Free Republic

On Thursday a three-judge panel from the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided that Steven Duarte, a felon, has a “right to possess a firearm for self-defense.” Courthouse News Service noted Duarte has five felony convictions and was a member of a street gang in Los Angeles. The decision upholding Duarte’s gun rights was split, with George W. Bush appointee Carlos Bea and Donald Trump appointee Lawrence VanDyke deciding in the majority. Bea wrote the majority opinion, noted the panel tested the prohibition against felons possessing guns in light of Bruen (2022) and found the government...

The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member by recognizing it as qualified to join and recommending the U.N. Security Council “reconsider the matter favorably.” The vote by the 193-member General Assembly was a global survey of support for the Palestinian bid to become a full U.N. member – a move that would effectively recognize a Palestinian state – after the United States vetoed it in the U.N. Security Council last month. The assembly adopted a resolution with 143 votes in favor and nine against – including the U.S. and...

Conservative attorney George Conway suggested Thursday that the cross-examination of adult film actor Stormy Daniels by former President Trump’s legal team in his hush money trial this week was a “complete disaster.” “My takeaway was that the continued cross-examination of Stormy Daniels was a complete disaster and fiasco for the defense,” Conway said during a panel appearance on CNN, adding, “It just went on and on, and … they didn’t have anything on her.” Conway, who is going through a divorce with former Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, has been a staunch critic of the former president. Still, he praised Trump’s...

Joe Biden’s X account on Friday was seen urging Americans to “support women’s sports” even as he continues to push transgender athletes into women’s sports. Biden has been attempting to force every school in the country to allow male students who “identify” as females to play on any girl’s sports team they want, yet in his May 10 post on X, Biden claimed that he wants to “grow women’s sports.” “As a nation, we need to support women’s sports by showing up in person and watching on TV – with more sponsorships and programming,” the message on his X feed...

Israel’s security cabinet voted Friday to expand the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation in Rafah, albeit on a limited scale, and to continue talks with mediators in Egypt in the hope of reaching a hostage release deal with Hamas. The vote was interpreted as a rebuke of the Biden administration, in the wake of this week’s admission by the president that the U.S. is withholding bombs and artillery from Israel in protest of its decision to attack Hamas in Rafah. The security cabinet is one level above the war cabinet, which deals with more immediate military decisions.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) granted an interview to establishment media only “a few hours after Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) attempt to oust him” to trash Donald Trump — the man Johnson conveniently clung to when his speakership hung in the balance. Johnson sat down for an extensive “deep dive” interview Wednesday night with Politico so quickly after the vote to end his speakership that Johnson claimed he was not even aware which eleven Republicans voted against him. In what Politico called an “SNL-worthy” send up, Johnson used the interview to caricature Trump praising Johnson: Johnson was impersonating Donald Trump...

President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold bombs from Israel will cause more Israeli soldiers to die in booby-trapped buildings that would otherwise have been destroyed from the air, according to a military source in Israel. As Breitbart News reported, the Biden administration confirmed this week that it had withheld 2,500-lb. and 500-lb. bombs, and would also withhold artillery rounds, in opposition to Israel’s decision to attack Hamas’s last stronghold in Rafah. Israel, which views the defeat of Hamas in Rafah as a military necessity, has decided to continue its operation. But in order to avoid antagonizing Biden, or running out...

A California thief used Target’s self-checkout service to snatch over $60,000 worth of merchandise during a shoplifting spree spanning across 100 visits to the retail store. Aziza Graves, 43, visited the Target at the Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco 120 times between October 3, 2020, and November 16, 2021, according to the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office. During her elaborate scheme, Graves picked items from the shelves before she headed straight to the self-checkout counter, scanned her items, and paid a nominal amount, such as a single coin or bill, before exiting the store. Graves was arrested in November 2021...

The Biden administration hopes to dispense thousands of ID cards to migrants in the coming weeks as part of an effort to update the documentation that US government agencies provide illegal border-crossers. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is planning on a “limited rollout” of its Secure Docket Card program this summer that would see roughly 10,000 ID cards distributed to migrants in as many as four US cities, according to Fox News. Two potential locations are Houston and Atlanta, a source told the outlet. The program aims to “modernize documentation provided to some noncitizens,” according to ICE, which notes that the...

The U.N. has warned the world is teetering on the edge of a climate abyss and a Guardian survey affirms hundreds of the world’s climate experts agree with the globalist body, expecting global heating to pass the international target of 1.5C. The outlet contacted what it called “a series of leading climate figures” who have reacted to the findings and nodded their heads in agreement. They recount the “deep despair voiced by the scientists must be a renewed wake-up call for urgent and radical action to stop burning fossil fuels and save millions of lives and livelihoods.”

