Free Republic

Way back in 2005, when I was an MP in the Netherlands, my party was strategising about the upcoming local elections. I belonged to the centre-right VVD, and we were particularly concerned about appealing to the nation’s growing migrant community. After much discussion, the leaders settled on Laetitia Griffith to represent us in Amsterdam. She was black and had roots in Suriname, a former Dutch colony in the Caribbean. She could pull in the city’s Creole vote. More importantly, the VVD’s strategists thought she could win over some of the city’s Muslim population. In the hope of making this task...

The MSM doesn't want you to know this. Why Ukraine? Other than many US biolabs were located there, I don't know.

Once again, we see the conservative pundit class go bananas over the new motion filings from the Durham investigation in the last few days. Suddenly, everybody at Fox News is "expecting more indictments" at any moment! (How did that turn out for Sean Hannity and Dan Bongino the last time?) Suddenly, everybody is supposed to be excited that Durham�s crack team finally figured out spying activities against Donald Trump that occurred in July 2016.This is a mistake.The first question you should be asking yourself is why it took the Justice Department almost 6 years to figure out those spying activities....

Special counsel John Durham’s team alleged on Feb. 12 that a tech executive aligned with the Democratic Party was paid to spy on former President Donald Trump’s residences and the White House when Trump was president. Lawyers for the Clinton campaign allegedly paid the technology executive to infiltrate servers at the Trump Tower and the White House, Durham said in court filings (pdf), in order to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to tie Trump to the Russian government. Durham’s office made the claim as part of his investigation that had brought charges against Michael Sussmann, a lawyer who had worked...

...Indicted by Mueller ProbeHillary Clinton spoke briefly about the Mueller Report during her remarks. " Hillary Clinton: I’m really of the mind that the Mueller report is part of the beginning…because there’s still so much more that we should know and that we should act upon… And we’re a long way from knowing because we need to get the full report — the unredacted version. "

Donald Trump has come under fire for recommending US citizens accused of terrorism be prosecuted before military tribunals. But despite the criticism, Trump's concerns are not only merited -- they are, in fact, within the bounds of the law. In November of 2010, Ahmed Ghailani, an al Qaeda terrorist who bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people, received a "near-total acquittal," in the words of former Justice Department official John Yoo. Ghailani, in this case a non-citizen, was convicted of just one count of conspiracy, receiving an acquittal on 284 of 285 charges. The odd verdict was...

Our courts have too often become expressions of the popular will. In ancient Athens, popular courts of paid jurors helped institutionalize fairness. If a troublemaker like Socrates was thought to be a danger to the popular will, then he was put on trial for inane charges like “corrupting the youth” or “introducing new gods.” Convicting gadflies would remind all Athenians of the dangers of questioning democratic majority sentiment. If Athenian families were angry that their sons had supposedly died unnecessarily in battle, then they might charge the generals with capital negligence — a warning to all commanders to watch their...

Obama’s Amazing AchievementsHis military intervention prompted some stunning reversals. By bombing Libya, President Obama has accomplished some things once thought absolutely impossible in America:(a) War-mongering liberals: Liberals are now chest-thumping about military “progress” in Libya. Even liberal television and radio commentators cite ingenious reasons why an optional, preemptive American intervention in an oil-producing Arab country, without prior congressional approval or majority public support — and at a time of soaring deficits — is well worth supporting, in a sort of “my president, right or wrong,” fashion. Apparently, liberal foreign policy is returning to the pre-Vietnam days of the hawkish “best...

eatured Term (selected at random):SEGNATURA APOSTOLICA The highest tribunal of the Holy See; its origins go back to Pope Eugenius IV (reigned 1431-47). As reconstituted by Pope Paul VI in 1967, the Segnatura has two areas of competency, namely: 1. over tribunals already established, pilgrimages to Rome, matrimonial cases of nullity, erection of regional and interregional tribunals, handling cases involving concordats between various nations and the Holy See; 2. settling disputes arising from acts of administrative ecclesiastical power as a court of appeal, deciding on administrative controversies sent to it by the congregations of the Roman Curia, and judging on...

Two canon lawyers reviewed the "Vindicate Rights Petition."Philip Gray, J.C.L, says "in the vast majority of cases today, divorce has become an 'easy out' to avoid responsibility, pass blame, obtain revenge, or somehow justify problems in the marital relationship or between parents and children." Canon lawyer Fr. Chuck Zmudzinski, C.P.M., J.C.L. explained, "I worked in a marriage tribunal for about five years and one of the reasons I eventually quit was because I did not agree with how strongly biased the tribunal officials seemed to be against the bond of matrimony."

