Free Republic

One year ago this month, former President Barack Obama's administration was working behind the scenes at the United Nations to slip a resolution through the body’s General Assembly attacking Israel. It was one of Obama’s final, sneaky, and reprehensible acts in office. It put an exclamation point on his long, nasty, personal feud with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Previously, our president had gone so far as to interfere in an Israeli election and then unleashed his minions when Netanyahu had the gall to accept an invitation to address Congress. Fast forward to this Wednesday, Netanyahu was thanking Obama’s successor...

POINT HOPE, ALASKA, is tiny and ill-provisioned, an Arctic backwater so inaccessible that basic groceries have to be flown in and gasoline can only be brought in by barge during the summer. The town is remote not only geographically, but also digitally: Its internet connection is so slow that teachers must spend hours downloading course material that most of us could pull off the internet in minutes. But Point Hope's luck is changing. High-speed internet is coming, and with it the benefits of ties to the world: Improved education and health care, more options for consumers, new customers for local...

Billionaire real estate developer Harry Macklowe is not a magician, yet during his divorce trial he managed to make over half-a-billion dollars disappear. Although Macklowe's financial statements say he holds a portfolio of properties worth $548.9million, he is now telling his soon-to-be ex-wife Linda's lawyers that he is really worth a measly $23million. The Macklowes are currently in the midst of an acrimonious divorce, according to Page Six. 'The total amount of commercial real estate that you certified to the banks was $548.9million and the position that you're taking in this lawsuit is that your total commercial real estate is...

Here’s the latest version of Fake News: President Trump ruined the mid-east peace process. The assertion is a world-wide headline, but for it to have a shred of truth, there would have to be a peace process to ruin. But since there isn’t one, and hasn’t been one for years, the anti-Trump media is exposed again. But hold on, Trump is more than just innocent of a false and foolish charge. By acknowledging what everybody in Israel already knows, that Jerusalem is the eternal capital of the Jewish state, and by putting in motion the process of moving the American...

Low-income Medicaid patients in New Mexico may soon have to pay more for certain brand-name drugs or if they visit the emergency room to receive routine medical care, under a reform plan submitted Wednesday to federal regulators. The state Human Services Department applied for federal authorization of new copayments and monthly premiums in an effort to conserve state spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled. Human Service Secretary Brent Earnest said New Mexico's waiver application also would expand services for substance abuse disorders and phase out retroactive health care coverage by 2020 for newly enrolled patients.

President Trump's son-in-law and designated Middle East peace envoy, Jared Kushner, told the Brookings Institution's Saban Forum last weekend that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians is key to solving larger goals, such as stopping Iranian aggression and Islamic extremism. If he believes that, he has fallen into the trap numerous and more seasoned diplomats have experienced. The most obvious impediment to peace in the region is a religious one. A visceral hatred of Jews is promoted in Palestinian media and many mosques and schools throughout the region. The destruction of Israel and elimination of Jews from land...

WASHINGTON -- Last week, we discovered that former national security adviser Michael Flynn lied to the FBI about the import of what he told it regarding his contacts with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Yet Flynn once served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the presidency of Barack Obama. Why would he lie to the FBI about what passed between him and Kislyak? Had he forgotten that, for a certitude, the conversation of a Russian ambassador was being recorded secretly by American intelligence agencies? Moreover, when he was being interviewed by the FBI, why did he not bring...

Olympic skier Lindsey Vonn on Wednesday criticized President Trump, saying she doesn't believe he represents the country well. "I want to represent our country well. I don't think that there are a lot of people currently in our government that do that," Vonn told CNN. She added that she hopes "to represent the people of the United States, not the president" at the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Add this infamy to all the other crimes of the liberal establishment – its poisonous influence has converted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the eyes of the American people, from a proud institution dedicated to upholding the law into just another suppurating bureaucratic pustule. Where once we saw FBI agents as heroes – many of us ancients grew up watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.., every Sunday night – now we see careerist hacks looking to suck-up to the Democrat elite while bending the law and subverting justice to do it. Truly, everything liberals touch dies. The revelations about Oh-So-Special Agent...

The clock is ticking. At midnight on Friday, the government will have no operating budget; a shutdown is possible. In fact, that’s exactly what President Trump alluded to today, while blaming the Democrats for using immigration to gum up the works (via CNBC): "It could happen," Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House, in response to a reporter's question about the Friday deadline for a spending bill to fund the government. "The Democrats are really looking at something that could be very dangerous for our country," Trump said. "They are looking at shutting down. They want to...

