Free Republic

Officials in Kyiv and several Western countries rejected claims made without evidence by the Kremlin that Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb” — an explosive weapon designed to scatter radioactive material — on its own territory, characterizing them as an attempt by Russia to create a pretext for escalating the conflict. “We all reject Russia’s transparently false allegations that Ukraine is preparing to use a dirty bomb on its own territory,” foreign ministers from the United States, France and the United Kingdom said in a Sunday joint statement, after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu made the unfounded claim...

Former president Donald Trump’s company charged the Secret Service as much as five times more than the government rate for agents to stay overnight at Trump hotels while protecting him and his family, according to expense records newly obtained by Congress. The records show that in 40 cases the Trump Organization billed the Secret Service far higher amounts than the approved government rate — in one case charging agents $1,185 a night to stay at the Trump International Hotel in D.C. The new billing documents, according to a congressional committee’s review, show that U.S. taxpayers paid the president’s company at...

“There’s just a lament for what’s happened to the party and a real sense of disgust at election denialism, the lies, and the extent to which these candidates ape Trump,” Longwell said. “As the party has changed, there’s a group of Republicans who feel alienated despite being Republican voters their whole lives.” Trump plots aggressive midterm strategy seen in GOP as a double-edged sword This group may be relatively small: Surveys show Trump continues to command overwhelming support among Republican voters. But in closely contested elections, even a small number of Republicans who cross over, split tickets or stay home...

Starve your own voters to own the libs. That appears to be Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s latest strategy for reaching the White House, given his decision to deliberately snarl traffic on the U.S. southern border — leaving food to rot and critical components for cars and other manufacturing to remain inaccessible to U.S. companies and consumers. Last week, Abbott (R) announced that state troopers would begin “enhanced” safety inspections of commercial vehicles crossing the border, ostensibly to catch illegal immigrants and drugs. Now, federal officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) already inspect vehicles crossing the border for human trafficking...

Regular folks and history buffs who believe Maryland leaned strongly toward the Confederacy during the Civil War era have never lacked evidence for the claim. It was a Marylander, after all, on the U.S. Supreme Court who wrote the opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which found that Black people were not citizens — a ruling that helped spark the fighting. And Marylanders voted for a Southern sympathizer, not Abraham Lincoln, for president in the election of 1860. Then, some 20,000 Marylanders took up arms for the Confederacy. But such facts can be deceiving if looked at in...

DAVENPORT, Fla. — By June, Meli Feliciano’s family appeared to have finally found a measure of stability after being jolted by the economic devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. Her husband had secured a good job in construction, and she was receiving hundreds of dollars in weekly federal and state unemployment aid, giving her some breathing room while she submitted job applications each week. She kept records of it all in a pink binder that her daughter had once used in kindergarten. That’s when calamity struck. Her husband fell ill, temporarily wiping out his income. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) slashed...

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...

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...

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...

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.