrows and the possibility that he owes the IRS as much as $500,000 in back taxes. Biden is leading a Democratic push for a $3.5 trillion bill to subsidize childcare, education and health care by targeting tax avoidance and raising tax rates on higher incomes so the rich “pay their fair share.” A House Ways and Means Committee draft of the bill would end the accounting trick apparently exploited by Biden and boost IRS funding for audits — but...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will tell world leaders at the United Nations that humanity has to “grow up” and tackle climate change, saying humans must stop trashing the planet like a teenager on a bender. Johnson is due to host a major United Nations climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland in six weeks’ time. He is using a trip to the U.N. General Assembly in New York to press governments for tougher emissions-cutting targets and more money to help poor countries clean up their economies. In a speech to the General Assembly on Wednesday, he’ll say...

As a new semester begins amid a resurgence of the coronavirus, 26 of the 50 largest public university campuses in the U.S. are not mandating that students be vaccinated, according to an analysis by The Associated Press. Approaches on enforcement vary widely even among universities that do have vaccine mandates, with some offering leniency for students who opt out and others expelling those who do not comply. Administrators are emphasizing high numbers for student vaccinations as key to bringing some normalcy back to campus and keeping instruction in classrooms rather than online. Where mandates face political opposition, schools are relying...

North Carolina judges struck down the state’s latest photo voter identification law on Friday, agreeing with minority voters that Republicans rammed through rules tainted by racial bias as a way to remain in power. Two of the three trial judges declared the December 2018 law is unconstitutional, even though it was designed to implement a photo voter ID mandate added to the North Carolina Constitution in a referendum just weeks earlier. They said the law intentionally discriminates against Black voters, violating their equal protections. The law “was motivated at least in part by an unconstitutional intent to target African American...

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! Isaiah 14:12 KJV I’ve noticed something strange in the conservative movement for decades now—the desire to call our enemies (those who are stripping away our rights and aiming to do us harm or worse) “stupid.” I’m not sure where this idea came from, or why exactly its been employed. I remember, for instance, fundraising letters I’d read in the Nineties that would use phrases such as “loopy liberals.” I hated that phrase even back then....