Free Republic

A small-town political feud that wound up with a Texas city council member behind bars is headed to the Supreme Court this week, where justices will consider whether the councilwoman can sue city leaders for politically motivated retaliation. "I would never believe that I would be going to the Supreme Court," Sylvia Gonzalez told Fox News. "I would never believe that I was in jail either." "In America, we don't arrest our critics," IJ attorney Anya Bidwell said. Gonzalez's story began in 2019 when the then-72-year-old retiree won a seat on the Castle Hills City Council. She said constituents had...

Academy Awards host Jimmy Kimmel said he was told not to read former President Donald Trump’s Truth Social post during Sunday’s live ABC telecast. Speaking to Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos for their post-Oscars coverage, Kimmel said some people advised him against reading Trump’s post in which the former president dissed both Kimmel and the Oscars. “They’re like, ‘You’ve got a little bit of time’ and I was like, ‘I’m reading the Trump tweet,’ and they’re like, ‘No, no, don’t read that,’” Kimmel said, adding that he didn’t heed their orders. “‘Yes I am.’” Kimmel didn’t elaborate on who gave...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a Sunday interview fired back at President Biden’s suggestion that his policies were only hurting Israel. “I don’t know exactly what the president meant, but if he meant by that that I’m pursuing private policies against the majority, the wish of the majority of Israelis, and that this is hurting the interests of Israel, then he’s wrong on both counts,” Netanyahu said in an interview with Politico.

Meghan McCain, the daughter of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), went after Arizona Republican Senate candidate Kari Lake on Tuesday, blasting Lake’s attempts to dismiss as joking previous insults against her dad. “Kari Lake is trying to walk back her continued attacks on my Dad (& family) and all of his loyal supporters after telling them to ‘get the hell out,’” McCain said in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter Tuesday. “Guess she realized she can’t become a Senator without us,” McCain continued. “No peace, -—-. We see you for who you are – and are...

JERUSALEM — Criticism of President Joe Biden by a far-right minister in Israel’s government who said Donald Trump would allow more freedom to fight Hamas sparked outrage there on Sunday, highlighting the sensitivity of relations as Washington provides key support for the offensive against the militants in Gaza. The Biden administration has skirted Congress to rush weapons to Israel and shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire in the four months since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. But the White House has urged Israel to take greater measures to avoid harming civilians and facilitate the delivery...

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took aim at Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) for her criticism of Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), calling it a “disgusting attack.” Mace on Wednesday said she couldn’t vote for Scalise as the next House Speaker because he “attended a white supremacist conference and compared himself to David Duke.” Greene, like Mace, said she was supporting House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) after he was ousted last week from the role. However, she claimed the South Carolina Republican’s comments about Scalise — who won the nomination for the top...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that attacks from House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) are inspiring death threats against him. Swalwell told MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace on “Deadline: White House” that McCarthy plans to remove him from his committee assignments for “political vengeance.” Swalwell has emerged as a particularly controversial individual among House Republicans over his connection to a suspected Chinese spy during his 2014 reelection campaign, which became public in 2020. Swalwell ended his ties with the Chinese national when the FBI informed him of her identity, but Republicans have called for him to be removed from sensitive committee assignments...

BEIJING — China has suspended or closed the social media accounts of more than 1,000 critics of the government’s policies on the COVID-19 outbreak, as the country moves to roll back harsh antivirus restrictions.The popular Sina Weibo social media platform said it had addressed 12,854 violations including attacks on experts, scholars and medical workers and issued temporary or permanent bans on 1,120 accounts.The ruling Communist Party had largely relied on the medical community to justify its tough lockdowns, quarantine measures and mass testing, almost all of which it abruptly abandoned last month, leading to a surge in new cases that...

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Tuesday urged members of her party to stop discouraging early voting and vote by mail. “Our voters need to vote early,” McDaniel told Fox News. “I have said this over and over again. There were many in 2020 saying, ‘Don’t vote by mail, don’t vote early.’ And we have to stop that and understand that if Democrats are getting ballots in for a month, we can’t expect to get it all done in one day.” Former President Trump was among the leading voices that questioned the security and validity of early and...

