Free Republic

After targeting one former FBI director he forced out, Trump raised the prospect of an investigation into a different former FBI director he forced out.For more than four years, a wide variety of Republican conspiracy theorists clung to a ridiculous idea about the Jan. 6 attack: It was federal law enforcement, they’ve claimed, that secretly instigated the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol. The absurd claims grew so common that they were given a name: the “fedsurrection” narrative.Indeed, at the heart of the theory is the idea that insurrectionist rioters were actually the victims on Jan. 6: These poor, unsuspecting partisans...

As the public learned this week about Donald Trump “improperly removing” White House documents, the former president’s aides characterized the records as largely trivial. The Republican’s team told The Washington Post that the items that found their way to Mar-a-Lago “included correspondence with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which Trump once described as ‘love letters,’ as well as a letter left for Trump by President Barack Obama.” The explanation wasn’t especially credible at the time, and soon after, it started unraveling. For one thing, the controversy wasn’t about a handful of records; it was about 15 boxes filled with...

An MSNBC article about the White House's early response to coronavirus ignores all of the White House's early response.In a blistering attack on President Donald Trump, MSNBCÂ’s Steve Benen accused the White House of ignoring the threat of coronavirus throughout January even though intelligence officials were warning about it. ThereÂ’s just one problem; it is an absolute lie. Well, thereÂ’s another problem actually, itÂ’s a lie that progressive propagandists have convinced millions of Americans is true. One tell that gives away the false nature of the story is how little of it is actually about the coronavirus response. In fact,...

Eric Holder is set to re-emerge on the national political scene, wrote Steve Benen in a blog entitled, “Former AG Eric Holder: ‘Now is the time to be heard.’” Benen, a producer for The Rachel Maddow Show, argued that Holder has recently begun to increase his number of public appearances and that more may follow in the near future. Furthermore, he observed that there’s now active speculation that Holder may be musing a presidential run for 2020. Strangely enough, however, the blog failed to mention any of the baggage that would accompany such a run given Holder’s controversial record as...

I wouldn’t say literally every center-left pundit I know expects Marco Rubio to win the Republicans’ 2016 presidential nomination, but it’s awfully close to 100%. For most of the political observers I know, it’s practically a foregone conclusion – the pieces have already fallen into place for the far-right Floridian. Nate Silver recently said, “I sometimes feel with Rubio like he’s the contestant on a reality show where it’s totally obvious that he’s eventually going to win, but the network needs to create dramatic subplots for 17 weeks before it happens.” And all of these assumptions may very well be...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) took his presidential campaign to the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce this week, where he raised a provocative point about, of all things, panhandling. Benjy Sarlin reported: “If you look at the values that resonate in our community, they are faith, family, patriotism, hard work,” he told host Javier Palomarez, the CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “Some years ago I was having lunch with a Hispanic entrepreneur in Austin and he asked me a question: He said, ‘When was the last time you saw a Hispanic panhandler?’ It’s a great question…. I’m not sure I’ve...

Wisconsin and Minnesota have long made fascinating bookends. As longtime readers may recall, the two neighboring states have similar sizes, similar populations, similar demographics, and even similar climates. But they don’t necessarily have similar politics, at least not lately. In the 2010 elections, the Badger State elected Scott Walker (R) governor and gave control of the legislature to Republicans, while the Gopher State made Mark Dayton (D) governor and, in 2012, elected a Democratic legislature*. The former got to work targeting collective bargaining and approving tax cuts, while the latter raised taxes on the wealthy and boosted in-state investments. Nearly...