Free Republic

In 2021, after Joe Biden had been President for just seven months, I published an article in The Federalist asking, “If Joe Biden’s Team Will Lie About His Dog Biting People, What Won’t They Lie About?” The President himself has now – once again – answered that question with a resounding “Nothing!” WHAT HAS HE DONE NOW? One of the latest examples of this lack of discipline and honesty, is Biden’s testimony in the course of his two-day interview by Special Counsel Robert Hur. To an eye practiced in reviewing the transcript of those interviews and Joe Biden’s fitness for...

Brazil’s federal police accused former President Jair Bolsonaro and his closest aides over allegations they falsified their Covid-19 vaccination records to travel to the U.S. at the height of the pandemic, according to a person close to the investigation. The criminal accusations, which could carry a jail sentence of up to 15 years if they lead to a conviction, come as authorities crack down on Bolsonaro and his fellow conservatives in a barrage of criminal cases, angering supporters who have threatened nationwide protests if he is arrested. Bolsonaro and 16 other people, including his former adviser and military official Mauro...

How did this nation ever get to the point where a man once considered nothing more than a tacky, loud, nouveau-riche liberal NYC real estate mogul/celebrity, with an orange complexion and a crazy pompadour/combover, would be transmogrified into the ultimate scapegoat for the failings, crimes, and corruption that have plagued our government and society since at least the end of the Second World War; the locus and symbol of the most unbridled hatred by the very same global elite that, in point of fact, are guilty of those sins and that he once perhaps was a part of? If I...

A cockpit seat mishap might have pushed a pilot into the controls on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner that took a sudden, terrifying plunge on a flight to New Zealand this week, according to U.S. industry officials briefed on preliminary evidence from an investigation of the incident. A Latam Airlines flight attendant hit a switch on the pilot’s seat while serving a meal, leading a motorized feature to push the pilot into the controls and push down the plane’s nose, these officials said. The switch has a cover and isn’t supposed to be used when a pilot is in the seat....

Special Counsel Robert Hur stood by his assessment that President Joe Biden was a "well-meaning, elderly man" whose failing memory would have made it untenable to pursue prosecution of his willful retention of classified records during testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. Transcripts of Hur’s interviews with Biden released Tuesday and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon support Hur’s assessment that there are "significant limitations" surrounding Biden’s memory. Throughout the five hours of interviews on Oct. 8 and 9, Biden struggled to recall relevant details about his handling of classified records or when he served as vice president....

We can only hope that Dementia Joe Biden is recuperating this weekend after these past few disastrous days, not only at the State of the Union address but also during his follow-up trip to Philadelphia Friday. In case you missed it (and state-run media are doing their best to make sure you do), Biden made an impassioned plea to his minions in the Keystone State: “Pennsylvania, I have a message for you. Send me to Congress!” Then he referenced his speech the previous night to that same Congress he soon hopes to be a member of. “The U.S. Capitol —...

Greenland start-up is being accused of doing titanic damage to the environment by shipping ice from glaciers over 100,000 years old to be used in cocktails served at high-priced bars in Dubai. Arctic Ice, which started this year, touts its product as the “oldest and purest” ice in the world as it is harvested from icebergs in Greenland — a distance of more than 4,730 miles from the Middle Eastern megalopolis. Though the makers say they hope to highlight global warming’s effects on ice sheets with the their business model — and even stop sea levels from rising — the...

The sheriff of the Georgia county where a Venezuelan migrant has been charged with murdering nursing student Laken Riley had campaigned on refusing to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, a resurfaced interview shows. “It is not my intention, when elected sheriff, to cooperate with those detainers,” John Williams, now the sheriff of Athens-Clarke County, said in a 2020 interview with Athens Political Nerds. He was referring to detainers ICE placed on illegal immigrants who were arrested on criminal charges. “I see it as the sheriff’s responsibility, any law enforcement, to protect and serve the community,” Williams continued. “We...

The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump’s associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate. The alleged operation against Trump...

All dialogue guaranteed verbatim. That is my guarantee to you, the readers, whenever I present Dementia Joe Biden’s unedited, unexpurgated remarks for your edification. Let's begin this chapter of the Weekend at Brandon’s chronicles with some of his more recent comments. On Friday, he denounced the death of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny. “What has happened to Navalny is yet more proof of Putin’s putality.” May we quote you on that, Mr. President? Speaking of foreign affairs, on Monday he met with King Abdullah of Jordan. “He’s been a good friend, King Abdul, welcome back to the White House.” Then he...

