Free Republic

When the International Criminal Court needed a top adviser to justify an appalling arrest warrant for Bibi Netanyahu, its members turned to Amal Clooney. The ultra-liberal British human rights lawyer – and the wife of George Clooney – was happy to comply. In a statement referring to "Palestine," she said both Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar are guilty of war crimes. Think about that for a moment. Hamas murders civilians deliberately, as we saw with the Oct. 7 massacre that started this war, the largest one-day death toll since the Holocaust. Israel at least tries to minimize civilian casualties...

Taiwan's military mobilized its forces and said it was confident it could protect the island, after China started two days of "punishment" drills around Taiwan on Thursday in what it said was a response to "separatist acts". The exercises, in the Taiwan Strait and around groups of Taiwan-controlled islands that sit next to the Chinese coast, come just three days after Lai Ching-te took office as Taiwan's new president, a man Beijing detests as a "separatist". China, which views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has denounced Lai's inauguration speech on Monday, in which he called on China to...

State lawmakers have passed a bill that, if signed into law by Governor JB Pritzker, will change the term “offender” in state law to “justice impacted individual.” The proposed change blew up on social media, with some people mistakenly thinking that people who commit crimes would get a rebranding. Instead, it would only apply to participants in one program meant to rehabilitate people and keep them out of prison. The specific proposed law, House Bill 4409, would remove the term “offender” and replace it with “justice impacted individual” for men and women in the state’s “Adult Redeploy Illinois” program, commonly...

Hundreds of graduates at Harvard University walked out of their commencement Thursday after the school announced 13 students who participated in the recent pro-Palestinian protests on campus would not be allowed to receive their diplomas with fellow students. Groups of graduates walked out chanting “Free, Free Palestine” and “Let them walk, let them walk” in reference to the students barred from walking at the ceremony, The Associated Press reported. A total of more than 1,000 students participated in the walkout, according to the school’s protest groups.

A Utah Senate candidate who vowed to "push back against the establishment" if he's elected has earned the support of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who said he is the "type of Republican" needed in the upper chamber to replace retiring GOP Sen. Mitt Romney. Paul endorsed Riverton Mayor Trent Staggs on Thursday, backing a man who gained notoriety in 2020 for his opposition to mask mandates amid the coronavirus pandemic. "In 2024, Utah will elect a Republican no matter what. It's about what type of Republican," Paul said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital. "We need someone who...

Russian patriotic bloggers expressed anger on Wednesday over the arrest of the former commander of Russia's 58th army, who was detained for fraud, and cast him as a talented general who had the courage to speak the truth to incompetent superiors. Russia's state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday that Major General Ivan Popov had been arrested on suspicion of "large-scale fraud". It was not possible to contact Popov directly, who Russian media said stood accused of stealing 100 million roubles ($1.1 million) of metal. Following a June 2023 mutiny by Wagner mercenaries against Russia's defence establishment, Popov said he...

A deputy chief of the Russian military general staff has been arrested on charges of large-scale bribery, Russian news reports said Thursday, the latest in a series of bribery arrests of high-ranking military officials. The arrest of Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin followed the arrest earlier in the week of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, a former top commander in Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, also on bribery charges. In April, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested for bribery. Ivanov was a close associate of Sergei Shoigu, whom President Vladimir Putin dismissed as defense minister soon after Putin’s inauguration to a new...

A Republican presidential challenger campaigning in the South Bronx against an inflation-ridden and unpopular Democratic incumbent. I’ve seen this show before. It was August 5, 1980, when Ronald Reagan, the GOP nominee against President Jimmy Carter, traveled to the troubled borough of New York City to deliver his message of “Make America Great Again.” It was, for sure, a raucous scene, plenty of Bronx cheering. Relying on a microphone to make himself heard, Reagan shouted, “I can’t do a damned thing for you if I don’t get elected!”

I am in Israel for 3 weeks volunteering in logistics for the IDF through “Sar-El”. Many of you asked for regular Situation Reports, and this is my first one for the first week. Primer Please see my original post for why I’m here, and the nature of Sar-El: https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4237961/posts Tel Aviv • Young: Tel Aviv is filled to the gills with young people. The ages on the street appear to be 20-35. If you’re a single Jew below 35 anywhere in the world, I recommend you RUN to Tel Aviv. The girls are extremely good looking, the weather is hot,...

