Free Republic

She’s puts the “blaze” in trailblazer! The first female FDNY Deputy Chief ever was promoted Friday, as top brass hailed her for “shattering the glass ceiling” in the male-dominated field. Battalion Chief Michele Fitzsimmons — a 24-year veteran who joined the Bravest a few months before 9/11— was named Deputy Chief of fire operations at a packed promotion ceremony in Queens. “I hope that other women who are in the department now can see themselves rising through the ranks,” Fitzsimmons, 55, told reporters after the event at at Queens College. “I also hope that young girls can see themselves as...

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned parties involved in the ongoing Gaza conflict to “avoid any form of ethnic cleansing” on Wednesday, a barb his spokesman appeared to indicate was intended for President Donald Trump. Trump shocked the Middle East by declaring on Tuesday evening that America would “take over the Gaza Strip,” a small slice of land in between Egypt and Israel currently controlled by the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas. Hamas has been in a formal state of war with Israel since October 7, 2023, when it invaded the country and massacred 1,200 random people, abducted dozens of others,...

Former CIA chief John Brennan was not happy about President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel his security clearance, claiming the only reason he maintained a clearance was to provide advice to the president. Brennan, who unrepentantly signed a letter falsely claiming Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation, was Barack Obama’s director of the CIA and played a massive role in the Russia hoax, along with reportedly dismissing intelligence that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win the U.S. presidential election in 2016. During a recent interview on MSNBC, Brennan criticized Trump for preventing him from giving the president advice on national...

Texas border czar Mike Banks has been tapped to be the next US Border Patrol chief, sources told The Post Thursday. Banks, a longtime former border agent himself, will serve as the federal agency’s 27th head under the Trump administration, according to a source familiar with his appointment... ...Until now, Banks has been serving as the Lone Star State’s first-ever border czar — a position created by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2023 to deal with the unprecedented influx of illegal migrants pouring across the US border... ...Banks has more than three decades of federal law enforcement leadership experience under his...

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief has extended temporary amnesty for 850,000 illegal and quasi-legal economic migrants until 2026, further suppressing American wages and spiking their rents. The 18-month expansion of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) amnesty was announced by outgoing border chief, Alejandro Mayorkas. The beneficiaries include 234,000 illegal migrants from El Salvador who first got their TPS status after a 2001 earthquake that wrecked their home nation’s economy. The small nation’s economy is now growing amid the successful suppression of gang crime by the nation’s popular President, Nayib Bukele. So Mayorkas’s press statement blamed bad weather for his...

An estimated 1,000 structures have been destroyed in the Santa Ana wind-fueled wild fire ravaging the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone said during a news conference Wednesday morning. Many of the structures that have been lost to the flames were homes, KTLA reported. The Palisades fire was first reported on Tuesday in the 1100 block of North Piedra Morada Drive. By that evening, the fire had expanded to more than 2,900 acres.

Tim Young @TimRunsHisMouth Anne Kirkpatrick, New Orleans elderly, female police chief ran over 2 people in her car in August.

The United States may face a “dire threat” from burgeoning cooperation between adversaries such as China, Iran, and North Korea if it strikes a peace deal for Russia in Ukraine, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte warned incoming President Donald Trump. Former Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, who was installed in the top NATO job in October after his longstanding globalist government in The Hague fell apart last year amid growing resentment towards his open borders agenda, has laid out the opening gambit for the international security state’s attempt to influence President Elect Trump’s peace negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow to end...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) killed Hezbollah’s chief of media relations, Mohammed Afif, in an airstrike in Beirut on Sunday, according to Reuters. Reuters reported: An Israeli strike on a building in a densely populated district of Beirut on Sunday killed Hezbollah’s media relations chief Mohammad Afif, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters, though there was no immediate confirmation from Hezbollah. The Israeli military declined to comment in response to questions from Reuters. There was no evacuation order for the area published on the Israeli military spokesperson’s account on social media platform X before the strike.

The leader of the Ansarullah Yemeni terrorist organization, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, lamented the “big loss” of Hamas “political” chief Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday, vowing revenge after his departure “greatly impacted” the Middle East. Al-Houthi’s admission that the elimination of Haniyeh from the battlefield had a significant positive impact on the war on jihadists in the Middle East follows a comment from American President Joe Biden that his death was not helpful, as well as his administration’s refusal to directly answer if Hamas losing its most important liaison to top allies — such as the regimes of Iran and Turkey — made...

