Free Republic

Left-wing activists in at least 11 states have launched efforts to place abortion on the ballot in November — and proposed constitutional amendments have officially qualified for the ballots in five of those states. When the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision on June 24, 2022 — exactly two years ago — it overturned Roe v. Wade, which had invented a federal right to abortion for 50 years. The Dobbs decision thus returned the issue of abortion to individual states and their elected representatives, changing the nature of the struggle between the pro-life movement and the abortion industry. Pro-abortion organizations...

Vice President Kamala Harris said on Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that former President Donald Trump has been “insulting” to black voters. Mika Brzezinski said, “Donald Trump says he connects with black voters, now especially, because of his felony conviction.” At a campaign rally in South Carolina, Trump said, “I got indicted a second time and a third time and a fourth time, and a lot of people said that that’s why the Black people like me, because they have been hurt so badly and discriminated against, and they actually viewed me as I’m being discriminated against.” Brzezinski said,...

Former President Barack Obama is anxious about President Joe Biden’s chances of reelection, so he has “increasingly involved” himself in the Biden campaign, sources told New York Magazine. Obama’s involvement reportedly began after Biden campaign officials realized in late 2023 that they would face former President Donald Trump in a historic rematch. Trump has about a two-in-three chance of completing the greatest political comeback in modern American politics, an Economist model forecast in June. In addition, 73 percent of voters think Biden is too old to be an effective president, a New York Times/Siena College survey in March showed, including...

A consumer research group surveyed electric vehicle (EV) owners all around the world and found 46 percent of American EV owners regret their purchase and are “very likely” to switch back to the internal combustion engine (ICE). Around the world, 29 percent of EV owners said they will go back to the ICE. The top concerns are the lack of a reliable charging infrastructure, the costs involved in owning an EV, and anxiety about long-distance trips. Philipp Kampshoff, leader of the consulting firm Center for Future Mobility, told Automotive News he was surprised by the 49 percent number in the...

State legislators and law enforcement are reinstating dormant laws that criminalize mask-wearing to penalize pro-Palestinian protesters who conceal their faces, raising concerns among covid-cautious Americans. Republican lawmakers in North Carolina are poised to overturn Gov. Roy Cooper’s (D) recent veto of legislation to criminalize masking. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said earlier this month she supports legislative efforts to ban masks on the subway, citing an incident where masked protesters on a train shouted, “Raise your hands if you’re a Zionist. This is your chance to get out.” Student protesters in Ohio, Texas and Florida have been threatened with...

Second gentleman Doug Emhoff in a Sunday interview argued the significance of President Biden winning another term is so important, “the world depends” on it. Emhoff made the comments during an interview on CBS “Sunday Morning,” after being asked if he ever thought about how he and Vice President Harris could move back to California if the election were lost, and everything would be “just fine.” “We’re going to win this election. We have to win this election. Literally. Our country, and our world depends on us winning this election,” Emhoff responded. “That’s what’s gonna happen.” The top principals in...

A young supporter of Donald Trump was brought to tears at a campaign stop when the former president stopped to meet with him, as he was dressed like his twin. Before speaking to Philadelphia voters at Temple University on Saturday, Trump made a pit stop at Tony and Nick’s Steaks where the viral encounter happened. A video with nearly five million views shows a boy donning a blue suit and blonde wig grinning from ear-to-ear as the Republican addressed him and presented him with a signed $20 bill. “You know who that is? That’s Andrew Jackson,” Trump could be heard...

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that if former President Donald Trump wins the election, Republicans “are coming after abortion, contraception and IVF in every single state in this country.” Warren said, “We need three things. We need access to abortion. We need access to contraception, and we need access to IVF. The Republicans have blocked all three. They have laid out their plan to say they’re not going to permit women to have those three, and have access to them. The Democrats are fully on board. If we have the trifecta, the House, the Senate,...

Snopes.com, perhaps the most well-known fact-checking website, has finally confirmed — seven years later — that President Donald Trump did not refer to neo-Nazis in Charlottesville in August 2017 as “very fine people.” The false claim was central to President Joe Biden’s election in 2020. He used it to launch his campaign in April 2019, claiming he had been inspired to run against President Trump because the latter called neo-Nazis “very fine people.”

During the online “Overtime” segment of Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) argued that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) case against the former President were bad cases that shouldn’t have been brought and wouldn’t have been brought if they were about anyone other than Trump and if Trump wasn’t a presidential candidate. After host Bill Maher brought up the Bragg case, Cuomo said, “That case, the attorney general’s case in New York, should have never...

