Free Republic

Evidence in the trial against HLF showed that Ghassan Elashi, the treasurer of the charity, became the founding board member of CAIR’s Texas chapter and that HLF transferred funds to CAIR for “consulting services.” The prosecution also presented evidence that Hamas provided “seed money” for CAIR, according to a congressional hearing. “The history is very clear,” said Lorenzo Vidino, director of the Program on Extremism at GWU. “CAIR was created by this core group of Hamas leaders in the US in the early 1990s. There are FBI wiretaps of a workshop given by the group’s leaders on how to deal...

The independent challenging Republican Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts called for owners of modern semiautomatic firearms to undergo a mental health evaluation every five years as a prerequisite to renew registration of the guns. Dan Osborn, who lost to Republican Nebraska Sen. Deb Fischer in the 2024 election, announced his plans to challenge Ricketts in July 2025. Osborn, who has received support from Democrats in his big to topple Ricketts according to Roll Call, suggested the measure during a town hall in June. “I said, ‘Do you own an assault-style rifle, an AR-15, an M16, an AK-47, or anything like that?’...

OMAHA — Dan Osborn, an Independent candidate for U.S. Senate in Nebraska, at a town hall in Omaha last week, told attendees that he believed there should be mandatory five-year mental health checks for owners of AR-15s and similar “assault-style” rifles. One guest asked Osborn if he could offer anything “other than ‘thoughts and prayers’—which makes us all want to throw up” regarding gun violence. Osborn responded with notable candor.

The left tried really hard to turn the Karmelo Anthony case into a civil rights story. They wanted Karmelo to look like some modern-day Rosa Parks, like being told to leave another team’s tent at a high school track meet was the same thing as being ordered to the back of the bus. Revolver: There’s nothing the left wanted more than to turn an everyday black thug into the next Rosa Parks. That’s what they were desperately trying to do with accused murderer Karmelo Anthony. You’ll recall that Anthony is charged with the brutal stabbing murder of young, white teen...

During an appearance on the Unity Over Division podcast, U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D) echoed Joe Biden by saying the Second Amendment is “not absolute.” Talarico said, “I believe in the Second Amendment just as much as I believe in the First. We have a right to bear arms to protect ourselves, our families. We have a right to own weapons for sport or for hunting. But like any freedom in the Bill of Rights, it’s not absolute.”Breitbart News reported that on February 26, 2020, during a CNN Town Hall, Biden argued that the Second Amendment was not “absolute.”...

A Utah man missed his connection at Newark Airport, went to retrieve his checked luggage, which contained a properly declared, unloaded firearm, and got arrested. He did everything right. New Jersey didn't care. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) cited that case in a proposed rule published earlier this week that would amend existing Gun Control Act regulations to protect gun owners during routine travel interruptions — a missed flight, a hotel stay, a fuel stop, a medical emergency. The Utah case isn't an outlier. New York and New Jersey have made a prosecution racket out of...

Famed Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz says he believes President Donald Trump could have grounds to expunge his 2019 impeachment in the House after bombshell new evidence revealed the intelligence community failed to disclose that his main accuser had the potential for bias, made a false statement and only had hearsay to back up his allegations. Dershowitz, a Democrat at the time who worked to defend Trump at the impeachment trial that ended in the president's acquittal, said it would be "an interesting, novel approach" for Trump to go to Chief Justice John Roberts, who presided over the case,...

A law that became the subject of scrutiny following surveillance on 2016 Trump campaign aide Carter Page is up for renewal with an April 20 deadline, and the debate is creating unusual battle lines. The debate centers on whether reforms should be made to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Section 702, or if there should be a “clean” extension of the law. FISA allows for the federal government to gather foreign intelligence, but some critics have warned that it opens the door for Americans to be spied on in the process. President Donald Trump is asking for a “clean...

The Colorado Court of Appeals has thrown out election denier Tina Peters' nine-year prison sentence, finding that the lower court violated her First Amendment right to free speech related to her allegations of election fraud. “The trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” a three-judge panel wrote in a 77-page opinion. “Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud....

