Free Republic

The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke issued a statement this week celebrating news that seven pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place. Clarke, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, painted the pro-life activists as violent radicals in her remarks: “Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health.” The activists’ actions were non-violent, and the DOJ’s release on the matter even notes that they “passively” resisted “their anticipated arrests.” “Using force, threatening to use force or...

Former President Donald Trump is appearing in blue Minnesota on Friday, delivering the keynote address at the Minnesota Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner as all eyes are on traditionally blue strongholds that the former president hopes to flip in November. Trump has a busy day on Friday and is headed to Minnesota after attending his youngest son Barron Trump’s high school graduation in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier in the day. In early May, the Republican Party of Minnesota announced Trump as the headliner for the 2024 Lincoln Reagan Dinner. At the time, Minnesota Trump Campaign Chair and House Majority Whip...

Former President Donald Trump and former First Lady Melania Trump appeared at their son Barron Trump’s high school graduation on Friday — a significant showing for the former president, as it was uncertain if he would be able to attend due to his ongoing business records trial in New York. “Going to Barron’s High School Graduation. Great student, wonderful boy! Very exciting!!! DJT,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday ahead of Barron’s graduation. 🚨President Trump's motorcade arrives for Barron Trump high school graduation Congratulations, Barron! pic.twitter.com/3gHGcwjwTQ — AJ Huber (@Huberton) May 17, 2024 It remained uncertain if he would...

NATO allies are inching closer to sending troops into Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, a move that would be another blurring of a previous red line and could draw the United States and Europe more directly into the war. (snip) So far the United States has said no, but Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on Thursday that a NATO deployment of trainers appeared inevitable. “We’ll get there eventually, over time,” he said. (snip) As a part of NATO, the United States would be obligated under the alliance’s treaty to aid in...

My wife is a wonderful woman, but she has horrible taste in television. She, at times, will acknowledge this shortcoming as “guilty pleasures.”One of her favorite streaming “programs” is the hospital drama “New Amsterdam.” It’s god-awful. More unreal than reality TV. This woke piece of soap opera pabulum is utterly unwatchable. Every once in a while, perhaps to punish me for crimes I am not aware I have committed, she will turn “New Amsterdam” on the bedroom TV before we go to sleep. When the latest overwrought episode mercifully comes to an end, I ask the love of my life...

The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke issued a statement this week celebrating news that seven pro-life activists would spend time in prison for attempting to stop abortions from taking place. Clarke, who heads the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and is responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, painted the pro-life activists as violent radicals in her remarks: “Violence has no place in our national discourse on reproductive health.” The activists’ actions were nonviolent, and the DOJ’s release on the matter even notes that they “passively” resisted “their anticipated arrests.” “Using force, threatening to use force or...

ROME — Pope Francis told CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell that conservatives are willfully blind and manifest a “suicidal attitude” in their narrowmindedness. In an interview set to air Sunday on 60 Minutes, the pope asserts that a conservative “is someone who clings to something and does not want to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude.” “One thing is to take tradition into account and consider situations from the past but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box,” he adds. The Pope addresses his conservative critics in the church. “Conservative is one who clings to...

In an April 16th interview with Polly Tommey, Dr. Paul Thomas, explained how the American medical establishment incentivizes pediatricians to fully vaccinate their young patients, and fines them if they don’t. Vaccinations that have been proven to cause more death and harm than the diseases they are said to be preventing. “Well, as other practices started kicking people out of their practices if they weren't following the CDC schedule, I was getting more and more families who didn't want to do any vaccines. Which was fine with me. So we took an entire month of every single billing sheet. And...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he laughs at the term “America first,” an increasingly common phrase heard in the Republican Party regarding U.S. foreign policy that he finds “disorienting.” Romney said during an interview with MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle” earlier this week that growing isolationism in the GOP is “unimaginable” considering its past leaders, like former Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, as well as former Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Romney argued the term, popularized by former President Trump, “flows” in from talk radio and TV, where “outrageous” things are embraced by the party’s...

For decades now, I’ve been conducting my own informal survey of American views about CEO pay. Whenever family, friends, or random strangers ask about my job, I tell them it involves research on executive compensation. Last year, for example, I found that CEOs of America’s 100 largest low-wage employers made, on average, over 600 times what their median workers made — and often thousands of times more. Invariably, people see red when I share these numbers. And they often have choice words about the unfairness of it all. A new poll reinforces my informal findings: Americans across the political spectrum...