President Joe Biden plans to be very aggressive during the debate with former President Donald Trump, according to a Biden campaign official. Biden’s most important task will be “to show that he is not diminished and is capable of carrying out presidential duties in a second term,” Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, told the Financial Times on Friday. “[Biden] needs to shake things up,” political analyst Charlie Cook said. “Debates usually don’t, but certainly could. There are not many known potential inflection points in presidential races, but debates are certainly a possibility.”

Israeli forces on Friday conducted an attack on tent camps holding displaced Palestinians in Gaza, leaving at least 25 people dead and another 50 wounded, according to emergency and health workers in Gaza. The attack occurred near Gaza’s southern city of Rafah, close by to a Red Cross field hospital, which received at least 22 deceased individuals and 45 others who were wounded, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Friday.

CNN commentator Van Jones said Thursday on CNN’s “Situation Room” that former President Donald Trump could pick Kermit the Frog as his running mate and that Republicans would still vote for him. Host Wolf Blitzer said, “What do you make of the fact that almost all of these Trump potential vice presidential finalists have previously been very, very critical of Trump?” Jones said, “Well, I mean, pretty much every human being on earth has been critical of Trump because Trump does stuff that demands criticism. He gets indicted, he gets impeached, he insults people, he’s awful. If you had a...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a federal law banning domestic violence abusers from having a gun, noting that it shows a “glimmer of hope” from the justices. Hochul joined MSNBC’s Alex Witt Friday to discuss the decision from the high court and her efforts to disarm abusers in New York state. Witt asked Hochul if she was surprised that the justices upheld the law, given the same conservative justices overturned other gun-related measures.

A large group of pro-Israel counter-protesters rushed to demonstrate outside a synagogue and Jewish school targeted Thursday in Los Angeles by a mob of pro-Palestinian activists. The confrontation began earlier Thursday, when the pro-Palestinian activists showed up at the school in Valley Village, an area with a large Jewish population in the San Fernando Valley region of L.A. HAPPENING NOW Outside the school at Shaarey Zedek Congregation in Valley Village Protestors yelling in loudspeaker at Jewish school: “FREE FREE PALESTINE!” Parent: “You’re coming to our school?!” Protestors: “Go across the street if you’re going to be an agitator!”… pic.twitter.com/v9Z1uGvV9C —...

Former President Donald Trump will be holding a rally with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) in the Old Dominion State the day after the first 2024 presidential debate, which is on Thursday. According to reports, Youngkin plans to appear at the rally, which is set to take place on Friday, the day after CNN’s presidential debate. CBS News first reported on the “large” planned event. “One of the areas they are looking to hold the rally is Virginia Beach/ Chesapeake area which has a heavy military population,” according to CBS News’s Olivia Rinaldi. A source familiar confirms that Gov. Youngkin...

Human rights activist Martin Luther King III is slamming North Carolina GOP gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson in new ads accusing him of rejecting the Civil Rights movement that King’s father and others led. The ads that the liberal-leaning group Progress NC Action released show King discussing comments Robinson has made about aspects of that movement and his father, Martin Luther King Jr. Robinson, who is North Carolina’s lieutenant governor, is the Republican nominee for governor and is running against state Attorney General Josh Stein (D). In one ad, King rejects any comparison between his father and Robinson, saying the “blatant...

On Tuesday afternoon, Massachusetts experienced a statewide disruption in its emergency calling system, caused by a malfunctioning firewall from the state’s 911 vendor, Comtech. Ars Technica reports that the Massachusetts government issued a press release this week detailing the cause of the two-hour 911 outage that affected the entire state. According to the statement, a preliminary investigation conducted by the State 911 Department and Comtech revealed that the interruption was the result of a firewall malfunction. This security feature, designed to protect against cyberattacks and hacking, inadvertently prevented emergency calls from reaching dispatch centers, also known as Public Safety Answer...

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said Thursday on CNN’s “Newsnight” that advocates for a second Trump term were “deceiving people” on his foreign policy. Host Abby Phillip asked, “Former President Trump said in an interview tonight he once again praised Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader. And this comes right after Vladimir Putin and Kim just struck this week a defense deal. I wonder, what does the alliance between Kim and Putin look like if Trump is elected again? He seems to constantly want to butter up this dictator. Bolton said, “Well, the Putin-Kim meeting in Korea was...

President Joe Biden is preparing for his debate next Thursday with former President Donald Trump as if he were “cramming for a final,” according to a former Biden aide. The former aide told NBC News that entails Biden talking things through, looking at briefing materials, and writing on cards how he might want to say specific things. Biden has famously relied on notecards when delivering talking points — and has still been unable to deliver those talking points correctly. However, Biden will be unable to use prepared notecards during the debate. According to the debate rules, no pre-written notes can...