An Alabama Supreme Court ruling has dictated that police officers can demand ID when approaching individuals. The ruling states that officers are allowed to ask for physical identification if they feel an individual gives an unsatisfactory oral answer. AL.com reported how the decision ruled against a local pastor, who sued an Alabama town and its law enforcement office after a police encounter. The incident occurred in 2022, in which police arrested Pastor Michael Jennings after he watered his neighbor’s flowers. Another neighbor called the police on Jennings, citing that a “younger Black male” was on the property. While officers pressed...

Swedish authorities claim attending church 3 times a week is evidence of 'religious extremism' A Swedish couple that have been separated from their two eldest daughters for nearly four years due to alleged “religious extremism” have had an appeal rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Daniel and Bianca Samson’s ordeal began in late 2022 when government authorities took the daughters into their care. The intervention was prompted by an allegation by the eldest daughter that her parents would not allow them to wear makeup or own a phone due to their purported “religious extremism.”

The Minnesota legislature is considering HF 3433. HF3433 contains several significant infringements on the rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The bill was introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives on February 17, 2026. HF 3433 has been referred to the Minnesota House of Representatives Committee on Public Safety Finance and Policy. 35 members of the House have signed up as authors of the bill. HF3433 bans a long list of firearms by name, bans firearms by specific features, requires people who desire to keep any of the firearms specified to register them, store them...

The United States Department of Education announced on February 17 that it was opening an investigation into Portland Public Schools (PPS) over a complaint that the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) violates the federal Civil Rights Act. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint filed in December, alleging the CBSE violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. According to Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey: “Civil rights law—and basic fairness—demand that...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a major new step to protect Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. Effective immediately, VA will not report Veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” only because they need help from a fiduciary in managing their VA benefits.This corrects a three-decade-old wrong that deprived many thousands of Veterans in VA’s Fiduciary Program of their constitutional right to own a firearm without a legal basis.After a thorough review, VA recognized that many Veterans had been deprived of their Second Amendment rights without hearings or adequate...

On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish and her panel managed to recast enforcement of federal civil rights law under Donald Trump as “enforcing ideology,” while a Democratic consultant insisted that DEI “was never a problem” until Trump took office. [snip] Cornish framed the issue this way: “What it means is the actual government now is involved in enforcing a different ideology, so to speak.”No. It means the federal government is enforcing the law. Democratic consultant Antjuan Seawright went further, claiming: “DEI was never a problem until Trump became President of the United States."Seawright also suggested that scaling back...

Virginia Delegate Tom Garrett Jr. delivered an extended statement arguing that efforts to restrict firearms represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the historical basis of self-defense, asserting that the right to bear arms is inherent and not granted by government.Garrett framed his remarks around what he described as repeated misinterpretations of the Second Amendment and broader constitutional principles, opening by questioning the motivation behind gun control proposals.

Democrats in Congress and George Floyd’s lawyer are calling for a change to federal law. They wish to amend the Civil Rights Act to allow citizens to more easily sue federal immigration officers. Since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats have called for ICE to be fully defunded. The agency under the Department of Homeland Security is funded through Feb. 13 and has funding for deportation operations through 2028. However, at an unofficial, bicameral, partisan hearing on Tuesday, Antonio Romanucci, George Floyd’s former attorney now representing Good, called...

The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, it is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the UK, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the UK. Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has...

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison previously argued that Americans have no Second Amendment right to carry firearms at political protests. Ellison joined 16 other attorneys general from Democrat-led states in an amicus brief filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January 2024, according to court records. The coalition argued states can ban firearms at political rallies and protests because such events attract violence. The group also contended that guns at demonstrations could intimidate people and discourage them from speaking freely. Ellison’s legal stance faced scrutiny Saturday when Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement...

The Queens senior citizen who killed a would-be mugger during an early morning shooting reported to prison Wednesday to serve a four-year sentence for criminal weapons possession. The then-65-year-old was returning to his Queens Avenue apartment around 2 a.m. after buying a pack of cigarettes when he was confronted by a menacing Cody Gonzalez.