House staffers are going to gather on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon to protest the chamber’s override vote of President Joe Biden’s halting of a shipment of arms to Israel. They’re also being told to cover their faces with masks and to “remove identifiable clothing” in fear they will be identified. Staff are being encouraged to hide their staff IDs as well. An anonymous organizer with the “M” moniker told the Washington Examiner why protesters were protecting their identities. “We understand there is an inherent risk in speaking out, which is why we are encouraging staff to remove identifiable clothing and...

The state's election office on Monday began proceedings against an advocate for wolves in Colorado over allegations of illegally lobbying during the 2024 session at the state Capitol. ... The complaints, filed in March by John Williams, who operates Colorado Wolf Tracker, claimed Stephen Capra and his organization, Bold Visions Conservation, lobbied multiple legislators on behalf of a paying client, all without registering and without disclosing the client’s identity as required by law. The Elections Division of the Secretary of State launched the proceedings against Capra ... The bill Capra was lobbying on was House Bill 1375, which was sponsored...

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and more than a dozen other House Republicans are pushing a measure that targets the Federal Reserve System. The measure includes text that declares, "The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and each Federal reserve bank are hereby abolished" and "the Federal Reserve Act is hereby repealed." Massie announced the introduction of the measure on Thursday, the same day that the Dow Jones Industrial Average stock index surpassed 40,000 for the first time before ultimately giving up its gains and closing slightly down for the day. 'If we really want to reduce...

On the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, my Administration stands in support and solidarity with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people around the world as they seek to live full lives, free from violence and discrimination. This is a matter of human rights, plain and simple. ... {skipping to the end} ... Today marks the 30th anniversary of when the World Health Organization made the wise and overdue decision to declassify ‘homosexuality’ as a mental disorder. That was a victory for LGBTQI+ people and human rights defenders everywhere. 30 years later, the work of equality...

President Joe Biden issued an executive order early in his presidency that effectively compels federal agencies to mobilize historically Democratic groups to vote. After investigating Executive Order 14019, its origins, and its application, the Heritage Foundation's government watchdog Oversight Project concluded it constitutes "election interference" and could be greatly consequential in November. "The last election was decided by less than 40K votes in the determinative swings," Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project, told Blaze News. Howell highlighted further how Demos — a leftist think tank whose 2020 recommendations to the Biden administration appear to have helped inspire EO...

Headline-chasing Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s vanity project of a trial against former president Donald Trump comes at a high cost for New Yorkers. The time and expense Bragg has devoted to the flimsy-as-a-cobweb Trump charges are indefensible given how many dangerous crimes go unprosecuted. Criminals roam the streets with little fear of facing jail time. Manhattan’s crime clearance rate is an abysmal 29.8%. In 2023, NYC’s 109,303 prosecuted arrests resulted in an imprisonment rate of less than 7%. While Trump is going to trial and faces six to eight weeks of “embarrassing evidence,” most New York criminal cases summarily...

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court ruled that parents in Maryland’s largest school district do not have the right to opt their children out of pro-LGBTQ curriculum in the K-5 grades. As reported by Fox News, the 2-1 ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous decision by a lower court, which denied the parents a preliminary injunction based on their alleged failure to prove that the policy would constitute a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of religion. The plaintiffs, three pairs of parents who sued Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS), argued that...

Just what is former Gov. Andrew Cuomo up to these days? It sure seems like he’s gearing up for another run — but under which political party? The first clue is his bid at massive COVID revisionism. In a recent interview, Cuomo claimed he hadn’t forced anyone to close their business or wear a mask, and in fact had no power to do so. Indeed, to hear Cuomo tell it, people all did it voluntarily. Please. For those of us who lived through Cuomo’s New York in 2020 and haven’t somehow had our memories erased, the truth was quite different.

Vice President Kamala Harris has joked about returning to California to run for governor in 2026 when incumbent Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) ends his second and final term. Politico reported on Thursday, in an overview of potential gubernatorial candidates, that the former California Attorney General and U.S. Senator could make a run: Vice President Kamala Harris has joked to friends that she may return to California to run for governor if Democrats lose the White House this fall, taking a page from Richard Nixon, two people familiar with her remarks said.

President Joe Biden introduced new provisions to his student debt relief plan earlier this month, and the primary beneficiaries are high-income earners, according to a new analysis released by the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While Biden’s 2023 SAVE Plan already put taxpayers on the hook for $475 billion, the new plans add another $84 billion to the tally — largely by “canceling” the student debt of some 750,000 households making more than $312,000 a year on average. The average debt relief for these households is $25,500, the study found. In June 2023, the Supreme Court struck down...