Free Republic

Former President Trump traded jabs at New York Judge Arthur Engoron as he testified on the stand Monday morning during the non-jury civil trial stemming from New York Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit against him and his businesses in the state.Kevin Wallace, a lawyer in the New York Attorney General’s Office, began questioning the president during his unprecedented time on the stand — specifically about his statements of financial condition.Trump said the statements were "not really documents the banks paid much attention to," and Wallace asked how he knew that. The former president said he has been dealing with banks...

After hundreds of thousands of lives lost and hundreds of billions of dollars spent, American officials have reportedly begun quietly pressuring Ukraine to open peace talks with Russia amid growing concerns about dwindling manpower. Despite Moscow’s overwhelming military advantage over Kyiv in terms of manpower being apparent from the outset of the war — with Russia having three times the population to draw on than Ukraine — officials in the United States are apparently finally realising the impossibility of the former Soviet state defeating Putin’s forces.

The displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza due to the ongoing war with Israel could lead to millions of refugees, which Israel suggested a large portion could be sent to Canada. The Israeli Intelligence Ministry floated a plan in a “concept paper,” which said Canada would be an ideal candidate for Palestinian refugees due to PM Justin Trudeau’s “lenient” immigration policy. According to talk on Parliament Hill, the number of refugees that could be headed for Canada could be as high as 500,000. Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Minister Marc Miller strongly suggested Canada would be quite prepared to...

How a Gaza Marine Deal Could Benefit Palestinians, Israelis and the Region Rare progress on a 23-year-old project shows that energy is increasingly becoming a focus for potential win-win agreements in the East Mediterranean. Amid today’s dismal Israeli-Palestinian context, positive developments have been in short supply. However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s June announcement of preliminary approval for the development of the Gaza Marine gas fields provided a rare glimpse of a potential win-win opportunity. For the Palestinians, it could provide a much-needed boost to their lagging economy and the cash-strapped Palestinian Authority (PA). On the Israeli side, it allows the...

OAKLAND -- Saturday was the last day of business for two popular downtown Oakland restaurants. Both owners blamed crime for killing their restaurants. Le Cheval and Galeto Brazilian Steakhouse are located on the same block of Clay Street. Even before Le Cheval opened at 3 p.m. Saturday, dozens of loyal customers were waiting in front of the Vietnamese restaurant hoping to get a table. "(I've been coming here for) over 20 years. I'm going to miss Le Cheval. I'm here to stand in line for over an hour just to get this good food," said customer Cassandra, who declined to...

Via John Hinderaker of Power Line, Andy McCarthy at National Review has a stunning piece outlining the depths of Joe Biden's involvement as China's little agent, tying together details which will make you wanting to take a shower afterward. He writes:Thanks to the extensive excavation of Biden financial records by Senators Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R., Wis.), followed by the dogged reporting of the New York Post once Hunter’s abandoned laptop was exposed, the outlines of the story were publicly available before Election Day 2020. The Biden/China scheme may not have been sufficiently known, but it was...

Mass AttacksIf the current pontificate has set one thing in bold relief it is surely this: that the seemingly insane process of self-destruction triggered by Vatican II is not madness at all. Ultimately, the ever rising flood of suicidal novelties that has now swollen to a synodal tsunami is the demonic fruit of patient decades of infiltration of the Church by her myriad enemies. Most notably by Enemy #1: the Lodge and its communistic, modernistic, sodomitic subsets. Detailed in masonic plans exposed and published by popes a century before Paul VI himself decried the "self-destruction" and the allusive "smoke of...

One of the things the left is desperately downplaying as it demands that Israel allow Hamas and its supporters to go unpunished and, ideally, cede to the Arabs the entire land of Israel is the fact that the surrounding Arab nations are refusing to take Gazans in as refugees. The reason is that nobody wants these “Palestinian” Arabs who have proven to be as destructive to Arab nations as they are to Israel. When Barack Obama’s policies triggered the disastrous Arab Spring, with massive upheaval in the Muslim lands of Africa and the Middle East, Europe opened its doors to...

On March 27, 2023, a mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, which resulted in multiple fatalities. The attack was carried out by a transgender leftist who had written a “manifesto” which has currently been withheld due to public records requests made by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department as well as the activism of Southern Baptist Convention ERLC head, Brent Leatherwood. Brent Leatherwood, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), is calling on TN lawmakers to back a proposal by Governor Bill Lee for an extreme risk protective...

Colombia is hoping to expedite its mission to recover a three-century-old sunken treasure worth as much as $20 billion as the ownership of the fortune lies in legal limbo amid an ongoing court battle. President Gustavo Petro ordered his administration to exhume the “Holy Grail of shipwrecks” — the Spanish galleon San José — from the floor of the Caribbean Sea as soon as possible, the country’s minister of culture told Bloomberg last week. Petro wants to bring the 62-gun, three-masted ship to the surface before his term is up in 2026 and has requested a public-private partnership be formed...

