Free Republic

President Biden’s job approval rating is on the downslope. As of Friday morning he was at 45.8 percent approval and 48.5 percent disapproval — from a high of 54 percent approval, 41 percent disapproval at the end of his first 100 days. There is a laundry list of reasons for this. Not only is the United States still in the grip of a pandemic, but also the Delta variant of the coronavirus has led to record infections and deaths in Florida, Texas and other states with relatively low vaccination rates (and where officials have taken a stand against mitigation efforts)....

Donald Trump wouldn't say whether he agrees with the Supreme Court ruling upholding a new Texas heartbeat law that bans abortion after six weeks – or when a fetal heartbeat can be detected. ... When asked if he supported the new ruling, Trump dodged the question – instead taking credit for a series of conservative rulings due to his appointment of three Supreme Court justices during his four years in office.

When did indoor air become cold and clean? Air conditioning is one of those inventions that have become so ubiquitous, that many in the developed world don’t even realize that less than a century ago, it didn’t exist. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that the air inside our buildings and the air outside of them were one and the same, with occupants powerless against their environment. Eric Dean Wilson, in his just published book, “After Cooling: On Freon, Global Warming, and the Terrible Cost of Comfort,” dives deep into the history of this field. It took more than just...

Analysis: Only Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger seem to see that they can serve both the country and the Republican Party. If Republicans won't defend the Capitol, the Constitution or even themselves, it's hard to see how they can claim to stand for anyone — or anything — else. That's what Tuesday's hearing was really about — for the Democrats, for the police who testified and for the two Republicans who said serving their party and the country aren't mutually exclusive goals. McCarthy, facing a similar choice, has decided to follow Trump rather than the truth.

WASHINGTON — More than six months after Jan. 6 — and after all of the reporting on that day — Donald Trump’s hold over the Republican Party hasn’t gotten weaker. It’s only grown stronger. In Oklahoma, the state GOP chair is backing a primary challenge to the reliably conservative sitting Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. Lankford’s sin: refusing to reject the Electoral College count on Jan. 6. In Alaska, the state party has endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka over Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska. Murkowski voted to convict Trump in his impeachment trial. In Ohio, the candidates vying to fill the open Senate...

It is called reader loyalty. And it still exists. But only just. “What we have recently experienced is that a growing number of readers have been phoning in to our offices to let us know how important it is for them that we are still putting out a print version of our paper.” Those are the words of Benjamin Piel, the editor-in-chief of the MindenerTageblatt, a daily newspaper published in the town of Minden in the northwestern German state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Its circulation is currently running at around 26,000. But that number is shrinking — despite those loyal subscribers...

The National Portrait Gallery reopened with an addition to its famed exhibition of presidential portraits. Joining the likes of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, was Donald Trump, scowling from behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Trump looks “pallid and grim” in the photograph, said Paul Staiti, expert on presidential portraits who teaches at Mount Holyoke College. Trump was impeached twice. His refusal to concede the election of Nov. 3, 2020, led a mob of his supporters to storm and vandalize the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The Trump photograph is displayed across the room from a portrait of...

Facebook shut down a pro-Israel page that reportedly had millions of followers as the worst conflict in years continued in the Gaza Strip. “Jerusalem Prayer Group” founder Mike Evans claimed that critics targeted the site by posting “more than a million” comments then reporting they had never posted to the site, CBN reported. “There was an organized attempt by radical Islamic organizations to achieve this objective,” Evans was quoted as saying. “It was a very clever, deceptive plan by Islamic radicals.”

The "Jerusalem Prayer Team" Facebook page, which has 77 million followers, was blocked last week (Friday) without warning. Dr. Mike Evans, director of the page and head of the Friends of Zion Association, claims that Facebook fell for an "anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist conspiracy," Channel 2 News reported. The subject was brought to the attention of the Foreign Ministry this morning (Tuesday), during a tour of Sderot, where Evans met Asif Elkayam. According to members of the Friends of Zion Association, Evans' Facebook page was blocked without warning last weekend (Friday). Evans, who is currently in Israel with the aim of...