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin said Friday that he is not running for president, according to his spokesman Jonathan Kott. Manchin announced his decision in a speech at West Virginia University, as part of a national listening tour he was making. “I will not be seeking a third-party run. I will not be involved in a presidential run,” he said in his speech in Morgantown. The centrist Democrat who often bucked his party's leadership had been considering a run for the presidency and had said he thought it would be clear by March if there was a path for a...

More than 30 pro-Palestinian Harvard students participated in a 12-hour hunger strike Friday in solidarity with 17 students at Brown University who refused to eat for eight days to pressure the Brown Corporation to divest from Israel. Nineteen students at Brown began the strike — which was originally indefinite — on Feb. 2, ahead of the Brown Corporation’s planned meetings beginning Feb. 8. The students intended to strike until the Brown Corporation considered a resolution to divest from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine,” but they ended the strike after Brown University president Christina H. Paxson denied...

Here in Boston, we know just how corrupt the FBI can be. For instance, framing innocent men for murders they did not commit, or providing explosives for gangsters to use to kill reporters. Or taking payoffs to set up informants to be rubbed out by serial-killing cocaine dealers, and then after committing such crimes being promoted to director of the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia…. I could go on and on about the Boston FBI office. But you get the picture. Still, as bad and as overrated as the G-men have always been, they’re worse now. And the feds’...

PROVO, Utah — A teen is in troubled waters after he was arrested for allegedly taping fish to ATMs, a police car and other areas around Provo and Orem, documenting his fishy business on social media. The 17-year-old was arrested at the end of December, but police allege he was involved in more than a dozen cases of fish being taped to various areas from August through October. Provo Police told FOX 13 News that while the prank seemed to be done in innocent fun, cleanup started costing money, which is when it o-fish-ally became a crime. Besides ATMs, the...

The agency responsible for standardizing geographical name spellings throughout the federal government has decided against a proposal by a New Hampshire woman to change the name of Mount Washington in Coös County to Agiocochook, but did say it can be used on federal products alongside the official name. In a letter to Kris Pastoriza of Easton, the U.S. Board on Geographical Names said: “We regret to inform you that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, at its Jan. 11, 2024 meeting, did not approve your proposal to change the name of Mount Washington in and on the White Mountain National...

Clarence Thomas is a black American icon. There is no more American story, and no blacker story, than his. We should celebrate him as a living embodiment of this nation’s greatness, given his rise from the challenging circumstances of his upbringing—poverty, segregation, colorism, linguistic alienation—to holding a seat on the Supreme Court. Excluding Thomas from any history of African-descended people in this country would render it incomplete, just as ignoring his influence would leave any history of the current Court incomplete. Justice Clarence Thomas is unquestionably a towering figure in American jurisprudence. As Scott Douglas Gerber, a leading authority on...

After an emergency exit-sized hole opened in the side of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at 16,000 feet, a separate chaotic episode erupted when the cockpit door mysteriously flew open. That meant the pilots were subjected to the deafening wind and noise from the back of the plane—and also made the cockpit accessible to anyone inclined to try to force their way in. What the flight crew didn’t know at the time, federal investigators said Monday, was that it was supposed to happen that way. What the flight crew didn’t know at the time, federal investigators said Monday, was that it...

Life may not be like a box of chocolates, but a shakedown is what you’re always gonna get from trial attorneys. Consider the class-action lawsuit filed late last month against Hershey Co. over its Reese’s candy. At issue is whether Hershey fudged on the packaging of seasonal treats. Recent wrappers showed tiny eyes and mouths on chocolate pumpkins and ghosts, but the candy inside was faceless. Similarly, the chocolate football inside “contains no carving for the laces” as depicted on the wrapper. Anthony Russo of the Florida-based Russo Firm says this has caused untold hardship to his client Cynthia Kelly...

Jonathan J. Dunn, a former Delta Air Lines first officer who allegedly threatened to shoot his captain after suggesting to divert for a passenger’s medical emergency, called the incident a “misunderstanding” and joke, as reported by the Associated Press (AP). According to the news agency, Dunn, who was charged with interfering with a flight crew, made his first court appearance Thursday in Salt Lake City after being indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 18, 2023. The altercation between Dunn and the captain, who remains unnamed, occurred back in August 2022 on a flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City....

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. And they fear the Tesla TSLA -0.18%decrease; red down pointing triangle and SpaceX chief executive’s drug use could have major consequences not just for his health, but also...