This should not come as a big surprise, after all, President Donald Trump has an actual record of accomplishment on the two metrics that CBS/YouGov are polling, peace and prosperity.According to the CBS/YouGov Poll, American voters view President Donald Trump as the better presidential candidate to create peace globally and specifically make their financial future more positive. Both of these points are exceptionally important.CBS – With views of things in America continuing to be bad and now hitting their most negative marks of the year, one might expect an incumbent president to trail in a pre-election poll — as Joe...

Sure, Hunter Biden sold himself to foreign companies in exchange for access to his father, the vice president of the United States. Yes, he made millions from a Ukrainian gas company while his dad’s government portfolio included Ukraine, a flagrantly unethical arrangement that is still under investigation. As an unregistered foreign agent, he shook down the Chinese for cash while threatening that “I’m sitting here with my father.” Despite having no expertise, despite “My dog is smarter than Hunter,” as one executive said, oligarchs were happy to pay him for the opportunity to get Joe on the phone, or to...

Members of First Baptist Church of Phenix City gathered on Sunday to announce funeral details for their former Pastor ‘Bubba’ Copeland- who shot and killed himself after being discovered to have been living a secret life as a sexual pervert and creepy hypocrite– as well as sing some hymns and offer prayers. One speaker shared: “Despite what may have been implied in the media, members of this church have been steadfast in their love and concern for our pastor. I cannot tell you that I fully understand or can explain the scope of this tragedy. There are some things though...

On Thursday, Sam Bankman-Fried was properly convicted for stealing $8 billion from customers. I wonder why brokers haven’t been punished for promoting FTX since they don’t appear to have properly researched the company? For decades, the media, politicians, bureaucrats, the United Nations, scientists, educators, entertainers, and others have been running con games that dwarf the FTX scheme; so where’s their trial and conviction? Most notably, they’ve indoctrinated the public with the lie that the science is settled that humans and our use of natural resources cause temperatures and sea levels to rise, which in turn cause storms to be more...

I assume that given the title, you as the reader understand that the story covered herein is terribly distressing, but I want to iterate the point for the sake of propriety; I also want to stress that the people boxed in by the “progressive” left as the “religious right” deserve a huge and groveling apology. We told them so, and to be frank, I’m really sick of this dance with the “progressive” left. We take on the mantle of the long-sufferer, speaking softly and using little words as we try to coax them into being halfway decent (or at the...

A diver who spotted something metallic not far from Sardinia's coast has led to the discovery of tens of thousands of ancient bronze coins.Italy's culture ministry said Saturday that the diver alerted authorities, who sent divers assigned to an art protection squad along with others from the ministry's undersea archaeology department. The ministry posted images and video of the stunning discovery.The coins dating from the first half of the fourth century were found in sea grass, not far from the northeast shore of the Mediterranean island. The ministry didn't say exactly when the first diver caught a glimpse of something...

For the first time ever, Israel was pushed to the ends of the Earth last week. Last Tuesday, it was announced that the Arrow missile defense system shot down a ballistic missile for the first time, in this instance fired at Israel by Houthi rebels in Yemen. The IDF stated that air force systems tracked the missile’s trajectory and intercepted it “at the most appropriate operational time and location.” According to a report in the UK's Daily Telegraph, the missile was intercepted outside of the Earth's atmosphere.

ASHINGTON—Zackey Rahimi pulled a gun on his ex-girlfriend in a parking lot and shot at a witness who saw them arguing, prompting a Texas family court to issue a protective order in 2020 temporarily forbidding him from possessing firearms. Rahimi ignored the order, authorities say, going on to threaten another woman with a gun, fire an AR-15 into the house of one of his narcotics customers, and shoot into the air at a Whataburger drive-through after his friend’s credit card was declined. That led to his conviction under a 1994 federal law prohibiting people under domestic-violence orders from possessing guns—and...

Head of Chinese Communist gov’t-run church accepts invitation to visit Diocese of Hong KongArchbishop Li Shan's visit to the Diocese of Hong Kong comes after a year of Beijing's continued violation of the secretive Sino-Vatican deal.HONG KONG (LifeSiteNews) — The communist state-approved Archbishop of Beijing has accepted an invitation to visit Catholic Diocese of Hong Kong, marking the increasing links between Hong Kong and the Chinese Communist Party authorities. In a very brief statement issued November 3, the Diocese of Hong Kong announced that “Bishop Joseph Li Shan of Beijing” would begin a five day visit to the diocese on...

Author Dawn Kellum wrote a short memoir about her abortion called My Abortion and What NOBODY Told Me. The book is free on Kindle, and you can read it via the Kindle app, on any phone or device. A Grieving Woman’s Warning Kellum writes to other abortion-minded pregnant people, warning them about what might happen after their abortions. Here are some of her warnings: You will need counseling after an abortion because it will affect you in every way imaginable. You will regret your decision for the rest of your life. You will miss that child you aborted for the...