Free Republic

On Jan. 7, Simon & Schuster canceled their contract with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., for his book “The Tyranny of Big Tech,” originally scheduled to be published June 22. In an Instagram post, the publisher wrote that it took this action “[a]fter witnessing the disturbing, deadly insurrection that took place in Washington, D.C.” Hawley was one of the most outspoken congressional supporters of President Donald Trump’s election fraud lies. He was the first senator to object to the counting of the Electoral College votes and, in a now infamous photo, cheered on the pro-Trump crowd gathered outside the Capitol. Following...

The White House reporter for Voice of America was abruptly pulled from her beat after trying to question Secretary of State Mike Pompeo following a speech he gave at the government agency this week. Pompeo’s speech and the demotion of Patsy Widakuswara led to an angry phone meeting between journalists and managers Tuesday that typified some of the tensions at the agency during President Donald Trump’s administration. After speaking, he engaged in a brief question and answer session with VOA’s new director, Robert Reilly. Apparently unsatisfied with the questions put to Pompeo, Widakuswara shouted her own as he was leaving....

President Donald Trump’s days in office are numbered. But he’s already stopped doing much of his job. In the last three weeks, a bomb went off in a major city and the president said nothing about it. The coronavirus surged to horrifying new levels of illness and death in the U.S. without Trump acknowledging the awful milestones. A violent mob incited by the president’s own words chanted for Mike Pence’s lynching at the U.S. Capitol and Trump made no effort to reach out to his vice president. Trump only belatedly ordered flags flown at half-staff to honor an officer who...

Thoughtful, decent people across the country and around the world are trying to make sense of what is happening in the United States. This is a difficult thing to accomplish because 98% of everything in the American press is misleading, slanted to confuse and obstruct, or an outright lie. Parsing the truth from all of the falsehoods and propaganda dumped upon the public 24-hours a day is not easy. A coup is underway in the United States. President Donald Trump won the 2020 election in a landslide just as he says he did. It is clear that fraudulent votes were...

... Black kids in America are often not seen as harmless boys or girls. In 2018, a National Association of Social Workers' report revealed, "Black youth are approximately 14% of the total youth population, but 47.3% of the youth who are transferred to adult court." The Government Accountability Office found that Black K-12 students are also more likely to be suspended or referred to law enforcement than their white counterparts. These findings are part of the larger racial disparity that just played out in our nation's capital for the world to see. The 45th president didn't create the water threatening...

In the wake of Wednesday’s riot at the Capitol, Trump supporters with extremist views feel emboldened and are vowing to return to Washington for the upcoming inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden on January 20, using online platforms to rally each other.“Many of Us will return on January 19, 2021, carrying Our weapons, in support of Our nation's resolve, towhich [sic] the world will never forget!!! We will come in numbers that no standing army or police agency can match,” wrote a popular Parler user who frequently posts about QAnon, and is being tracked by the Anti-Defamation League.Parler, Telegram chat rooms...

A Trump supporter cried in the lobby of the Capitol Hill Hotel on Thursday as she poured herself a cup of coffee and told her friend that her son had disowned her for joining in Wednesday's chaos at the U.S. Capitol. But minutes later, when the driver of a car yelled at a group of haggard Trump supporters to "get the f--- out of our city," she joined a chorus of others to respond with their own expletives. While supporters of President Donald Trump checked out of their hotels in Washington on Thursday morning, sharing feelings of sadness, anger, defensiveness...

The United States’ stark racial inequality was on display after a mob of predominantly white supporters of President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol with ease on Wednesday then left with few immediate consequences, according to Washington residents, activists and politicians, including President-elect Joe Biden. The lack of security and limited police response, despite weeks of promotion of the pro-Trump protest that sparked the riot, was in sharp contrast to the largely peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Washington six months ago. “My mom said if you did this you’d be shot,” Beatrice Mando, who works for the district and...

Images of a mob of Donald Trump supporters surging past overwhelmed police to storm the US Capitol have shocked the world. Many have also asked why they bare such a stark contrast to the heavy police presence and violent tactics deployed when Black Lives Matter protesters took to the streets of Washington DC last year. "This is a complete disgrace. Over the summer we saw federal law enforcement use tear gas, flash bangs, and rubber bullets on Black Lives Matter protesters without provocation. Where are the riot squads now? Are they standing down as white supremacists attempt a coup?" asked...

Posting LINK only. This is an over-the-top AP attack on Donald Trump and his peaceful supporters. BARF alert.

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican at the forefront of a bid to block congressional certification of the Electoral College vote, is largely to blame for “inspiring one of the most heartbreaking days in modern American history,” his home-state newspaper’s editorial board wrote. The scathing editorial was published on Wednesday on the home page of the Kansas City Star under the headline: “Assault on democracy: Sen. Josh Hawley has blood on his hands in Capitol coup attempt.”

