Free Republic

U.S. — In the hours after being convicted on 34 counts of something or other, Trump issued a reminder to the media that the proper term to describe him is "justice-impacted individual." The term, commonly used by Democrats and journalists to describe convicted felons, now describes a 2024 presidential candidate, giving Americans an exciting opportunity to vote for someone unfairly targeted by the U.S. justice system. "I am a justice-impacted individual, possibly the most justice-impacted of any person in history," said Trump in a statement outside the New York courthouse. "This totally fake and phony Democrat witch-hunt conviction by 12...

Harvard University announced yesterday (Tuesday) that it would no longer comment as an institution on issues that do not relate to its “core function” following the controversies surrounding the school's statements on the massacre of October 7 and the subsequent war between Israel and the Hamas terrorist organization. Interim Harvard President Alan M. Garber wrote in an email that Harvard would adopt the recommendation of a working group that the school not “issue official statements about public matters that do not directly affect the university’s core function.” “There will be close cases where reasonable people disagree about whether a given...

Breaking with the stance of other Western countries, Israel decided on Monday not to express an official opinion on the issue of Catalan independence in the meantime, NRG reported. According to the report, Spain asked Israel over the weekend to publicly declare that it does not support Catalan independence, as part of Spain’s efforts to garner international consensus on the matter. Israel’s ambivalence is a departure from the opposition to Catalan independence declared by the EU and US. On Friday, US State Dept. spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement that “Catalonia is an integral part of Spain, and the...

Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of Britain's Labour Party, said on Friday he would stand as an independent candidate at the upcoming national election on July 4, Reuters reported. "I want our political parties to be democratic, but members of Islington North Labour have been denied the right to choose a candidate," Corbyn said in a video announcing his plan. "So we have to stand up. We have to stand up and say, we're not taking this anymore. We will assert our rights. That's why I'm standing to be an independent candidate for the people of Islington North," he added....

The massive "doomsday glacier" known for its rapid destabilization is undergoing a "vigorous ice melt" that scientists say could reshape sea level rise projections. In a new study, glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, found that warm, high-pressure ocean water is seeping beneath West Antarctica's Thwaites Glacier, making it more vulnerable to melting than previously thought. The glacier is roughly 80 miles across, the widest on Earth. It packs so much ice that if it were to completely collapse, it could singlehandedly cause global sea levels to rise by more than two feet, according to the International Thwaites Glacier...

President Biden and former President Donald Trump are locked in a statistical tie as they gear up for the first of two scheduled debates next month, but nearly one-fifth of voters say they could still change their mind about for whom they ultimately pull the lever. In a one-on-one matchup, Biden garnered 48% support to Trump’s 47%, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll of registered voters released Wednesday. Last month, the survey found Trump and Biden in a flat-footed tie, with each receiving 46% support. Despite the incumbent’s lead, history suggests the margin would be tight enough for Trump...

The Supreme Court has issued a conditional order calling on the Environmental Protection Ministry, Public Security Ministry, and Health Ministry to take action on the issue of environmental disturbances caused by a person smoking in his home, when the smoke enters the neighbors' homes, Israel Hayom reported. The court has instructed the ministries to enact guidelines on the matter, or enforce the matter of cigarette smoke pollution entering other apartments in a different manner. The government now has 60 days to respond to the order. The Supreme Court's decision follows an appeal submitted by the Avir Naki organization and six...

One of the jokes on the death of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that garnered success stated "The pilot is a Mossad agent named Eli Kopter.” Following the reports that emerged on Sunday regarding the helicopter crash of President Ebrahim Raisi, social media users in Israel celebrated the death of the Iranian leader. One of the jokes that garnered success stated, "The pilot is a Mossad agent named Eli Kopter.” The joke spread quickly and reached social networks around the world. Many users, unaware that it was a joke, took it seriously, and many even shared it as a sign...

DUBAI, May 20 (Reuters) - Iran proclaimed five days of mourning for President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday, though the muted atmosphere revealed little of the spectacular public grief that has accompanied the deaths of other senior figures in the Islamic Republic's 45-year history. While government loyalists packed into mosques and squares to pray for Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, both killed in a helicopter crash, most shops remained open and the authorities made little effort to interrupt ordinary life. A year after Raisi's hardline government cracked down violently to end the biggest anti-establishment demonstrations since the 1979 revolution,...

Donald Trump has demanded Joe Biden take a drug test before the pair face off against one another in next month's debate.Speaking at the GOP´s annual Lincoln Reagan dinner event on Friday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, Trump suggested the resident had been on drugs when he delivered the State of the Union address in March. Trump told his supporters he would insist Biden takes a drug test as a precondition for the debates. Donald Trump has called for President Joe Biden to take a drug test before their debates Donald Trump has called for President Joe Biden to take...

