Free Republic

One of Europe’s most notorious people-smugglers has been arrested in Iraq following a BBC investigation. Barzan Majeed was arrested in Iraqi Kurdistan on Sunday morning, a senior government official said. For several years, he and his gang were heavily involved in the people-smuggling trade - in boats and lorries - across the English Channel. The BBC tracked down Majeed - also known as Scorpion - to the city of Sulaymaniya, where he said he had transported thousands of migrants across the channel. “Maybe a thousand, maybe 10,000. I don’t know, I didn’t count,” he said. A senior member of the...

States like California, New York, and Massachusetts have passed climate policies specifically intended to jump-start this battery industry. But this year, for the first time ever, the fastest-growing energy storage market appears to be Texas, a free-market-affirming red state that officially cares little about solving climate change. Nonetheless, the state’s low-regulation, business-friendly landscape has created ideal conditions to build batteries quickly and at scale, just like it previously incubated thriving wind and solar markets.

Louis Knuffke, a LifeSiteNews Washington D.C. correspondent, was interviewing Heather Idoni, 59, over the phone on May 13 when she disclosed that she had had 3 stents placed above her heart two weeks ago and was told to take daily doses of heart medicine. However, prison officials have not given her a single dose, she told Knuffke, and jail personnel have told her that their records say she has been given them every day. Idoni, who said she was suffering from fluttering of the heart, terminated the interview after saying she would request a trip to the hospital. Knuffke then...

Former President Donald Trump is making a “heavy move into Minnesota,” hoping to flip the state red after it has consistently voted blue in the presidential election since 1976. Trump is heading to the blue state this week, speaking at the Minnesota Republican Party’s Lincoln Reagan dinner. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN), the Trump campaign’s state campaign chair, said the Minnesota GOP is “honored to welcome” Trump to the state: Honored to welcome the former and next President of the United States @realDonaldTrump to Minnesota! We are going to end the failed policies of the Biden Administration and get...

We’re barreling towards the 2024 election with few safeguards in place to stop the cheating from taking place again. Most politicians aren’t even talking about it, even though very few laws have been passed since 2020 to stop the cheating. In Arizona, because the governor is now Democrat Katie Hobbs — even though an exit poll from Rasmussen Reports showed Kari Lake beat her by 8 points — she vetoes any substantial election integrity bills. The only state that appears to have successfully passed any significant election integrity legislation since the 2020 election is Georgia. Surprisingly, Georgia’s RINO Governor Brian...

The Supreme Court last month denied Navarro's bid to leave prison early while he appealed the conviction. >Donald Trump Jr. visited ex-Trump White House advisor Peter Navarro in prison, he confirmed to ABC News.Navarro is currently incarcerated at a Miami federal prison while serving his sentence for contempt of Congress. He received a four-month sentence in January over his refusal to comply with a subpoena from the House Jan. 6 Committee.Trump Jr. told the outlet that Navarro was in "good spirits" and that "It’s important to show support."The Supreme Court last month denied Navarro's bid to leave prison early while...

CNN's Zakaria, in a moment of rare honesty: "I doubt the NY indictment would have been brought against the defendant whose name was not Donald Trump".

As Townhall reported — and anyone not blinded by rabid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas hatred presumed — the number of women and children killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its massacre on October 7 is far less than the United Nations or its terrorist sources reported. The UN's Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) quite quietly and without an announcement matching the breathless outrage at and coverage of previously reported (and literally unbelievable) numbers, halved the number of women and children it previously claimed were killed in Gaza amid the war. The more than 14,000 children it said...

While more than 9,500 women and 14,500 children were reported among the fatalities by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on May 6, two days later that number was revised significantly downward. Today, under 5,000 women and 8,000 children are now officially listed by the UN as casualties. David Adesnik, director of research at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told the National Post he suspects the discrepancy stems from the UN’s decision to quietly stop using figures provided by the Hamas-run Government Media Office (GMO). “So you see May 6 and before, the...

One of the burning questions of the 2024 presidential election so far — and Lord knows we haven’t had many burning questions — is that of whom Donald Trump will pick as his running mate. The former president has dropped a few hints, and there’s been plenty of speculation. But what do voters think? If somehow Trump put the question to his base, whom would they choose? A new poll from I&I/TIPP gives us an indication.The pollsters asked 538 Republicans (I don’t know if that number was on purpose or a happy coincidence) over the first weekend in May. The...