KIEV, Ukraine — Until this week, Ukrainians seemed to see President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as beyond reproach, a national hero who stayed in Kiev despite the risk to his personal safety to lead his country against invading Russian troops.In the interview with The Post, published Tuesday, Zelenskyy cited his fears that Ukrainians would panic, flee the country and trigger economic collapse as the reason he chose not to share the stark warnings passed on by U.S. officials regarding Russia’s plans.“If we had communicated that . . . then I would have been losing $7 billion a month since last October...." Zelenskyy...

The White House scoffed at Congressional Republicans on Wednesday who criticized President Joe Biden’s speech slamming the Senate for blocking bills that would federalize state and local elections. “I know that there has been a lot of claim of the offensive nature of the speech yesterday, which is hilarious on many levels,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, pointing to Republican silence during former President Donald Trump’s presidency.

During CNN’s New Year’s Eve coverage, network commentator Don Lemon delivered a monologue directed at his critics. Lemon said he doesn’t care what people think about him because he is a “grown, successful black man.” “I carry the same drink almost the entire night, so it is kind of an act. But, I am letting people into my life, and this is how I am all the time. I share everything,” Lemon began.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Sunday responded to criticism over his recent comments about racist bridges and highways, saying "the point is not to make America feel guilty" but to fix what he believes are injustices in the country’s infrastructure. During an appearance on MSNBC’s "The Sunday Show," Buttigieg was asked to respond to critics who don’t believe his argument that some bridges and highways were built with racist intentions.

The unimaginable has occurred. Kyle Rittenhouse, the admitted killer of two men and maimer of a third, has been acquitted on all counts. On Aug. 25, 2020, Rittenhouse armed himself with a borrowed AR-15-style assault rifle loaded with full metal jacket armor-penetrating ammunition and marched into downtown Kenosha, Wis., during a third night of protests following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. Blake was left partly paralyzed after a white police officer shot him seven times in the back outside an apartment complex in Kenosha two days before.

President Joe Biden responded to widespread criticism of his exit from Afghanistan after visiting the 9/11 memorial for Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. “I get it, a lot more direct attacks on me … I’m a big boy, I’ve been doing this a long time,” Biden said to reporters during his visit

The U.S. military is warning both active duty and retired service members that no “disrespect” of President Biden will be tolerated. The Office of Naval Intelligence’s Chief of Staff recently emailed service members to remind them of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The UCMJ prohibits the public questioning of the President, the Vice President, Congress, or the Secretary of Defense, among others. The email was obtained by the Daily Wire on Friday. It reads as follows: Given the heightened political and social atmosphere surrounding Afghanistan, it is important to remind our uniformed personnel (active duty and reservists on temporary...

If arrogance and obsequiousness came in a bottle, Peter J. Hotez, MD, Ph.D., would be chugging it by the gallon. In a gallant defense of Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Peter Daszak, Hotez says that criticizing them or any other scientist with whom he agrees is a hate crime:We should look at expanded protection mechanisms for scientists currently targeted by far-right extremism in the United States. Rep. Paul Tonko (D-NY) has introduced a bill known as the Scientific Integrity Act of 2021 (H.R. 849) to protect US Government scientists from political interference, but this needs to be extended for scientists...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) on Thursday reignited what has come to be a semi-routine feud with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on social media, fuming over his criticism of President Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement. Biden signed a flurry of executive orders on his first day in office, which included the commitment to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord. Former President Trump withdrew the United States from the agreement during his term, informing the United Nations in November 2019, although it did not formally go into effect until November 2020.

Political elites worldwide have criticized big tech companies for banning President Donald Trump from their social media platforms. At present, the president has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Instagram. Twitter permanently removed Trump’s account, saying that his recent posts were in violation of the “Glorification of Violence Policy.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Twitter’s ban on Trump “problematic,” and said that freedom of opinion is an essential right of “elementary significance,” her spokesperson, Steffen Siebert, said on Jan 11. “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined...

In scathing remarks criticizing his own staff, Attorney General William Barr said Wednesday that the Justice Department has recently acted "more like a trade association for federal prosecutors than the administrator of a fair system of justice" and equated some prosecutors to preschoolers and "headhunters."