Free Republic

Northern Gaza is experiencing a “full-blown famine”, the head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has said, and warned that it is “moving its way south”. In an interview with NBC News set to air on Sunday, Cindy McCain said that her remarks are based on what the WFP has seen and experienced on the ground. UN officials and aid agencies have for months warned of such a scenario. “It’s horror. It’s so hard to look at and it’s so hard to hear,” McCain told the US broadcaster’s Meet the Press programme. “What we are asking for and...

As journalists, it’s our job to choose our words wisely and not perpetuate stereotypes. n the 13 years that I’ve lived in the US, I’ve heard the words “No can do” on so many occasions — from teachers, comics, news anchors, Hall & Oates — that I’ve always thought it was simply a cheeky way to say “alas.” But the phrase, I learned several days ago, emerged in the late 19th century, around the time the US passed the Chinese Exclusion Act banning immigration from China, the country of my birth. Some white Americans popularized the saying to mock the...

Lucy Aharish is one of the most prominent television broadcasters in Israel—and the very first Arab Muslim news presenter on mainstream Hebrew-language Israeli television. Born and raised in a small Jewish town in Israel’s Negev desert, as one of the only Arab Muslim families, she has a unique lens through which to view the divisions in Israeli society, the complexity of the country’s national identity, and the Middle East more generally. Lucy has long been a vocal critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and is equally critical of her fellow Arab Israelis, particularly of Arab violence and the Arab leadership...

In a year marked by dwindling public trust in key institutions and heralded by the theme “Rebuilding Trust” at the World Economic Forum’s annual Davos assembly, Emma Tucker, the Wall Street Journal’s Editor in Chief, has called for a reevaluation of how traditional media operates. Recalling a point when the mainstream press was the chief adjudicator of information and facts, she highlighted its demise that came with the rise of alternative media platforms. Tucker, during a Davos panel supposedly dedicated to the preservation of truth, offered a lament for the era when the press held exclusive dominance over news and...

... In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, 490,000 settlers live among three million Palestinians. Their settlements are considered illegal under international law by the United Nations. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, the UN's humanitarian agency (OCHA) has recorded an average of more than six incidents per day between settlers and Palestinians, including everything from livestock theft to direct physical violence. Before the war, the average was three a day. "They use the war as a pretext to expel us from our homes and to expropriate our lands," Jaber Dababsi, a 35-year-old farmer...

It is becoming obvious to 'me' that abortion is the one thing that is making elections these days. I think this wedge issue may in fact be the one issue that will keep Trump or the GOP nominee out of office. Is there enough support on the right to bend one the issue?

... The misunderstanding has historical, cultural and political roots but fundamentally it can be attributed to the universalist, Manichean (good vs evil) worldview of what Brown refers to as the Enlightenment West – and the projection of that attitude onto a civilization that doesn’t share the same history. “The distinctiveness of the intellectual and cultural history of inhabitants of the space now occupied by the People’s Republic of China is undeniable,” Brown writes. “In terms of language, modes of governance, economic behavior, and fundamental view about how the world operates and how society should be shaped, the Chinese tradition is...

Donald Trump's campaign team has dismissed the finding of a poll that suggests Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be the preferred 2024 Republican candidate against Joe Biden in key swing states. A survey from GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies shows that DeSantis, who has not confirmed he is running for president but is expected to do so soon, would beat Biden in Arizona and Pennsylvania in a hypothetical 2024 face-off by 48 to 42 percent and 45 percent to 42 percent respectively. The poll of 500 registered voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania also showed that Trump would lose to Biden...

Like many Angelenos, I spend a lot of time behind the wheel of my car. I drive from my Westside apartment to Dodger Stadium near downtown and farther east to hike in the San Gabriel Mountains. I take the 405 Freeway north to the San Fernando Valley to see friends, or occasionally south to the L.A. Times office — or to the airport, where I grow my carbon footprint even further. So I couldn’t help but consider my own complicity while reading a new study from USC researchers, finding that Angelenos who drive more tend to be exposed to less...

A total of 7.2 percent of U.S. adults identified as LGBT in 2022, a new record high.As Statista's Katharina Buchholz notes, Gen Z, newly added in the Gallup survey's 2020 edition, is the gayest generation in terms of self-identification.Almost 20 percent of those born between 1997 and 2004 identified as LGBT, compared with around 11 percent of Millennials.You will find more infographics at StatistaWhile scientists believe that the share of LGBT individuals has not actually changed over time, younger people in the U.S. are more likely to be openly gay, lesbian, bisexual or transsexual.Even within the generation of Millennials, defined...

