Free Republic

The prime minister has called for protesters to “respect the grief of British Jews this week” after the Manchester synagogue attack. Ahead of a planned demonstration against the ban on Palestine Action this Saturday, Keir Starmer wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that activists should recognise this is a time of mourning. “Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy – and there is justified concern about the suffering in Gaza – but a minority have used these protests as a pretext for stoking antisemitic tropes,” he wrote. “I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the...

Be careful what you wish for. I’m not just referring to the enthusiastic Zohran Mamdani voters who believe that the failed rapper and nepo-baby is the person best suited to run this city. Nor am I referring to the fashionistas at Vanity Fair who this week swooned over Mamdani’s apparently “Kennedy-like charisma.” I am referring to some Republicans who are starting to see a silver lining in the socialist’s Mayoral run.Since Mamdami won the Democratic primary for Mayor in July it has been whispered in Republican circles that there may be a positive in Mamdani’s projected arrival in Gracie Mansion.This...

A Times investigation found plaintiffs in a sex abuse settlement who claim they received cash to sue L.A. County. The lawsuits led to a record $4-billion settlement for the victims. Downtown LA Law Group, which represents some plaintiffs who said they were paid to sue, said the firm “categorically does not engage in, nor has it ever condoned, the exchange of money for client retention.” Every day, some of L.A.’s poorest residents line up outside the county benefits office in South Central, weaving their way through a swarm of salesmen hawking deals that feel too good to be true.Would...

The Trump administration has telegraphed that mass firings are coming, but officials have cautioned that such moves could violate appropriations law.Senior federal officials have quietly counseled several agencies against firing employees while the government is shut down — as President Donald Trump has suggested he will — warning the strategy may violate appropriations law, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations. The officials cautioned that firings — known as RIFs, or reductions in force — could be vulnerable to legal challenges under statutes labor unions cited this...

Trump, unlike the UN, is brokering cease-fires and curbing threats by wielding U.S. power through trade, leverage, and force—favoring deals over endless wars. Historians traditionally blame the failure of the League of Nations—the post-World War I, Versailles-era dream of President Woodrow Wilson—on many things. Its membership was small (58 nations). The League’s utopian rhetoric lacked commensurate force. The postwar ascendant United States refused to join. The winners of World War I, like France and Britain, were terrified of rearming, while the losers, such as Germany and Austria, were eager to. Consequently, the League in the mid-1930s allowed fascist powers to...

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) was planning to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich for Durbin's work with immigrants. There was tremendous backlash from some American Catholic bishops and Catholic laity, pointing to Durbin's record on abortion as disqualifying. Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, IL, said giving the award to Durbin would be "scandalous." In a statement sent to Catholic publication The Pillar, Paprocki said, "I was shocked to learn that the Archdiocese of Chicago plans to honor Senator Richard Durbin with a Lifetime Achievement Award." Paprocki continued, "Given Senator Durbin’s long and consistent record of supporting...

Here we go again. As I write, politicians are trying to gin up a new panic over a looming "government shutdown." We've seen this before as Democrats and Republicans play chicken over their clashing funding priorities, with a partial suspension of federal activities threatened if they can't come to a deal. Unfortunately, the government never really shuts down, and the two parties always work out an agreement that involves spending a lot more money. The worst that happens is that some people are inconvenienced for a few days, as the only things that really cease to function are public-facing operations...

For years now, Russia has been desperately attempting to convince the world — and, indeed, itself — that it is a great power. But photo opportunities at summits, nuclear saber-rattling, boasts about BRICS and military adventurism abroad are less signs of true power than the tactics of a weak actor attempting to mask weakness — to divert attention from a crumbling empire. Behind the façade of a belligerent great power lurks a hollowing-out state, edging toward the exit of the great powers’ clubhouse. Once indisputable — in fact, during the Cold War, one of only two superpowers — Russia today...

In a surprising twist, far-right figure Nick Fuentes condemns Tucker Carlson's inflammatory remarks at Charlie Kirk's funeral, calling them "too antisemitic even for me,"..

After targeting one former FBI director he forced out, Trump raised the prospect of an investigation into a different former FBI director he forced out.For more than four years, a wide variety of Republican conspiracy theorists clung to a ridiculous idea about the Jan. 6 attack: It was federal law enforcement, they’ve claimed, that secretly instigated the insurrectionist assault on the Capitol. The absurd claims grew so common that they were given a name: the “fedsurrection” narrative.Indeed, at the heart of the theory is the idea that insurrectionist rioters were actually the victims on Jan. 6: These poor, unsuspecting partisans...