Legal proceedings against violent extremists are a crucial defense of our civilization, writes William Shawcross, whose father was a prosecutor at Nuremberg... Expect to hear a lot about Nuremberg in the months ahead. The war-crimes trials of leading Nazis, begun in that German city in 1945, will form an important subtext as we approach the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused mastermind of 9/11, and his associates. The pretrial proceedings at Guantánamo may start as soon as March. Since 9/11, America's attempt to balance justice and national security has drawn protests both at home and abroad. Some of the...

President Obama announced Monday that military trials will resume for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying the tribunals are an "important tool in combating international terrorists."

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey is not prone to hyperbole. He’s a former federal judge, a meticulous lawyer, and, as he proved in succeeding Alberto Gonzales, a skilled administrator who restored morale to a Justice Department demoralized by scandals (real or concocted). He is also obviously nonplussed by the performance of his successor, Attorney General Eric Holder. In a far-ranging interview, he candidly asserts that Holder’s conduct in several key respects has been “amazing.” That’s not meant as a compliment.Mukasey, who presided over the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, is as experienced as any American jurist...

The Rules of War Can't Protect Al Qaeda By RUTH WEDGWOOD NEW HAVEN — It makes no sense to win a trial but lose the war. With this in mind, a majority of the American public favors giving President Bush the option to use military tribunals against the Qaeda terror network. The tribunals are designed to permit a "full and fair trial" of war crimes without compromising our ability to track the network's future plans. Al Qaeda's skill at countersurveillance has made plain the need to protect sensitive intelligence sources at trial. But some international-law scholars suggest that President Bush's ...

As reported in the UK Independent (10/14/10), president of the Islamic Sharia Council in Britain, Sheikh Maulana Abu Sayeed, has reiterated alarming comments made during a March, 2010 interview, sanctioning marital rape. Sheikh Sayeed was in fact responding to an inchoate effort at modernizing the contracts which govern Muslim marriages in Britain. The good Sheikh, representing Britain’s main Islamic Sharia court, the Islamic Sharia Council, promptly published a rebuttal of the contract, which included a statement on sexual abuse (page 6 here). He opined in the March interview:Clearly there cannot be any “rape” within the marriage. Maybe “aggression”, maybe “indecent...

Shephard Smith just interviewed Judge Napolitano on air on the subject of the two military tribunal trials just beginning at Gitmo. The judge went way beyond his competence in saying that "there was no constitututional basis for these trials." Fox News has no meand to post immediately any response to their mistakes on air. They also have no way to reach them by phone. (I know. I've tried many times.) The bottom line is that the Judge made statements that are appallingly, obviously wrong, and Shep nodded like a bobblehead and agreed with him. The Judge said that the Quirin...

Politics: A battle ensues between one vice president who defended freedom well and another who sorely needs his boss's teleprompter. Biden accuses Cheney of rewriting history while claiming that Iraq is this administration's victory. Maybe Vice President Joe Biden should think about writing talking points on his hand as his rhetoric reaches levels of absurdity where no politician has gone before. After last weekend's round of competitive gabfests, one would expect to see a billboard of former Vice President Dick Cheney with a caption, "Miss me yet?" We do, sir, we do. After yeoman service helping President Bush fight the...

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown took a swipe at Vice President Joe Biden today -- saying that President Obama's No. 2 was “off base” when he said the Republican get his facts straight when it comes to military tribunals and whether he is aware that terrorists have the right to a lawyer. “It was insulting,” Brown, a critic of Obama during his recent Senate campaign, told Politico.com. The comments came a day after Biden blasted Brown during an appearance on CBS's “Face the Nation" when he said he didn't “know whether the new senator from Massachusetts understands: When you get tried...

Two-thirds of Americans are "dissatisfied" or downright "angry" about the way the federal government is working, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll. On average, the public estimates that 53 cents of every tax dollar they send to Washington is "wasted." Despite the disapproval of government, few Americans say they know much about the "tea party" movement, which emerged last year and attracted voters angry at a government they thought was spending recklessly and overstepping its constitutional powers. And the new poll shows that the political standing of former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who was the keynote...

Before I made Detective, I worked for six years, two months and thirteen days in uniform within the cell blocks of a major Denver-Metro Sheriff’s Office Jail. We had an entire unit filled with fifteen juvenile males, all of whom stood accused of First Degree Murder. The youngest was fourteen. Each had been transferred to our adult facility because they were too violent for the local juvenile detention center to handle. Charged as adults, each was convicted and sent to prison for life. Several of the murders were unimaginable in their cruelty. A major American newspaper story is eliciting sympathy...