Free Republic

Way right Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Friday claimed he has “woke math’s” number, and he doesn’t like it. He railed about the mysterious mathematics Friday in a speech in Tampa to a group of conservative Moms for Liberty who are opposed to several aspects of education. DeSantis was unable to elucidate exactly what “woke math’ is. He indicated that it’s math with little regard for correct calculations, which was news to the world. “I’m just thinking to myself like, 2 + 2 equals 4. It’s not 2 + 2 equals: Well how do you feel about that? Is...

As the highly infectious BA.5 variant spreads across the US, experts say they're wearing masks outdoors, especially in crowded settings, to protect against contracting COVID-19. The BA.5 Omicron subvariant appears to better escape the disease-fighting antibodies produced after vaccination or prior infection than other subvariants, which means people are more likely to become infected, irrespective of prior immunity — though vaccines will still stop most from getting sick

BERLIN - The main natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany shut down for scheduled maintenance Monday, raising concerns that Moscow could use the repairs as a pretext for a longer shutdown as it wields energy supplies as leverage in the Ukraine war.European ministers warned that it was unclear whether Moscow would turn the taps on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline back on after the 10 days of scheduled work. Germany's economy minister, Robert Habeck, said Berlin was concerned about a "nightmare scenario" this winter if Russia decides against doing so."Everything is possible, everything can happen," he told Deutschlandfunk radio...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has closed the gap significantly between himself and Donald Trump in a hypothetical matchup in 2024, bringing him within single digits of the former president. Among registered Republican voters, about 45% said they would vote for Trump compared to 36% who leaned toward DeSantis, according to the most recent YouGov/Yahoo News poll, a 9-point difference and the closest any challenger has ever gotten to the former president in a GOP primary poll. The most recent numbers tighten previous polls that showed DeSantis trailing by 16 points in February and 23 points the month before that.

The Republican primary between Reps. Rodney Davis and Mary Miller in Illinois' 15th District is emblematic of the choice GOP primary voters face: Trump-type hardliners who deny the validity of the 2020 election versus conservatives who voted to certify President Joe Biden's victory and supported a bipartisan investigation into the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The race could also have lingering impacts on who oversees federal elections and the U.S. Capitol Police, a position that holds more weight after the Capitol riot.

Nathan W. Jones leads the Bay Area chapter of the Black Gun Owners Assn. But until a few years ago, he wasn't even into guns. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, sending racial justice protesters into the streets. And white supremacists trashed the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection. Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are. "I had visions of mobs dragging people through the...

When former President Donald Trump's American Freedom Tour pulled into Mississippi last week, The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper tagged along. On Thursday's show, Klepper shared some of the conversations he had with attendees regarding the ongoing January 6 House select committee hearings. Attendees were shown video testimonies from the former president's closest allies and family, but many refused to accept the information being presented to them. For example, one gentleman was shown a video of Ivanka Trump testifying that she believed Attorney General William Barr's assertion that no voter fraud was committed in the 2020 election. "I respect Attorney General...

Katy Tur is opening up about her tumultuous childhood, and her reaction to her father coming out as transgender. The NBC News correspondent, who is the daughter of legendary Los Angeles broadcasters Zoey (formerly Bob) Tur and Marika Gerrard, sat down with CBS Sunday Morning to share her experience. Growing up, the broadcaster believed her parents, who were known for reporting the news from their helicopter, were "the coolest people in the world." Tur shared that she even "knew how to fly a helicopter" as a kid. "It was a really unique and interesting childhood that nobody else had," said...

Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, has been summoned by a Spanish court to explain an alleged US government plot to assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to ABC Spain. The alleged plot was first revealed by Yahoo News in September, which reported that senior CIA and Trump administration officials discussed possibly kidnapping or killing Assange after being angered by Wikileaks' publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools. The discussions took place "at the highest levels" of the Trump administration, a former senior counterintelligence official told the outlet, with officials even requesting "sketches" or "options" for how...

Help, please. I can't get into my Yahoo account due to an incorrect password. Verification code email from them isn't arriving in my regular email account.

