Free Republic

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Velshi” that former President Donald Trump made an “obvious quid pro quo” when he allegedly asked for a $1 billion donation from oil executives during a meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort last month. Whitehouse said, “The problem we have is a little bit like the House. If we issue subpoenas, as the Judiciary Committee did to pursue the payments made to Justice Thomas, the Republicans said they would not enforce the subpoenas and they said they don’t comply and we won’t let them enforce it. I would expect something like that to...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Sunday predicted former President Trump will not have the opportunity to sign a national abortion ban even if he is reelected and wanted to, arguing the issue will never enough support in Congress. When asked on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” if he disagrees with Trump’s remark that he is “not signing a national abortion ban,” Rubio said, “Well, he won’t sign one because there’s no way we can pass it.

The last surviving Triple Ace pilot from World War II is gone. Brigadier General Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson of Auburn died at about 5:30 p.m. Friday, May 17, daughter Kitty Burlington confirmed Saturday in a call with the Auburn Journal. Anderson decided two weeks ago to stop dialysis treatment, Burlington said. Anderson earned Triple Ace status in World War II with 16¼ kills, two probable kills, two damaged aircraft and one enemy aircraft destroyed on the ground. Over 116 combat missions, Anderson’s two “Old Crow” P-51 Mustangs were never hit by even a single enemy bullet. “He’s kind of a...

Alice Stewart, a Republican political advisor and CNN political pundit, passed away at the age of 58. Authorities discovered Stewart’s body outside in Bellevue, northern Virginia, early on Saturday morning, according to a CNN story. Law enforcement believes there was a medical emergency and that there is no evidence of foul play. In a statement, Mark Thompson, the CEO of CNN, praised Stewart for both her career and “political savvy” as well as “her unwavering kindness.” “Alice was a very dear friend and colleague to all of us at CNN,” said Thompson in an email to staff on Saturday. :A...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected calls from French leader Emmanuel Macron for a truce with Russia during the Paris Olympics and criticised the West for seeking a swift end to the war. The ancient tradition stretching back to Ancient Greece of a truce during the games will likely not be observed during this year’s Olympics in Paris, which will be held from July 26th to August 11th in the French capital.

The United Nations confirmed Saturday that 800,000 Palestinians have left the town of Rafah, in southern Gaza, as Israel begins its attack on Hamas battalions there. Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the controversial United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), announced the number of evacuees — and warned of the risks they face. The number of evacuees far exceeds the estimates that were discussed in advance of the Israeli operation, which began on May 6, amid U.S. opposition. The Biden administration warned that an attack on Rafah could cause civilian casualties there.

Senior officials from the Biden administration held indirect talks last week with the Iranian regime in the Gulf state of Oman to avoid “escalation” in the region — even as Iran’s proxies continue to attack Israel and global shipping. The effort is one of few diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and Iran, and recalls the secret meetings between President Barack Obama’s envoys and the Iranian regime in Oman in 2013 that set the stage for the Iran nuclear deal.

Courts in England are reportedly looking to scrap the requirement for barristers to wear traditional wigs amid claims that they discriminate against lawyers with “Afro-Caribbean hair”. The iconic manner of dress in English courtrooms may become wokism’s latest scalp as demands have been made to abandon the requirement of barristers to wear wigs in front of the court because they are “culturally insensitive”, The Telegraph reports.

Legal challenges by conservative lawmakers and activists against guaranteed basic income programs are heating up nationwide. And one of their arguments is surprising: Some say the programs are discriminatory because they are not universal. Numerous cities and counties are experimenting with guaranteed basic incomes to support their most vulnerable populations. They typically offer no-strings-attached monthly payments between $500 and $1,000 to specific groups, like new moms, Black women, or trans people, all of them low-income residents. Guaranteed basic income programs differ from their idealistic cousin — a universal basic income. UBI, made famous by Andrew Yang during the 2016 presidential...

Haifa University appointed Professor Mona Maron as rector on Thursday, making her the first Israeli Arab to be appointed to the position in an Israeli university. A world-renowned researcher in the field of neuroscience and post-trauma, Maron will replace Prof. Gur Alroey, who in October will become the university president. “I am grateful for the trust I received from the members of the university senate and look forward to taking up the position. First and foremost, the University of Haifa is a home for me. A home that welcomed me into its ranks more than 30 years ago, as an...

