Free Republic

A preposterous lawsuit demanding cops be banned from using tear gas to disperse lawless protestors who block city streets and interfere with traffic has been struck down by a judge who ruled this week that the restriction “unnecessarily burdens the police and puts them and the public at risk.” The case was filed in Virginia by a leftist civil rights group that claims the city of Richmond and its police department as well as the state police violated the Constitutional rights of law-breaking protestors by using tear gas and other crowd control tactics during a disruptive Black Lives Matter demonstration...

At pro-Palestinian Black Lives Matter rallies in New York and Washington, chants were heard calling for “Death to Israel,” “Death to America” and “From Gaza to Minnesota, globalize the Intifada!” Several hundred protesters attended the July 1 demonstration in Brooklyn dubbed as a “Day of Rage” event, set to coincide with the earliest date Israel could begin its plans to apply Israeli law over parts of the West Bank and the Jordan Valley. Speakers issued inflammatory rallying cries that ran the gamut from anti-Semitic and anti-American to just plain absurd. One pro-North Korea activist called for the end of the...

The Trump administration on Wednesday issued sanctions against Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, formally labeling him a terrorist enabler and blacklisting all of his property, assets, and investments, according to senior administration officials. Zarif has emerged as the face of the Islamic Republic's nuclear intransigence and its threats to U.S. assets and allies in the region. He played a key role in negotiating the landmark nuclear deal with the Obama administration and has been a centerpiece in Iran's bombastic anti-American rhetoric. The designation had been rumored for some time following the Trump administration's decision to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps,...

Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and other Democratic senators had a secret meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference last week, according to a source briefed by the French delegation to the conference. Murphy’s office did not respond to repeated requests for comment by press time. Such a meeting would mean Murphy had done the type of secret coordination with foreign leaders to potentially undermine the U.S. government that he accused Trump officials of doing as they prepared for Trump’s administration. In February 2017, Murphy demanded investigations of National Security Advisor Mike Flynn because...

Speaking to reporters during a joint press conference with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo responded to reporting that a number of Democrat Senators secretly met with Iranian Javad Zarif during the Munich Security Conference. “I have seen that piece about some senators meeting with Foreign Minister Zarif. This guy is designated by the United States of America. He’s the foreign minister for a country that shot down a commercial airliner and has yet to turn over the black boxes. This is the foreign minister of a country that killed an American on December 27....

The Trump administration is barring Iran’s top diplomat from entering the United States this week to address the United Nations Security Council about the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top military official in Baghdad, violating the terms of a 1947 headquarters agreement requiring Washington to permit foreign officials into the country to conduct U.N. business, according to three diplomatic sources. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif requested a visa a “few weeks ago” to enter the United States to attend a Jan. 9 Security Council meeting on the importance of upholding the U.N. Charter, according to a diplomatic source familiar with...

Iran is stewing over the potential loss of its most advanced centrifuge production plant after some kind of explosion and fire severely damaged it. Naturally, the Iranians are being pretty closemouthed about the incident. They haven’t said much about the fire and explosion at what was suspected to be a nuclear research facility in the mountains outside of Tehran, either. But it’s hard to hide what happened at Natanz — the nuclear facility with the highest-profile in the country. And Iran is hinting that the destruction of its advanced centrifuge plant might have been caused by some kind of variation...

During demonstrations in downtown Portland, Oregon, protesters blocked traffic on Main Street and launched fireworks from the street, injuring officers, the Portland Police Bureau said in a Sunday statement. I DONT WANT ANY MORE OF CNN HERE.

Speaking on "Face the Nation," former National Security Adviser John Bolton dismissed US President Donald Trump's claims that he wasn't briefed about intelligence suggesting that Russia commissioned Taliban-linked fighters to kill US soldiers, The Guardian reports. "All intelligence is distributed along the spectrum of uncertainty," Bolton said. "And this intelligence ... by the administration’s own admission, was deemed credible enough to give to our allies. So the notion that you only give the really completely 100% verified intelligence to the president would mean you give him almost nothing. And that’s just not the way the system works." Former National Security...

For US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned that President Trump’s reelection could imperil Israel. Speaking with Israel’s Channel 13 in an interview which is set to be aired Thursday night, Bolton said he fears that if President Trump is reelected this November, it could create a ‘risk’ for Israel. Specifically, Bolton claimed that Trump is “eager” to open negotiations with Iran and could offer sanctions relief, something which would pose a “a danger”. .....