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Thursday that it had killed Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in an airstrike in July that also killed his deputy, Rafah Salameh. Deif had survived seven previous assassination attempts, and Hamas did not immediately acknowledge his death. But there were growing signs in recent weeks that he had, in fact, been killed. The IDF released previously unseen footage of the airstrike on Thursday: צה”ל ושב”כ מודיעים כי בפעילות משותפת של צה״ל ושב״כ, בתאריך ה-13 ביולי 2024 מטוסי קרב תקפו במרחב ח’אן יונס וכעת, לאחר בדיקה מודיעינית, ניתן לאשר כי בתקיפה חוסל מחמד דף, מפקד...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), one of President Biden’s ardent defenders, has emerged as a key public voice attempting to soothe Democratic fears over the incumbent. Newsom was at last month’s debate and was quick to defend Biden after he delivered a widely panned performance against former President Trump. Since then, Newsom has visited the White House with other Democratic governors amid concerns over the president’s health and crisscrossed key battleground states in a bid to shore up support for him. His effort comes as some in the party call for Biden to step aside to make room for a...

CHAUTAUQUA — Having experienced the White House during the time of three different presidents, Andrew Card Jr., former chief of staff, has seen the changes in the political state of America during his time in the position. Speaking at Chautauqua Institution on Wednesday as a part of the Institution’s opening week, Card began by discussing how he first got into politics and how he was a big fan of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, two of the three presidents he would work under. Card became “very involved” in campaigns, including the 1980 cycle, which he said involved 22 Republicans....

resident Joe Biden’s top climate adviser said he understands young activists’ impatience with the slow progress on combating climate change — but warned that the president’s political rivals are preparing a “U-turn agenda” that would reverse all the administration’s progress. White House national climate adviser Ali Zaidi’s comments Wednesday at the POLITICO Energy Summit come as the youth-led environmental group Sunrise Movement signaled it is withholding its endorsement of Biden, who has struggled to draw support from the young voters who were crucial to his election four years ago. Zaidi said the administration needs to communicate the stakes of the...

Former CIA Director John Brennan criticized former President Trump in an interview with a Belgian state broadcaster published Sunday, saying Trump isn’t qualified to handle national security matters. “I think he didn’t believe what we were telling him,” Brennan said in the interview with RTBF, referring to a meeting on national security he had with Trump before his inauguration in 2017. “And he was especially trying to find out how we knew what we knew about Russian interference in the election,” Brennan continued. “According to me, he was not qualified at the time, and he is not qualified today. We...

The Biden administration's new State Department diversity chief previously called America a "failed historic model" and demanded the destruction of tradition "at every juncture" on the altar of antiracism. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last week the appointment of Zakiya Carr Johnson as their chief diversity and inclusion officer. Blinken touted Carr Johnson for bringing "expertise and a fresh perspective on how we build a workforce that reflects America." Carr Johnson previously served as then-President Barack Obama's senior adviser and director of the first Race, Ethnicity and Social Inclusion Unit at the State Department.

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” former Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz stated that he “never once met” with either President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris during his tenure running the agency from August 2021 to the end of June 2023 and “it’s long overdue that they sit down and roll up their sleeves and start coming up with some solutions.”

A Jersey Shore police chief was suspended after reportedly showing up drunk to an accident scene and getting into a scuffle with one of his own officers — who later slammed his boss onto the hood of a police cruiser and told the chief to leave before he “gets a problem.” The confrontation between Bradley Beach Police Chief Leonard Guida and Sgt. William Major erupted on the night of Nov. 9, when the chief allegedly walked up to a suspected drunk driving crash on Main Street and began berating Major about his uniform, according to bodycam footage obtained by TAPinto,...

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to meet privately with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi on Wednesday, without Israel’s elected leaders present, before the meeting was blocked by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Blinken is currently on a visit to Israel to discuss hostage negotiations and the Biden administration’s goal of a Palestinian state. The Times of Israel reported: A previously scheduled one-on-one meeting between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi will not take place, amid reports that the Prime Minister’s Office opposed a meeting between a foreign diplomat...

Mark Esper, former President Trump’s one-time top Defense official, is joining CNN as a contributor. Esper, who served as Defense secretary from July 2019 to November 2020, has been hired as a full-time contributor, the network announced Wednesday. He will serve as a “global affairs analyst and political commentator.” After leaving government, Esper became a partner and board member at the venture capital firm Red Cell Partners and currently serves on several private capital and public policy boards and works as a corporate consultant. During a recent guest appearance on CNN, Esper said he agrees with concerns about Trump retaliating...