Free Republic

An Italian coastguard ship carrying more than 900 migrants was allowed to dock in Sicily Wednesday, after Italy controversially turned away a separate foreign vessel with rescued migrants on board. ... The migrants aboard the Aquarius, run by French NGO SOS Mediterranee, were stuck on the overloaded ship as Italy and Malta bickered over who should take them.

Videos at link. CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta defended himself Wednesday amid backlash for shouting questions at President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during their historic summit this week in Singapore. Mr. Acosta, who already has a strained relationship with the Trump White House, was ripped as “annoying” and “attention-seeking” by conservatives after he was heard repeatedly questioning the two leaders as they signed a joint agreement to broker peace on the Korean peninsula. Brad Parscale, Mr. Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, renewed his call for Mr. Acosta’s press credentials to be revoked over the exchange.

Wearing a “tasteful maroon lace and sequin dress” and “surrounded by a plaid and denim-clad crowd,” the Vermont Digger reported, Christine Hallquist launched her campaign for governor of Vermont. Hallquist is the first transgender gubernatorial candidate in the nation. She faces two other Dems in the Vermont August primary — one, a middle-school student. The fact that she is a transgender woman comes as no surprise to voters. Hallquist, a former CEO of Vermont Electric Cooperative, moved from one gender to another in a very public way a few years ago. Now, Hallquist, a Democrat, hopes voters are ready to...

(CNSNews.com) -- Criticizing some of the liberal media's coverage of the U.S-North Korea summit on denuclearization, President Donald Trump said "Fake News" outlets NBC and CNN are trying to "downplay" the summit, a deal they would have praised a year ago, and added that America's "biggest enemy is Fake News," which is "so easily promulgated by fools!" In a June 13 tweet, the president wrote, "So funny to watch the Fake News, especially NBC and CNN. they are fighting hard to downplay the deal with North Korea." "500 days ago they would have 'begged' for this deal -- looked like...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump’s Mideast negotiating team will visit the region 'next week' as it finalizes its as-yet unveiled Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and will hold talks on deteriorating conditions in the Gaza Strip. The trip comes as officials say the Trump administration is near completion of the plan with an eye on a possible release this summer. The National Security Council said Wednesday that senior adviser Jared Kushner and special representative for international negotiations Jason Greenblatt would travel to Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It said they would discuss “the next stages of the...

On Tuesday the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) secured an injunction blocking Deerfield, Illinois, pending “assault weapons” ban. On April 3, 2018, Breitbart News reported that Deerfield was not only banning said weapons but empowering its chief of police to confiscate them and destroy them. He would also be empowered to confiscate and destroy “high capacity” magazines. On April 5, 2018, Breitbart News reported that SAF filed suit against Deerfield, claiming the village’s “assault weapons” ban violated Illinois’ preemption law. SAF’s lawsuit was joined by the Illinois State Rifle Association and Deerfield resident Daniel Easterday.

You may not realize it, but you are currently funding some dangerous people. They are indoctrinating young minds throughout the West with their resentment-ridden ideology. They have made it their life's mission to undermine Western civilization itself, which they regard as corrupt, oppressive and “patriarchal.” If you're a taxpayer—or paying for your kid's liberal arts degree—you're underwriting this gang of nihilists. You're supporting ideologues who claim that all truth is subjective; that all sex differences are socially constructed; and that Western imperialism is the sole source of all Third World problems. They are the post-modernists, pushing “progressive” activism at a...

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D., Mo.) said her campaign was "hitting the road" in an RV to tour the state, but public flight information indicates that travel also occurred on her million-dollar private plane. The RV, named BigBlue by the campaign, was unveiled late last month by McCaskill, who said she was "very excited to hit the road" in it for an upcoming "Veterans for Claire" tour. The campaign kept a live blog of its three-day RV trip from May 29 to May 31, posting updates of its whereabouts. Unmentioned on the blog is the role McCaskill's private plane played on...

A self-styled 'Halal Richard Branson' is launching Britain's first 'Sharia compliant' airline that serves no alcohol, Islamic in-flight meals and has a strict cabin crew dress code. Entrepreneur Kazi Shafiqur Rahman, 32, hopes to see his firm Firnas Airways eventually fly long haul to the Middle East if the concept proves to be a success. But to start with the airline, which is leasing a 19 seater Jetstream 32 plane at a cost of £8,500 a month, will fly short haul commuter routes between UK cities. His journey towards getting his new company off the ground will feature on a...

Alan Dershowitz is one of the premier civil liberties attorneys in the country. He is the author of Trumped Up: How Criminalizing Politics is Dangerous to Democracy and The Case Against BDS: Why Singling Out Israel for Boycott is Anti-Semitic and Anti-Peace. Dershowitz has been a longtime supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union. It's been decades since the ACLU was a truly non-partisan organization dedicated to the maintenance of our constitutional rights. But, as Dershowitz points out in this op-ed he penned for The Hill, the ACLU has now made it official policy to intervene in partisan politics. A...

