Free Republic

A second amended complaint filed Friday in Manhattan federal court by six victims of Jeffrey Epstein who are suing the V.I. government for alleged violations of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act claims territory officials actively conspired with the late multimillionaire to perpetuate his sex-trafficking scheme for their own gain. In effect, the U.S. Virgin Islands became “a government-sanctioned sanctuary” for wealthy men who paid Epstein “substantial” sums of money to travel from New York to engage in commercial sex acts with women also traveling from that state, the amended suit alleges. Epstein would then deposit the funds in his New...

Timothy Bundren must have heard wrong. The sun wasn’t up yet. He was still groggy from starting his morning routine of walking through chicken barns. His phone rang and his contact with the global meat company headquartered in Springdale, Arkansas, just two hours south of his farm, started telling him he would no longer be raising chickens. Bundren, 52, didn’t believe him at first. Just hours later, he was supposed to meet with the bank about another loan to buy the farm down the road. Bundren waited an hour and then called the man back. The news didn’t change, but...

Yo Snopes, I need a fact check. We've got an election denier over here!! We can't let this misinformation be shared - it's a threat to democracy! For some reason, the 84-year-old Pelosi thought it would be a good idea to debate Winston Marshall, the former banjo player for Mumford & Sons, on the subject of elites who are disconnected from reality, and to do so at the historic Oxford Union. Real Clear Politics has the full transcript and the video. Marshall's case? "Populism is not a threat to democracy. Populism is democracy." Meanwhile, here was Pelosi telling us that...

ATLANTA — Several other co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case have filed their own appeals over the ruling that allowed the Fulton County District Attorney to stay on the case and are asking that Fani Willis be removed from the case. Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Cathy Latham, and Michael Roman all filed appeals Monday in the case. They now join former President Donald Trump and former Georgia GOP head David Shafer in appealing the ruling. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ruled that Willis could stay on the case if former special prosecutor Nathan Wade stepped down after...

Wherin Ukies neglect to fortify the Kharkov region and then embark upon a maximal campaign of provocation in the region...

Houston’s police chief has resigned after emails obtained by a local news outlet appear to show that he knew about massive failures in the department well before he said he did. Within hours of issuing a statement about the findings, he resigned. In February, Houston Police Chief Troy Finner first announced that the Houston Police Department dropped 264,000 crime reports, including violent crimes and sexual assaults, which weren’t investigated because a “lack of personnel” code was assigned to them, The Center Square reported. In March, new Houston Mayor John Whitmire appointed an independent panel to review an internal HPD investigation...

New data on Gazan fatalities cited by UN agency also separates ‘identified’ deaths in hospitals from some 10,000 alleged deaths based on Hamas ‘media sources’ In a dramatic development, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has sharply revised downward the number of “identified” female and child fatalities in the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The data now differentiates between the total number of deaths reported by Hamas (over 34,000) and the number of “identified” fatalities (over 24,000). The new figures reported by OCHA reduce by more than half the number of women and children that it previously...

The northern border shares something in common with the southern border of the United States - it is understaffed and Border Patrol agents are stretched thin. Despite a lack of proper support, agents at the northern border continue to apprehend a record number of illegal border crossers. In the busiest northern border sector of Swanton, Border Patrol agents made history by apprehending the greatest number of illegal border crossers in sector history of 1,109 in March, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. While the numbers are significantly lower than those apprehended at the southwest border, they are out...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has arrived in Ukraine as weapons from a new American aid package begin arriving at the front line. His visit comes as the country struggles to hold back a major Russian incursion near its second biggest city of Kharkiv. Ahead of Mr Blinken's arrival in Kyiv, a senior US official said the American-funded weapons now arriving at the front line included air defence interceptors, artillery and ATACMS long-range precision guided missiles. "We have already started to flow in artillery [and] long-range ATACMS that can range any part of Ukraine, and also other air defence...

Nearly three years ago I wrote about a mandatory diversity training that took place at UNC-Chapel Hill after the conservative paper on campus got an audio recording of the event.Ms. Parle started the presentation with an ‘indigenous land recognition,’ after which the hundreds of Greek attendees were advised that they should make a habit of repeating the political catechism in their daily lives and taught how to do so. After establishing her lecture was on stolen land, Ms. Parle asked students their feelings about ‘the system.’ Were they warm towards it? Apathetic? Or, the last option: ready to dismantle it?The...

