Free Republic

CLAIM: Members of Congress gave themselves a 21% pay raise in early March. AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Social media users are misrepresenting a government spending bill that increased funding for legislative office budgets, not lawmakers’ salaries. Members of Congress use these budgets to hire and pay staff, and to manage other official expenses. Annual salaries for members of the House and Senate will remain the same this year, as they have since 2009.

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — They railed against politicians, conducted military-style exercises and spoke darkly of confronting tyrants scheming to seize their guns and enslave them. Yet historian JoEllen Vinyard says the “citizen militia” activists she got to know in the 1990s didn’t seem like the types who would abduct a governor or stage a coup. “I don’t think they were dangerous,” said Vinyard, an Eastern Michigan University professor emeritus and author of a book about far-right movements in the state. “They reminded me of the good old boys I knew growing up in Nebraska.” But as four men charged...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s decision to halt efforts to create a second mostly Black congressional district in Alabama for the 2022 election sparked fresh warnings Tuesday that the court is becoming too politicized, eroding the Voting Rights Act and reviving the need for Congress to intervene. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority put on hold a lower court ruling that Alabama must draw new congressional districts to increase Black voting power. Civil rights groups had argued that the state, with its “sordid record” of racial discrimination, drew new maps by “packing” Black voters into one single district and “cracking”...

CNN anchor Jake Tapper said Sunday on “State of the Union” that the Republican Party was conducting a “bigotry campaign’ while discussing Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) calling Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) the “jihad squad.” When asked about death threats, Omar said, “We receive too many to count. There’s a general fear that I have, my staff has, and the community at large has. We constantly hear from so many people across the country where their children’s hijabs have been pulled off. My daughters have experienced this. I have experienced this as a young person in this country. We know what...

(CNN) American democracy -- under a relentless, multi-front assault from pro-Donald Trump Republicans -- is about to show whether it is strong enough to save itself. Such a premise would have been considered absurd through much of history. But since Trump left office after destroying the tradition of peaceful transfers of power in a failed attempt to steal the 2020 election, it has become clear that his insurrectionism was only the first battle in a longer political war as his allies tout ridiculous fantasies about returning him to power to applause and online acclaim. The mechanisms of American institutions that...

Americans believe that President Biden faced bigger challenges than his predecessor Donald Trump during his first 100 days in office — and performed better than Trump despite those difficulties, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll. The survey of 1,558 U.S. adults, which was conducted from April 27 to April 29, found that less than a third say Trump’s challenges were bigger than Biden’s (31 percent) or that Trump performed better (32 percent) during the first 100 days of his presidency. Pluralities say Biden has performed better than Trump (41 percent) in the face of greater obstacles (37 percent). The...

Just how deep does the hole “60 Minutes” is digging for itself go? Let’s just say they’ve already got both feet in the grave: Members of both parties have accused the venerable newsmagazine show of concocting a “hit piece” accusing the potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate of engaging in a “pay-for-play” scheme involving the grocery store chain Publix. CBS News issued a statement on Tuesday defending its Sunday night report. “When Florida state data revealed people of color were vaccinated at a much lower rate than their wealthier neighbors, ‘60 Minutes’ reported the facts surrounding the vaccine’s rollout, which is...

"60 Minutes" condensed Florida governor's lengthy "pay-to-play" rebuttal down to several seconds. ================================================================= CBS is facing bipartisan backlash after using heavily edited footage of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a"60 Minutes" story alleging potential political corruption on the part of the Republican politician. "60 Minutes" reporter Sharyn Alfonsi alleged in a recent report for the long-running news magazine that wealthy residents of Florida "cut the line during [the state's] frenzied vaccine rollout." In the segment, Alfonsi suggested that the state government's recent decision to award a vaccine distribution contract to the grocery chain Publix had the appearance of potential favoritism....

Donald Trump and his allies have stayed quiet on Matt Gaetz Their silence is deafening as Gaetz struggles to save his political career Gaetz was one of Trump's top allies on Capitol Hill Trump, who has not been shy about blasting out statements on an array of matters, has yet to send one out on Gaetz Anyone that has ever spent 10 minutes with the guy would realize he's an unserious person,' one former Trump campaign aide told Politico of Gaetz

Sharyn Alfonsi: Publix, as you know, donated $100,000 to your campaign, and then you rewarded them with the exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination in Palm Beach— Ron DeSantis: So, first of all, that — what you’re saying is wrong. That’s— Sharyn Alfonsi: How is that not pay-to-play? Ron DeSantis: —that, that’s a fake narrative. So, first of all, when we did, the first pharmacies that had it were CVS and Walgreens. And they had a long term care mission. So they were going to the long term care facilities. They got vaccine in the middle of December, they started...

Has anyone else noticed the the big media meat puppets are now referring to illegal immigration as "Migration"?

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed something they call the "Equality Act," which would, in their lingo, "amend existing federal civil rights laws to extend protections for LGBTQ Americans." But some other Americans would have their "protections" removed. On Thursday morning's New Day, co-host Alisyn Camerota interviewed one of the bill's chief sponsors, freshman Rep. Marie Newman (D-Illinois). When Camerota broached the issue of the Act forcing women to compete in sports against biological "trans" men, she couched it in terms of conservative Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and her allies being "very concerned" about that possibility. In fact, it's...