Free Republic

Navy Capt. Michel Brandt has been relieved of command of the USS Somerset, an amphibious transport dock ship, the service announced Friday. Brandt was fired “due to a lack of confidence in her ability to lead the crew” by Rear Adm. Christopher Stone, commander of the Expeditionary Strike Group 7, according to the Navy statement. She was relieved Thursday. A “lack of confidence” is often cited by the military when removing a commander. Brandt has commanded the ship since July 2023, according to the Navy. Capt. Tate Robinson was assigned to temporarily replace Brandt as commanding officer of the Somerset...

Smoking gun text messages show Hunter set up a meeting with a convicted drug dealer the night before he bought a .38 revolver. He purchased the Colt Cobra .38 Special revolver on October 12, 2018 by claiming on a federal form that he wasn’t abusing drugs – a lie for which he is now on trial in Delaware. The day before the gun purchase, Hunter texted violent, convicted drug dealer Eladio Otero Jr. to ‘meet me 7/11 at 3’, according to records from the First Son’s abandoned laptop.

The Arab-Israeli conflict will never be fully understood — an essential criterion to solving it — until its ultimate source is recognized: Islamic supremacism. Islamic doctrine, which teaches that Muslim blood is superior to and far more precious than non-Muslim blood (non-Muslims essentially being on a level with dogs and cattle) imbues Muslims with a sense of supremacism over the rest of mankind. And a good portion of Islamic history further enforces it.

"There is an old trial lawyers saying: 'When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on you side, pound the table.'” -- Patrick Buchanan, 1975 When it comes to making the case for Hunter Biden, Mika Brzezinski has managed to devise an alternative to pounding the table when the facts and the law are against you. On today's Morning Joe, Mika repeatedly got choked up when discussing the trials and tribulations of Hunter, and the Biden family at large.Get the rest of the story and...

The commander of the team who rescued the hostages was killed in the operation. The operation was named after him, "Arnon".

Former President Donald Trump is within striking distance of President Joe Biden in blue Minnesota, according to a poll taken after his conviction in the Manhattan business records trial. The Star Tribune/MPR News/KARE 11 poll, published Monday, finds that Biden leads with 45 percent of support among likely voters in a three-way race with Trump and independent Robert Kennedy Jr. Trump garners 41 percent of the response, followed by Kennedy Jr. at 6 percent. Biden’s edge on Trump falls just outside the ± 3.5 percentage point margin of error. New: President Joe Biden holds a 45-41% lead over former President...

Actor John Leguizamo has taken out a full-page ad in the New York Times to urge industry insiders voting for Emmy Awards nominees to vote for “non-white artists” because there isn’t enough “inclusion” in the entertainment industry. “America is better when it is inclusive,” the Spawn star wrote. “It is more profitable. It is more creative! Let’s not give up. I’m still woke! Are you?” “Please let this be the year we finally embrace change,” Leguizamo’s ad began. “The year we truly find Equity, and see artists of color represented across not just one category, but ALL categories.”

Some Senate Republicans are expressing concerns over former President Trump’s calls for political vengeance after the 2024 election, warning that retaliatory prosecutions will lead the country down a bad road. The Senate GOP’s top leaders — Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Whip John Thune (S.D.) — have shown no desire to embrace Trump’s calls to prosecute senior Biden administration officials or his longtime nemesis Hillary Clinton. And some GOP senators are pushing back against conservative colleagues who want to freeze Justice Department funding or defund special counsel Jack Smith’s criminal prosecutions of Trump. They don’t want to stumble into a...

June is the month when folks who are given over to sexual deviancy and gender confusion publicly display their disdain for the design of creation and the God who gave them life. Ironically, they have coopted the rainbow, a symbol of the Noahic covenant given by God after he destroyed the world with a flood in an act of global judgment. The state of the unregenerate hearts of men before the flood is not dissimilar to what we see in Pride celebrations this very month. Solomon described this cycle in Ecclesiastes 1:8-9: What has been is what will be, and...

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) went on NBC's Meet the Press to say that "Trump's conviction validates the American judicial system. Here we have a person of immense wealth and privilege brought down by a jury of ordinary folks. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for his office on a promise to put Trump behind bars. He was elected and has delivered on that promise. This is a potent warning to all the enemies of our democracy that they will pay a price for defying the power of the people voters put in office." Bragg urged Judge Juan Merchan...