Gov. Chris Sununu says almost all of the 50 governors get along...except 'prick' Gavin Newsom who 'no one cares for' and 'complete jacka**' former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The New Hampshire Republican governor poked fun at his Democratic colleagues during a fireside chat at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education in Washington, D.C. 'Look, almost all the governors get along,' he said. 'In my eight years, there's really only maybe been two - maybe a third - but two governors that really nobody likes or particularly cares for.'

White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre brazenly fought back after being asked why Joe Biden hasn't used his executive powers to deal with the border crisis. The press secretary, 49, admitted on Wednesday that Biden does have the power to curtail the ever-growing migrant ordeal - but she snapped back: 'Why should he?' President Biden took 94 executive actions to reverse Donald Trump's border policies after taking office - but has refused to issue any as migrant numbers have surged.

A rare tornado struck the northern Haitian community of Bassin-Bleu on Tuesday, injuring more than 50 people and leaving about 300 homeless, according to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs. Emergency response operations for the tornado continued through Thursday morning, and local officials warned of major disruptions to transportation and power in the area. Local officials said they might impose curfews, especially if more severe weather occurs. U.N. officials and local media said ten of the reported injuries were serious enough to require hospitalization. Heavy rains sweeping through much of Haiti hindered rescue efforts and could lead to floods...

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Thursday urged G7 ministers meeting in Italy to consider “more ambitious options” to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. The ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven world powers are meeting in Stresa, on the shores of northern Italy’s Lake Maggiore, to prepare for a summit of G7 heads of state next month in Puglia. Yellen said the group would also discuss what Washington considers to be “overcapacity” of key green technologies from China such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar panels. Top of the agenda is a plan to finance...

A farmworker in Michigan is the second person to become infected with the current H5N1 bird flu virus. The farmworker had mild symptoms and has since recovered, local health officials said. According to Michigan’s chief medical executive, Natasha Bagdasarian, the current health risk to the public remains low, but the virus has circulated in dairy and poultry farms across the country this spring. Here’s what we know about the bird flu infections.

<p>Baltic leaders reacted warily on Wednesday to reports that Russia could revise the borders of its territorial waters in the region.</p><p>In a draft proposal reported by some Russian media, Russia's Defence Ministry suggests updating the coordinates used to measure the strip of territorial waters off of its mainland coast and that of its islands in the Baltic Sea.</p>

As he campaigned for president of Argentina last year, Javier Milei brandished a chainsaw as a symbol of the ferocity with which he intended to slash the country's massive public sector. Again and again he told voters that Argentina's economy had been wrecked by corrupt and irresponsible left-wing governments and warned that there was no easy fix to the chaos caused by decades of unaffordable state spending financed by endlessly borrowing and printing money. A trained economist, Milei outlined what he called his "Chainsaw Plan" — a drastic reduction in the cost and scope of the government and a frontal...

For My Enemies, The LawAnarcho-Tyranny is punishment of the innocent for the benefit of the guilty.The current condition in the United States has been described as been described as a state of “anarcho-tyranny.” This term, originally coined by paleo-conservative writer Sam Francis, was recently defined by Tucker Carlson as “selective punishment while ignoring the rule of law.”This condition was exemplified by a recent incident in Oakland, California that was so egregious that it would have been literally unimaginable until recently. Victor Silva is 102 years old and in a wheelchair. He was notified by the city that he is expected...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) mocked former President Trump over bad weather ahead of his Thursday rally in the Bronx. “God is Good 🙏🏽,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a Thursday post on the social media platform X. The New York Democrat replied to a post on X showcasing that the Crotona Park section of the Bronx, where the rally is slated to take place, had rain around 10 a.m. local time Thursday. The House progressive went after the former president earlier this week for doing a campaign rally in the South Bronx. She said he was holding it due to a “legal...

Former President Donald Trump is set to speak at the Libertarian Party’s National Convention on Saturday in Washington, D.C. It’s in some sense both a big win and loss for the party. For a former president to address the party is a symbolic victory. But, on the other hand, it is a bizarre thing for the party to do given that Trump is neither the Libertarian Party presidential candidate nor is he in any meaningful sense a libertarian. The only beneficiary of this, at the margins, is Trump, who has made clear he wants the vote of registered Libertarians. “We...

Given a choice between granting amnesty to illegal immigrants and deporting all of them, Americans voters favor deportation by a double-digit margin. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if given a choice between two candidates, one of whom favored granting amnesty to illegal aliens and one of whom favored deporting all illegal aliens, 52% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the candidate who favored deportation. Thirty-six percent (36%) would vote for the candidate who favored amnesty, while 12% are undecided.