Free Republic

IN HIS FINAL days in the White House, Donald Trump told top advisers he needed to preserve certain Russia-related documents to keep his enemies from destroying them. The documents related to the federal investigation into Russian election meddling and alleged collusion with Trump’s campaign. At the end of his presidency, Trump and his team pushed to declassify these so-called “Russiagate” documents, believing they would expose a “Deep State” plot against him. According to a person with direct knowledge of the situation and another source briefed on the matter, Trump told several people working in and outside the White House that...

My colleagues at Rolling Stone recently endorsed Joe Biden for president: Biden’s lived experience and expansive empathy make him not just a good, but an outstanding candidate… This is a fight between light and darkness… Joe Biden is a corpse with hair plugs whose idea of “empathy” is to jam fingers in the sternums of people who ask the wrong questions, or call them “fat” or “full of shit,” or dare them to “try me” — and that’s if he remembers what state he’s in. Is he a better human than Donald Trump? Probably, but his mental decline has hit...

....In a dark season of pestilence, COVID has reduced to tatters the illusion of American exceptionalism. At the height of the crisis, with more than 2,000 dying each day, Americans found themselves members of a failed state, ruled by a dysfunctional and incompetent government largely responsible for death rates that added a tragic coda to America’s claim to supremacy in the world....

As 2019 wound down, well-known press figures sounded alarms about the “erosion of truth.” MSNBC’s Chuck Todd spoke to our own Peter Wade about the “epidemic” of “disinformation.” Washington Post editor Marty Baron and New York Times editor Dean Baquet joined Todd on Meet The Press to talk about how the Internet and Donald Trump and Russia are all combining to create an era in which “crazy conspiracy theories” and “absolute falsehoods and lies” can proliferate. This isn’t a new idea. Since 2016 especially, a wide array of American politicians and think-tanks have been hammering the idea that the free...

Rolling Stone magazine recently published an article titled "Trump 2020: Be Very Afraid," which carries the following subtitle: "America is the first country to ever elect a Mad King, and the way things are going, we may be dumb enough to do it twice." The author, Matt Taibbi, sat down with CNN's "New Day" on Tuesday morning. Among other things, Taibbi said the enthusiasm at Trump's campaign events this year is even greater than it was in 2016, and reporters who cover Trump are not explaining that. "What is the magic that he doles out?" CNN's Alisyn Camerota, not a...

After agreeing with Marianne Williamson that reparations haven’t been talked about “truthfully and honestly,” Harris turned her attention to Biden, whose history regarding bussing and, more recently, his praise of a segregationist senator he worked with decades ago, has come under fire. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bussed to school every day,” Harris added. “That little girl was me.” Biden started to defend himself, then abruptly stopped. “My time is up,” he said.

Think about what happened here, about what is described in that report. The country’s elections were attacked by a foreign power. Russia is a vote suppressor. Understanding that,what motivation would this President have to move a finger to stop them? Or the Republican Party, for that matter? Theonly hope for accountability, perhaps before a court of law after Trump isno longer President, is theDemocratic Party that has the power to start impeachment proceedings. Should Democrats take impeachment off thetable, they would let Trump get away with it. It is that elementary. There is no guarantee that he will not repeat...

Neoconservatives, the architects of the War on Terror, are the political version of Jason in Friday the 13th: You can never bank on them being completely dead. They just hide under a log until the next funder appears. The neocon media tribune, the Weekly Standard, did indeed fold recently. In no time they had a new voice: The Bulwark, edited by former Weekly Standard and current NBC/MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes, with Weekly Standard founder

Nothing unites our political class like the threat of ending our never-ending war So we’re withdrawing troops from the Middle East. GOOD! What’s the War on Terror death count by now, a half-million? How much have we spent, $5 trillion? Five-and-a-half? Unless Donald Trump decides to reverse his decision to begin withdrawals from Syria and Afghanistan, cable news for the next few weeks is going to be one long Scanners marathon of exploding heads. “Today’s decision would cheer Moscow, ISIS, and Iran!” yelped Nicole Wallace, former George W. Bush communications director. “Maybe Trump will bring Republicans and Democrats together,” said...

Swift’s endorsement is not without commercial risk. According to an analysis by the New York Times, she is most popular in rural areas in the West and Midwest that tend to vote conservative, like Utah, Montana and Nevada, and only modestly popular in Tennessee...."OUR GIRL no more," one posted. "They took her from us and turned her into one of their brain dead zombies," another wrote.

Are you rooting hard for President Trump to be impeached and removed from office? Or, as the anonymous New York Times op-ed last week discussed, hoping there will be an invocation of the (completely unrealistic) 25th Amendment? Or better yet, for him to hang his head in shame and resign? If so, you’re certainly not alone, as every passing day there is new reason to doubt Trump’s competence and evidence linking him to criminal behavior is piling up. But there’s a huge risk: If Trump vacates the office, we could face almost 10 years of President Mike Pence. Is that...

