Free Republic

(Screenshot: Israel Defense Forces) A series of Israeli airstrikes last week killed Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas in Gaza, according to reports on Sunday that said his body was found in a Khan Younis tunnel. Muhammad Sinwar was the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October. According to a separate report, Zakaria Sinwar, another brother, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Saturday night. The strikes that reportedly killed Muhammad Sinwar on Tuesday targeted an underground command compound below the European Hospital...

Minnesota’s Democratic Gov. Tim Walz told an audience of graduating students that the nation’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents are “Trump’s Modern Gestapo.” The Gestapo was the secret police created by Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist regime in the 1930s. The name is an abbreviation of a German noun, Geheime Staatspolizei [Secret State Police], which was used to murder a vast number of people throughout Europe. In contrast, ICE protects Americans’ borders, communities, and livelihoods from the destructive mass migration encouraged by Walz and other Democrats. For example, ICE raids often ensure market wage raises for ordinary Americans, so reducing...

In an amusing twist, many Democrats have come out against President Trump’s plan to cut prescription drug prices, raising the distinct possibility that there is nothing [...] Trump could propose that they would approve. ... I firmly believe if Trump came out fervently against painful rectal itch, Lyme Disease, and the repeated clubbing of baby seals over the head with a large mallet, Democrats would immediately and zealously defend these things... ... This reminds me of an early Saturday Night Live skit in which the host of an A.M. radio program couldn’t get any listeners to call in with the...

Sen. Rand Paul attacked the economic logic of President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff strategy on Sunday — and agreed that the policies raise constitutional concerns. The Kentucky Republican said Trump’s sweeping tariffs on foreign trading partners are based on “an economic fallacy” about trade deficits and objected to the president’s move to pursue them without congressional approval during an interview on ABC’s “The Week.” “In the past, the court has allowed these things, but I think it’ll be an interesting thing because most tariffs in our history have been passed by Congress,” he said. “We’ve never had widespread tariffs that...

Transcript attached below video.

he Trump administration’s campaign against higher education has proceeded on so many fronts, and at such breathtaking speed, that it is hard for individual elements of it to capture the news cycle for long. But one especially notable development occurred in the first week of May, when Secretary of Education Linda McMahon wrote a letter to the president of Harvard, Alan Garber, announcing that his institution would be cut off from future government grants. This followed the extraordinary list of demands that the administration issued (by mistake?) to Harvard a month earlier. The more recent McLetter is worth reading for...

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' passes key House hurdle after GOP rebel mutiny Republicans aim to deliver bill to president's desk by Fourth of July using budget reconciliation process President Donald Trump’s "one big, beautiful bill" survived a key hurdle in the House of Representatives on Sunday night, putting it one step closer to a chamber-wide vote later this week. It comes after a rebellion by four House conservatives upended plans to advance the bill on Friday morning. Lawmakers on the House Budget Committee were summoned back to Washington for a 10 p.m. meeting to vote again on the bill. It...

House Budget Committee Approves GOP’s Tax & Spending Bill with 17 ‘Yes’ and 16 ‘No’ THIS IS HUGE 🔥

The far-right Chega party has smashed Portugal’s two-party duopoly by riding a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment to tie for second place in a parliamentary election won by the governing centre-right Democratic Alliance (AD).André Ventura, Chega’s populist leader, secured a record share of the vote and was neck and neck with the Socialist party in the number of elected lawmakers early on Monday, with results in from 226 of 230 parliamentary seats. The result means Portugal joins a list of western European countries where far-right parties are either the second-biggest political force or close to it, including Germany, Sweden, Finland and...

Romanian authorities have announced that the liberal mayor of Bucharest, mathematician Nicușor Dan has won the second and final round of the deeply controversial Romanian presidential elections.With the first round of vote cancelled; with favorite candidate Călin Georgescu arrested, prosecuted and banned from the re-election; with widespread allegations of fraud and foreign interference by France – this election is forever tainted.Right-wing populist George Simion, who won the first round of the election ‘re-do’ with over 20 percentage point ahead of Dan, warned of fraud, and posted on X that he was the new president of Romania.But the official results state:...

