Free Republic

WHEN THE JUDGE GAGS A KEY WITNESS FOR TRUMP’S DEFENSE. The false bookkeeping trial of former President Donald Trump is now in its fourth week. This newsletter has pointed out lots of times, most recently last Friday, that while we know that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with falsifying bookkeeping records of a nondisclosure payment in order to commit or conceal another crime, Bragg still hasn’t revealed what that other crime is. It’s really the key to the whole case. Without the other crime, there would be no charges against Trump in this matter. The fact that...

The Biden administration has agreed to shut down a national security experts’ group as part of settling a lawsuit accusing the group of being politically biased in favor of Democrats.On Sept. 19, 2023, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) launched the Homeland Intelligence Experts Group to provide advice on intelligence and national security efforts. In November, America First Legal (AFL) and former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell sued the DHS, the group, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, arguing that the experts group violated provisions of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).Section 5 of FACA requires that...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s government moved Sunday to shut down the Al Jazeera Media Network’s operations in Israel, clamping down on one of the few international broadcasters providing largely uninterrupted coverage of the Gaza war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the decision followed a unanimous vote by Israel’s war cabinet, posting on Twitter/X that “the incitement channel Al Jazeera will be closed in Israel.” In a separate statement, he accused Al Jazeera correspondents of having “harmed the security of Israel” and said “the time has come to eject Hamas’s mouthpiece from our country.” Israel’s actions placed it in the company of...

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that Israel dropping leaflets warning civilians is “yet another example” “of the IDF continuing to follow the rules of war.” But the reported paused ammunition shipment to Israel “does signal that there are grave concerns on the part of many of us. It is a reminder that many have raised concerns about the conduct of what might be the last phase of this war in Gaza” in Rafah.

The tech publication Wired reported Thursday that the Three Percenter, or III%er, militia is again proliferating on Facebook ahead of the 2024 presidential election.The Three Percenters are a national network of militias, the name being a reference to the fact that only about 3% of colonists took up arms against King George in the American Revolution. The Three Percenters were involved in both the Whitmer kidnap plot and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising.However, what Wired didn’t mention in its report is that the Three Percenters were heavily infiltrated by the FBI. In fact, the FBI used the Three...

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed a bill into law on May 2 banning “indoctrination” programs for teachers.The measure, HB 1291, prohibits programs, courses, and curricula in teacher training from “distorting” historical events or promoting political ideologies regarding race, sex, and gender.Accredited postsecondary institutions can seek Florida Department of Education approval to create institutes to educate teachers on improving classroom instruction and meeting requirements for certification or recertification.They can also seek approval for instruction on educating existing and potential substitute teachers on how to perform classroom duties and to teach those with baccalaureate degrees how to become certified.However, teacher...

Fani Willis refuses to testify before Georgia Senate committee. She believes she is above the law. VIDEO AT LINK.........

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Biden Campaign Co-Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) said that protests can’t spill over into violence and intimidation and some campus protests did require the police to be brought in, there “protests on many campuses that were peaceful, but, in recent days, we’ve seen, in a few cases, those protests become violent and interfere with schooling and education,” and “campus protests that have happened recently for a few weeks” “are not a fundamental threat to our democracy” and 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump’s behavior around January 6 is “a far more...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) huddled Monday for almost two hours with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — a marathon meeting suggesting the pair is seeking a deal to defuse tensions and preclude floor action on the Georgia firebrand’s resolution to boot Johnson from power. The two emerged from the Speaker’s office separately but bearing the same message: The discussion was constructive enough that they’ve agreed to meet again Tuesday. Greene later told reporters the huddle will take place at 12:30 p.m. Greene declined to say if she was ready to push through with her plan to force her motion to...

A defiant Fani Willis refused to appear before a Georgia state senate investigative committee and afterward claimed they don't have the power to subpoena her as they have threatened. The Fulton County, Georgia, district attorney is prosecuting former President Donald Trump in her election interference case, but her own conduct has increasingly come under the microscope. Not only did she have an affair with Nathan Wade, an attorney who was helping prosecute the case, but now her official spending habits have raised eyebrows as well. Ever since her actions came under scrutiny, she has proven to be hot-tempered, entitled, and...

MSNBC commentator Donny Deutsch said Monday on “Deadline” that former President Donald Trump was “terrified” of going to jail because he will be “pulled apart” by not being able to have his normal routines. Discussing the judge in the New York City business records trial threatening jail time for any more gag order offenses, host Nicolle Wallace said, “I want to dive back into the testimony but I have to start with jail. Trump, who didn’t go to a memorial for United States veterans of World War I and II in France because it was raining and his hair would...

