Free Republic

EVA VLAARDINGERBROEK: Hello, Hungary, hello, Budapest, hello, fellow Europeans and American friends. Thank you so much for having me. Allow me to skip formalities for a moment and dive right into a subject that is not so cheerful, but very, very necessary to discuss. Let me walk you through the past seven days in Europe. This week in Stockholm, three elderly women in their 70s were stabbed in broad daylight on the streets. In London, four people were stabbed in a time span of just 42 hours. In Paris, hundreds of African migrants took to the street to riot. And...

As the crowed swarmed me, one student yelled, “He’s subhuman!” Another student shouted, “I can’t wait for Hamas to come to your door … al-Qassam is going to kill all your friends for no reason.” I pointed with pride to the red Kippah, Jewish skullcap, that adorned my head. It was soon forcefully ripped off by a “peaceful” student who dug his nails into my scalp as he pulled it off, along with some hair. This was one of three assaults I was subjected to at Columbia University. I am a “professional Jew.” It takes a lot to unnerve me....

1. Stuck At Home:How many of us have heard the terrible stories about what happened to children from abused homes who were forced to stay there during the pandemic? 2. The Homeschool revolution and parents more involved in learning.Before the pandemic, I helped my kids with their homework, but I honestly had no idea what lesson plans were being taught in my children's classroom. I am not alone. 3. Reassessing Priorities:During the pandemic, people had more time to think…about everything. And many of them realized they didn't want to be a slave to an office job, driving back and forth...

The Supreme Court on Monday denied a request by Peter Navarro, a former advisor to ex-President Donald Trump, to get out of jail while he appeals his four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The order rejecting Navarro’s application for release pending appeal stated only that his request was addressed to Justice Neil Gorsuch and referred to the court, which denied it. Navarro was indicted after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House select committee probing the events of Jan. 6, 2021, when a violent mob of Trump’s...

Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) said he was “shocked” at how highly classified the documents that President Joe Biden was keeping at his Delaware home were, arguing that they were “eyes only” for the president and vice president. While appearing on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Waltz addressed the classified documents Biden had at his home, with the representative pushing back against claims that the information contained in these documents was from the Cold War era. He contended that instead, the documents’ information was both “recent” and “relevant” and that the documents had many code words that even...

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has asked former President Donald Trump’s lawyers about whether they challenged special counsel Jack Smith’s authority to bring charges against the president.On April 25, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about President Trump being immune from prosecution for official acts carried out during his presidency. During the hearing, Justice Thomas asked John Sauer, the attorney who represented Trump in court, “Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?” Mr. Smith was appointed to the case by Attorney General Merrick Garland.Mr. Sauer said that Trump attorneys have not...

During Thursday’s deliberations at the U.S. Supreme Court on former President Donald Trump’s immunity claim, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that a decision in the case has future implications for whether future presidents are shielded from vicious cycles of malicious prosecution that could effectively end the presidency as we know it.In the course of two-and-a-half hours of oral arguments on April 25, justices on the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of a ruling by a federal appeals court that rejected President Trump’s claim that he has absolute immunity from criminal charges based on his official acts as president.President Trump was...

In a Supreme Court showdown Monday over whether the homeless have a "right" to camp in public, almost no one mentioned the actual victims of that crazy idea. Homeless advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union, told the court that living on the streets is a "victimless" crime. Victimless? Everyone who has to step over needles and human poop and navigate around half-conscious humans while walking to work or taking their kids to school is a victim. Every store owner whose entrance is blocked by makeshift cardboard shelters is a victim.

The Supreme Court indicated on April 25 that it would issue a narrow ruling refining the scope of presidential immunity while leaving the details of former President Donald Trump’s other legal battles up to lower courts. The most immediate effect of their decision on President Trump’s legal battles would be to delay his Washington case, where his immunity appeal originated. That trial was scheduled to start on March 4 but, more recently, observers have been questioning whether it will even start before the election.Sending the case back to D.C. District Judge Tanya Chutkan would presumably force her to continue pre-trial...

In a recent development, multiple cases challenging state bans on so-called assault weapons are now appealing for immediate Supreme Court review. A recent YouTube video shared that these legal battles, with implications far beyond their state boundaries, have taken a pivotal step forward, driven by what many are calling a critical mistake by the state of Illinois in response to these lawsuits. Here’s the full story. The State of Illinois, like many others, has faced legal challenges to its bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. However, in a strategic move, supporters of the Second Amendment have leveraged these disputes...