Traffic safety advocates cheered a new law allowing the Big Apple to lower speed limits on city streets to as low as 10 miles per hour. The legislation – deemed “Sammy’s Law” in memory of 12-year-old Sammy Cohen Eckstein who was fatally struck by a van near his Park Slope home in 2013 – passed as part of the state budget last month. “This is a joyous but bittersweet moment,” Cohen Eckstein’s mother, Amy Cohen, said as she appeared at a press conference Thursday in Manhattan with Gov. Kathy Hochul and New York City Mayor Eric Adams. “Sammy was fierce...

Michael Cohen, former President Trump’s onetime fixer-turned-foe, is expected to take the stand on Monday in Trump’s New York criminal trial, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. Billed as a star witness for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Cohen’s testimony is expected to mark the culmination of prosecutors’ case in chief as it approaches its end. It could last multiple days. Cohen is expected to implicate his ex-boss as he testifies about a hush money deal with adult film actress Stormy Daniels that underpins Trump’s case. Many of prosecutors’ witnesses so far have conceded they had no...

What a difference a day makes. On Tuesday President Biden was speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Museum commemoration at the Capitol in Washington. There he drew a direct comparison between the events of the Holocaust and the attacks on Israel of October 7th. That is not my comparison. It was President Biden’s. Talking about the phrase “Never Again” he said: “Here we are not 75 years later but just seven and a half months later, and people are already forgetting. They’re already forgetting that Hamas unleashed this terror. It was Hamas who brutalized Israelis. It was Hamas who took and...

Ukraine is legislating to join Russia in sending recruiters into the nation’s prisons to bolster its military, as Moscow’s invasion grinds on and the casualty list grows ever longer. Ukraine’s Parliament has passed a draft law allowing certain classes of convicts to get out of jail early in return for military service. As noted, Ukraine’s ability to field enough soldiers to sustain the war against Russia is one of the nation’s greatest longer-term challenges of the war, its population considerably smaller than Russia’s and already disturbed and scattered by the conflict. Releasing criminals from prison in return for military service...

Hamas fired rockets Friday at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, one of several points at which humanitarian aid enters the Gaza Strip from Israel. It was just the latest such attack, after a barrage of rockets hit the crossing last weekend, killing four Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and wounding others. The IDF released a statement: Following the sirens that sounded earlier today (Friday) in the area of Kerem Shalom, one launch was identified crossing from the Rafah area into Israel. The launch was successfully intercepted by the IDF Aerial Defense Array. A short while ago, sirens again sounded in...

On Thursday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “The Hill,” House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) said that the White House “needs to clean…up” President Joe Biden’s comments on Israel to CNN “and reiterate our support for Israel,” because “To the extent it looks like we are separating from Israel, that just gives Hamas all the more incentive to keep fighting.” He also called on the White House to push the message that Hamas is holding up a ceasefire.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday on CBS’s “The Late Show” that President Joe Biden should have cut off weapons to Israel sooner. Wednesday on CNN, Biden said he would not supply offensive weapons for Israel to attack Rafah. Psaki said, “I do think that there’s some leverage we’re all seeing being used. Should it have been used earlier? I think the answer is yes to that. But we are seeing them pull back in the sending of weapons. That’s actually a pretty significant sign, given that the United States and Israel has a long-standing connection on...

Miss Israel was called a “war criminal,” a “little Zionist,” and threatened with a knife after identifying herself as a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in New York City on Monday, according to reports. Miss Israel Noa Cochva was berated and threatened on the streets of the Big Apple while carrying a poster that read, “I am an IDF soldier. Ask me anything,” the Daily Mail reported.

New York City Democrats were largely quiet Thursday after President Biden announced he was pausing some military aid for Israel to deter an offensive against Hamas-held Rafah — with members of the left-wing “Squad” of House members openly celebrating and many others saying nothing publicly. “Protesting is working. Keep fighting for a #CeasefireNow,” tweeted Bronx and Westchester Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who has been an outspoken supporter of anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University and elsewhere Bronx and Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also celebrated Biden telling CNN “I’m not supplying the weapons” for an offensive on Hamas’ final major stronghold in the...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) wasted little time after 163 Democrats voted to save his speakership to announce he would not use Congress’s constitutional power of the purse to stop special counsel Jack Smith’s “lawfare” against Donald Trump. The Speaker, in some of his earliest public comments after Democrats saved his gavel, refused to make any attempt to defund Smith’s office as it continues its prosecutions of Trump. “That’s not something you wave a wand and just eliminate the special counsel as a provision,” Johnson told Politico. “There is a necessity for a function like that, because sometimes the Department of...