Free Republic

Just when you think once-prestigious Harvard could fall further from grace, Harvard students hurled anti-Semitic epithets at Israel's former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni during her recent talk at the University. Last Thursday, Harvard Law School hosted a panel discussion with guest speakers Dennis Ross and former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. During a question and answer session a president of a student organization mocked the Israeli leader, asking her, “How is it that you are so smelly?” When his question drew stunned silence, he clarified his "question." “A question about the odor of Ms. Tzipi Livni, she’s very smelly, and I...

(CNN)President Barack Obama received a chilly reception from Saudi Arabia's leaders as he landed in Riyadh Wednesday, a clear sign of the cooling relations between once-close allies amid regional upheaval and dropping oil prices. When Obama touched down in Riyadh shortly after 1 p.m. local time, there were no kisses with the kingdom's ruler as President George W. Bush once exchanged. The Saudi government dispatched the governor of Riyadh rather than a senior-level royal to shake Obama's hand, a departure from the scene at the airport earlier in the day when King Salman was shown on state television greeting the...

President Barack Obama will host a Passover seder this year, but not on either of the nights it is required according to Jewish custom. A spokeswoman told JTA that Obama will host the seder next week following his return from travel overseas. Obama will be in Saudi Arabia on the first and second nights of Passover, Friday and Saturday, attending a regional cooperation summit.

Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary David J. Shulkin gave false information to Congress Tuesday, claiming that a Daily Caller News Foundation post was wrong, only to have department officials be forced to admit shortly afterwards that the story was accurate. TheDCNF exclusively reported in March that Elizabeth Rivera was reinstated to her VA job, thanks to union rules after she got out of jail on an armed robbery charge and subsequent criminal conviction. TheDCNF asked department officials about the situation prior to publication and even got a written statement saying that Rivera’s behavior was not sufficient grounds for termination...

A top House Republican is calling on the Department of Homeland Security not to retaliate against a border patrol agent who has recently criticized President Obama's immigration policies. "I fully expect that you will personally ensure that no DHS employee or contractor will be targeted for reprisal or any other form of adverse employment action on the basis of voicing their legitimate concerns regarding compliance with unwritten departmental policies that contradict your written policies," Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wrote in an April 18 letter to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson. That message was sent on behalf of Brandon...

This old video seemed quite appropriate to dust off with the resurgence of "free college" demands from the Left. Back in 1985, a young David Brooks, now a New York Times columnist, sat across from economist Milton Friedman and was schooled on why government-subsidized higher education is a bad idea. The video is courtesy of Liberty Pen. Friedman set the stage for the debate involving Brooks and the other panelists: The question I want to raise is whether those higher education expenditures are a justifiable activity of government and what there consequences are and whether they really are a desirable...

During a hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Tuesday, Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) said that he believed that Jonathan E. Meyer, the deputy general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, had overseen the intimidation of a witness who had talked to the committee. “When the committee attorneys asked the witness whether they had been discouraged from speaking with the committee, both the agency and the department attorney repeatedly refused to allow the witness to answer the question, even going so far as to interrupt when the witness appeared willing to answer. How does the...

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband bought up to a quarter million dollars of stock in a now financially troubled green energy company just weeks before it announced a major 2014 acquisition that sent stock prices soaring, public records show. SunEdison told regulators last week that it is eyeing bankruptcy under the weight of $11.7 million in debt. But in late 2014, investors were bullish on the company, which manufactures and operates solar and wind power facilities. Its 2014 purchase of wind energy company First Wind “further bolstered the reputation of the company,” wrote one market-watcher at the time. “Perhaps...

The United States does not consider the Golan Heights to be a part of Israel, State Department spokesperson John Kirby stressed on Monday, a day after Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu vowed the Golan Heights "will forever remain under Israeli sovereignty." "The U.S. position on the issue is unchanged," Kirby told reporters during a daily briefing at the State Department in Washington, according to Haaretz. "This position was maintained by both Democratic and Republican administrations. Those territories are not part of Israel and the status of those territories should be determined through negotiations. The current situation in Syria does not allow...

Two weeks ago we reported that after its November warning that it may exit certain Obamacare markets as a result of substantial losses, the largest U.S. health insurer UnitedHealth, did just that when it announced it would no longer sell plans for next year in Georgia and Arkansas. Then over the weekend, UnitedHealth also added Michigan to the list of states whose Obamacare market it would no longer service. As Bloomberg reported, "the insurer won’t sell policies through Michigan’s ACA exchange for next year, according to Andrea Miller, a spokeswoman for the state’s Department of Insurance and Financial Services. Georgia...