U.S. President Donald Trump was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in reaching an agreement to work toward de-nuclearization of the Korean peninsula. The U.S leader was nominated by two members of Norway’s governing Progress Party, according to state broadcaster NRK. The deadline for this year’s prize passed in January, so this nomination would make him eligible for next year. It is unclear whether he was nominated for this year’s prize. Nominations for the world’s most coveted prize are open to lawmakers, academics and researchers from around the world. The Nobel Committee in Oslo typically receives hundreds...

California’s 168-year run as a single entity, hugging the continent’s edge for hundreds of miles and sprawling east across mountains and desert, could come to an end next year — as a controversial plan to split the Golden State into three new jurisdictions qualified Tuesday for the Nov. 6 ballot. If a majority of voters who cast ballots agree, a long and contentious process would begin for three separate states to take the place of California, with one primarily centered around Los Angeles and the other two divvying up the counties to the north and south. Completion of the radical...

Complete Headline: 'What the hell?' Democrats in Congress slam North Korea summit as 'embarrassing' and vent that Trump legitimized Kim's gulags as Republican Rubio snipes that no one complained when Obama met with the Cubans Liberals in Congress went on the offensive Tuesday after President Donald Trump climbed aboard Air Force One and left Singapore, the site of his day-long nuclear disarmament summit with Kim Jong-un. The North Korean dictator has been geopolitically isolated since he took power in late 2011, largely because of his widely condemned human rights record and his nuclear weapons ambitions. Trump's decision to meet with...

he former head of the Department of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, managed to overlook the Air Force deserter with top-security clearance on her staff who has been a "most-wanted" fugitive for 35 years. Nanette Asimov and Megan Cassidy report in the San Francisco Chronicle: Employees in the University of California president's office in Oakland knew their former colleague Tim O'Beirne as the personable, brainy number-cruncher for the UC system's vast health benefits program. They were stunned Tuesday to learn that the Air Force has identified him as William Howard Hughes Jr., a captain with top-secret clearance who vanished in 1983....

U.S.—A recent survey performed by CCLI confirmed that AC/DC’s hard rock classic “Highway to Hell” is more theologically accurate than 96% of the songs that most worship bands play on any given Sunday. The study examined over 800 songs and compared their theology to the Scriptures, and found that the Australian rock group’s 1979 classic was “significantly more accurate” than over 96% of them. “While modern worship songs tend to contain little theology, an anemic view of sin, and a poor understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit, ‘Highway to Hell’ has a very biblical view of the doctrine...

OKLAHOMA CITY, OK (CBS Local) – An Oklahoma waitress did not make a good first impression after being arrested for allegedly skimming credit cards on her first day at work. Police in Oklahoma City say Rachael Tyler was caught on surveillance cameras taking several customer credit cards and swiping them without permission. The brand new waitress was reported by a manager at Twin Peaks restaurant, who caught the suspicious behavior. “She noticed one of the waitresses, she was actually a new waitress. Her first day on the job and had been taking credit cards, and appeared to be swiping...

Please join with others to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Family, Government, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. I John 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Please join us in prayer.

The left is quickly running out of excuses for why President Trump’s economic policies have caused a boom — rather than the bust they predicted with such great certainty. Here at home growth is 'sizzling'. Almost all economists now predict a growth rate of above 4 percent for the second quarter of 2018 and Dan Clifton of Strategas, one of the best forecasters of recent times, believes we may hit 5 percent later this year. He points to the surge of investment capital flowing into the United States and the increased business spending points to several more quarters of this...

Trump has shown the strength of the United States and restored its credibility in a region where strength and force determine credibility. .....As Iran's nuclear ties to North Korea have intensified in the last two years -- Iran seems to have relied on North Korea to advance its own nuclear projects -- the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula that might have begun with the Donald Trump-Kim Jong-Un meeting in Singapore on June 12, clearly will not strengthen the Iranian position..... Trump more broadly laid the foundation for a new alliance of the United States with the Sunni Arab world, but...

Draft document explains where Redmond thinks its responsibility ends Microsoft’s published a draft “Security Servicing Commitments for Windows” in which it explains the bugs it will and won’t fix.The document (PDF) was revealed on June 12th and is intended for security researchers, to offer “better clarity around the security features, boundaries and mitigations which exist in Windows and the servicing commitments which come with them.”“We are primarily interested in feedback around our servicing policies and whether our criteria makes sense to you, the researcher,” says Microsoft’s announcement of the draft.Microsoft explains that it asks two questions when it learns of...