Free Republic

Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential campaign used pre-checked boxes and obscure design on fundraising emails to wring millions of dollars out of unwitting supporters, detonating a “money bomb” which allowed the Republican to compete against Joe Biden in the last months of the race. The practice, pursued by the campaign and WinRed, a for-profit company, was detailed in an extensive report by the New York Times on Saturday. It is legal, but Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Association of Consumer Advocates, told the paper it was “unfair, unethical and inappropriate”. Another expert quoted by the Times said such “dark...

Imagine you’re trying to count every single person living in the United States. There are two main ways that you can mess up; you can count some people twice and you can miss some people out. In 2010, the Census Bureau made both mistakes, as it always does, because counting people is hard. It double-counted about 3% of people and omitted another 3% and, because those mistakes work in opposite directions, the overall population count was almost perfectly accurate. What’s revealing though is who gets counted twice and who gets left out altogether. That’s where race has historically played a...

As we head back to South Carolina, the state that fought to protect the white primary until the 1950s, it’s as if black voters don’t matter – again In 1896, a moment marked by increased lynchings, violence and disfranchisement, South Carolina added to the woes and created the white primary. The law, which the rest of the one-party south would adopt throughout the Jim Crow era, said only white people could vote in the Democratic primary election. White people, mostly men, would alone choose who would go on to the general election in November. Then, and only then could African...

A federal court has ruled Arizona Republicans’ ban on mail-in ballots is illegal and unconstitutional, calling it intentionally discriminatory toward people of color, who already face increased barriers to voting. The ruling is a major victory for the Democratic party, which filed the suit, and will likely make it easier for minorities to get their ballots counted in the largely red state.

President Donald Trump was "verbally and emotionally abusive" toward Kirstjen Nielsen when she was the secretary of homeland security, according to a new book by the Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig. An excerpt of the book first published by The Post said Trump "made fun of her stature and believed that at about five feet four inches she was not physically intimidating." The president reportedly told others that Nielsen was "so short." Trump would tell Nielsen, "Kirstjen, you're just not tough enough," and say she didn't "look the part" of homeland security secretary, the book reported, according...

It is Neil Shaffer’s job to get Donald Trump re-elected in a patch of rural Iowa that saw the largest swing in voters in the country from America’s first black president to one of its most divisive in 2016. But even Shaffer, the Republican party chair in Howard county, is not sure he’ll be voting for Trump again. The voters who migrated from Barack Obama to Trump in the county on Iowa’s border with Minnesota were among nearly 8 million across the US who switched parties four years ago. In swing states such as Iowa they were decisive in delivering...

...The Luxembourg prime minister did not hold back. The leave campaign had been built on lies, he said. Johnson’s oft-repeated claims of progress in the talks were baseless. London had come up with nothing to replace the backstop. the UK was to blame for the impasse. “I just want to repeat and remind that Theresa May accepted the withdrawal agreement,” he said. Britain’s “homemade” problems were causing “general problems” for the whole of the EU. This was barely concealed anger at the disingenuous game being played by the British government. ..There are grave doubts, after his suspension of parliament and...

Senior Tories rebuff Brexit party leader’s offer of no-deal election pact The Brexit party’s leader, Nigel Farage, has been heavily criticised by Boris Johnson’s team as “not fit and proper” in an outright rejection of his offer of a pre-election, no-deal Brexit pact. Farage offered to help the embattled prime minister secure a majority at a snap general election, on the proviso he dropped plans to renegotiate the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the backstop arrangement on the Northern Irish border. He said the prime minister should accept he needed the Brexit party’s help to take out key Labour seats but...

Teen climate activist Greta Thunberg was joined by swelling and excited crowds of American teenagers at a protest outside the UN headquarters in New York on Friday, in a further blossoming of the youth environment movement given extra thrust by the Swede’s transatlantic boat crossing. Some US children said they were at their first ever climate demonstration; others said they had been passionate about the environment for a while but had been galvanized to act by Thunberg’s rising profile. On Friday afternoon, Thunberg and two young activists were spontaneously invited inside the UN for a meeting with a senior leader,...

Boris Johnson has issued a fresh warning to MPs tempted to try to block a no-deal Brexit, with a senior government official insisting “politicians don’t get to choose which public votes they respect”. Speaking in Biarritz, where Johnson met the European council president, Donald Tusk, on Sunday, the UK official said Johnson had delivered the message to EU leaders that Brexit cannot be stopped. (snip)

Fox channels have mentioned the US congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for 42 consecutive days, a study has found. The 29-year-old liberal star received at least 3,181 mentions in six weeks from Fox News or its sister Fox Business, according to research by Media Matters for America, a not-for-profit media watchdog. The finding will reinforce perceptions that Fox, owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, is obsessed by Ocasio-Cortez, portraying her as a radical socialist who threatens the American way of life.

Europe must get a handle on immigration to combat a growing threat from rightwing populists, Hillary Clinton has said, calling on the continent’s leaders to send out a stronger signal showing they are “not going to be able to continue provide refuge and support”. In an interview with the Guardian, the former Democratic presidential candidate praised the generosity shown by the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, but suggested immigration was inflaming voters and contributed to the election of Donald Trump and Britain’s vote to leave the EU. “I think Europe needs to get a handle on migration because that is what...