Apparently, the GOP is now the party of CHILD MOLESTATION! At least the media tell me that's the meaning of President Trump's endorsement of Senate candidate Roy Moore. Are we allowed to mention that Moore denies the charges? It's hard to disprove accusations from 40 years ago -- that's why we have statutes of limitations -- but, despite that, there are a surprising number of problems with the allegations against Moore. One accuser has been called a liar by her own stepson, who says he's voting for Moore. Another neglected to mention that Moore sent her brother to prison. In...

Why does San Francisco, a hub for technological innovation, struggle to educate its black students?

SJWs do something similar with regards to various forms of bigotry. Their goal isn’t necessarily to defeat bigotry, as some of the more honest among their number admit that it isn’t really possible to eliminate all biases in human beings in the first place. And even the most idiotic of SJWs has to know deep down that in America, we have it pretty good with regards to demographic group tolerance – or we did, anyway, before SJWs started screwing around with it again. Rather, the goal of the SJW is to signal that he is not racist/sexist/whatever. Like the guy...

An Austrian court has ruled that gays and lesbians can “marry” each other, beginning in 2019. Same-sex couples have been able to register their partnerships with the Austrian government since 2010. But according to the court, these “legal partnerships” are basically indistinguishable from marriage, so denying same-sex “marriage” would be discriminatory. Two women who wanted to “marry” brought the case to the court with the help of a lawyer named Helmut Graupner. “[T]he distinction between marriage and registered partnership can not be maintained today without discriminating against same-sex couples,” said the court. “Because the separation into two legal institutions implies...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 ~ On Sunday, December 7th, 1941 the Japanese launched a surprise attack against the U.S. Forces stationed at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. By planning his attack on a Sunday, the Japanese commander Admiral Nagumo, hoped to catch the entire fleet in port. As luck would have it, the Aircraft Carriers and one of the Battleships were not in port. (The USS Enterprise was returning from Wake Island, where it had just delivered some aircraft. The USS Lexington was ferrying aircraft to Midway, and the USS Saratoga and USS...

It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but after reading this op-ed from Jay Kaganoff in the Washington Post, I’m guessing we’ll be seeing more of it. After the cacophony of calls for Hollywood moguls and media figures to lose their jobs and elected officials to resign or be removed following allegations of sexual assault and harassment, it was inevitable that Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas’ name would eventually come up. Kaganoff titles his piece, Fellow conservatives, it’s time to call on Clarence Thomas to resign. The author makes at least a partially convincing case, depending on where...

There are really two ways to look at this effort. One is that this attempt to impeach President Trump got slapped down hard today. The other is that there are now 58 Democrats willing to attach their names to this desperate action which their own leadership is officially against, at least for the moment. In either case, Rep. Al Green promised yesterday he would bring this to a vote and today he made good on that promise. The result was a bust. From the Texas Tribune: U.S. Rep. Al Green’s effort to push the U.S. House to vote to impeach...

As California is burning from wild fires and the lives of tens of thousands of Americans are devastated, there is one person who isn’t too upset over the destruction of at least one home.Neera Tanden, the president of the liberal Center for American Progress and frequent cable news commentator, was more than happy that “karma” had burned down the home of Rupert Murdoch, the executive chairman of News Corp, which owns Fox News.Reacting to the news of Murdoch’s misfortune, Tanden retweeted the information and added, “There’s a God. And she’s unhappy.”Screen capture from Twitter. Tanden was then asked by a...

Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh said Wednesday that recent crime figures are “trending in the right direction,” hopeful of achieving a turnaround in a city where the number of homicides this year is nearing the all-time high set in 2015. The city of roughly 620,000 people has recorded more than 320 killings so far this year, nearing the record 344 slayings in all of 2015. In comparison, New York City, a city of some 8.5 million, is projected to have fewer than 300 homicides this year. At her weekly press briefing, Pugh said a new city initiative is chipping away at...

In a tweet even less original than her stand-up comedy, Chelsea Handler blamed President Trump Wednesday for "literally" setting the wildfires currently blazing across parts of Southern California.The latest round of California fires – which were, just to be clear, not set by the 45th president – broke out Tuesday and Wednesday in parts of Ventura County and Los Angeles. The largest, dubbed the Thomas Fire, has so far decimated 65,000 acres of land, threatened 12,000 buildings and forced 27,000 to flee, according to the Washington Post. Two others have scorched an additional 20,000 or so acres, collectively. But with...