Free Republic

Hours of closed-door testimony from three top State Department officials shed new light on the “unprecedented” situation in the final days of the US presence in Afghanistan as the officials were rushed to the country with virtually no time to prepare and no established emergency evacuation plan in place when they arrived. The three officials, John Bass, Jim DeHart and Jayne Howell, were all plucked from unrelated assignments and rushed into Afghanistan in the hours after Kabul fell to the Taliban due to their extensive experience in Afghanistan. The transcripts of their interviews with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, obtained...

Providing Donald Trump’s $175 million appeal bond when other insurers wouldn’t is business as usual for California financier Don Hankey. As chairman of the Los Angeles-based Hankey Group of Companies, which includes an insurer, a subprime auto lender and a commercial real estate investment firm, Hankey has amassed a fortune lending to borrowers other financial firms shun. Hankey’s assistance to Trump has brought the little-known billionaire into the spotlight. But in recent years, several of his companies’ operations attracted the attention of the U.S. Justice Department, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the California Department of Insurance. Since 2015, regulators...

Legendary financial and geopolitical cycle analyst Martin Armstrong has new data on President Biden’s approval numbers. Nearly two years ago, President Biden’s real job approval rating in America was just 12%. More than one year ago, the real Biden approval number slipped to 9.5% (and stayed there) according to Armstrong’s world renowned “Socrates” predictive computer program. Now, Biden’s rating tumbled again. Armstrong says, “It is basically hovering around 7.5% to 8% at this stage. I know this goes against the mainstream media, but if you look at Google, it is really politically motivated. . . . The other number you...

Serious crime spiked again last year to levels unseen in nearly two decades, according to internal NYPD data obtained by The Post — even as Mayor Eric Adams has repeatedly claimed that “crime is down” in the Big Apple. For the second year in a row under Adams, overall crime was on the rise — driven by a historic surge in assaults, which neared 28,000 for the first time in the city’s publicly recorded history, according to the police department’s rolling report. The report tracks the tally of seven major felony offenses after the time of arrest to when cases...

Talk show host Jimmy Kimmel appeared perplexed after polls showed that Donald Trump was leading Joe Biden in several crucial swing states. The confused host asked, “How could this be?” During Wednesday’s episode of his ABC show, Kimmel expressed his dismay, claiming many ex-associates of Trump have spoken out against him, concluding the former president “doesn’t even lead in a poll of people who worked for him.”

In The Wall Street Journal’s latest poll of swing states, 74% of respondents said inflation has moved in the wrong direction in the past year. This assessment, which holds across all seven states, is startling, sobering—and simply not true. I’m not stating an opinion. This isn’t something on which reasonable people can disagree. If hard economic data count for anything, we can say unambiguously that inflation has moved in the right direction in the past year. In the 12 months through February, inflation, according to the century-old consumer-price index, was 3.2%, compared with 6% a year earlier. Use a slightly...

Former President Clinton will lead a U.S. delegation to Rwanda this weekend to mark 30 years since a genocide ravaged the country, the White House announced Thursday. An ethnic conflict between Hutu and Tutsi people in the country escalated to genocide in early 1994, eventually resulting in the deaths of between 500,000 and 800,000 Tutsi Rwandans over the course of about four months. The U.S. government did little to address the conflict, working to evacuate Americans from the country and pledging $500 million for humanitarian aid. Since-revealed White House documents from the time showed the reluctance was caused by the...

Six Somali migrant workers were publicly beheaded in Jeddah on this date in 2005 for robbing taxi drivers. The muggings, though violent, were not fatal to the drivers, so the punishment was quite harsh even by the harsh standards of KSA. According to an Amnesty International researcher, the doomed men had not been “informed in advance that their five-year prison sentences, which they had served — and also been lashed — by May 2004, had apparently been changed later to death sentences by a secret procedure.” They were unaware until the morning of their execution that they had even been...

The lack of vehicles forced Ukrainian command to back down from the original plans. The leadership of the Armed Forces of Ukraine has reorganized the 153rd Mechanized Brigade into an infantry brigade. This change was announced through the official social media channels of the brigade.

Mass General Brigham announced Tuesday it would no longer report to state welfare agencies when a baby is born with drugs in its system because substance abuse in pregnant mothers “disproportionately affects black people,” Boston.com reports. The change will be rolled out later this month, with Dr. Sarah Wakeman, senior medical director for substance use disorder at Mass General Brigham, arguing the new policy is “based on sound science.”