Unless you have been taking a social media sabbatical, you probably already know about the row between Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe and the organization’s board of directors. After putting O’Keefe on suspension earlier in February, he finally decided to step down as CEO after behind-the-scenes drama came out into the open.A video showing O’Keefe reading his resignation letter in front of the organization went viral on social media. “Our mission continues on,” he said. “I’m not done. The mission will perhaps take a new name.”O’Keefe intimated that members of the board plotted his ouster behind his back, approaching Project...

Of course, China knows that the Biden Administration wants war. They are increasing their age limits for military service to up to 60 years old. Don’t get upset and think you will be too old for the United States and Europe. You can never be too old to die for your local politician. We will see the draft age rise dramatically in the West all because our fearless world leaders, who will never go to war themselves, all need World War III desperately. Just as we can no longer define what a woman actually is, we can no longer discriminate...

Recently, our beloved president, Donald Trump, posted this on TruthSocial:In it, is a statement that could be interpreted one of two ways. One interpretation was sinister: ("I'd dismiss the Constitution and just become president, if I could")The other interpretation was not only constructive, but very accurate: ("Fraus Omnia Vitiat... Fraud vitiates everything. The orchestrated fraud of Democrats in 2020, are such that all rules -- even the Constitution -- has been destroyed by them.")Many people on our side immediately saw that he was trying to express the second interpretation. However, the left immediately jumped on the first interpretation and began...

Russia and Ukraine agreed to a negotiated settlement to end the conflict in April, but British Prime Minister Boris Johnson intervened to stop the peace deal, and the US and EU escalated the proxy war to try to weaken Moscow.

More than half of Republican candidates for either Congress or key state positions in next month’s US midterms question the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election results. This raises fears of further challenges to the democratic process in both the midterms and the 2024 presidential elections. Supporters of Donald Trump launched a bloody attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 to try and prevent Joe Biden’s confirmation as the winner of the 2020 presidential elections. Biden was inaugurated two weeks later – but Trump’s mendacious claims of having won the election still create a sore at the heart of...

Global concerns such as epidemics, wars and disasters weigh upon the minds of people around the world during every decade. But can a dominant global problem such as the COVID-19 pandemic cause people to neglect other urgent societal problems? A new study concludes that answer is yes. Oleg Smirnov, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Stony Brook University and lead author, says that the data from their research illustrates how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the discussion on climate change on Twitter. He and co-author Pei-Hsun Hsieh, a Ph.D. student in Political Science, adopted Weber's psychological theory...

Donald Trump ordered a complete withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and Somalia after he lost the 2020 election, the January 6 committee said at their Thursday hearing. The memo was written to the acting Secretary of Defense on November 11 to take effect on January 15, 2021 - just before President Joe Biden was meant to take office. The revelation was made by GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year after facing opposition from Trump over his re-election. Trump National Security Council Official Gen. Keith Kellogg said he warned the former...

Top House Republicans are planning to threaten to shut down the U.S. Government by refusing to raise the debt ceiling next year in a scheme to force Democrats to cut Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, should they win the House in November critics warn, pointing to a Bloomberg report. “Social Security and Medicare eligibility changes, spending caps, and safety-net work requirements are among the top priorities for key House Republicans who want to use next year’s debt-limit deadline to extract concessions from Democrats,” Bloomberg Law reports. “The four Republicans interested in serving as House Budget Committee chairman in the next...

President Biden on Friday vowed to hold Russia accountable for its “fraudulent attempt” to annex Ukrainian territory and called on other countries to do the same. Biden blasted a move earlier in the day by Russian President Vladimir Putin to announce the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, four Ukrainian regions that he claimed were now part of Russia.

The British pound hit a record low against the dollar on Monday after UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, a fan of “trickle-down economics,” announced a sweeping spending and tax cut plan to rescue the British economy from recession on Friday. What’s happening: Investors were taken aback by the new government’s choice to institute its largest tax cut in 50 years while boosting government spending and borrowing with inflation near 40-year highs. Citibank analysts called the decision a “huge, unfunded gamble for the UK economy.” Markets dropped precipitously on the news. But Truss took a cue from former US President Ronald...