Free Republic

The Netherlands will finally get the right wing government its people voted for, and some of the toughest border control in the Western World after veteran populist and Islam sceptic Geert Wilders got the agreement of coalition partners to form a cabinet. Geert Wilders, who has lived under strict round-the-clock police protection since 2004 over threats to his life by Islamists hailed the success of months-long negotiations between four right wing parties in the Netherlands to form a new government. “The sun will shine again in the Netherlands… The Netherlands will be ours again” he said in celebration of the...

Former President Jimmy Carter hasn’t seen any “significant change” in his health, despite his grandson warning again this week that the 99-year-old’s life was “coming to the end,” according to the director of the former commander in chief’s namesake nonprofit organization. Carter remains “at home, enjoying peanut butter ice cream and getting the food he wants any time he wants it,” Carter Center CEO Paige Alexander told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Politically Georgia podcast Wednesday. “It’s 15 months of hospice at this point, and he is fully retired,” Alexander explained. “There really hasn’t been a significant change. I mean, he will...

Rep. James Comer says House Oversight Committee looking for 'targeted financial information' House Committee on Oversight Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., announced a new legislative motion that aims to unveil financial information related to the Biden family. "This morning, I issued a subpoena for targeted financial information from a certain financial institution related to Jim Biden, Sarah Biden and Hunter Biden. This is a result of many of the documents that Devin Archer turned over," Comer said on "Mornings with Maria" Thursday. The new subpoena, which Comer claims will hopefully "answer every question [Congress has] had," comes just after another...

The Justice Department's Legal Counsel Office said the recording should be considered protected by executive privilege. Chairman Comer says the claim "changes nothing" and vows to continue contempt proceedings. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ President Joe Biden on Thursday claimed the recording of his interview with Special Counsel Robert Hur about his retention of classified documents should not be released due to executive privilege just hours before House Republicans were set to move toward holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt of Congress for not releasing the recordings. The Justice Department's Legal Counsel Office said the recording should be considered protected by executive privilege,...

3:07 If Democrat-run California wants to force residents into electric vehicles (EVs), Democrat-run California had better start cracking down on crime. Talk about the law of unintended consequences… “Thieves are targeting high-powered Tesla and other EV charging stations and stealing the heavy cable for the copper metal inside,” reports San Francisco’s NBC affiliate. “In Vallejo, someone cut cables from nine charging stations — leaving Tesla drivers in a bind and causing tens of thousands of dollars in damage and repair costs.” “I think this is the second time or third that these have been cut,” a local EV driver added....

Boeing violated a 2021 settlement that protected it from criminal charges tied to the fatal 737 Max crashes, opening the company up to potential U.S. prosecution, the Department of Justice said Tuesday. Federal prosecutors said in a court filing in Texas they are still determining “how it will proceed in this matter” and that Boeing will have 30 days to respond. In January 2021, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle a conspiracy charge with the Justice Department. After a roughly two-year probe, the DOJ accused the company of concealing information about its Max plane that had been involved...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) told MSNBC on Wednesday there was “no question” that the economy under President Joe Biden was “strong” and “doing well.” After MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle asked Romney during an interview why he was so optimistic about the future of the country, Romney replied, “First of all, America is an extraordinarily resilient country.” He explained, “We just had this extraordinary pandemic, and yet our economy is strong, low levels of unemployment, it’s extraordinary, and it’s not because the president is pulling all the levers in the right way. No, it’s not. It’s because the American people are...

Borrowing to pay for college is about to get more expensive: The interest rate on new federal student loans for undergraduates during the upcoming 2024-25 academic year will be the highest in 12 years. The federal student loan interest rate will be 6.53% for undergraduate students, up from 5.5% for the current year. The interest rate has not been that high on any undergraduate loans since the 2012-13 school year. Graduate students will see an 8.08% interest rate this coming academic year, up from 7.05%. And PLUS loans, which are available to both parents and graduate students, will come with...

The ship’s first power outage occurred after a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper while conducting maintenance in port, causing one of its diesel engines to stall, according to the report. A backup generator automatically came on and continued to run for a short period — until insufficient fuel pressure caused it to kick off again, resulting in a second blackout. While recovering from those power outages, crew members made changes to the ship’s electrical configuration, switching to a different transformer and set of breakers, according to safety investigators. “Switching breakers is not unusual but may have affected operations...

The Jerusalem Post’s editors take a dim view of Biden’s threat to halt military aid — 500-pound bombs, 2000-pound bombs, artillery shells — if the IDF goes beyond the outer perimeter of Rafah. They soberly set out all the reasons why the Bidenite distancing itself from its ally, Israel, makes no strategic or moral sense. More on their response to what can only be called a great betrayal of an ally can be found here: “Betrayal of allies: US pauses munitions, while threatening Israel’s security – editorial,” Jerusalem Post, May 9, 2024:Amid the conflict in Gaza, the United States administration’s...