I would love a COVID-19 vaccine passport. After more than a year in full or partial quarantine, I’m so happy to be vaccinated I want to get the words “FULLY” and “VAXXED” tattooed on my butt and run naked through the streets. (Don’t worry, I won’t. America has suffered enough.) Unfortunately … sorry, that’s a side effect of the Pfizer vaccine … unfortunately, vaccine pride is not as prevalent as it should be, and a sizable swath of the population prefers to poo-poo the one thing that can lead us out of a pandemic that has killed more than 550,000...

Americans believe that President Biden faced bigger challenges than his predecessor Donald Trump during his first 100 days in office — and performed better than Trump despite those difficulties, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. The survey of 1,558 U.S. adults, which was conducted from April 27 to April 29, found that less than a third say Trump’s challenges were bigger than Biden’s (31 percent) or that Trump performed better (32 percent) during the first 100 days of his presidency. Pluralities say Biden has performed better than Trump (41 percent) in the face of greater obstacles (37 percent). The...

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), one of only 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach then-President Donald Trump this year, recently told the Atlantic why he remains committed to the party: “I’m a Republican because I’ve been a Republican far longer than Donald Trump has. He’s a Republican usurper.… I’m not going to let him take the party. So I will fight. I will fight like hell.” It is a decision I have not for a moment regretted, because the GOP has become even more of a horror show than I anticipated. As former House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) notes in...

NBC News anchor Lester Holt received praise from liberal media figures after saying reporters don’t need to hear both sides of a story before determining the "truth." "I think it’s become clear that fairness is overrated ... the idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in," Holt said on Tuesday night while accepting an award at the 45th Murrow Symposium. Lester Holt feels "the idea that we should always give two sides equal weight and merit does not reflect the world we find ourselves in." Lester Holt...

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden and Democrats in Congress are jamming their agenda forward with a sense of urgency, an unapologetically partisan approach based on the calculation that it’s better to advance the giant COVID-19 rescue package and other priorities than waste time courting Republicans who may never compromise. The coronavirus pandemic is driving the crush of legislative action, but so are the still-raw emotions from the U.S. Capitol siege and the hard lessons of the last time Democrats had the sweep of party control of Washington. Republicans are mounting blockades of Biden’s agenda just as they did during the...

AUSTIN, Texas — Sorry to break it to you, but Texas is one of the worst states to raise a family, according to a study conducted by WalletHub. WalletHub compared all 50 states across 52 metrics of family-friendliness. The metrics ranged from the median annual family income to housing affordability to the unemployment rate. Overall, Texas ranked in the bottom half, at number 28. Here's how the Lone Star State fared in the 5 categories: Family Fun: 5 Health and Safety: 37 Education and Child Care: 33 Affordability: 41 Socio-economics: 38

One day before the country roused itself from a holiday break, one of the most powerful families in Republican politics issued a double-barreled rebuke of President Trump. Dick Cheney, the former vice president, and Liz Cheney, the third-ranking Republican in the House of Representatives, drew on their significant political capital and decades of experience in Washington to attack the president’s false claims of vote stealing and his undemocratic effort to overturn the election, which President-elect Joe Biden won.

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...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal judge Thursday cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s lawsuit that seeks to overturn Joe Biden’s win in Wisconsin, declaring it “incredible” that Trump didn’t raise the issues before the election and that siding with him would be “the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary.” Trump is pursuing extraordinary attempts to overturn Biden’s win with a pair of lawsuits in Wisconsin, in federal and state courts. In the state case, Trump wants to disqualify more than 221,000 ballots and in the federal case he wants to give the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday the Justice Department has not uncovered evidence of widespread voter fraud that would change the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Arizona certified its general election results Monday, cementing President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state, as the Trump campaign’s legal team continued to allege voter fraud and protest the election results at a meeting with state lawmakers at a nearby hotel ballroom. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said as she certified the results that the state conducted its election with “transparency, accuracy and fairness...despite numerous unfounded claims to the contrary.” Republican Gov. Doug Ducey also took part in the certification, saying, “We do elections well here in Arizona,” and “the system is strong.” With the results certified,...