Free Republic

On Sunday Joe Biden bowed to the inevitable in withdrawing from the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. Only now has the presidential race become interesting as the fifty-nine-year-old Harris, more than likely to receive the Democratic nomination, prepares to face off against Donald Trump. Suddenly the Republican candidate has become the old codger in the race while the Democratic one represents generational change. Trump, you could even say, has become yesterday’s news. https://twitter.com/JoeBiden/status/1815087772216303933"My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder...

The more time we have to look through Judge Juan Merchan's byzantine jury instructions in Donald Trump's "hush money" trial in Manhattan, the worse they look. The vague nature of the instructions has even led to disputes among legal analysts who have struggled to make sense of the case from the beginning. At Townhall, our colleague Matt Vespa has a good rundown of one of the most glaring problems with the instructions. The judge gave the jurors the unheard-of option of picking any one of three crimes that were "concealed" by the entry of "false business records" and said that...

Contrary to what many political pundits, including this one, thought would happen as soon as Donald Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, the former president has maintained a slim but steady polling lead over President Joe Biden. As of today, the RCP Average has Trump with a 1.1% overall advantage, with Quinnipiac being the only May poll showing Biden leading, albeit by a mere 1%. By contrast, Biden enjoyed a 5.6% advantage this time in 2020, an election in which Trump never actually took the average polling lead.Still, are there signs that Trump's lead might be softer than we think?...

How far can gratitude for what former President Trump accomplished — and rage against the Deep State/Democrats — take you in an election? That's the existential question Republicans need to be asking right now. Is it worth going down with the ship to send a message to those persecuting Trump? What should be our goals at this pivotal moment in history? Avenging Trump or winning the 2024 election at all costs — even if Trump has to take one for the team? Radio talker Steve Deace warned yesterday that if Republicans don't start living in reality, there won't be a...

The Michigan appeals court turned down an appeal Friday from President Donald Trump's campaign in a challenge to how absentee ballots were handled in Detroit and other issues. In a brief order, the court said the lawsuit fails because Michigan's election results, including Joe Biden's 154,000-vote victory over Trump, were certified on Nov. 23, a week before the campaign filed an appellate brief. The court said the president's only recourse was a recount, but that has passed, too. “Because plaintiff failed to follow the clear law in Michigan relative to such matters, their action is moot,” Judge Stephen Borrello said...

CLAIM: Video provides data-supported evidence that the election technology firm Dominion Voting Systems committed election fraud by transferring vote ratios between precincts in Philadelphia. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Dominion technology isn’t used in Philadelphia’s elections, so the company had no part in tabulating votes there. Despite a flurry of false claims about election results in battleground states like Pennsylvania, there’s no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in the 2020 election. THE FACTS: A video claiming to be a “smoking gun” exposing Dominion’s election fraud in Philadelphia is easily debunked: Pennsylvania’s largest city doesn’t even use Dominion software in its elections....

Iranians and Iraqis are celebrating after the Pentagon, under the direction of President Trump, carried out an airstrike in Baghdad that killed Iranian military leader Qasem Soleimani. The action came in response to an Iran-led attack on the US embassy in Iraq. Soleimani, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard CorpsÂ’ elite Quds Force, a designated terror group since 2007, was despised by many in Iran, and by Iraqis who have been subject to a campaign of terror in their own country at the hands of forces operating in lockstep with the Iranian military. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo...