Free Republic

After Reacher star Alan Ritchson made the claim that the police “get away with murder all the time,” the Fraternal Order of Police organization took some time to address the actor’s inflammatory comment, encouraging him to mind his own business. “While Mr. Ritchson gets his face and forehead powdered on set, our officers are out doing a job he doesn’t have the courage to do,” the organization prefaced. “While he gets to hear loud pops and have blanks fired at him, our officers feel the heat of the bullets as they pierce their skin.” The statement continued, “There are no...

Epstein was a disgraced billionaire who died in prison after being arrested on suspicion of child sex trafficking (and who previously had been convicted of child sex offenses). He owned a small island in the U.S. Virgin Islands named Little St. James. On a webpage last updated in 2018, a website unaffiliated with Disney advertised several purported optional excursions available to people on Disney cruises that stopped at St. Thomas and St. John Islands. One of the trips, “Captain Nautica’s Snorkeling Expedition,” advertised for children 8 and up, included this description: "Be whisked away aboard the captain’s RIB power boat...

Note, however, that no mainstream fact-checking organization or misinformation watchdog group is springing into action to correct their claims. Liberal news outlets reported on the interview—The Huffington Post cheered Pelosi for putting Trump "on blast"—without calling it into question whatsoever. It's very telling what gets counted as misinformation and what doesn't. Pelosi was, until very recently, the third-most-powerful Democrat in Washington, D.C., yet her brand of conspiracy theorizing received little pushback. Psaki certainly didn't do her part.

After a year of getting roundly humiliated by Donald Trump and failing to unseat him as the leader of the Republican Party, Ron DeSantis finally dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump’s bid to reclaim the White House. But while the former president publicly retired his “DeSanctimonious” nickname, Trump has privately made clear over the past two weeks that he’s not ready to let go of his grudge against the Florida governor and former ally. One of the sources, who has spoken to the ex-president about this topic recently, bluntly characterizes Trump’s attitude on DeSantis’ future as wanting to...

Joe Biden’s cognitive decline is not new, and it certainly wasn’t a secret. Jill Biden knew. His aides knew. Heck, James Clyburn, the entire Democratic establishment knew. Yet, terrified that Bernie Sanders would win the nomination and then fail to take down their mortal enemy, Donald Trump, they propped up Biden like he was a Potemkin candidate — or, more accurately, “Weekend at Bernie’s” — to try to capture some Obama nostalgia. With the benefit of pandemic lockdowns, they could imprison Old Joe in the basement, limit his interactions with the press, and keep him tied to a teleprompter between...

even if Trump, 77, fights the verdicts and appeals, he would still have to front a potential $453 million total as an “undertaking,” or security, in the two cases, according to legal experts. Under New York law, Trump — should he fight the verdict as his attorneys have indicated he will — would for instance have to turn over the full amount he owes Carroll for a court to hold in escrow until the appeal was resolved. He’d also have to pay a hefty interest rate if he eventually lost the appeal. Trump could seek a security bond to help...

"Anheuser-Busch is a Great American Brand that perhaps deserves a Second Chance?" Trump wrote. "What do you think? Perhaps, instead, we should be going after those companies that are looking to DESTROY AMERICA!" The company, which owns and distributes dozens of alcoholic beverage brands, caught flack from conservatives last summer when it partnered with the popular transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote its Bud Light products. Despite the partnership amounting to one short TikTok video in which the company provided the creator with one custom can of the product, it generated widespread antipathy among conservatives amid the Republican...

A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday backed off her suggestion that the judge who oversaw E. Jean Carroll's two successful civil defamation trials against the former U.S. president might have had a conflict of interest. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba said she was satisfied that the judge and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related, did not have a "mentor-mentee relationship" when they worked at the same law firm three decades ago.... "The point of my January 29 letter was to verify whether the information contained in the...

The Iowa gunman who opened fire on Perry High School last week appeared to have an active account on the internet chat platform Discord where he previously discussed school shootings and described “gearing up” moments before Thursday’s attack.... (A) Discord user said they had flagged the chatroom to the FBI in November, after which an FBI agent reached out over email and asked for more information. The user emailed the FBI agent screenshots of the server but did not hear back. The user said their report to the FBI did not include mention of the user “took2much.” The chatroom was...

