Free Republic

Pennsylvania Republicans moved on Wednesday to seek personal information on every voter in the state as part of a brewing partisan review of the 2020 election results, rubber-stamping more than a dozen subpoenas for driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. The expansive request for personal information, directed at Pennsylvania’s Department of State and approved in a vote by Republicans on a State Senate subcommittee, is the first major step of the election inquiry. The move adds Pennsylvania to a growing list of states that have embarked on partisan-led reviews of the 2020 election, including a widely criticized attempt...

U.S. prosecutors this week put a price tag on damage to the U.S. Capitol from the Jan. 6 breach — $1.5 million so far — and for the first time are asking defendants to cover some of the bill in plea offers, prosecutors and defense lawyers said. The U.S. attorney’s office in Washington cited the damage estimate Wednesday in court and in plea papers filed in the case of Paul Hodgkins, 38. The Tampa crane operator pleaded guilty to one felony count of obstructing an official proceeding of Congress and faces sentencing July 19 in Washington. “Your client acknowledges that...

The mainstream media goons who shrieked and moaned about a “free press” during the Trump administration are pretty mum after the Biden admin announced that they will be charging reporters for their COVID tests every time they enter the building. Without taking the $170 test, reporters will not be allowed to enter the building to go to press briefings. The Washington Post reported on Friday that the White House is seeking to put the new charges in place on Monday. Charges this high would make it much harder for smaller and independent outlets to get into the briefings, which would...

MILWAUKEE — Gerry Winkleman points across the Milwaukee River at the former tannery where he worked for almost two decades as a union welder, repairing blow pipes and net machines that produced thousands of leather shoes and handbags every year. Follow the latest on Election 2020 Winkleman, 74, drives through a stretch of downtown Milwaukee that once served as a hub of U.S. manufacturing, pausing occasionally to note the factories that have either shuttered or moved their production to China over the past three decades: the Pabst and Schlitz breweries; the Allis-Chalmers manufacturing giant; several different tanneries; the Briggs &...

President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on Jan. 20, immediately forecasting that the country's politics have shifted and that his presidency will be guided by radically different priorities. He will rejoin the Paris climate accords, according to those close to his campaign and commitments he has made in recent months, and he will reverse President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the World Health Organization. He will repeal the ban on immigration from many Muslim-majority countries, and he will reinstate the program allowing "dreamers," who were brought to the United...

Born amid made-up crowd size claims and “alternative facts,” the Trump presidency has been a factory of falsehood from the start, churning out distortions, conspiracy theories and brazen lies at an assembly-line pace that has challenged fact-checkers and defied historical analogy. But now, President Donald Trump argues that the vote itself is inherently “rigged,” tearing at the credibility of the system. Should the contest go into extra innings through legal challenges after Tuesday, it may leave a public with little faith in the outcome - and in its own democracy. The New York Times tabulated 131 false or misleading statements...

Joseph R. Biden Jr. holds a clear advantage over President Trump across four of the most important presidential swing states, a new poll shows, bolstered by the support of voters who did not participate in the 2016 election and who now appear to be turning out in large numbers to cast their ballots, mainly for the Democrat. Mr. Biden, the former vice president, is ahead of Mr. Trump in the Northern battlegrounds of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, as well as in the Sun Belt states of Florida and Arizona, according to a poll of likely voters conducted by The New York...

The complaints from President Donald Trump and his allies have been growing louder as the election approaches: Why isn’t the mainstream media covering the Hunter Biden laptop story? Trump and his allies say there is evidence of corruption in emails and documents allegedly found on a laptop belonging to Democrat Joe Biden’s son. They say those and other documents show that Hunter Biden used his father’s influence to enrich himself through business deals in Ukraine and China, and that his father not only facilitated that, but may have benefited financially. But the Wall Street Journal and Fox News — among...

Ain't memory lane a real KITA sometimes. Sixteen years ago, almost to the day, I was engaging in a running duel with the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, and one of his imbecile reporters whose name I have mercifully forgot. The ugly story is contained in my "j'accuse" letter that was hand delivered, subsequently posted on the Swift Vets site. Free Republic picked it up there. It's long but (I think) immensely relevant (spooky, almost) to current events in re: Trump v. Biden election. I hope you may agree. Meanwhile, I am gloating that my "hex" on the Post...

The Virginia Military Institute’s Board of Visitors has unanimously voted to remove the school’s Stonewall Jackson statue from campus. The move comes after Kaleb Tucker and other black alumni started a campaign for the statue’s removal, citing racism at the institute experienced by black cadets. The board concurred on forming a diversity office and diversity and inclusion panel, The Washington Post reported.Tucker co-created a petition five months ago which urges the school to “acknowledge racism” and remove the statue. It has received over 1,000 signatures, according to Change.org. (RELATED: Virginia Military Institute Superintendent Resigns After School Faces Racism Allegations)“If something or someone is in place that does...

WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Biden Jr. and his son Hunter talk every day, typically a fast check-in initiated by the Democratic presidential nominee, often from the back of a car between campaign stops. Although Mr. Biden tries to touch base with his two grown children and five grandchildren once a day, doling out “I love yous,” Hunter is a special case. “My only surviving son,” is how the former vice president refers to his “Hunt,” whose battles with addiction have made for a long-running high-wire act within the Biden universe. The stresses of Mr. Biden’s presidential campaign have made an...

A Washington Post story wrongly claimed the Trump administration accused Billie Eilish of “destroying our country” — then spread like wildfire among the entertainment industry. The article on Thursday — in part about hundreds of celebrities being vetted for a Trump administration coronavirus ad campaign — included a misattributed quote from the White House about Eilish. SNIP The flub was picked up by Vice editor Jill Krajewski, who noted that “an embarrassing number of music outlets” including Complex, NME, Consequence of Sound and The Fader aggregated the misreported Washington Post story.

Donald Trump has criticized Minnesota's Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison as COVID-19 restrictions in the state have forced the Trump campaign to downsize a rally due to be held on Friday. The president's rally was originally planned for Rochester Airport, but reports on Thursday indicated that the campaign had moved the event to the property of two businesses in the city of Dodge Center. However, after some confusion, it was later announced that the rally would take place at the airport and that entry would be restricted to the first 250 people to arrive. -snip- In response...

CNN refused to run a pro-Trump ad submitted by America First Action PAC on the ground that the ad, which predicts middle-class tax increases if Joe Biden wins, isn’t true. Jim Treacher has the details. CNN seems obviously to be wrong; Biden has promised to reverse the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut taxes for (as I recall) something like 82% of American households. The middle class must be in there somewhere. I don’t think anyone takes CNN seriously as anything other than a mouthpiece for the DNC, so there is no point in getting exercised about it. All...

.Despite the document's questionable authorship and anonymous sourcing, its claims that Hunter Biden has a problematic connection to the Communist Party of China have been used by people who oppose the Chinese government, as well as by far-right influencers, to baselessly accuse candidate Joe Biden of being beholden to the Chinese government...