This weekend's biggest, and most shocking story, was the report that in response to a proposed Congressional Bill that would allow a probe into the Saudi role behind the Sept 11 terrorist attack, Saudi Arabia had threatened the US with dumping its roughly $750 billion in Treasury holdings. What was curious about the story is that while Saudi Arabia implicitly admitted it had a role in the September 11, the Obama administration was actively doing everything in its power to prevent the Bill from passing, and thus to keep the truth under wraps, leading many to wonder if Obama was...

A Navy officer has spent eight months in the brig as a captive of U.S. counterintelligence agents, but to hear officials tell the spy tale, they know few details about what he provided to China’s communist regime or Taiwan’s government. To be sure, Lt. Cmdr. Edward Chieh-Liang Lin knows a lot about the Navy’s spying on China. He was a naval flight officer for long-distance patrol aircraft that suck up communications as well as track and take reconnaissance photographs and video of Beijing’s aggressive military operations in the South China Sea and elsewhere. “Someone like Cmdr. Lin would have detailed...

On Monday, US Secretary of State John Kerry visited Hiroshima. While there meeting with this G-7 counterparts, Kerry strongly hinted that his visit was a precursor to a visit to the site of the first nuclear bombing by President Barack Obama next month. The irony of course is that for all his professed commitment to ridding the world of nuclear weapons, Obama is responsible for drastically increasing the chance of nuclear war. Indeed, Obama’s own actions lend easily to the conclusion that he wishes to do penance for America’s decision to attack Hiroshima and Nagasaki with nuclear bombs, (and so...

White House press secretary Josh Earnest raised eyebrows during today´s press briefing by suggesting that Democrats would be “justified” to take revenge on the GOP blockade against Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland by blocking a possible GOP president’s nomination for the president´s full term. Earnest was recalling a suggestion President Obama made in an interview with Fox News Sunday in which he said if Republicans continued blocking Garland until he left office then “it is almost impossible to expect” that Democrats wouldn’t retaliate if given the opportunity. "What´s to stop Democrats who are in charge of the Senate when a

Two days ago we introduced you to "the rich kids of Vancouver" for whom the most important decision in any given day is whether to spend half a million dollars on a new Lamborghini or on an investment such as "two expensive watches or some diamonds."From left, Loretta Lai, Chelsea Jiang and Diana Wang attended a receptionat a Lamborghini dealership last month in Vancouver, British ColumbiaWe now introduce you to someone who may be one of these rich kids' dad. Or rather was, because Gang Yuan, a 42-year-old mining tycoon is no longer alive. His corpse was found chopped into...

Two Russian jets flew within metres of the ship on Monday, US officials said. Russia´s defence ministry said the Su-24 fighter jets "turned away in observance of all safety measures" after observing the USS Donald Cook. Mr Kerry criticised the gesture and said contact had been made with Moscow. "We condemn this kind of behaviour," he told the Miami Herald and CNN Espanol in a joint interview. "It is reckless. It is provocative. It is dangerous. And under the rules of engagement, that could have been a shoot-down." He added that the US "is not going to be intimidated on

The number two Republican in the Senate charged Thursday that President Obama is "trying to influence the outcome" of the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server during her tenure at the State Department. "Time and time again, the White House has projected its desired outcome of this investigation to the public, and worse, to those people conducting it," Texas Sen. John Cornyn said on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon. The Senate majority whip has long called for a special counsel to take over the review of Clinton's email practices, but President Obama's latest defense of...

JNS.org – Israeli-Arab Member of Knesset Jamal Zahalka called on Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount holy site “in any way possible,” just a day after the Joint Arab List party lawmaker returned from a two-month suspension from the Knesset. “In light of the daily increase of [Jewish] ascent to the [Al] Aqsa mosque, it is up to us to stop it in any way possible,” he told the Palestinian site Dunya al-Watan on Wednesday. “Our people have the right to the mosque, and we must protect it with all of our power. The Palestinian nation is...

Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was telling two different stories on the reason for the attacks on the U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya less than 24 hours after they occurred, according to newly released State Department documents. The documents, obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch under a Freedom of Information Act court ruling, contain transcripts of telephone calls between Clinton and world leaders, including then Egyptian Prime Minister Hisham Kandil. According to the transcript, the call with Kandil was made on the morning of September 12, 2012, the day after the attacks that killed four Americans, including...

In a somewhat stunning decision, SkyNews reports that a US judge has ruled that the families of victims in the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School can sue the maker of the weapon used in the attack, arguing the Bushmaster rifle is a military weapon that should not have been sold to civilians.As SkyNews reports, Gun companies had sought to reject the negligence and wrongful death lawsuit filed two years after the attack by nine victims' relatives and a survivor. But Connecticut Superior Court Judge Barbara Bellis said a 2005 federal law protecting gun-makers from lawsuits does not shield the companies...