DECATUR, Ga. (AP) — A judge upheld the disqualification of a candidate who had had planned to run against the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 Georgia election interference case. Tiffani Johnson is one of two people who filed paperwork to challenge Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee. An administrative law judge earlier this month found that she was not qualified to run for the seat after she failed to appear at a hearing on a challenge to her eligibility, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger adopted that decision. Johnson last week filed a petition for review...

Former Rep. Peter Meijer, R-Mich., announced Friday evening that he had dropped out of the race to represent Michigan in the U.S. Senate. "I got into this race because I believed I had the strongest chance of winning in November to work to right this ship and reverse trendlines that have only gotten worse over these past months," Meijer, whose family founded the Meijer supermarket chain, said in a statement posted on X. "The hard reality is the fundamentals of the race have changed significantly since we launched this campaign," he continued. "After prayerful consideration, today I withdrew my name...

AUGUSTA, Maine — Maine House Majority Leader Mo Terry said Friday the Legislature would be “compelled” to consider a special session if Nebraska Republicans switch their state to a winner-take-all system to help former President Donald Trump win in November.

@RobertKennedyJr I’m going to file a lawsuit challenging the TikTok ban on Constitutional grounds. Don’t be fooled — the TikTok ban is not about China harvesting your data. That's a smoke screen. Intelligence agencies from lots of countries, especially ours, are harvesting your data from everywhere all the time. TikTok isn't even majority Chinese-owned, and the company agreed to put its data behind a U.S. firewall. The Biden administration rejected that deal. Congress and the administration don't understand that TikTok is an entrepreneurial platform for thousands of American young people. They want to screw them over just so they can...

Oral argument before the Supreme Court this week showed why it is nonsense to claim that anti-vagrancy laws violate the Constitution‘s Eighth Amendment provision against “cruel and unusual punishment.” Indeed, in the vernacular sense, what is cruel and unusual is a judicial edict that says law-abiding citizens must put up with public spaces featuring major health hazards, including even the plague. Yet that’s what some lower courts, bizarrely, say citizens must do. By any normal reading, the Eighth Amendment is intended to forbid overly harsh penalties, not to determine what sorts of conduct can or can’t be outlawed. Unfortunately, the...

The lawyer representing special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday asserted that the reason former President Donald Trump is the first president to face criminal charges is because his predecessors did not commit any crimes. Department of Justice counselor to Smith, Michael Dreeben, went before the Supreme Court to argue presidents should not have constitutional immunity from prosecution for official acts conducted during their presidency. Dreeben suggested that no president until Trump has ever committed crimes when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas questioned him about no other president having faced prosecutions. “Over the not-so-distant past … certain presidents have engaged in...

SCOTUS Justices wrestled with how to define a president’s ‘official’ versus ‘private’ acts. A decision may delay President Trump’s trial, which would hand him a win. The Supreme Court seemed skeptical on April 25 of former President Donald Trump’s claim that he should receive absolute criminal immunity, but it appeared to be open to allowing some level of immunity for presidents. Conservative justices seemed poised to remand the case back to the district court in Washington with instructions on what constitutes official and private acts for further fact-finding proceedings. This would further delay President Trump’s trial in Washington and possibly...

Judge Aileen Cannon unsealed a trove of documents Monday that appear to reveal a coordinated effort within the Biden administration to target Donald Trump with political prosecution after he left office. Special Counsel Jack Smith and other federal prosecutors in President Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) indicted Trump in June 2023 for allegedly mishandling classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home. The indictment followed an unprecedented raid on a former president’s home the prior summer. President Biden also retained classified documents after leaving the vice presidency. Yet he was not charged because prosecutors say they believed he would “present himself to...

Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) said Thursday on CNN’s “The Lead” that the Supreme Court acted like “partisan hacks” during the oral arguments on Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution. Host Jake Tapper said, “Justices signaled today that they were skeptical of Trump’s claim that he had complete immunity for anything he did that was an official act. But they also pushed back on how the special counsel framed the case. How likely do you think it is that the court’s going to try to reach a middle ground ruling that might push this trial beyond November’s election,...

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito suggested Thursday during oral arguments regarding presidential immunity that criminalizing individuals just because they question government-run elections would destabilize true democracy. Special counsel Jack Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for questioning the administration of the 2020 election. The high court is now hearing challenges as to whether presidents have immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office that fall within the scope of their presidential duties. “Let me end with just a question about, what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want?”...