More flights were canceled on Sunday, following thousands of other air travel cancellations and delays at the start of the busy Memorial Day weekend. About 1,065 flights were canceled on Sunday, with 283 of those cancellations in the U.S., according to flight-tracking website FlightAware. More than 7,000 other flights were delayed, including 1,109 in the U.S. On Saturday, more than 1,500 flights were canceled, which followed the cancelation of more than 2,300 flights on Friday. Delta Air Lines canceled 148 flights on Sunday, or about 5 percent of its flights for the day. The airline told The Associated Press on...

Is Domino’s pizza? If you furrow your brow in confusion at this inquiry, tilting your head and replying with some variation on “of course it is,” I have news for you. To clarify, I’m not a New Yorker, Chicagoan, or Detroiter required to uphold the strict pizza laws of my home city. I grew up in northern New Jersey, where the prevalence of Italian families and our proximity to the Big Apple meant you could find a slice any given moment at any of the two dozen joints in a 10-mile radius. So, if I’m no purist, why am I...

The right-wing cable network One America News Network on Monday ran a pre-recorded 30-second segment acknowledging that there was “no widespread voter fraud” by Georgia election workers in the 2020 presidential election. The segment appears to be part of a recent settlement relating to a defamation lawsuit brought against the network by two such workers.The segment notes that an investigation by state officials into unsubstantiated claims of widespread voter fraud made by ex-President Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani turned up nothing. “The results of this investigation indicate that Ruby Freeman and Wandrea ‘Shaye’ Moss did not engage in ballot fraud...

ROME—Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper. “I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting...

Former President Donald Trump and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy met for three hours at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida on Monday, The New York Times reported. The two met for the first time since leaked audio revealed McCarthy blaming Trump for the January 6 Capitol siege and telling fellow Republicans that he planned to ask the former president to resign from office on January 10, 2021, in the wake of the attack. Two New York Times reporters, Jonathan Martin, and Alexander Burns, released the tapes to back up reporting on McCarthy's remarks in their book "This Will Not Pass"...

The head of Russia's space agency said the country would leave the International Space Station, per Bloomberg."The decision has been taken already, we're not obliged to talk about it publicly," said Dmitry Rogozin on state TV.Rogozin, the general director of Roscosmos, criticized Western-imposed economic sanctions against Russia.The head of Russia's space agency on Saturday said that the country would leave the International Space Station, which Moscow said is the result of economic sanctions imposed as a result of the country's conflict in Ukraine, according to Bloomberg.Two Russian state news agencies — Tass and RIA Novosti — on Saturday reported that...

For Republican supporters of Donald Trump in Michigan, it seemed like a crowning moment: The state party chose two candidates endorsed by the former president, both outspoken preachers of 2020 election falsehoods, as its contenders for the state’s top law enforcement officer and its chief of election administration. But instead, that move at a convention last weekend — where Republicans officially endorsed Matthew DePerno for attorney general and Kristina Karamo for secretary of state — has ruptured the Michigan Republican Party. After months of strain, it appears to finally be snapping as what remains of the old guard protests the...

New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin surrendered to authorities early Tuesday morning to face fraud-related charges in connection with a previous political campaign, two people with knowledge of the situation told The Daily Beast. Benjamin, 45, was arrested on several charges, including bribery, in connection with his alleged participation in a scheme to obtain campaign contributions in exchange for securing a state grant. The U.S. Southern District of New York is expected to hold a noon press conference about Benjamin’s arrest. He is expected to appear in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday afternoon. More to come..

Republican politicians routinely claim that cities run by Democrats have been experiencing crime waves caused by failed governance, but a new study shows murder rates are actually higher in states and cities controlled by Republicans. “We’re seeing murders in our cities, all Democrat-run,” former President Donald Trump asserted at a March 26 rally in Georgia. “People are afraid to go out.” In February, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blamed Democrats for a 2018 law that reduced some federal prison sentences — even though it was signed by Trump after passing a GOP-controlled Congress. “It’s your party who voted in lockstep for...

Veteran Republican operative and longtime Donald Trump ally Roger Stone claims he’s being “censored” on the ex-president’s social media site Truth Social. The latest declaration from Stone comes as the platform’s traffic nose-dives, with conservatives splintered between other right-wing Twitter alternatives, including Truth, Gab, and Gettr. On Saturday night, Stone took to Truth Social—which brands itself a free-speech haven—to post about “radical Islam,” including a picture of an old Trump campaign button and the comment, “Trump also warns again a growing threat of terrorism by radical Islam mix in the predicted the 9/11 attack.”