Free Republic

With the military facing a recruitment crisis, Rep. Nancy Mace called the Pentagon’s ‘failure’ to rehire these troops ‘unacceptable.’.. The House Armed Services Committee adopted an amendment in the annual defense policy bill on May 22 that, if cleared through Congress, would force the Pentagon to rehire U.S. troops who were fired for refusing a COVID-19 vaccine. The measure was adopted late on May 22 by lawmakers on the panel, who marked up and advanced their version of the annual appropriations bill, authorizing a defense budget of $849.8 billion. The 2025 bill, titled the Servicemember Quality of Life Improvement and...

Biden officials have back down in the face of multiple lawsuits after the National Park Service denied, for the second year in a row, the Knights of Columbus’ request to host a Memorial Day Mass inside a national cemetery. The Knights have hosted the annual Memorial Day Mass inside Poplar Grove National Cemetery in Petersburg, Virginia since the 1960’s. On May 21, First Liberty Institute and McGuireWoods LLP filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against National Park Service, so that the Knights can continue on with hosting their annual Memorial Day Mass at the Cemetery....

A group of lawmakers has sent a letter to United States Marshals Service (USMS) Director Ronald Davis and Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Colette Peters following troubling reports that several jailed pro-lifers are being denied necessary healthcare services while they are serving time in prison. The letter calls attention to the situation of pro-lifers Heather Idoni, 59, and Jean Marshall, 74. Both women have been convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “conspiracy against rights” for their involvement in blocking access to the abortion business of notorious abortionist Cesare Santangelo in October 2020. Idoni...

The Illinois House on Tuesday passed House Bill 581, The Hospital Emergency Service Act, which declares abortion to be a “stabilizing treatment” during pregnancy. The bill passed 71-36 along party lines. The bill is said to have been authored in response to the anticipated Supreme Court decision this June regarding an Idaho law that protects preborn children from abortion when their mother is facing a health complication during pregnancy. It’s important to note the distinction between ending a pregnancy via induced abortion and ending a pregnancy via induced delivery. In an induced abortion, the preborn child is intentionally and deliberately...

Update 5/24/2024: California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 233 into law on Thursday, allowing abortionists from Arizona to travel to California, evading Arizona’s pro-life laws to commit abortions on women from Arizona. “Arizona Republicans tried to turn back the clock to 1864 to impose a near-total abortion ban across their state,” Newsom said in a statement. “We refuse to stand by and acquiesce to their oppressive and dangerous attacks on women.” He added, “California stands ready to protect reproductive freedom.” Currently, Arizona protects the majority of preborn children from abortion with an exception for the life of the mother...

The Office of the Attorney General (OAG) of Arkansas has sent cease and desist letters to two mail-order abortion pill businesses, threatening lawsuits against them if they continue to market abortion pills to women in Arkansas. The OAG claimed that both New York-based Choices Women’s Medical Center, Inc. and Aid Access out of the Netherlands could be violating “the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (ADTPA) related to abortion pill marketing and sales.” “Abortions are prohibited in Arkansas except under very limited circumstances,” Attorney General Tim Griffin wrote in a press release. “As such, abortion pills may not be legally shipped...

Joe Biden successfully got another pro-life advocate thrown in prison for years today. Heather Idoni has been sentenced to 24 months in federal prison despite her lawyer begging for home detention due to Heather’s serious health issues. The sentence comes after Biden officials charged her with bogus charges for allegedly violating the FACE Act. If Idoni was an environmental activist or a leftist supporting Hamas, her sit-in at an abortion business would have earned her a misdemeanor charge and maybe a small fine. But because she is a pro-life advocate protesting abortion, the Biden administration used the FACE Act to...

I am an elected public official. I frequently attend public meetings...sometimes of my own domain, sometimes not. In almost every case the meetings (as required by Pennsylvania State Law) begin the "Pledge of Allegiance" Increasingly I am find the final words "with liberty and justice FOR ALL" difficulty if not impossible to pronounce. Liberty and justice for: Hunter Biden"? Donald J. Trump? The January 6 Patriots?? And most recently...the gentle tap on the wrist accorded to Baltimore prosecutor (aka persecutor) Marilyn Mosley? I most respectfully suggest: That when in such gatherings we close the pledge by saying: "...with liberty and...

One of the people allegedly connected to multiple incidents of harassment and ethnic intimidation on the North Side is a former Pittsburgh employee who has been receiving payments from the city that may violate city policy and could potentially violate the state ethics act, according to internal correspondence between city leaders obtained by the Post-Gazette. Mario Ashkar, 36, of Perry South, was arrested last week on multiple charges of ethnic intimidation, criminal mischief, theft by unlawful taking and disorderly conduct regarding an alleged antisemitic incident in April in the Mexican War Streets. Ashkar indicated during interviews with other media that...