The southern border crisis has reached new heights under President Biden. Now, viral footage shows migrants rushing the National Guard and cutting down border fencing. The data backs up the images Americans are seeing on TV. Arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico have reached an all-time high.I could just as easily be describing our border in 2015 or even a decade before. Some of these foreigners will get drivers licenses and, therefore mistakenly get added to American voter rolls. We have researched this issue for years, and there is hard data to back it up.We already have government records...

WEATHER ALERT Gov. DeSantis signs legislation to protect Florida’s natural resources 2 river flood warnings in effect for Brantley and Columbia Counties WEATHER Hyperactive hurricane season expected by top forecast group CSU predicts highest April outlook in its history Mark Collins, Meteorologist Published: April 4, 2024 at 11:02 AM Tags: Weather, Hurricane CSU is forecasting 23 named storms, with 11 expected to intensify into hurricanes, including 5 reaching major status. CSU is forecasting 23 named storms, with 11 expected to intensify into hurricanes, including 5 reaching major status. Facebook X Email Show More 1 Colorado State University (CSU) has unveiled...

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that there is every reason to believe that the main goal of the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Crocus City Hall was to cause harm to Russia's unity. "In this regard, of course, judging by the ongoing investigation, we have every reason to believe that the main goal of the perpetrators of this bloody, terrible terrorist act in Moscow was precisely to cause harm to our unity. No other goals are visible, they simply do not exist," Putin said at the XII Congress of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia. The shooting...

Lord Cameron has ruled out Western troops being sent into Ukraine to avoid giving Russian President Vladimir Putin "a target". The foreign secretary acknowledged that the "war will be lost if the allies don't step up" on the BBC's Ukrainecast podcast. But asked whether Western nations should send troops into Ukraine, Lord Cameron replied "no". He added Nato must be in the "best possible shape" by the US elections. Lord Cameron was speaking at a two-day North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) summit of 32 foreign ministers in Brussels. Nato boss Jens Stoltenberg has floated plans for a 100 billion euro...

Two men accused of trying to lure children into a van where Cicero police allegedly found condoms, lubricant, and a mattress were not detained on the charges because prosecutors and the judge mistakenly believed attempted child abduction is not a detainable offense under Illinois’ cashless bail system. Both men have been detained for other reasons, one for violating parole and the other for violating probation. However, if those holds are released, they will go home on electronic monitoring. During an initial appearance at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California on Sunday, Assistant State’s Attorney Sarah Dale-Schmidt presented the...

Residents in a region hit by the deepest drone strikes within Russian territory since the start of the war in Ukraine have been warned that air defenses may not be able to protect them from future attacks. Since the start of its full-scale invasion, Russia has been hit with drone strikes reaching Moscow as well as ammunition depots and warehouses around the country linked to the war effort. Russian authorities blame Ukraine for the attacks, which Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for. In the latest incident, a drone attack on the Russian republic of Tatarstan on Tuesday reportedly hit industrial areas...

Chicago health officials have announced that a "small number" of tuberculosis (TB) cases have been reported at some migrant facilities following a recent outbreak of measles among migrants living in the Windy City's shelters. The Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH) said the TB cases were reported in "a few different shelters" in the city. However, officials did not disclose the exact number of confirmed cases or which shelter locations they originated from, Fox 32 Chicago reports.

The State Department said on Wednesday that while the Biden administration remains committed to a “two-state solution” for Israel and the Palestinians, it opposes the Palestinian effort to negotiate statehood at the United Nations. The Palestinian delegation to the U.N. said on Wednesday that it wants the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) to vote by the end of the month on giving the Palestinians full membership in the United Nations, which would be tantamount to conferring Palestinian statehood. The Palestinians first submitted a formal application for full U.N. membership in 2011. Palestinian U.N. Ambassador Riyad Mansour (pictured) said 140 countries already...

The effort to rebuild the recently collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge near Baltimore, Maryland, could quickly turn into a years-long quagmire as a result of environmental red tape under the Biden administration, experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Baltimore Bridge was struck by a container ship navigating the Patapsco River out of the Port of Baltimore in late March, sending several cars and workers into the water and rendering the passageway unusable. It is unknown exactly how long the bridge could take to rebuild, as officials could expedite the process, but experts warned the DCNF that government red...

Before I even knew what a "meme" was, I remember discovering the most incredible ones and knowing exactly who crafted them. Since then, many of their names have escaped me in the span of time. As I reflect on over 20 years since joining FR, I'm reminded of members who are no longer with us (due to bans or departures) but whose art shaped much of our common history. Calling all our long-standing members! Do any of you recall specific names or have memorable examples from our community's golden era, spanning from the late 1990s to 2010? Share your stories...