The FBI Headquarters should not be moved to a far away location, but should stay right where it is, in a new and spectacular building, in the best location in our now crime ridden and filthy dirty, graffiti scarred, Capital. They should be involved in bringing back D.C., not running away from it, especially the violent crime. An important part of my platform for President is to bring back, restore, and rebuild Washington, D.C., into the “crown jewel” of our Nation. We will make it crime free and GREAT AGAIN. The FBI should not be fleeing for safer, yet much...

A New York appeals court has again upheld a gag order that bars Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel in his civil fraud trial, ruling Thursday that the former president’s lawyers used the wrong legal mechanism to fight the restriction. A four-judge panel in the state’s mid-level appellate court ruled Thursday that Trump’s lawyers erred by suing trial Judge Arthur Engoron, who imposed the gag order in October after Trump disparaged his law clerk. Instead, the appellate judges wrote, Trump’s lawyers should’ve followed the normal appeals process by asking Engoron to reverse the gag order and then, if denied,...

Trump argued that he was immune from E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit because of presidential immunity. This was always a questionable argument: While Carroll sued Trump over statements Trump made while he was president, immunity would require Trump to act in his official capacity as president in claiming that Carroll was making up her story of being sexually assaulted by Trump in the 1990s. The controversy, like Paula Jones’s lawsuit against Bill Clinton, involved an alleged sexual assault that happened before Trump was president, so the argument would have to be that the president’s defense of his personal reputation is...

Former President Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Sunday, that he no longer plans to testify at his civil fraud trial on Monday. Trump had been scheduled to testify Monday as one of the final defense witnesses in a trial that has lasted two months and is entering its final week of testimony. Court officials also confirmed to Fox News that Trump has notified the court that he is not testifying.

Top White House spokespeople failed to comply with a law intended to prevent federal employees from using their offices to influence elections after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was warned against using "MAGA" to describe certain Republicans, a government watchdog agency said. In a letter first shared with NBC News, the independent Office of Special Counsel said that Jean-Pierre and deputy press secretary Andrew Bates took actions "contrary" to official guidance on adhering to the Hatch Act when they slammed “MAGA” Republicans’ budget plan this year — days after Jean-Pierre was told she had violated the 1939 statute. The OSC issued...

Lawsuits against Donald Trump brought by Capitol Police officers and Democratic lawmakers over the U.S. Capitol riot, can move forward, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to dismiss the civil lawsuits that accuse him of inciting the violent mob on Jan. 6, 2021. But the court said it’s ruling was not the final word on whether presidential immunity shields the Republican from liability in the case and said the judges express “no view on the ultimate merits of the claims” against the former president. Trump had...

Spoke with Mark Fisher yesterday, a great guy, very honored to have his and BLM’s support. I have done more for Black people than any other President (Lincoln?), including 10 year funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, where they had none, Opportunity Zones, Criminal Justice Reform, and much more. Thank you to Mark!

Cornell University was on high alert Sunday night after a series of “horrendous, antisemitic” messages threatening the school’s Jewish community were posted earlier on a public forum, school officials said Sunday night. The school notified law enforcement agencies and campus police were taking precautions after a series of disturbing online posts made threats directed at Jewish students and the Center for Jewish Living, according to the university’s president Martha Pollack. The FBI has been contacted of a potential hate crime at the upstate New York Ivy League school amid the Israel-Hamas war, Pollack said. One of the posts on the...

Cornell University’s bucolic upstate New York campus was defaced with hateful anti-Israel graffiti Wednesday morning as some messages read “F–k Israel” and “Zionism = Racism.” The vandalism at the Ithaca Ivy League school came several days after a professor who called Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel “exhilarating” and “energizing” took a leave of absence. The graffiti began on campus sidewalks sometime before 9 a.m.,

Former ESPN host Sage Steele said that interviewing President Biden was “the saddest thing” because he seemed confused and “couldn’t finish his sentences.” “He struggled,” Steele said of the oldest president in US history, who “trailed off” on topics even more than two years ago.... “It was satellite, it wasn’t in person,” she explained, noting that they were having technical issues and she had to stall the chief executive as they waited for the issues to be resolved. “So I had to, like, BS. I had to chitchat, waiting for us to start rolling.” Steele said she could not see...

Scott Hall, a Georgia bail bondsman, pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiring to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. The deal includes Hall testifying at any trial for the other 18 defendants, including President Donald Trump Trump was not mentioned by name during Hall’s plea hearing, but a Fulton County prosecutor did mention co-defendant and former Trump attorney Sidney Powell as being involved in the alleged scheme to gain access to Dominion voting machines in Coffee County, Ga. The indictment identified Hall “as participating in an effort to access the voting machines and equipment in Coffee County...