SPICER, Minn. (FOX 9) - Minnesota-based lawyer and online legal analyst Nick Rekieta is facing a drug charge in Kandiyohi County. Rekieta was arrested Thursday along with his wife Kayla and a fellow online personality. Prosecutors filed charges against Rekieta and his wife on Friday for second-degree possession, child endangerment, and a gross misdemeanor firearm charge. According to the charges, law enforcement attempted to execute a search warrant on May 23 at Rekieta’s home in Spicer and was greeted by a girl at the front door who would not let them inside. After Rekieta refused to provide the door code,...

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) has been banned from all nine of South Dakota’s tribal nations. On Tuesday, the final tribe that had not yet banned her, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, voted in favor of banning Noem from its reservation. Flandreau President Tony Reider called an emergency meeting in response to some of the governor’s comments. “President Reider informed the governor that a ban from our territories is imminent and requested that the Governor refrain from making future blanket statements that offend the tribes within the boundaries of the State of South Dakota, some of which depend on state services...

Below is my column on Fox.com on the closure of the government and defense cases in the Trump trial. It is clear that the government is going to achieve its objective in avoiding a direct verdict and giving this matter to the jury, which it hopes that the paucity of direct evidence of a crime will be overcome with an abundance of hostility to Donald Trump. As I previously have written, I am still hopeful that these jurors will vindicate the New York legal system with at least a hung jury. In the end, we will see if a Manhattan...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confirmed Thursday that one of two Jordanian nationals who tried to sneak onto a Marine Corps base in Virginia this month had entered the U.S. illegally across the southern border in April. ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) confirmed in a statement to Fox5DC that the Jordanian national, referred to as “noncitizen 2” had entered the U.S. illegally less than a month prior: On April 8, 2024, the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) arrested Jordanian noncitizen 2 near San Ysidro, California, following his unlawful entry into the United States. On April 9, 2024, the USBP...

The House is considering a new program that would allow those in the Air Force and Space Force to grow beards. The House Armed Services Committee added the beard proposal to the committee’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act. The legislation would be the strongest reform on facial hair for service members to date. The proposal, sponsored by Rep. Marc Veasey (D-TX), would have the Air Force secretary “establish a pilot program to allow members of the Air Force and Space Force to grow beards.” They would then study “the effect of beard growth on discipline, morale and unity...

Special Counsel Jack Smith on Friday took the extraordinary step of seeking an order from the federal judge overseeing former President Donald Trump's classified documents case to bar Trump from making statements that could pose a significant risk to law enforcement. The request follows Trump's efforts to seize on an item of recently released discovery in the case that he falsely claims shows President Biden planned to assassinate him during the search of his Mar-a-Lago club in August 2022.

The House approved a bill Thursday that seeks to ban non-U.S. citizens from voting in local Washington elections, once again taking aim at the capital city through legislation. The four-page measure, which passed 262-143, would forbid any noncitizens from voting in elections for municipal office or on ballot initiatives and referendums. Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in any federal-level election. The D.C. Council approved a measure in 2022 that added eligible noncitizen residents to the definition of a qualified elector for local elections. Seven D.C. voters filed a lawsuit against the city’s Board of Elections, but a federal court...

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs has remained mum about her recent veto of legislation aimed at curbing China’s gruesome forced organ-harvesting trade, which targets detained ethnic and religious minorities, mostly Uyghur Muslims, Tibetans, Christians, and Falun Gong practitioners. The April 10 veto has proponents of the legislation and human rights activists scratching their heads. Over the last year, Texas, Utah, and Idaho have enacted similar legislation, and legislatures in Missouri, Ohio, and North Carolina are debating similar measures. The bipartisan bills would prevent health insurance plans from reimbursing individuals for any organ transplants in China or other U.S. adversaries. They also...

The American Dream in Pennsylvania has a price tag: $230,464. That’s the cost for a family of four to live “comfortably” in The Keystone State. The tally is based on the “50/30/20 Rule,” which holds that half of a household’s income should be spent on housing and necessities, a third on nonessentials like eating out and entertainment, and the rest on savings and debt. Here’s the problem: the average household income in Pennsylvania is $100,837, which falls short of the American Dream sticker price by more than a factor of two. In fact, only 10% of Pennsylvania households have an...

More than 40 mayors and county officials across the United States are pleading with President Joe Biden to expedite work permits to funnel millions of migrants, released into the nation’s interior, into American jobs. In a letter to Biden this week, New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson (D), Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D), and 38 other mayors and county officials asked the federal government, again, to quickly get work permits to potentially millions of migrants who have been released into the U.S. interior.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) said Friday on MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports” that Justice Clarence Thomas and Justice Samuel Alito went “rogue” violating federal laws. Tur said, “While Justice Alito has not commented on the Appeal to Heaven flag, his wife is the one who flew the upside-down flag in the Virginia home in the dispute with their neighbor. Joining us now, Rhode Island Senator and member of the Judiciary Committee, Sheldon Whitehouse, who, alongside Dick Durbin, sent a letter to Chief Justice Roberts requesting a meeting to ensure Justice Alito recuses himself from January 6th cases. Thank you for being...