Former Georgia Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan (R) revealed that he was going to support a “decent person” like President Joe Biden in the upcoming 2024 presidential election over a “criminal defendant without a moral compass.” In an op-ed written in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Duncan criticized Republicans who “fall in line” behind former President Donald Trump, labeling it as “disappointing” and arguing that those who decide to support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee are “dead wrong” in that mentality.

Vice President Kamala Harris dodged reporters on the campaign trail Monday, creating another awkward moment as she left a restaurant in Detroit Michigan. Harris made a campaign stop at Joe Louis Southern Kitchen to order food, but did not let reporters join her into the establishment. As she walked briskly out of the restaurant with what looked to be a bag of takeout food, one reporter shouted a question about the details surrounding Gaza terror group Hamas accepting a ceasefire. 'Shrimp and grits. You wanted to know? Shrimp and grits,' Harris said quickly without stopping and jumping into a waiting...

New so-called "FLiRT" COVID-19 variants have quickly become the most dominant in the United States, and authorities are monitoring their rise as summer approaches. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the two members of the “FLiRT” group, KP.2, is now No. 1 among strains nationally, accounting for about 24.9 of all current infections. The JN.1 strain had been dominant in the US before the emergence of KP.2. Both variants are offshoots of the highly contagious Omicron strain. The No. 4 variant in the US, KP.1.1, which makes up 7.5 percent...

Men are abandoning the Democratic Party, and people are beginning to notice. This weekend, President Donald Trump’s super PAC Make America Great Again released an ad targeting black men in rural Georgia. It features a white, professionally dressed woman working a phone bank for President Joe Biden who talks to a male voice whose owner we never see. Here is the script: WHITE WOMAN: Hello, I’m with the Biden campaign. MALE VOICE: Yeah, yeah, I voted for Biden last time. WHITE WOMAN: That’s fantastic. MALE VOICE: Is it? Everything costs more: food, gas, rent. WHITE WOMAN: OK, but Biden’s helping...

Representative Maxine Waters (D-CA) said on this week’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” that the Department of Justice should investigate “right-wing organizations” who supported former President Donald Trump “training up in the hill” for a civil war.Waters said, “You cannot trust anything that Donald Trump has to say no matter if he loses he is going to say it was fraud. He still has not accepted what happened in the last presidential election. We have to be very concerned about a former president of the United States talking about attacking his own country, talking about perhaps a bloodbath, talking...

Firearm-related crime is surging in heavily gun-controlled Canada, according to a report from Toronto Star contributor Shaquille Morgan. Morgan pointed to data from Canadian police, noting “there were 9,198 victims of gun-related crime” in Canada in 2022. The 2022 figures represented a ten percent jump in the rate of gun-related crime compared to 2021 and a 60 percent jump compared to 2013. Morgan zeroed in on handguns, explaining that “63 per cent of gun-related homicides were committed with a handgun.” Canada has stringent gun controls, and Morgan indicated they have gotten even more stringent during the past years. During that...

Researchers have found naturally occurring compounds in the gut that can be harnessed to reduce inflammation and other symptoms of digestive issues. This can be achieved by binding the compounds to an important, but poorly understood, nuclear receptor. Said Jiabao Liu, "We found that these molecules act similarly to artificial compounds that are currently being used to regulate the constitutive androstane receptor, otherwise known as CAR." CAR plays a critical role in regulating the breakdown, uptake and removal of foreign substances in the liver, including drugs. It is also involved in intestinal inflammation. "One of the challenges with studying CAR...

Inulin, a type of fiber found in certain plant-based foods and fiber supplements, causes inflammation in the gut and exacerbates inflammatory bowel disease in a preclinical model, according to a study. The study shows that inulin, which is found in foods such as garlic, leeks and sunchoke, as well as commonly used fiber supplements and foods with added fiber, stimulates microbes in the gut to release bile acids that increase the production of molecules that promote intestinal inflammation. Feeding inulin to mice in the context of a model of inflammatory bowel disease increased the production of certain bile acids by...

The combined trust funds for Social Security are projected to run out a year later than previously expected, a board of trustees of the program’s accounts said Monday. In the latest report, trustees expect the projected depletion date for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund, which pays out Social Security benefits to retirees, and the program’s smaller Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund is 2035. Biden administration officials said the projected depletion date for the OASI trust funds has moved to November 2033, seven months later than last year’s projection, partly due to economic growth. On a call with...