On Monday, conservative attorney, legal scholar, and commentator Jonathan Turley weighed in on the day's testimony by Michael Cohen in the ongoing New York trial of former President Donald Trump. Mr. Turley's comments about Cohen were, to say the least, sharply pointed.Michael Cohen apparently wants a reality show but, if his testimony Monday is any indication, reality is about to sink in for not just Cohen but the prosecutors and the court.In stoking interest in his own appearance, the former Trump counsel promised the public that they should be “prepared to be surprised.” Thus far, however, Cohen has offered nothing...

On May 6th, the 2024 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Fund was released. It’s a very long title for a report that simply tells us the financial state of Medicare and project the future financial solvency of the program. One claim of the report is Medicare solvency has been extended 5 more years than the 2023 projection, and won’t go broke until 2036. But as with all things involving the Biden Administration, that isn’t the entire story.The 261-page report should be a purely factual...

@RepThomasMassie Listen to this $300,000 hit piece on me by foreign interest lobbyist group AIPAC. @ 0:12 “15 times in April, Massie was the only Republican voting…” @SpeakerJohnson, why did the U.S. House of Representatives vote 15 times in April on Israel’s issues, but not on our own?

The economy is experiencing a golden moment thanks to exports and tourism after cleaning up its accounts. But the country has paid a price in migration of qualified workers and reduction of public services. Ten years after the departure of the “men in black” — the international managers of the European Commission, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank who cleaned up Portugal’s accounts with a machete, the country has emerged as the most diligent student in southern Europe. In 2023, for the first time, public debt fell below 100% of GDP (it stood at 98.7%) and there was a...

President Joe Biden’s mediocre polling numbers and a difficult Senate map contribute to a somber mood for Democrats less than six months before Election Day. But there’s reason for Democratic optimism in one key Senate race, even as legal issues make one House member look more vulnerable while a GOP member’s status is in flux. With the complexities of a potential independent run for reelection by Sen. Kyrsten Sinema and Arizona emerging as one of the country’s top battlegrounds, the Arizona Senate race had been rated as a Toss-up for months. But Inside Elections has now changed the rating of...

Jews, who are 'tyrannical' and the 'brothers of apes and pigs' should be annihilated (...part of first paragraph deleted by my stupid browser) cording to a Florida Islamic cleric, wing “worse than the Nazis.” During a sermon at the North Miami Islamic Center in Florida in late April, Imam Di called for Allah to support “our oppressed brot well as for the total annihilation of Jews, whom he referred to as “apes and pigs” — a phrase that radical Islamists have historically used to describe Jews. “Oh Allah, annihilate the tyrannical Jews… for they are no match for You,” he...

Report signals concern for Artemis space missions | 3:04WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando | 436K subscribers | 7,082 views | May 10, 2024

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic priest: Dignitas Infinita a ‘faithless’ document with little to say about salvationIf hell is empty, there is no need for a cross and redemption, no Church and no grace. Even human dignity is then just a man-made vehicle, and despite its beautiful title, 'Dignitas infinita' is a faithless text for a faithless world.This essay by Fr. Joachim Heimerl was originally written in German. It has been translated and published with the permission of Fr. Heimerl.(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Robert Sarah recently caused a stir when he spoke of the “atheism” that is spreading in the Church. He was...

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arriving in Ukraine... Tonight, more towns taken by Russian forces advancing in the Kharkiv Region northeast of the city of Kharkiv... US Central Command downing a missile and two drones launched by Houthi... Israel downing a drone entering Israeli airspace from the east... A curfew decreed in the French South Pacific territory of New Caledonia. All public gatherings banned... Armenia's opposition leader Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan calling for more protests against the government tomorrow... At least 12 killed dozens of other injured when a billboard collapsed in Mumbai, India... US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying...

Controversy is flaring over this year’s Pittsburgh Pride festival after event organizers claimed that state officials prevented them from holding the annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community at Point State Park in the Golden Triangle. The state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, which runs the park, countered that there were problems with the group’s permit application. Pittsburgh Pride had announced in January intentions to host the annual celebration at Point State Park. On Tuesday evening, however, organizers wrote on social media that they were forced to change plans “in response to unforeseen circumstances.”