Free Republic

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Friday elicited boos at a major Iowa conservative gathering as he made the case for strong U.S. support for Ukraine. Pence sat down with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for an event hosted by the Family Leader, and the two men clashed over the former vice president’s staunch support for U.S. assistance for Ukraine in its war against invading Russian forces.

A large banner that read “TRUMP LIES ALL THE TIME” was at the center of a clash Tuesday that broke out between demonstrators who had gathered in Manhattan in anticipation of former President Donald Trump’s arraignment. A video posted to Twitter shows demonstrators holding a banner that had been stretched out over the ground bearing the inflammatory message. Suddenly, a woman who appeared to be wearing a red “MAGA” hat began walking on the banner before stopping in the center, grabbing the fabric, and pulling it upwards as she yelled, “Hey!” Events unfolded from there: BREAKING: MASSIVE banner displayed in...

Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with riot cops in Los Angeles this week as the city council installed a new president amid the ongoing scandal of members recorded making shocking racist remarks. At least 50 protesters descended on City Hall ahead of the key meeting Tuesday — even though it was being held virtually, with only the acting president and staffers inside at the time. A throng of baton-wielding cops in protective headgear waited inside, forcing the protesters out when they tried to storm the building. Video footage captured tense confrontations as the protesters demanded the meeting be postponed until...

Tensions between the United States and China seem to be growing by the day, prompting some in Washington to worry about a potential military conflict between our two countries within the next six months. The latest flashpoint: the vital waterways of the South China Sea. For the first time, the US government this week declared China's activities in the South China Sea illegal. "On Monday for the first time we made our policy on the South China Sea crystal clear: It's not China's maritime empire," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters Thursday. Now, this four million square kilometer shipping...

NEW DELHI/SRINAGAR—India’s army said on June 16 that 20 of its soldiers had been killed in clashes with Chinese troops at a disputed border site, in a major escalation of a weeks-long standoff between the two Asian giants in the western Himalayas.China’s foreign ministry confirmed there had been a “violent physical confrontation” on June 15 in the border area. It made no mention of casualties, but India’s foreign ministry said there had been casualties on both sides.An Indian government source said the troops had fought with iron rods and stones, and that no shots had been fired.The deaths were the...

France is decending into a war zone with guns.  Both muslim gangs are armed. https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1272576971445280770 https://twitter.com/DawkinsReturns/status/1272631024305004545 https://twitter.com/Sotiridi1/status/1272590419868688385 https://twitter.com/EncartL/status/1272598686439108610 https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth/status/1272629102042918920 https://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1272580808893763585

Alan Dershowitz and Richard Painter Get in Tense Clash: Mueller May Be a Good American But ‘You’re Not’An MSNBC debate between Alan Dershowitz and Senate candidate Richard Painter got tense and personal as they clashed over Robert Mueller. Painter praised Mueller as a “highly professional prosecutor” with a great record and said it’s a “tragedy” that the country now has to endure all of this. Dershowitz said the White House’s behavior may be a “tragedy” too, but so is Mueller’s office, and he described the special counsel as someone with a “mixed reputation” in Boston from before he headed the...

French police battled Tuesday to evict anti-airport protesters and the creators of an alternative anti-capitalist settlement in western France during a second day of clashes. Some 2,500 officers raided the decade-old camp at Notre-Dame-des-Landes on Monday, destroying makeshift buildings topped with corrugated iron, a giant tent, a watchtower, and a sheep shed and cheese-making area. The assault in a wooded area near the city of Nantes has seen dozens of rounds of tear gas fired, as well as stun grenades,

MANILA (Reuters) - At least 44 pro-Islamic State militants were killed and 26 more were wounded when Philippine soldiers shelled positions held by the rebels in southern Maguindanao province, the army said on Sunday. The fighting, initially with about 50 members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), broke out in a remote village in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town from Thursday morning and lasted the following day, said Lt. Col. Gerry Besana.

Seven people were arrested during a clash between Baton Rouge police and marchers commemorating the one-year anniversary of Alton Sterling's death, authorities said. Baton Rouge Police Department spokesman L'Jean Mckneely Jr. said a crowd of roughly 30 people, some of them members of the New Black Panther Party, were followed by a camera crew as they marched from the Triple S convenience store where Sterling was fatally shot by a Baton Rouge police officer, to the department's headquarters, 900 Airline Hwy. The confrontation took place outside headquarters. Mckneely said protesters were repeatedly told to remain behind a barricade, but were...

