Free Republic

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Two months after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, hundreds gathered at Eaton Plaza in downtown Fresno on Friday afternoon to raise the Palestinian flag. Hundreds gathered to watch the flag raised at Unity Park as their national anthem played. "It represents the triumph of our collective efforts to amplify our voice and shed light on the plight of our brothers and sisters back home," said a local Palestinian-American. "Today we send a message to the world: the Palestinian people will not be silenced."

The opening of a new Marie Stopes International (MSI) abortion facility in Cancún, Mexico, reveals what may be a new strategy for the abortion industry: “abortion tourism,” in which women are lured by the idea of a luxury vacation while their preborn child is killed. A recent article in Mother Jones refers to this tourism with the euphemistic phrase, “reproductive health migration,” detailing the price breakdown for a woman traveling from Mississippi to Cancún for an abortion. Estimations place the cost, which includes three nights at a three-star hotel, at around $700. The article points out that while this cost...

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday asked the Supreme Court to immediately step in to decide whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from prosecution for his actions seeking to overturn the 2020 election. "This case presents a fundamental question at the heart of our democracy: whether a former President is absolutely immune from federal prosecution for crimes committed while in office," Smith wrote in the court filing. Smith said it was "of imperative public importance" that the high court decide the question so that Trump's trial, currently scheduled for March, can move forward as quickly as possible. The Supreme...

JPMorgan estimated previously that excess savings had peaked in August 2021 at $2.1 trillion, boosted by government stimulus checks. That's since been whittled down to below $148 billion, per the firm's calculations as of October. "Consumers are facing tighter credit conditions and rising rates, wind-down of Covid-era stimulus and relief programs, declining excess savings and liquidity, and multiple years of above average inflation," JPMorgan strategists wrote at the time. As Bank of America wrote in a recent note, the plight of elder millennials is particularly difficult. Older millennials — a demographic of Americans born in the 1980s that holds significant...

Thousands of people marched in the Belgian and German capitals on Sunday to protest soaring antisemitism since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. The demonstrations in Brussels and Berlin were the latest in a series of rallies in European capitals that have expressed support for Jewish communities. Previous marches in Paris and in London drew tens of thousands of people. There have also been many pro-Palestinian rallies, often drawing large crowds. Marchers at the Brussels rally held up signs reading “You don’t have to be Jewish to march against antisemitism,” “antisemitism kills” and other slogans. Police said at...

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has asked the Supreme Court to step in and decide the issue of presidential immunity regarding former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference charges. Smith is asking the court to immediately resolve the issue, to prevent any delay of the March 4 trial date. “Respondent’s appeal of the ruling rejecting his immunity and related claims, however, suspends the trial of the charges against him, scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024,” the special counsel wrote in a filing Monday. “It is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this Court...

A Texas woman whose fetus has a fatal diagnosis and who has been awaiting a decision from the Texas Supreme Court about whether she will be allowed to get an abortion said Monday that she has decided to leave Texas to get the procedure. Kate Cox, a mother of two who is around 20 weeks pregnant, found out just after Thanksgiving that her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a fatal diagnosis. Seeking to terminate the pregnancy to protect Cox's health and future fertility, she and her husband sought a court order to block Texas’ abortion bans from applying in her...

A gun control activist was “aghast” and dismayed to learn that the burgeoning blue-city gun buyback culture is actually feeding a secondary arms and gun parts market. The New York Times focused on a recent gun buyback in Flint, Michigan, noting that Gunbusters, a Missouri company, was contracted to handle the weapons which were surrendered. According to the NYT, “[Gunbusters] has taken in more than 200,000 firearms over the past decade from about 950 police agencies around the country, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to St. Louis to Hartford, Vermont.”

EXCLUSIVE — The National Archives and Records Administration said Monday it would make more than 62,000 pages of records available for the House GOP impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. In August, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) asked for unrestricted special access to unredacted emails and documents from Biden’s time as vice president regarding Hunter Biden and Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company for which Hunter Biden was a board member. While the emails were released, they were heavily redacted and provided little context of the substance of the email. Specifically, Comer requested the unredacted version of all emails...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday pushed for the U.S. to continue supporting Ukraine, arguing it was vital to stand united against dictatorships and that politics must not “betray the soldier” in the fight for freedom. Zelensky, speaking at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University in Washington, D.C., in a visit to the Capitol this week, said that American weapons “can get the job done” and defeat Russian forces in Ukraine, asking the U.S. to maintain its support. “It’s crucial that politics don’t even try to betray [the] soldier, because just like weapons are needed for defense, freedom always requires unity,”...