The 7-2 ruling, whose majority opinion was written by Justice Clarence Thomas, a conservative, reversed a decision by the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. Three other conservatives, and the court’s three liberal justices, joined in the majority opinion. The court’s two remaining conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch, dissented.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Pro-life advocate Will Goodman has been sentenced to 27 months in prison and a $125 fine on Tuesday, in the third of the day’s sentencing hearings for the first batch of pro-lifers convicted last year of blocking access to a late-term abortion facility in the nation’s capital. On August 29, 2023, a D.C. jury found Goodman, Lauren Handy, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, and Rosemary “Herb” Geraghty guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights.” The next month, Joan Andrews Bell, Jonathan Darnel, and Jean Marshall were convicted of...

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has passed a motion to ensure that the public defender’s office provides defense attorneys and legal resources for the pro-Palestinian activists arrested at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) earlier this month. As Breitbart News noted, the pro-Palestinian “encampment” was cleared by police on May 2 after a week in which activists had seized the center of campus by force, assaulting journalists, using antisemitic rhetoric, and denying Jewish students and others access to public areas on campus. After 100 pro-Israel vigilantes attacked the barricades on the night of April 30 – May...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — 74-year-old peaceful pro-life advocate Jean Marshall was sentenced by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to 15 more months in prison on Wednesday and denied a request to serve the rest of her sentence in home confinement due to health issues, including debilitating osteoarthritis in both hips. Marshall is one of several pro-lifers convicted over blocking access to a scandal-plagued late-term abortion facility in the nation’s capital, in a case criticized by pro-life leaders as an egregious example of Biden administration overreach. On August 29, 2023, a D.C. jury found Lauren Handy, Will Goodman, Heather Idoni, Rosemary “Herb” Geraghty,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Joan Andrews Bell was sentenced to 27 months in jail, community service, and a $125 fine on Wednesday, in the second batch of pro-life advocates convicted last year of blocking access to a scandal-plagued late-term abortion facility in the nation’s capital, a case criticized by pro-life leaders as an egregious example of Biden administration overreach. On August 29, 2023, a D.C. jury found Lauren Handy, Will Goodman, Heather Idoni, Rosemary “Herb” Geraghty, and John Hinshaw guilty of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights.” The next month, Bell, Jean...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Below is the full statement of pro-life advocate John Hinshaw before being sentenced to 21 months in prison on Tuesday for blocking access to late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo’s Washington Surgi-Clinic facility in the nation’s capital. It is the middle of the night, which, we know, means early, early morning. My wife rises from our bed and walks her house alone. The slightest discomfort in one of her children displaces her from sleep. The smallest sniffle in one of her grandbabies will disturb her sleep for days. For she is a mother and, as such, is bound...

CV NEWS FEED // Pro-life advocate Lauren Handy has been sentenced to 57 months in prison, followed by three years of supervision for protesting the murder of late-term unborn children at a notorious abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. “Handy, a Catholic, is a well-known pro-life voice on the political left. She was the primary organizer and leader of the peaceful protest that led to the ongoing court cases,” CatholicVote previously reported: Last year, [Handy and her eight co-defendants] were found guilty of violating the controversial Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. They each face a sentence of up...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian units locked in street battles with the Kremlin´s forces in a key northeastern Ukraine town have halted the Russian advance, military officials in Kyiv claimed Thursday, though a senior Moscow official said the frontline push had enough resources to keep going. Russian attempts to establish a foothold in the town of Vovchansk, which is among the largest towns in Ukraine´s northeastern Kharkiv region with a prewar population of 17,000, “have been foiled,” Ukraine´s general staff said in a midday report. It was not possible to independently verify the claim.

More than two-thirds of Americans think the Supreme Court was right to hold Harvard's race-based admissions policy unlawful. But the minority who disagree have no doubt about their own moral authority, and there's every reason to believe that they intend to undo the Court's decision at the earliest opportunity. Which could be as soon as this year. In fact, undoing the Harvard admissions decision is the least of it. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have embraced a precooked "privacy" bill that will impose race/gender quotas not just on academic admissions but on practically every private and public decision that matters...

The World Health Organization has accused Nigel Farage of spreading misinformation after he launched a campaign to block an international treaty designed to improve global pandemic preparedness. WHO member states are negotiating a deal to shore up cooperation against new pathogens. If adopted, the legally binding treaty would commit countries to helping each other in the event of a pandemic, increase research and sharing of data, and promote fair access to vaccines. But populist figures including Farage and a number of Tory MPs are lobbying the UK government to block the deal, claiming that it will give the WHO power...