Free Republic

In a surprise move, an Illinois judge has removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s so-called “insurrectionist ban.” The decision is paused, giving Trump a short period of time to appeal.

Russia carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears to have failed while President Joe Biden was in Ukraine on Monday, according to two US officials familiar with the matter. Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through deconfliction lines, one official said. Another official said that the test did not pose a risk to the United States and that the US did not view the test as an anomaly or an escalation. The test of the heavy SARMAT missile – nicknamed the Satan II in the West and capable of delivering multiple nuclear...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has given several explanations for his country's war on Ukraine, and some are more plausible than others. They include stopping NATO's advance towards Russia's borders, protecting fellow Russians from "genocide" or the baseless claim of "de-Nazifying" Ukraine. The top-ranking priest in the Russian Orthodox Church, meanwhile, has offered a very different reason for the invasion: gay pride parades. Patriarch Kirill said last week that the conflict is an extension of a fundamental culture clash between the wider Russian world and Western liberal values, exemplified by expressions of gay pride. Yet experts say that Kirill's comments offer...

"A U.S. federal judge ruled in favor of the relatives of former national security adviser Michael Flynn Thursday, allowing them to move forward with a lawsuit against CNN. The relatives, Flynn's brother and sister-in-law, allege that CNN wrongly portrayed them as QAnon conspiracy followers, according to a report. While U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Woods mostly upheld a magistrate judge's recommendation to throw out the pair's defamation case, he allowed the Flynns to proceed with accusations that CNN portrayed them in a "false light." ..."

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, one of the few high-profile news personalities who retained a reputation of integrity as the channel he worked for leaned hard into right-wing and conspiratorial programming, announced Sunday that he is departing the network and joining CNN+ to host a weekday show. Wallace made the stunning announcement of his departure from Fox News at the end of "Fox News Sunday," the channel's flagship weekly program that he has moderated since 2003. "After 18 years — this is my final 'Fox News Sunday.' It is the last time, and I say this with real sadness, we...

John Griffin, 44, of Stamford, Connecticut has been arrested charged with enticing minors to engage in unlawful sexual activity From April to July of 2020, Griffin allegedly used online messaging applications to communicate with people purporting to be the parents of minor daughters He allegedly attempted to impress ideas, that a 'woman is a woman regardless of her age,' and that women should be sexually subservient and inferior to men Griffin who was a producer with CNN is alleged to have sought to persuade parents to allow him to 'train their daughters to be sexually submissive' In June 2020, Griffin...

(CNN)As former President Donald Trump prepares for a potential comeback bid in 2024, his allies are flocking to election jobs all the way down to the local level in key battleground states, raising new concerns that the election officials who blocked Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election won't be there the next time around. Trump himself has endorsed candidates for secretary of state and attorney general -- statewide races that play a crucial role in administering elections -- who have spread his lies about 2020. But in addition to statewide roles, Trump's acolytes are pursuing local election posts, even...

"I am a hunter -- and I think you should be hunted," a woman can be heard saying in a voicemail left for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs in September. "You will never be safe in Arizona again." Or there's the man who spit, "Die you bitch, die! Die you bitch, die!" repeatedly into the phone, in another of several dozen threatening and angry voicemails directed at the Democratic secretary of state and shared exclusively with CNN by her office. Officials and aides in secretary of state offices in Arizona and other states targeted by former President Donald Trump...

(CNN)A member of a scientific coalition advising Puerto Rico's government on the coronavirus pandemic recently joked about the island's high Covid-19 vaccination rate, attributing it to the proliferation of drug store chains on the island.... The Caribbean island -- in recent years pummeled by deadly hurricanes, rocked by earthquakes, beset by political unrest and saddled by debt -- has quietly managed to outpace even New England states with the highest vaccination rates in the country.... ..."Best I can tell, they've done this largely by not tying vaccines to politics," Jha wrote last weekend. "They pay less attention to mainland politics....

After months of progress in the fight against Covid-19, cases are rising again as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads across the US. States with below-average vaccination rates have almost triple the rate of new Covid-19 cases compared to states with above-average vaccination rates, according to new data from Johns Hopkins University. As of Sunday, states with lower rates of vaccination reported an average of 6 new cases per 100,000 residents every day over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins. States with higher vaccination rates reported an average of 2.2 new cases per 100,000 residents each day over the...

Auditors hired by the Arizona state Senate backtracked Tuesday from claims that a key database had been deleted from Maricopa County's elections servers -- admitting in a hearing held by the Senate Republicans overseeing the audit that the data is intact and they'd been looking the wrong way...But, Maricopa County officials explained and auditors acknowledged Tuesday, those conducting the audit had made a technical mistake and the database was never deleted...RAID arrays, used in enterprise servers, are designed for redundancy: They split data among multiple hard drives in a way that allows the data stored on those drives to be...

CNN's Brian Stelter took to Twitter on Saturday to let his followers know that he has been struggling with the Wuhan coronavirus. According to the left-wing talking head, he spent Friday night in bed, crying about Americans' "pre-pandemic lives." Brian Stelter ✔@brianstelter Last night, I hit a wall. Gutted by the death toll. Disturbed by the govt's shortcomings. Dismayed by political rhetoric that bears no resemblance to reality. Worried about friends who are losing jobs; kids who are missing school; and senior citizens who are living in fear. 17.7K 8:24 AM - Apr 18, 2020 Brian Stelter ✔@brianstelter Replying to...

CNN is under fire for allegedly publishing "Chinese propaganda" in a report that cites a media outlet controlled by the Chinese government. On Monday, CNN.com ran an article about China People's Liberation Army (PLA) supposedly having a foothold in the spread of the coronavirus in a branch of its military, running the headline, "China's PLA Navy is controlling coronavirus and aircraft carrier's deployment proves it, report says." "A Chinese naval flotilla headed into the Pacific over the weekend, evidence that the People's Liberation Army Navy has done a much better job controlling coronavirus than the US Navy, according to a...

CNN’s Jake Tapper took heat Tuesday for retweeting a post from conservative lawyer George Conway — a frequent critic of President Trump and the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway — that called the commander-in-chief “100% insane.” The CNN anchor on Monday retweeted Conway’s post, which said Trump “is 100% insane and nobody in the administration has the balls to tell him that,” The Hill reported. Tapper retweeted it again Tuesday while adding: “Noteworthy comment on folks in the administration from a Trump critic who knows a lot of them.”