The End Of Identity PoliticsWho are we? asked the liberal social scientist Samuel Huntington over a decade ago in a well-reasoned but controversial book. Huntington feared the institutionalization of what Theodore Roosevelt a century earlier had called “hyphenated Americans.” A “hyphenated American,” Roosevelt scoffed, “is not an American at all.” And 30 years ago, another progressive stalwart and American historian Arthur Schlesinger argued in his book The Disuniting of America that identity politics were tearing apart the cohesion of the United States. What alarmed these liberals was the long and unhappy history of racial, religious, and ethnic chauvinism, and...

The Jerusalem Magistrate's Court on Tuesday ruled to release two Jewish youths aged 13 and 14 to house arrest, after they were arrested on suspicion of being involved in a brawl with Arabs on Monday - in a case that has raised accusations of racial discrimination. The youths, who were represented by Attorney David Halevy of the Honenu legal aid organization, were suspect of taking part in the altercation adjacent to their homes on Shivtei Yisrael Street in central Jerusalem, located to the northwest of the Old City and near Arab majority neighborhoods. A quarrel broke out between a group...

A confrontation broke out between security personnel from the American consulate and settlers from the Adei Ad outpost in the West Bank on Friday, after settlers hurled stones at two vehicles from the consulate. According to both Palestinian and settler sources, the American security guards drew their weapons at the settlers. A preliminary police investigation of the clashes between American security personnel and Israeli settlers discovered the consulate employees had arrived at the Adei Ad outpost in Samaria without coordination with the appropriate defense officials. An official from the village of Turmus Ayya, near the scene of the incident, said...

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine — Fistfights broke out between pro- and anti-Russian demonstrators in Ukraine's strategic Crimea region on Wednesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered major military exercises just across the border. The tests of military readiness involve most of the units in central and western Russia, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said in a televised statement. He said the exercise would "check the troops' readiness for action in crisis situations that threaten the nation's military security." In Kiev, opposition leaders who took charge after pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych fled were working on forming a new government to chart a path forward...

President Obama on Friday cited Paul Revere as one of the earliest American intelligence-gatherers, riding through the streets to warn of impending British raids. But Sen. Rand Paul disputed the president’s take on the iconic Revere and his overall understanding of the American Revolution. “He mentioned Paul Revere, but Paul Revere was warning us of the British coming. He wasn’t warning us the Americans are coming,” Mr. Paul, Kentucky Republican, said on CNN just after the president concluded a speech in which he outlined changes to U.S. surveillance and data-collection efforts.

Q: So, we are now facing "the clash of civilizations": the West and Islam, two civilizations which are equally great. A: Yes. Q: On one side, we have the civilization that gave the world democracy, the concept of rights, Roman law, Greek tragedy, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Galileo, Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Einstein, Darwin, modern science, technology, Michaelangelo, Caravaggio, Raphael, Giotto, Brunelleschi, perspective in art, Picasso, Beethoven, Mozart, Vivaldi, Verdi, Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, Euclid, Saint Peter's Basilica, the Empire State Building, Kant, Voltaire, ... A: OK, let me stop you. We've got an idea. Q: On the other side,...

Times reporter Ruben Vives is reporting live in South Los Angeles, where protesters are taking to the streets around Crenshaw and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards to oppose the not-guilty verdict for George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed Trayvon Martin. Earlier, dozens of protesters gathered in Leimert Park for a vigil in support of Martin. Following the vigil, marchers moved along Crenshaw Boulevard chanting "No justice, No Peace." Police estimated that 80 to 150 people began engaging in lawless activity along Crenshaw as they jumped on top of vehicles and appeared to assault bystanders. Some protesters stormed a...

Violent clashed took place Saturday between Arabs from the village of Kusra and Jews at the community of Esh Kodesh in the Binyamin region north of Jerusalem. The IDF intervened. According to the Bethlehem-based Maan news agency, one young Arab man was badly hurt after being shot in the stomach, and another youth was shot in the leg. The Arabs say the Jewish civilians uprooted their olive trees, and fired at them. The IDF Was called into the fray after Arabs attacked Jews with rocks. Seven Arabs were reportedly hurt from rubber coated bullets fired by the soldiers, and inhaled...

<p>A fourth accuser is coming forward to claim he engaged in underage sex with former "Sesame Street" puppeteer Kevin Clash.</p> <p>On Monday, Florida-based attorney Jeff Herman filed his third lawsuit alleging that Clash, now 52, engaged in sex with minors. Herman also has filed suits on behalf of two of the previous three accusers.</p>

The man who voices beloved children’s character “Elmo” took a leave of absence, after he was accused of having an affair with an underaged boy, Sesame Street officials said today. The allegations against Kevin Clash, 52, go back seven years and the puppeteer said he needed a break from work to fight the allegations.