Republican deficit hawks allowed President Trump’s bill of legislative priorities to advance out of the House Budget Committee in an unusual late-night vote on Sunday, marking a key hurdle cleared for House GOP leaders and a sign of progress for warring Republican factions After gaveling in after 10 p.m. on Sunday, the committee voted 17-16-4 to advance the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which would extend Trump’s tax cuts and boost his border funding priorities while reforming Medicaid and food assistance programs. The vote comes after four hardline conservatives on the committee tanked a vote on the legislation Friday, saying...

Outgoing acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin said Tuesday the Department of Justice is reviewing several of former President Joe Biden’s final-hour pardons, vowing that his new office will scrutinize whether clemency was used “correctly” or politically. Martin, whose nomination to the Washington, D.C., prosecutor post collapsed last week after key Senate Republicans pulled support, confirmed that President Donald Trump has reassigned him to two new high-profile roles: Director of the Office of the Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ’s recently established Weaponization Working Group. “I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny,”...

The release of audio recordings of former President Joe Biden's interview with special counsel Robert Hur have intensified criticism of the administration's use of an autopen on official presidential orders and pardons. The damning tapes, which bring Biden's alarming mental decline into sharp relief, were kept under wraps by Biden Attorney General Merrick Garland. Now that Biden's cognitive problems have been bared, some are calling for Garland to face prosecution for rejecting Congressional demands to release the tapes when he ran the Department of Justice (DOJ). "Key decisions made in the final days of the Biden presidency, including using autopens...

Our Troops Rock! Thank you for all you do! For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! ~ Hall of Heroes ~ Troy Scott "We have the world's largest, baddest army," said Major Troy Scott of the Army National Guard, while explaining how easily stereotypes against other nations' militaries can often arise. "But when you're building a coalition, you have to get past those obstacles." MAJ Scott's deployment to eastern Afghanistan in 2008- his first and for which...

Critics say the administration is breaking the law and sidestepping the rulemaking process that presidents of both parties have routinely followed.At the Transportation Department, enforcement of pipeline safety rules has plunged to unprecedented lows since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.Trump recently ordered Energy Department staff to stop enforcing water conservation standards for showerheads and other household appliances. And at one Labor Department division, his appointees have instructed employees to halt most work related to antidiscrimination laws.Across the government, the Trump administration is trying a new tactic for gutting federal rules and policies that the president dislikes: simply stop enforcing them.“The conscious...

A measles outbreak in the state has not stopped “medical freedom” activists from pushing forward with their goal. They now have an influential ally in Washington: Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.Rebecca Hardy and Michelle Evans helped found Texans for Vaccine Choice with a group of like-minded women in 2015, as measles was spreading in California. They defeated legislation tightening Texas school vaccine requirements, and helped oust the lawmaker who wrote it, earning a catchy nickname: “mad moms in minivans.”Now, as a measles outbreak that began in West Texas spreads to other parts of the country, the “mad moms” have...

France’s civil aviation authority asked airlines to reduce flights by 40% at Paris-Orly airport on Sunday evening after air traffic control systems suffered a breakdown.. The authority, known as DGAC, said in a statement that some “regulation” was needed involving a significant reduction in the number of flights. The statement didn´t provide details on the cause of the breakdown. Paris-Orly airport serves domestic and international flights, including to most European countries and the U.S. Flights to Spain, Denmark, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Ireland and several French cities were canceled on Sunday while many others were delayed. More...

Top brass at the FBI has emphatically declared that notorious sex predator Jeffrey Epstein’s death in 2019 was a suicide and that there is no evidence to suggest otherwise. FBI deputy director Dan Bongino and director Kash Patel have both concluded Epstein took his own life in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. “I have reviewed the case. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself. There’s no evidence in the case file indicating otherwise,” Bongino, a former conservative talk radio host, wrote on X.

The result is a dramatic turnaround from the first round of voting a few weeks ago when Mr Simion was well ahead. Pro-Western candidate Nicusor Dan has unexpectedly beaten hard-right populist George Simion in the Romanian election. Mr Simion, 38, and his rival - a centrist who's mayor of Bucharest - faced off in the second round of the contest.

WFP warns of starvation in Gaza as aid trucks stall at the border but reports highlight high food access to Gazans despite conflicting claims . The World Food Program (WFP) warned Sunday that families in Gaza are starving while food trucks pile up at the border, calling the situation “a race against time.” The organization urged the international community to take immediate action to restore aid flows into the Strip. While these allegations dominate political speeches and media headlines, the reality in Gaza appears more complex. Though some markets in Gaza have been photographed empty, residents have also shared images...