Israel was responsible for two blasts at Iranian facilities — one related to uranium enrichment, the other for missile production — over the past week, a Kuwaiti newspaper reported Friday. The Al-Jareeda daily cited an unnamed senior source as saying that an Israeli cyberattack caused a fire and explosion at the largely underground Natanz nuclear enrichment facility in the predawn hours of Thursday morning. According to the source, this was expected to set back Iran’s nuclear enrichment program by approximately two months. The newspaper also reported that last Friday Israeli F-35 stealth fighter jets bombed a site located in the...

S former top-ranking Obama official has revealed that the Democratic Party is prepared to support a “revolution” in the streets to force Donald Trump out of office if he wins re-election this fall. It’s a familiar face: Former Secretary of State John Kerry. He signaled that party leaders will support a violent “revolution,” if that’s what it takes.

Kuwait's Al-Jarida newspaper on Friday reported that Israel was responsible for a Thursday "accident" at an Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. It is believed that the Natanz facility is used to enrich uranium. According to the Al-Jarida report, the explosion was caused by an "Israeli cyber attack" which targeted the computers which control the pressure gauges inside gas containers. Tehran has allegedly lost 80% of the uranium hexafluoride gas it needs in order to enrich uranium. The report also claimed that Israel is responsible for the Parchin blast which occurred last week. On Thursday, Iran's state news agency IRNA published...

My, but Iran must have a lot of defective “industrial gas tanks” lying around. A week after Iranian officials tried to explain away a massive explosion at Parchin as a civilian-area accident, a large fire at Natanz might prove more difficult to dismiss. Natanz, like Parchin, is a site where the US alleges that Iran has performed work on their nuclear-weapons program, and experts believe that uranium-enriching centrifuge work might have been the target this time: Iran says there has been an “incident” at one of its nuclear facilities.Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi did not...

The Vatican issued a statement Wednesday warning Israel that “unilateral actions” in the West Bank and Jordan Valley would seriously compromise peace efforts in the area. In its statement, the Holy See press office revealed the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, met with the Ambassadors of the United States of America and of the State of Israel on Tuesday. […] The Vatican’s “concern” relates to plans to extend Israeli law over parts of the West Bank and Jordan Valley in an effort to safeguard Jewish settlements in the West Bank and shore up Israel’s western border by annexing...

Black Lives Matter protests joined anti-Israel demonstrators in a nationwide “Day of Rage” on Wednesday that included calls for Israel’s destruction and claims that Israel murders children, an allusion to medieval antisemitic blood libels. The Jewish News Service reported that antisemitic and anti-Israel groups organized the “Day of Rage” on July 1, the first day that Israel’s government said it could extend its law to Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”). The march, led by Harvard University rising senior Christian Tabash, attracted about 200 people who carried signs with messages either supporting the Palestinian Liberation Organization or...

Germany called on Israel not to annex the West Bank on Wednesday, saying the plans were “in contradiction with international law.” The motion was brought in the Bundestag by the three parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s broad coalition and was approved without opposing votes. All parliamentary groups, aside from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, warned that Israel’s plans to annex parts of the West Bank would jeopardize Israel’s security and hopes of a two-state solution. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the plan threatened the stability of the entire Middle East. “Peace cannot be achieved by unilateral steps,” Maas...

The BBC has told its presenters and guests not to wear Black Lives Matter badges as the campaign was accused of “hijacking” George Floyd’s death for political reasons. Bosses at the corporation have decided not to allow “visual symbols of support” for Black Lives Matter to be worn on screen, senior sources told The Telegraph. It comes as a number of high-profile organisations were forced to backtrack on their support for the Black Lives Matter movement as its UK arm publicly criticised Israel and called on the British government to “defund the police”.

Leaders of civil rights organizations spoke out Tuesday night after a reporter from a Portland TV station tweeted anti-Palestinian sentiments from a professional account while covering a protest. Jenny Young, a reporter with KOIN, was at a rally at Peninsula Park in North Portland, and tweeted about a speaker who praised the BDS movement. BDS, which stands for Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions, is a Palestinian-led movement, which upholds the principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. Young described the speaker, who was not identified, as “openly anti-Zionist”, and the BDS movement as “an anti-Semitic...

Atrocities against religious minorities continue unabated in the terror state of Pakistan. In another such incident, two members of a Christian family were shot for buying a house in a Muslim dominated neighbourhood in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Nadeem Joseph and his mother-in-law Elizabeth Masih were brutally attacked by one Salman Khan and his sons a few days after Nadeem Joseph bought a house in TV Colony in Peshawar, Pakistan on June 4, 2020. Police have arrested several members of Salman Khan’s family in connection with the incident while he still remains on the run. Police are in the...