Casey and Ron DeSantis are seeking to clarify comments the Florida first lady made on Friday that appeared to encourage out-of-state voters to participate in the Iowa caucuses. "We're asking all of these moms and grandmoms to come from wherever it might be, North Carolina, South Carolina and to descend upon the state of Iowa to be a part of the caucus, because you do not have to be a resident of Iowa to be able to participate in the caucus. After the Fox News appearance, Casey DeSantis clarified on X that by participating in the Iowa caucuses, she didn't...

The Air Force said on Monday it has disciplined 15 people in connection with the intelligence-seeking activity of classified information leaker Jack Teixeira. File Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Dec. 11 (UPI) -- The Air Force Inspector General said Monday it disciplined 15 branch members for not taking proper action when they learned of the intelligence-seeking activity of classified information leaker Jack Teixeira. The inspector general's report focused on lax oversight at the air base where Teixeira worked but investigators added that they believed Teixeira's immediate supervisors were not aware at the time that he was sharing highly classified documents...

Former President Trump is now over the magic 50 percent mark in Iowa, per the latest Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom Iowa Poll — a poll with more producers than a Bruce Willis direct-to-video movie.Since an October poll, The Donald has jumped eight full points, from 43 percent to his current standing of 51 percent.Second place Ron DeSantis is 32 whole points behind Trump with just 19 percent support.And the latest media hoax, known as NikkiHaleyMentum, has just been debunked. The former South Carolina governor and United Nations representative sits in third place with just 16 percent support — or 35...

Below is my column in The Hill on the expected formal vote this week on the impeachment inquiry. The vote is only to continue to look into the allegations that Joe Biden knew of the influence peddling operation of his family and fostered those efforts. The final line of defense is to acknowledge that this was influence peddling but that Biden was only trying to support his son. The question for this vote is: how do you know? We have millions raised in what most view as corrupt influence peddling. Many of those payments are now confirmed by the Justice...

While a clear majority of American voters support Israel in its ongoing war against Hamas, Democrats and young Americans are split over where to place their sympathies. Almost a quarter of Democrats (24%) said they sympathized more with the Palestinian people than their Israeli counterparts, according to a Wall Street Journal poll released Monday. Just 17% of Democrats said they sympathized more with Israelis, while 48% had equal sympathy for both sides.

Americans across the country say that soaring inflation is lowering their standard of living, a new CBS poll shows. The poll also spells dooms for the Democrats as most voters believe that President Joe Biden is to blame for the high cost of living. The deeper sense is that the nation’s economic troubles of recent years have been, as a whole, tougher than others it has faced in generations. Second only to the Covid shutdowns, citizens say that right now, the post-pandemic era is the most difficult economic time they have experienced. Inflation’s impact may even go beyond the immediate...

For the first time in decades, Argentina is no longer ruled by socialists. Libertarian-leaning President Javier Milei was officially sworn in on Sunday, marking a major turning point in the country's battle against hyperinflation and economic decline. In November, Argentina reached 183 percent inflation for 2023, impoverishing around 40 percent of the country, a reality that helped sweep Milei into power. Now, he's taking action, with his first move in office being an executive order that slashes the number of government ministries from 21 to nine. Among those put on the chopping block was the ministry of "women, genders, and...

Radical pro-Palestinian demonstrations appear to have developed a new tactic: they are targeting Christmas tree lightings across the country, and other Christian symbols, in addition to symbols of Israel and Jewish institutions.The latest example was Friday’s protest in Los Angeles, where pro-Palestinian radicals marched from a fundraiser for President Joe Biden to an area where there are several synagogues. They sprayed anti-Israel graffiti on the walls opposite the synagogues, and also vandalized a local church.

U.N. climate negotiators confirmed Monday they are pushing for a deal at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai that will be the beginning of the end for fossil fuels. Flying back to Dubai to add his voice to the negotiations, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “maximum ambition and maximum flexibility” to reach an agreement that can find consensus among the nearly 200 countries. “We are in a race against time,” Guterres told reporters, AFP reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, is alleged to be directly communicating with certain commanders of Ukraine’s Armed Forces (UAF), and intentionally bypassing the Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny, Ukrainska Pravda (UP) reported on Monday citing anonymous sources. According to the sources quoted in an article entitled "The War against Politics. What is really going on between Zelensky and Zaluzhny", this behavior is undermining and impeding Zaluzhny's ability to effectively lead the UAF. “Sometimes there is an impression that Zelensky has two types of Armed Forces of Ukraine: the ‘good ones’ commanded by Syrsky and other favorites, and the ‘bad ones’ who obey Zaluzhny,"...