If you have been on Twitter recently then you know the red hot hashtag that is #ReleaseTheMemo. So why the popularity? Well, according to Rolling Stone, it is due in large part to the Russians. Yes, the Russians Are Coming to Twitter in the form of their bots to hype that hashtag. The subtitle of Rolling Stone's silly article by Bob Moser explains it: "Republicans claim a secret document reveals a Hillary Clinton plot 'worse than Watergate'– and they're getting a big boost from Russian bots."  Therefore it is not really an authentic hashtag, or so Rolling Stone wants you to believe...

What to make of the career of Jann Wenner, who is selling the magazine he founded, Rolling Stone, capping a remarkable career in publishing? In the Age of Trump, we are instructed to admire successful businessmen, those who have, as the president likes to put it, “built a great company.” Wenner is nothing if not that. In 1967, he borrowed $7,500 from his family, including his future in-laws, about $50,000 in contemporary terms. Wenner is a child of privilege (he was a few years behind Maureen Reagan at the Chadwick School) and that loan was nothing to sniff at, but...

Lana Del Rey has joined a nationwide occult effort that seeks to remove President Donald Trump from office through the power of witchcraft. On Thursday, Del Rey mysteriously tweeted, "At the stroke of midnight Feb 24, March 26, April 24, May 23. Ingredients can b found online." While early speculation wondered whether the tweet had something to do with her upcoming LP, those four dates aligned with the lunar calendar's "waning crescent moon ritual dates." Occultists noted that, on those four dates, practitioners of witchcraft would congregate for a mass ritual that would with the hope that their efforts resulted...

One hesitates to give attention to Jesse A. Myerson. But it's probably worth it, if for no other reason to contend that many of his beliefs are likely shared by the mindless lemmings disguised as "journalists" who wildly cheered on Saturday when an obviously orchestrated "climate change" agreement designed ultimately to redistribute massive amounts of wealth from developed to underdeveloped countries — which would virtually guarantee that they will stay undeveloped — was announced in Paris. Almost two years ago, Myerson, whose experience includes "the Media and Labor Outreach committees at Occupy Wall Street," identified of "Five Economic Reforms Millennials...

Rolling Stone magazine admitted Friday that their trust in the source for an article documenting a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia was “misplaced,” following widespread speculation about the story’s credibility. Managing Editor Will Dana apologized in a letter to readers Friday for the “discrepancies” in the accuser’s story. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/5/rolling-stone-apologizes-for-uva-rape-article-admi/#ixzz3L3JIvkJP Follow us: @washtimes on Twitter

Together, Charles and David Koch control one of the world's largest fortunes, which they are using to buy up our political system. But what they don't want you to know is how they made all that money. The enormity of the Koch fortune is no mystery. Brothers Charles and David are each worth more than $40 billion. The electoral influence of the Koch brothers is similarly well-chronicled. The Kochs are our homegrown oligarchs; they've cornered the market on Republican politics and are nakedly attempting to buy Congress and the White House. Their political network helped finance the Tea Party and...

No need to pick up the latest issue of Rolling Stone to learn which are “the 5 most dangerous guns in America;” National Review’s Charles C. W. Cooke has recompiled the exhaustive list at NRO. Drum roll, please. 1.Pistols 2.Revolvers 3. Rifles 4. Shotguns 5. Derringers Rolling Stone based its ratings on “a combination of availability, portability and criminal usage.” Some, however, question the expertise of Rolling Stone when it comes to deadly weapons. Professional marksman “Top Shot” Chris Cheng, for example, retweeted this alternative list of dangerous knives.

You remember those, right?If you ever wonder where delusional left-wingers get their ideas that what is happening in the world, it's useful to know your history. They didn't just start believing crazy things when George W. Bush won the Florida recount, or when dastardly Republicans started criticizing Barack Obama. They've been this way for a long time.And as is so often the case, the insanity is influenced and often led by figures in pop culture. REM front man Michael Stipe provided a perfect example in a recent statement about why, back in the 1980s, he decided not to get tested...

Three years ago, a 23-year-old soldier walked off his base in Afghanistan and into the hands of the Taliban. Now he’s a crucial pawn in negotiations to end the war. Will the Pentagon leave a man behind? Bowe's own tour of duty in Afghanistan mirrored the larger American experience in the war – marked by tragedy, confusion, misplaced idealism, deluded thinking and, perhaps, a moment of insanity. And it is with Bowe that the war will likely come to an end. On May 1st, in a surprise visit to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, President Obama announced that...