Free Republic

Kari Lake, the perpetually soft-lit, camera-ready political newcomer from Arizona, may have lost her bid to become the state's next governor, but it's unlikely she'll leave the spotlight. A Phoenix-area news anchor for 22 years, Lake called it quits in 2021 and decided to go all in on politics. She fended off better-funded, more qualified GOP challengers in the primaries and ran a ground game in the general election in which she regularly made headlines for tearing into fellow reporters and mocking her political opponent. Lake ran a full Trumpist campaign and pushed a familiar but divisive message that questioned...

A Republican running for a seat in the Arizona Legislature is facing criticism after two pictures that appeared to show her in blackface and brownface surfaced with just a few weeks to go before the midterm elections. The two photographs released on social media are believed to show Mary Ann Mendoza, a Republican, dressed in an "Aunt Jemima" costume with blackface and dressed as the Native American figure Pocahontas with her face painted brown. The Washington Examiner has not been able to verify the photos independently, but Mendoza's political opponents have already used them to paint Mendoza as a racist....

The mayor and police chief urged city council members to slow down discussions about the budget The Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that would begin the process of defunding the police department. The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city's police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers' Guild. The plan would ultimately slash funding to the department but not the 50% some had sought. Seattle currently has around 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cut. It was also cut the police department's $400 million budget by...

The Seattle City Council voted Monday to move forward with a controversial proposal that would begin the process of defunding the police department. The 7-1 vote comes despite objections from the city's police chief, mayor and the Seattle Police Officers' Guild. The plan would ultimately slash funding to the department but not the 50% some had sought. Seattle currently has around 1,400 police officers, and the current plan would see about 100 cut. It was also cut the police department's $400 million budget by about $3 million, according to KOMO. Councilmember Kshama Sawant was the sole "no" vote because she...

The Israeli military confirmed on Monday there had been a "security incident" on the country's northern border with Lebanon and said its forces were engaged in "ongoing combat" with Hezbollah militants. Local media reported an exchange of fire in an area known as Chebaa Farms, which was captured by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war and is claimed by Lebanon. Most of the Israeli civilians were ordered to remain indoors amid the heaving fighting between the bitter rivals in nearly a year. Residents near the border said the fighting lasted about an hour and that there was a series...

The Mississippi capital named after Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, voted on Tuesday to remove the former Southern populist's statue from the grounds of City Hall in a 5-to-1 vote. Jackson council members decided to relocate the statue as it becomes another city forced to confront the legacies of slave-owning presidents amid a cultural shift and national reckoning triggered by the death of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed by a White police officer in Minneapolis.

Protesters in New York City spent a second straight night camped out in front of City Hall to demand a $1 billion cut to the police department's budget. The group of about 100 protesters, calling themselves "Occupy City Hall," gathered at a nearby park around 5 p.m. Tuesday and haven't left. They have vowed to stay until their demand to slash one-sixth of the New York Police Department's $6 billion budget is met. The protesters say the money saved should be redistributed to social and community services as well as health care and education.

The director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said Friday that William Bryan, the neighbor who filmed Ahmaud Arbery's death, was not a good Samaritan or simply a witness as Bryan has claimed, but a significant player in the February killing of the unarmed black man. "If we believed he was a witness, we wouldn't have arrested him," GBI Director Vic Reynolds said Friday. "There's probable cause and we're comfortable with that." Bryan, who filmed the four-minute chase and shooting death of Arbery, was arrested Thursday evening. The 50-year-old was taken into custody and charged with felony murder and criminal...

Florida Democrats on Saturday were put on notice and told by the state's new voter protection director to expect a recount during next year's presidential election. Brandon Peters, who was hired by the state party in May, told a packed room of Democratic activists gathered in Orlando that there will be teams of volunteers trained in how to monitor county canvassing boards for recount problems around the state. "We are going to be prepared," Peters said at the party's Leadership Blue 2019 meeting. Florida infamously captured national headlines after the 2000 presidential election. Last year, the state was once again...

A newly-released video is casting doubt on allegations made by a far-right German political party claiming one of its members suffered serious injuries after being attacked by three people in the northern city of Bremen. According to a statement on the AfD Bremen Facebook page, Frank Magnitz was the target of an “assassination attempt.” AfD says Magnitz was knocked unconscious with a piece of wood when he left a New Year's reception at a theater in the city. The party said the attackers continued to beat Magnitz on the head after he was down.

Wilson joins Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.; Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga.; and Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., in boycotting the event..."Rather than listening to another destructive, divisive speech by Trump, I will not attend this year’s annual address to Congress," Blumenauer said in a statement. "Instead, like I did during his inauguration, I'll be working at home listening to Oregonians about what they think about the State of the Union."