Though coined much earlier, the acronym RINO — "Republican in Name Only" — came into broader usage in the early 1990s by those on the extreme right to disparage members of the Republican Party whom they accused of being insufficiently "conservative." These days, though, people disparaged as RINOs are usually much more firm believers in republicanism than those deploying the so-called slur, who have commandeered control of the "Republican" Party and perfected the Orwellian art of using words to mean the opposite of what they are. Put more plainly, it is the Trump acolytes and members of the Republican Party...

President Donald Trump's phone call Saturday urging Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to overturn the state's election results might have violated federal and state election laws, but it would be difficult to prosecute, legal experts said Monday. The potential violation of federal election law centers on a provision that says it is a crime for a person "who in any election for federal office knowingly and willfully deprives, defrauds or attempts to deprive or defraud the residents of a state of a fair and impartially conducted election process." But while some former prosecutors said that they believed the call...

DALTON, Ga. - President Donald Trump on Monday headlined a rally ostensibly to drum up support for the two incumbent Republicans the night before their crucial Senate runoffs, but quickly shifted to attacking members of his own party, spreading misinformation about voter fraud and re-litigating both the 2016 and 2020 elections. President-elect Joe Biden won Georgia by nearly 12,000 votes and is set to be sworn into office later this month despite Trump’s repeated attempts to overturn the results. Trump has spent weeks pressuring Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Republican David Perdue, whose Senate term expired Sunday, to entertain his...

ATLANTA - President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to overturn the 2020 election results - laid out in stark detail in an hourlong weekend phone call with a Georgia election official - are demonstrating his unrestrained determination to maintain a grip on power no matter the consequences for the nation’s democratic traditions. Trump has ventured into uncharted and dangerous territory since his Nov. 3 defeat, becoming the first president who lost an election to try to hang onto his office by rejecting the will of the voters and casting aside results of the Electoral College enshrined in the Constitution. Trump’s refusal...

WASHINGTON - The video message that plunged Washington into chaos was filmed in secret. President Donald Trump stood in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room, holiday garland and gleaming ornaments draped on the fireplace behind him, and spoke into the camera not to deliver warm Christmas wishes, but to threaten to detonate Congress’ $900 billion COVID-19 relief and year-end package. The video was released without warning Tuesday night, its recording orchestrated by White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and kept from all but a handful of aides. Few Republicans or even White House staffers knew Wednesday what Trump planned...

NEW YORK (AP) - The first significant attention that the Kansas City Star gave to hometown hero and jazz legend Charlie “Bird” Parker came when he died in 1955 - and the newspaper spelled his name wrong. That detail came to light when the Star investigated, and apologized for, its mistreatment of Black citizens over many decades in a self-reckoning that came in a series of stories published on Sunday. In its blunt self-assessment, the Star found that for many decades of its 140-year history, Black residents were rarely mentioned in anything but crime stories. It was a newspaper produced...

WILMINGTON, Del. - President-elect Joe Biden’s team will consider several options to punish Russia for its suspected role in the unprecedented hacking of U.S. government agencies and companies once he takes office, from new financial sanctions to cyberattacks on Russian infrastructure, people familiar with the matter say. The response will need to be strong enough to impose a high economic, financial or technological cost on the perpetrators, but avoid an escalating conflict between two nuclear-armed Cold War adversaries, said one of the people familiar with Biden’s deliberations, speaking on condition of anonymity. The overarching goal of any action, which could...

WASHINGTON - The definition of a scandal changes quickly in Washington. Over the course of four years, the nation’s capital has careened from crisis to crisis. There was the travel ban, the investigation into Russian interference in an election, the firing of an FBI director, a 35-day government shutdown, dismissals of Cabinet secretaries via tweet, impeachment and a historic pandemic that forced the president to be hospitalized. And then there was the Glamour interview. Jen O’Malley Dillon, President-elect Joe Biden’s campaign manager and incoming deputy chief of staff, referred to congressional Republicans as “f——ers” in a conversation with the magazine....

Beijing (AFP) - A citizen journalist detained in China after reporting from the Covid-19 ground zero of Wuhan will face trial later this month, her lawyer said Friday, as fears grow for her health. Zhang Zhan, a former lawyer, travelled to Wuhan in February and livestreamed her experiences on social media. She also wrote essays critical of the government's response -- including the strict lockdown of millions of people. Zhang was detained in May and is accused of "picking quarrels and provoking trouble", according to a court notice seen by AFP -- a charge routinely used to suppress dissidents, with...