Free Republic

Former Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee will attend the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte in September, WPRI reports. Chafee is now the independent governor of liberal Rhode Island, and has been drifting away from the Republican Party since at least 2006, when he lost his re-election bid for the Senate. (In 2004, he withdrew his support for President George W. Bush's re-election.) Chafee backed President Barack Obama's 2008 run, and is a co-chair for his campaign.

Former President Donald Trump has made gains in 19 states in the past week, according to a major election forecast. Pollster Nate Silver's forecast shows that the Republican presidential nominee has made marginal gains in six swing states during the past week and in Florida, Texas and New Mexico. Trump has also made gains in New Hampshire, California, Montana, Washington, Massachusetts, Indiana, Missouri, Maryland, Rhode Island and Nebraska, including in its 2nd Congressional District. Nebraska does not use the "winner takes all" system for awarding Electoral College votes. Two votes are awarded to the winner of the statewide popular vote,...

The governing body of Brown University, an Ivy League school known for its left-wing politics, rejected a proposal Wednesday to divest the university’s holdings from Israeli companies or companies with ties to the Israeli military. The Brown Daily Herald reported: Brown University will not divest from companies with Israeli military ties, its governing body voted Tuesday. The decision, announced publicly Wednesday, follows a recommendation against divestment issued by Brown’s Advisory Committee on University Resource Management, or ACURM. The committee voted 8-2 against recommending divestment, with one member abstaining. As Breitbart News had reported in May, Brown University was the first...

A private jet that vanished in 1971 with five passengers onboard was miraculously found by an expert during a recent recovery mission. On January 27, 1971, a jet took off on a snowy and cold night from the Burlington International Airport to Providence, Rhode Island. The plane was carrying two crew members and three employees from Cousin's Properties, an Atlanta-based development company. The flight vanished and George Nikita, Donald Myers, Frank Wilder, Richard Kirby Windsor, and Robert Ransom Williams III were never found, despite multiple searches conducted over the last five decades.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, has threatened former President Donald Trump with a new investigation into his reported promises to Big Oil. The Washington Post reported this week of a deal that Trump, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, reportedly offered to top oil executives at a Mar-a-Lago dinner last month—raise $1 billion for his campaign and he will reverse dozens of President Joe Biden's environmental regulations and prevent new rules, according to people with knowledge of the dinner. According to the Post's sources, Trump said gifting him $1 billion would be a "deal," because of the taxation and...

Anti-Israel demonstrators at the Rhode Island School of Design are occupying an administrative building and demanding the school divest from Israel. Even though the protesters were given a deadline of 8 a.m. ET Tuesday to clear the building, the school's Students for Justice in Palestine chapter issued an alert on its Instagram telling people to "show up in support" of the protest.

A group of House Democrats on Tuesday announced they would move to codify federal protections for transgender people. The proposal, dubbed the “Transgender Bill of Rights,” would codify the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision that protects employees against discrimination for being gay or transgender. The proposal would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to explicitly include protections for gender identity and sex characteristics, expand access to gender-affirming care and ban conversion therapy. It would also require the attorney general to designate a liaison dedicated to overseeing enforcement of civil rights for transgender people and invest in...

The Daily Mail reports that eight states are planning to BAN the sale of gas-powered cars entirely – after Biden unveiled ambitious plans to phase them out by 2032. California was the first state to adopt the plan to ban sales of gas cars by 2035. Electric vehicles made up 7.6 percent of new car sales in the US last year. It seems clear that the government will ban gas stations at some point, and they don’t seem to care that you can’t afford an EV. The rule, first adopted by California, means that automakers and dealerships would be banned...

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy is inarguably the most witty person in the U.S. Senate. With a folksy quip or quotation always at the ready, Kennedy can effortlessly dismantle an opponent’s argument with his deadpan delivery while keeping the whole room in stitches. And the reason why his delivery hits so well is that he makes sense — the common kind, which has become almost extinct in these woke times. For example, discussing some of his Democratic colleagues who support transgender athletes in women’s sports on Fox News’ “The Story,” Kennedy once said, “One of my Democratic colleague’s witnesses testified that...

Senate Democrats were left red-faced at a hearing on climate change as their 'expert witness' proved to be anything but when faced by veteran senator John Kennedy. Budget Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse invited Olympic skier Gus Schumacher to give his perspective as the committee considered the impact of climate change on the recreation industry. But it was all downhill for the 23-year-old as he struggled to answer basic questions and could not remember his tweets claiming the war on drugs was designed to jail black people, and calling for the police to be abolished. The excruciating exchange continued with Schumacher insisting...