The Biden administration is urging Arab states to join a "peacekeeping" force which would control Gaza once the war ends, the Financial Times reported. The initiative aims to fill the vacuum which would be created in Gaza once Hamas is toppled and until a "credible Palestinian security apparatus" could be established. Among the countries the US has been discussing its plans with are Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Morocco, all of which are "considering" the initiative. The US has also spoken to Saudi Arabia about the plan, but the Saudis are unwilling to deploy their own forces to the...

If Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House in November, NATO may fall apart, a recent wargame found. As a presidential candidate, Trump has threatened to quit NATO unless European allies contribute more, and should he carry it out Europe may decide to go it alone on defense, the game suggests. "A US policy of frustrating NATO has the potential to cause the alliance to collapse, with the EU as a candidate for eventually replacing NATO's ultimate function — defending Europe from Russia," wrote Finley Grimble, the British defense expert who designed and ran the game. The...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that the United States and European countries were not doing enough to pressure Israel to agree a ceasefire in Gaza, after Hamas' move to accept a truce proposal, Reuters reported. Speaking to Muslim scholars in Istanbul, Erdogan said Hamas had accepted a ceasefire proposal by Qatar and Egypt in a "step in the path toward a lasting ceasefire", but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government did not want the war to end. "The response of the Netanyahu government was to attack the innocent people in Rafah," he charged. "It has become clear who...

Anti-Israel protesters at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Cleveland, Ohio, tried to stand guard over a wall they had vandalized, and when they refused to stand down, the contractor hired to repaint the wall simply painted over them. The wall had been covered with red handprints and what CWRU President Eric Kaler referred to in a letter as “threatening, intimidating and antisemitic” language. Another wall was also painted by protesters, Kaler noted, saying that the language on that wall was “less threatening but still intimidating to some in our community.” In that same letter, he announced the university’s plans...

Republicans will move to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress, DailyMail.com confirmed, after the Department of Justice refused to hand over audio tapes of Joe Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur. The attorney general had until April 8 to hand over requested materials from Robert Hur's interviews with Biden that led him to conclude the president is 'elderly' and 'well-meaning' but has a 'poor memory.' They subpoenaed transcripts, notes, audio and video files largely related to Hur's interview. While the DOJ has handed over transcripts of Hur's interviews with Biden as well as the transcript and...

A Florida congressman apologized Monday for invoking an insensitive stereotype in a joke aimed at Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. “Why am I getting the feeling that she wanted to eat dog with Kim Jong Un?” Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz wrote on X in response to a clip of Noem promoting her upcoming book on “CBS Mornings.” Noem’s book includes a false claim about a meeting with the North Korean leader and a true anecdote about her killing her “untrainable” 14-month-old hunting dog. Moskowitz was called out by Politico reporter Nicholas Wu,...

In this extended ‘Lefties Losing It’, Sky News host Rita Panahi reacts to Joe Biden’s latest blunders, pro-Palestine activists causing chaos and MSNBC’s “delusional meltdown”. Ms Panahi claimed the US President’s cognitive decline was hitting “new lows” after he appeared to confuse the Israeli city Haifa with Rafah in Gaza. He also bizarrely claimed his uncle was eaten by cannibals after his plane crashed, however, Pentagon records state the aircraft plunged into the Pacific off the coast of New Guinea. In a separate video, the Sky News host reacted to travellers in the United States abandoning their cars after pro-Palestine...

New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) sounds the alarm that the roughly 300 pro-Hamas protestors arrested by NYPD Tuesday night at Columbia University and City College of New York may not be students— but rather part of radical terrorist organizations. Adams said that when he became aware that the majority of the pro-terrorism protestors weren’t students but professional agitators, he promised to fight for the American “way of life” as the demonstrators continued to harass Jewish communities. “Once I became aware of the outside agitators who were part of this operation, as Columbia mentioned in their letter and their...

Several European member states are expected to recognize Palestinian statehood by the end of May, the EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Monday...

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared to criticize MSNBC anchor Katy Tur during a discussion Monday about job losses during the Trump administration by suggesting she was an “apologist” for the former president for mentioning the COVID-19 pandemic—a charge which Tur promptly denied. On Katy Tur Reports, the former House Speaker began by stating that Trump hasn’t shown that he “ever valued or did anything to support a democracy.” “I have sympathy and respect for everybody who votes. I’m just glad people vote. I know some of them will always reject those of us who might look different to them in...