A jury has awarded more than $1.1 million to an Idaho drag performer who accused a far-right blogger of defaming him when she falsely claimed that he exposed himself to a crowd, including children, during a Pride event in June 2022. The Kootenai County District Court jury unanimously found Friday that Summer Bushnell defamed Post Falls resident Eric Posey when she posted a doctored video of his performance with a blurred spot that she claimed covered his “fully exposed genitals,” the Coeur D’Alene Press reported. In reality the unedited video showed no indecent exposure, and prosecutors declined to file charges....

Chicago's Democratic Mayor Brandon Johnson spent more than $30,000 of campaign funds on hair and makeup since launching his bid for office last year, according to a new report. Johnson, who defeated incumbent mayor Lori Lightfoot in 2023, reportedly used funds donated to his Friends of Brandon Johnson campaign fund by political supporters to cover the cost of his makeup and hair appointments, the Chicago Sun Times reported. The outlet cited election board records, which revealed that the progressive mayor spent more than $30,000 on personal grooming in the past year. Almost all the money paid makeup artist and self-described...

The Biden administration on Monday called for the United Nations Security Council to vote on a U.S. resolution laying out an immediate truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Nate Evans, spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the UN, said it was important for the Security Council to put pressure on Hamas to accept a proposal that Israel has accepted. “Israel has accepted this proposal and the Security Council has an opportunity to speak with one voice and call on Hamas to do the same,” Evans said. A vote on the resolution is scheduled for 3 p.m. on...

@RepThomasMassie The Republican House should, by an official vote of the House, declare the subpoenas on Bannon and Navarro to have been illegitimately issued, and vote to repeal them. @RandPaul When the GOP took the House in 2020, I advocated keeping Jan 6committee with new members long enough to repeal subpoenas on Bannon and Navarro. No one listened then. Will they listen now?

Last October, when Kevin McCarthy was ousted as speaker of the house, one Republican of the eight who voted against him stood out as the odd bedfellow of the group: a junior representative from South Carolina named Nancy Mace. The seven other Republicans, all men, were far-right rabble-rousers, loudmouths for whom grousing about the “establishment” rather than working with it was always the right political move. They were used to attracting and capitalizing on press attention. Yet in the days that followed McCarthy’s ouster, Mace outshone them all, showing up for work in a shirt with a red A on...

Violent crime dropped considerably in the first months of 2024 compared to the same time last year, according to statistics released by the FBI on Monday. Crime reporting for the first quarter of the year showed a 15 percent drop in violent crime overall, including a 13 percent drop in aggravated assault. Serious violent crime like murder and rape both decreased by about 26 percent. The figures were a victory for the Biden administration, which sought to highlight the dip as the GOP focuses on crime ahead of the 2024 election. “This data makes clear that last year’s historic decline...

Daily Readings from the USCCBWhen Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain, and after he had sat down, his disciples came to him. He began to teach them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:1–3Today we are given the incredibly high calling of the Beatitudes to ponder. These lessons were taught by Jesus on a hill just north of the Sea of Galilee. Many were coming to Jesus to listen to Him preach and to witness His many miracles. They flocked to Him in this remote location, and Jesus...

Watch the incredible clips of Kyiv's powerful drones annihilating Mad Vlad's tankers as debris and flames take over the battlefield. THIS is the dramatic moment Ukrainian kamikaze drones blow up Russian tanks in the latest blow to Putin's failing forces. Spectacular footage shows Kyiv's fierce determination as the drones reduce the hodgepodge "Franken-tanks" to fiery wreckage. The drones are seen in the daylight mission smoothly descending until they hit Mad Vlad's tinderboxes with pinpoint accuracy. The clunky military vehicles are then seen engulfed by bright orange flames in a brutal inferno. As smoke was blown away, what once was a...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently approved an expansion of a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for use in at-risk adults over the age of 50.Manufactured by British multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK, this vaccine is the first to be approved for adults aged 50–59, targeting a virus known for causing severe respiratory issues, particularly in older adults and those with pre-existing health conditions.RSV is a common respiratory virus that primarily infects the lungs, nose, throat, and breathing passages. It typically causes mild cold-like symptoms such as a runny nose, fever, cough, and wheezing.“Today’s approval reflects the...

A radical Italian Antifa activist accused of attacking people with a hammer in Budapest has been elected to the European Parliament, potentially paving the way for her to be freed from custody in Hungary. Ilaria Salis, a 39-year-old schoolteacher and “anti-fascist” activist currently under house arrest in Hungary, has won a seat in the EU parliament on behalf of the Green-Left Alliance (AVS) in Italy, ANSA reports. Salis has been accused of being part of a leftist group of mostly Germans who allegedly attacked a group of supposed “neo-Nazis” on February 11th in 2023 as they honoured the Nazi Waffen...