Free Republic

Ireland’s progressive Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has announced he is resigning for “personal and political” reasons, stepping down less than two weeks after he was soundly defeated on a referendum to redefine marriage and the role of women in the nation’s constitution. Fine Gael politician Leo Varadkar, who became his country’s youngest ever Taoiseach (Prime Minister) in 2017 made a surprise announcement in Dublin on Wednesday, saying he was resigning the leadership of his party and the nation. Varadkar said he would stay on as PM until a new leader could be selected and sworn in, saying that would likely...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Victoria Nuland, the third-highest ranking U.S. diplomat and frequent target of criticism for her hawkish views on Russia and its actions in Ukraine, will leave her post this month, the State Department said Tuesday.Nuland, a career foreign service officer who served as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe during the Obama administration but retired after Donald Trump was elected president, returned to government as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in the Biden administration.She had been a candidate to succeed Wendy Sherman as deputy Secretary of State and had served as acting deputy since Sherman’s retirement...

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The string of staff members in Vice President Kamala Harris's office grows longer, as deputy chief of staff Michael Fuchs is now leaving the Biden administration, Fox News has confirmed. First reported by Reuters, Fuchs's departure was announced in an internal memo on Monday.

“Navy SEAL officers are expected to lead from the front in all categories, especially in physical fitness.” Official Naval Special Warfare Website On Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017 the first female to gain entry to the SEAL Officer Assessment & Selection (SOAS) program voluntarily quit. The three-week course began Monday, July 24th, 2017 in San Diego, California home of the Navy SEAL training base, and by Wednesday it was all over for this candidate. Making history, in the summer of 2017 the US Navy accepted its first female officer candidate into the Naval Special Warfare officer screening pipeline called the SEAL...

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a directive on Wednesday to withdraw from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Hague. The ICC is meant to be the world's first permanent court and works to prosecute leaders and countries for war crimes, genocide and "crimes against humanity." In 2000, Russia signed the Rome treaty establishing the ICC, but never ratified it. The ICC was established in 1998, and currently has over 100 member states. Like Russia, the US also signed the treaty but declared in 2002 that they had "no intention" of ratifying it. Last Tuesday, the UN General Assembly's Human Rights...

If you find yourself in an emergency situation in Green Mountain Falls, Colo., don’t bother calling police. In this scenic western hamlet, they no longer exist. All four members of the 700-person town’s police force — Tim Bradley, the police chief, and three volunteer reserve officers — resigned April 14 because of an alleged policy dispute with the municipality’s newly elected mayor, according to Fox affiliate KXRM-TV. Residents told the station that they weren’t exactly sure why the resignations occurred. “Our marshal and three deputies quit, and that’s about all they said,” Ann Pinell said. “We’ve had our hometown marshal...

LONDON (AP) — The U.K.'s first female Muslim Cabinet member resigned Tuesday in protest of the British government's policies on Gaza, describing the approach as "morally indefensible" and detrimental to the national interest. Sayeeda Warsi, a Foreign Office minister of Pakistani descent, announced her departure on her Twitter feed. The move apparently took Downing Street off guard, and loaded more pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron, who is under fire by the opposition and members of his own party for his staunch support of Israel.

David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in the Department Of Health And Human Services, just quit his job in a big way. Wright wrote an insanely blunt resignation letter that was recently published by ScienceInsider. In it, he exposed the dysfunctional bureaucratic red tape that limited him from doing his job more than half of the time.

A man named by the UN as a pirate kingpin has said he is renouncing crime, a community leader in Somalia has confirmed to the BBC. Mohamed Abdi Hassan, nicknamed "Afweyneh" meaning Big Mouth in Somali, told reporters after eight years in the business, he had agreed to stop. He made the announcement in Adado, a town in central Somalia where pirate hostages have often been held. Successful pirate attacks off the Somali coast fell sharply last year. Analysts say this is because of the increased use of private security guards on ships and better co-ordination between naval patrols in...

Former congressman Dick Armey has quit FreedomWorks, the conservative group he helped bring to national tea party prominence. Armey confirms that he wrote a letter to FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe on Nov. 30, resigning from the group, as first reported by Mother Jones. He told the Post that he does not know who leaked his resignation letter. “We accepted his letter of resignation and we wish him well,” FreedomWorks press secretary Jackie Bodnar said. “As I resign from all board positions and duties, please see below a list of dispositions on outstanding issues: I expect to be fully compensated through...

Newt Gingrich had a friendly conversation Wednesday with presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney after news broke that he was shutting down his floundering campaign,...“It’s clear Romney is the nominee and the focus should be on defeating Obama..."

Today the Cleveland Plain Dealer announced the resignation of Connie Schultz, wife of Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH). Schultz had come under fire recently for attending a Tea Party rally near Cleveland at which her husband’s likely opponent in 2012, Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel, was a featured speaker. Schultz was spotted videotaping Mandel’s speech, but she conspicuously neglected to mention in her article that Mandel was even at the rally. (Read the details in my previous diary). Once news about Schultz’s covert-op became known, the Pulitzer prize winning journalist and 18-year veteran of the Plain Dealer issued a breathless apology, claiming...

A rural New York town clerk has resigned her post rather than grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

A member of parliament from an Islamic party which promoted anti-pornography legislation has resigned after being caught watching porn in parliament. Mr Arifinto of the Islamic Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) was photographed looking at the images on Friday. He said he had inadvertently opened an email link which led him to the images. Pornography has become one of the testing grounds of conservative Islam's influence over politics in Indonesia. "For the recent developing media coverage, I apologise to all members of the party and parliament," Mr Arifinto - who goes by one name - told a news conference. "I will...

Friends of the colonel, who cannot be named for security reasons, said he had grown increasingly despondent with service life following the cuts imposed on the military by the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). It is understood that two highly respected Brigadiers, one of whom also served with the Special Forces, are considering their positions. Senior officers have warned that many more high calibre officers are expected to resign in the coming months especially if the Continuity of Education Allowance--which pays for a proportion of boarding school fees for service families--is cut.

A New Hampshire Democrat has quit the state legislature after cracking a joke on Facebook about Sarah Palin’s death. Rep. Timothy Horrigan of Durham posted a comment Wednesday that a “dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one” and she “is all about her myth & if she was dead she cdn’t commit any more gaffes.” Horrigan apologized Thursday and resigned. He is also discontinuing his re-election campaign.

Obama's top economic advisor, professor Christina Romer, is quitting. Apparently the decision is her own, and the split is cordial, although not surprisingly she didn't get as much access to the President as she'd hoped. Of course anyone who thought that any President would be more likely to listen to an academic, rather than a political handler (like Rahm) was always doomed to be mistaken.

Civil Rights: The Justice Department explains that it dropped a Black Panther voter-intimidation case because of lack of evidence. Pay no attention to the thugs outside the polling place. Yet another reason Eric Holder must go. On Election Day 2008, New Black Panther Party members King Samir Shabazz, Malik Zulu Sha-bazz and Jerry Jackson were charged in a civil complaint with civil violations by "allegedly" violating the Voting Rights Act through intimidation, threats and coercion as they stood outside a Philadelphia polling place. It was what Bartle Bull, a former civil rights lawyer and publisher of the left-wing Village Voice,...

A trial attorney with the Department of Justice’s Voting Rights Section has resigned, citing concerns about the government’s refusal to prosecute a case involving voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party. A letter of resignation from a former Justice Department employee makes clear DOJ has refused to allow attorneys in the Voting Rights Section to testify before the congressionally-chartered bipartisan U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, despite subpoenas that could result in their being held in contempt.