A Chinese court has sentenced to death 11 members of a notorious family that ran scam centres in Myanmar, according to Chinese state media. Dozens of members of the Ming family were found guilty of conducting criminal activities, with many receiving lengthy jail sentences. The Ming family worked for one of the four clans that ran Myanmar's sleepy backwater town of Laukkai, close to the border with China, and turned it into a hub for gambling, drugs and scam centres. Myanmar eventually cracked down, arresting many members of these families in 2023 and handing them over to Chinese authorities. A...

Eric Adams, as was becoming apparent for many months, will be a one-term mayor.Adams, who announced he was dropping his reelection bid on Sunday, has long been politically doomed. Multiple corruption scandals have embroiled his administration, and he and his closest aides were indicted. Even before the indictments arrived, he was bleeding out support. Adams was not a mayor devoid of accomplishments, but he had fewer of them than his predecessors and rarely seemed to be engaged with the mechanics of governing. New Yorkers wearied of his act and it became clear, more than a year ago, he had no...

Kentucky Congressman Thomas Massie is desperately trying to keep his fight for political survival from becoming a billionaire battleground, even ever-so-slightly suggesting Elon Musk's tacit support could backfire. The embattled GOP congressman, who Trump has called 'the worst Republican Congressman', is walking a tightrope as he tries to downplay any suggestion that the world's richest man might come to his rescue against the president's personal revenge campaign. 'It's important that my race is not a proxy race between Donald Trump and Elon Musk,' Massie told the Daily Mail, in a bid to keep the race locally focused. 'Elon Musk has...

President Trump told Axios in an interview Sunday that negotiations over his plan to end the war in Gaza are "at their final stages" and contended a deal could open the way for wider peace in the Middle East. ...

James Comey’s indictment may grab headlines, but the real scandal is how many of his past abuses still escape legal or moral accountability. We have no idea whether the current DOJ indictments will lead to a conviction of James Comey, namely that he authorized FBI subordinates to leak to the media and then lied about it, obstructing Congress in the process. It may come down to the word of Comey, a known fabricator, against the testimony of his former subordinate, Andrew McCabe, an admitted liar. Take your pick. We know, however, that Comey is not facing a Trumpian $500 million...

Progressive billionaire George Soros and his $32billion Open Society Foundations (OSF) are facing the most serious threat in their decades-long history. This comes as the Justice Department drew up plans last week to investigate the liberal funding giant for everything from arson to material support of terrorism. Speaking exclusively with the Daily Mail, Ryan Mauro - an investigator with the conservative Capital Research Center (CRC) - said the evidence against Soros, 95, was already hiding in plain sight, and prosecutors now have the tools to uncover what he called a 'smoking gun' that has yet to be discovered. '[It] could...

It was June 2015. Online, there were countless videos of smug Democrats, self-proclaimed “experts” and know-nothing pundits literally laughing out loud at the prospect of New York City businessman Donald Trump declaring his run for president. That fools’ parade found it hilarious that Trump truly thought he could beat “seasoned” Republican politicians in the primary. They guaranteed that the “delusional” Trump could never beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. In the process, they only proved themselves irrelevant and totally out of touch with the issues plaguing the nation.Back in 2016, Trump was propelled by a very powerful message —...

Swiss voters have narrowly approved a plan to introduce voluntary electronic identity cards. With all votes counted, 50.4% of those who voted said yes to the proposal, while 49.6% rejected it. The closeness of the ballot is a surprise. Opinion polls had suggested up to 60% backed digital IDs, which also had the approval of the Swiss government, and both houses of parliament. It was Switzerland's second vote on digital IDs. An earlier proposal was rejected in 2021, amid concerns the data would be held centrally, and controlled largely by private providers. Sunday's revised proposal keeps the system in government...

Let’s be clear. There is zero cause or justification for President Donald Trump to send federal troops to Portland and authorize “full force.” Despite Trump’s bluster over the very limited protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland, the city is not “war ravaged,” nor is the ICE building “under siege” by “domestic terrorists.” Portlanders, of course, know this already, because we live, work and raise our families here. We know from our daily routines – school drop-offs, commutes through the city and evening get-togethers – that Trump’s characterizations are divorced from reality. While the modest protests...

Naomi Wolf's 1991 best-seller “The Beauty Myth” made her the most prominent face of so-called "third-wave feminism" and a darling of the liberal elite. The young Yale graduate and Rhodes scholar served as an adviser to both President Bill Clinton and — during his 2000 presidential run — Vice President Al Gore. But then the COVID pandemic hit. For voicing her concerns about vaccine mandates and draconian lockdowns, Wolf found herself deplatformed from Twitter, marginalized as a so-called conspiracy theorist, and rejected by the same powerful Democrats who had once made her a star. Wolf, in turn, has left the...