Free Republic

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that student protesters didn’t “know very much” about the Middle East. When asked about the protests at college campuses across the country, Clinton said, “First of all, I have had many conversations, as you have had, with a lot of young people over the last many months now. You are right. They don’t know very much at all about the history of the Middle East, or frankly about history in many areas of the world, including in our own country. With respect to the Middle East, they don’t...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Friday announced a $44.9 billion deficit in his revised proposal for the 2024-2025 state budget, while proposing a series of cuts to close the spending gap. The shortfall includes $27.6 billion detailed in his proposal, plus $17.3 billion in cuts that the State Legislature proactively instituted a few weeks ago. The governor proposed a $288.1 billion topline budget figure, down from Newsom’s initial January proposal for a $291.5 billion budget. Although the total $44.9 billion deficit is higher than the $37.9 figure projected in January, Newsom’s revision involves withdrawing $4.2 billion from the state’s...

If you’ve visited a grocery store in the last year, chances are high that you saw single-use plastic bags swapped for another reusable bag (also made with plastic, but we’ll get to that later). Or maybe your local grocery store hasn’t even made this trade-off, despite the law stating they must do so. On your walk home from that very store, you probably saw plastic bags still littered along the street. This is all part of the current problem with single-use plastic bans on bags, straws and takeout containers across the U.S. They are disjointed and, for the average person,...

White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Lael Brainard dismissed the notion that Republicans would be able to easily reverse the sustainable energy provisions passed in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) even if they win majorities in the general election this fall. By building the energy transition into the tax code and incentivizing businesses and households to change their behaviors rather than compelling them to do so with more top-down spending initiatives, the Inflation Reduction Act is insulated from any quick-and-dirty policy corrections that may be desired by a new Congress or presidential administration, Brainard argued Friday.

President Joe Biden’s border chief says the White House’s border plan “is working.” But the plan is not intended to reduce migration into U.S. communities, homes, and jobs, according to May0rkas, who was impeached in February by the House of Representatives. Instead, the border plan is intended to divert the flood of economic migrants from the cartel-run “irregular migration” pipeline into many expanding government-run quasi-legal pipelines, Mayorkas told NPR Morning Edition‘s Steve Inskeep during a May 10 interview: Inskeep: Do you also have a policy goal to cause fewer people to arrive, fewer people to get in, fewer people to...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) praised House Democrat Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) in an interview with Politico, saying that he and the Democrat leader have “more in common than people might think.” Johnson said about Jeffries: I have. Hakeem is a good man. We’ve worked well together. We have a lot more in common than people might think. You know, he’s from New York and I’m from Louisiana. While we have lots of disagreements on policies and the fine points of policy, I think you can appreciate people for who they are as a person. I think that’s what we’re called...

CLAIM: President Ronald Reagan, like President Joe Biden, withheld arms from Israel to influence its military policy. VERDICT: MISLEADING. Reagan acted within the law, and in very different circumstances, in withholding arms. The New York Times‘ Peter Baker — winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his newspaper’s bogus reporting on “Russia collusion” — wrote Friday that President Reagan, too, withheld weapons from Israel over concerns about their use. Baker’s aim in the article appears to be to rescue Biden from some of the criticism he has faced since he confirmed earlier this week that the administration was withholding bombs and...

Shocking video footage shows two masked thieves using sledgehammers to smash up a Connecticut jewelry store in a brazen smash-and-grab raid. Video released by Westport police starts with quiet scenes in Lux, Bond, and Green on Main Street at about 3:10 p.m. Thursday, with only a few people in one room in the store. Suddenly, the two crooks race into another part of the store, dressed completely in dark clothing — including hoods and covered faces — apart from orange gloves.

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...