Ana Navarro told her co-hosts Monday on ABC’s “The View” that the election in November is a choice between President Joe Biden’s decency and the “evil” of former President Donald Trump. Navarro said, “I think this trial is helping Donald Trump because it’s keeping him off the trail and we are not focusing on the stupid stuff he says on a daily basis. And that is helping him. On Biden, look, you know, at first it was people saying, we don’t like our choices. What else? What other candidate? No third candidate. No knight in shining armor appeared.” She added,...

I've been a fan of Jerry Seinfeld since I was in middle school. His sitcom "Seinfeld" has been my favorite show since I was 11 or 12 years old. As an adult, I've gone to see him do stand-up comedy several times. I've appreciated the fact that unlike many of his Hollywood contemporaries, he's remained rather apolitical in public. I've never had any illusions that he wasn't a liberal. He's a Jew from New York, after all, and he's reportedly very close with George Stephanopoulos and his wife. Seinfeld's co-stars and collaborators, however, have never been shy about pushing their...

UNC-Chapel Hill's Board of Trustees on Monday approved the transfer of $2.3 million in diversity and inclusion spending to public safety priorities in the 2024-25 budget. The trustees held a special meeting Monday morning. The board is scheduled to hold its regular meeting Wednesday and Thursday. The UNC System Board of Governors is expected to vote next week to eliminate diversity goals and jobs at member institutions, including UNC-Chapel Hill. A Board of Governors committee last month approved a complete rewrite of the system's existing diversity, equity and inclusion policy. The move is likely to create job losses at the...

(Screenshot: Channel 12) US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew insisted Sunday evening that “fundamentally, nothing has changed in the basic relationship” between Israel and the US — despite the decision last week by US President Joe Biden’s administration to delay a shipment of high-payload bombs to Israel, and Biden’s declaration that he would not supply offensive weapons to Israel for a major IDF offensive affecting population centers in southern Gaza’s Rafah. Noting that military aid from Washington to Jerusalem has increased since war erupted in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Lew stressed in a Channel 12 interview that only...

Melinda French Gates announced on Monday that she is leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation next month.Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Melinda, his ex-wife, had tried to continue working together on projects at foundation, one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, following their 2021 divorce.“After careful thought and reflection, I have decided to resign from my role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. My last day of work at the foundation will be June 7,” French Gates wrote on X on Monday. “This is not a decision I came to lightly."Gates said that she...

So-called ‘abortion shield laws’ will prevent pro-life states and their citizens from holding abortionists accountable.Since the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022, pro-abortion states have begun devising measures to shelter abortionists whose operations were hampered by states that chose to protect unborn life. These so-called “abortion shield laws” — many of which are likely unconstitutional — will defeat any ability for pro-life states and their citizens to hold abortionists accountable for violating their health and safety standards. Diligently enforced, shield laws invite a new war between the states over not just the lives of unborn children, but also our...

In a bid to outflank Biden for the women's vote, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. came out in favor of abortion at any time and for any reason up until birth, saying "every baby's death is a tragedy. Many of them leave permanent trauma on a woman. But I think, ultimately, I don't trust government to have jurisdiction over people's bodies." This announcement stunned RFK's running mate Nicole Shanahan who insisted "that is not Bobby's position, at least as far as I understand it. My understanding is that he absolutely believes in limits on abortion, and we've talked...

The Athens, AL Police Department is investigating a reported attack against Tara Johnson, a Trump volunteer, outside a local Republican Party headquarters in what is alleged to have been a “politically motivated attack.” Tara Johnson, described as a “dedicated Republican volunteer” in a press release from the Alabama Republican Party, was assaulted outside the Limestone County, AL GOP Trump Headquarters over the weekend. According to Alabama Republican Party communications director Jeannie Negrón Burniston, Johnson serves as the lead volunteer despite physical mobility challenges due to health issues.

Now more than ever, we need to make sure that our elections are fair, lawfully conducted, and free of foreign influence.Congressional Democrats insist that the SAVE Act — which requires proof of citizenship to establish eligibility to vote in federal elections — is unnecessary because federal law (18 USC § 611) already prohibits noncitizens from voting in federal elections. Those making this argument ignore a glaring problem: the government officials who register voters and conduct federal elections aren’t allowed to require proof of citizenship. It’s therefore shockingly easy for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, leaving our elections dangerously vulnerable...

Up to now, there is a winner and a loser out of this Manhattan trial. The winner is President Trump, who keeps getting stronger. The loser is New York, or the perception that the Empire State is a banana republic. Using the legal system to target political opponents is Banana Republic 101. This is from Jonathan Turley:Cohen’s testimony will be the culmination of this travesty of a trial. But Bragg already jumped the shark with Daniels. After three weeks, legal experts are still debating what the crime was that Trump was seeking to conceal by recording payments for a standard...