No one can predict the future, of course, or if there will even be one. But all of us crystal ball gaze—if we live, it will be in today’s future. So, we make plans and contingencies based on our best guesses of what the short-term and long-term will bring. We do that individually, and we need to do it as a country. The re-election of Joe Biden in November, as improbable and horrifying as the thought is to right-thinking Americans, is far from impossible. All the polls tell us that, currently, Mr. Trump has the edge, but that the election...

The first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is just over a month away, and Donald Trump has agreed to all of Biden’s conditions, including no live audience, timed microphones, and only pro-Biden outlets and moderators. But now Trump has a condition of his own. And it's a justifiable one. “I’m gonna demand a drug test too, by the way,” Trump said Friday evening, during the Minnesota Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan Dinner. “I am, no I really am. I don’t want him coming in like the State of the Union, he was high as a kite.”It has long been...

We've been covering Joe Biden's polling problems for months now. Aside from matchup polling, there have been multiple polls that have shown him losing support from key Democratic constituencies: young voters, Hispanic voters, and, of course, black voters. In fact, things have gotten so bad for Joe Biden with black voters that CNN is having a hard time wrapping their leftist brains around it. CNN data analyst Harry Enten, for example, couldn't hide his surprise at Trump's impressive gains among black voters compared to Biden. In what can only be described as the understatement of the year, Enten called the...

... A man in his 60s is alleged to have thrown burning rags into the women’s shared bedroom of a boarding house in Buenos Aires early on 6 May. Neighbors say they were woken by the women’s screams as an inferno ripped through the building. The suspect, Justo Fernando Barrientos, is alleged to have fought with the women in an attempt to stop them escaping the flames, before fleeing to the roof where he attempted suicide, and was later arrested. Pamela Fabiana Cobas, 52, died almost immediately. Her partner, Mercedes Roxana Figueroa, also 52, suffered burns on more than 90%...

‘APRIL is the cruelest month,” poet T. S. Eliot famously declared. Joe Biden might beg to differ. June is shaping up as a potential nightmare for the 81-year-old president. His re-election, his legacy and son Hunter Biden’s freedom are all on the line over the course of a month-long gantlet. And he has only himself to blame. Biden’s surprising demand last week that Donald Trump debate him twice, with the first face-off in June, underscores his desperation to get his campaign back on track. His insistence on a televised showdown in a month already crammed with high-stakes events reveals that...

A Marine truck mechanic received a medal typically awarded to more senior service members for saving the Defense Department more than $140 million through work he began as a teenage lance corporal. Cpl. Gage Barbieri, now 21, received the Meritorious Service Medal on Friday from Col. Damon Burrows, commanding officer of 2nd Marine Division’s Headquarters Battalion. Barbieri is only the second Marine corporal to receive the Meritorious Service Medal since at least 2008, Burrows wrote on LinkedIn

Alice Stewart, a CNN political commentator who worked on several GOP presidential campaigns, died Saturday at age 58. The frequent “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” guest was found dead outdoors in the Bellevue neighborhood in northern Virginia, law enforcement officials told the news organization. They believe she suffered a medical emergency and no foul play is suspected.

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accepted the endorsement of the National Rifle Association at the NRA Leadership Forum in Dallas on Saturday afternoon. "It's a true honor to be here today to receive the endorsement of the proud American patriots at the NRA," Trump told the forum in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform. "These are great patriots. These are great people, and we're going to do things like nobody can believe. "We're going to win this election at levels that nobody's ever seen before. Thank you very much...

Anti-Israel protesters clashed with NYPD officers at a raucous demonstration in Brooklyn on Saturday, leading to at least a dozen arrests. Video showed part of the angry mob, some 250 strong, pushing back as police tried to move them towards the sidewalk in Bay Ridge. Cops eventually tackled and arrested several protesters, video shows.

Supporters of former President Donald Trump gathered together in the Bronx on Saturday to show their support for the former president ahead of his upcoming visit to the city. Trump’s campaign announced on Friday that the former president would be holding an event at Crotona Park in the South Bronx on May 23. In one video posted to X, Trump supporters could be seen walking through the streets holding a banner with the words, “The South Bronx for Donald Trump” as the people chanted, “Trump, Trump, Trump.