At least eight states are planning to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars in the next decade - and others are considering joining them. Only zero-emission vehicles can be sold in participating states beginning from the 2035 model year, according to the Advanced Clean Cars II legislation. The rule, which was first adopted by California, means that automakers and dealerships would be banned from selling new gas cars in these states from that point onwards.

Twenty-three Democrat run states and the District of Columbia, the home of our nation’s capital, filed amicus briefs in support of government censorship and banning of free speech in the United States. These 23 states and the District of Columbia filed amicus briefs in support of the Biden administration in the SCOTUS case is Murthy, et al v. Missouri, et al, 23-411 (Missouri v. Biden) case. The states essentially argue that they have an interest in collaborating with tech companies to “encourage” the public to behave themselves and “discourage” the public from believing alleged “disinformation” or engaging in online predatory...

Election officials in Warwick, Rhode Island, have discovered dead voters’ names on Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s nomination papers. In a report, the Warwick Board of Canvassers revealed several deceased voters’ names were found on the paperwork of Ramaswamy’s nomination papers. The Coventry Board also had to “invalidate an unusually high number of signatures” submitted on behalf of the Ramaswamy’s campaign.

Breakthrough evidence likely reveals the final resting place of the HMS Endeavour. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Nearly two years after an Australian research team made the claim that a Rhode Island shipwreck was Captain Cook’s HMS Endeavour, the team says they have more evidence to back up their assertion. A Rhode Island-based research group originally said it was too premature to call the shipwreck Cook’s vessel. New findings regarding the pump well and bow further point to this ship in fact being HMS Endeavour. Residents of New England and those with British ties are once again in a scuffle. This time, the debate...

U.S. Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren is demanding an investigation into SpaceX, whose CEO Elon Musk could have disrupted Ukraine's attack on the Russian Black Sea Fleet by refusing to connect the Starlink network in occupied Crimea, Bloomberg reported on Sept. 12. "The Congress needs to investigate what’s happened here and whether we have the adequate tools to make sure foreign policy is conducted by the government and not by one billionaire," Warren said. She also wants the Pentagon to examine its contractual relationship with the company. Musk is expected to attend a closed-door meeting with senators in the Capitol on...

A Muslim man was shot outside a mosque in Rhode Island as he set up a table to sell Islamic clothing on Friday morning. He was bending down to arrange his table outside the Islamic Center of Rhode Island around 11.40am when a suspect in a vehicle opened fire on him and quickly fled the scene. The man, who remains unidentified, sustained a non-life-threatening injury and was rushed to Rhode Island Hospital for treatment, according to authorities. Imam Abdul-Latif Sackor said that the shooter lingered across the street for approximately 20 minutes before discharging a gunshot. He believed that the...

What kind of a man keys another man's car because he doesn't like its bumper sticker — and then blames the victim when he's caught? These days, it may well be an elected Democrat in high office lording it over us. That is what we see in Rhode Island, where a state senator got caught doing just that — and then got off easy for it. A Democratic state senator in Rhode Island who was caught keying a car because it had a 'Biden sucks' bumper sticker has been sentenced to pay $3,000 in restitution. Joshua Miller, 69, who serves...

New footage has emerged showing Rhode Island police fending off drunken wedding guests who started a brawl when a bar refused them entry, with one woman attempting to grab an officer's gun in the melee. Newport Police officers were called to The Landing, a seafood restaurant on Bowen’s Wharf, around 1am on Sunday, after the unruly group demanded entry. New video shows the moment police were swarmed by the party-goers as they tried to arrest one of the men in the group, who'd punched a member of the bar's staff. That's when all hell broke loose. One of the men...

PROVIDENCE — Don Carlson dropped out of Rhode Island’s First Congressional District race on Sunday, just nine days before the Democratic primary and two days after defending his conduct with a student at Williams College while he was a professor there in 2019. Carlson responded in a video statement Friday to the allegation in an investigative report by WPRI 12, which said Carlson was asked not to return to teach at the college after he allegedly sent a text message to a graduating senior in which “he suggested a relationship modeled on a website where people can pay to...

Joshua Miller, who serves as the Senate Democrat policy chairman, is accused of keying the vehicle that had been parked next to his own at the Garden City Center in Cranston, Rhode Island, on Thursday. The son of the car's owner immediately reported the incident to the police, stating that he heard a scratching noise and got out of the vehicle to see Miller holding a set of keys. When he confronted Miller about keying his vehicle, Miller simply denied it and walked away. That was until police arrived and charged Miller with a misdemeanor. The entire episode led to...