Free Republic

The University of Vermont has capitulated to a demand by the campus anti-Israel “encampment,” canceling a commencement address by UN Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, a black female diplomatic pioneer. The “encampment” is one of dozens across campuses in the U.S., demanding the destruction of Israel and making other antisemitic demands. According to local NBC affiliate WPTZ: Thomas-Greenfield is the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations. UVM student protesters had listed the cancellation of her commencement speech as one of their key demands. She has overseen three votes for a cease-fire to war efforts in the Middle East, and has vetoed the...

On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Wall Street Week,” Harvard Professor and President Emeritus and former Harvard President Larry Summers said that America’s enemies must “be taking great encouragement from the spectacle that is being made by our young future elites on so many of our leading college campuses, and even more by the craven responses that are typifying university leaderships.” Summers stated, “This is very depressing and worrisome to me. As I’ve said on your show before, David, I think the United States is in the most dangerous geopolitical moment we’ve been in probably two generations, given what’s happening in...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by The Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyiv’s depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. Ukraine’s military has acknowledged the Russians have gained a “foothold” in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says that fighting continues.

Conservative lawyer George Conway said former Trump aide Hope Hicks’ testimony at former President Trump’s hush money trial “absolutely” corroborates his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen’s story about Trump in the case. “She put in Donald Trump’s mouth, the fact that he understood that those payments were made on his behalf before the election by Michael Cohen,” Conway said on CNN’s “The Situation Room” with host Wolf Blitzer, while speaking about Trump. “And that’s just… that’s devastating testimony. It absolutely corroborates Michael Cohen’s story, which has been corroborated in numerous respects, and it shows that he knew that when he was signing...

Mark Hamill says the force is with President Biden — the actor made a surprise visit Friday to the White House briefing room and offered a “Star Wars”-inspired nickname for the commander in chief. “How many of you had ‘Mark Hamill will lead the press briefing’ on your bingo cards?” Hamill, sporting a pair of sunglasses, told reporters at the top of the White House’s press briefing. “I just got to meet the president, and he gave me these aviator glasses,” added Hamill, known for his role as Luke Skywalker. Asked about his Oval Office visit with Biden, Hamill said,...

Activists in Missouri say their proposed amendment to enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution has enough signatures to appear on the ballot. Missourians for Constitutional Freedom said on Friday that it collected 380,000 signatures — far past the 172,000 needed to qualify — and delivered the signatures to the Missouri Secretary of State for approval. The group needed to submit signatures by May 5. 📢 In just three months, 380k+ Missourians from every corner of our state have signed the petition to end the abortion ban! Today, we delivered those signatures to the Secretary of State. Help...

Actor Robert De Niro said Thursday on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour” that former President Donald Trump’s rise was like that of Adolf Hitler’s in 1930s Germany. De Niro said, “He is sick, he is genuinely a sick person that somehow has been allowed into our system. I’m not calling him names, he just can’t be anywhere near the office of the presidency.” He continued, “I don’t understand it. I don’t I don’t think they understand how dangerous it will be if he ever, God forbid, becomes president. I don’t think they really understand. And historically, from what I see, even...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) knocked Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-Ga.) effort to oust Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as “silly,” while praising him as a “strong” conservative. “I think it is silly,” Cruz said during this Thursday appearance on RealClearPolitics’ radio show. “I think it is seriously counterproductive. I think Mike Johnson is a strong conservative who has been given an almost impossible task. He has a tiny majority in the House, just a two-vote majority,” he continued. “That means any three House members run off to the hills, and then the majority evaporates.” Cruz said that Greene’s effort, which was...

An executive order signed by President Joe Biden has focused on registering convicts to vote and exclusively involved left-wing non-governmental organizations (NGOs), an investigation from the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project revealed. In March 2021, Biden signed an executive order titled “Promoting Access to Voting,” which he billed as a “nonpartisan” government-wide effort to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process. Two months after the order was signed, the Biden administration held a “Listening Session” with several NGOs — all of which identified with the Democrat party or left-wing policy...

Former Republican congressional candidate Bryan E. Leib has officially entered the 2024 GOP primary in the Sunshine State’s 25th District, advocating for fresh leadership in Congress to uphold “common sense,” Judeo-Christian values, and Trump’s “America First” agenda; he is challenging long-serving Democrat Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News on Thursday, communications strategist Bryan E. Leib, a senior fellow at the Center for Fundamental Rights and a former Republican congressional candidate, announced his candidacy “because we don’t need more baby boomers serving in Congress,” he said. “They tear down our statues, they burn down police stations,...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) says the FBI has his phone after someone tried to scam him by impersonating a communication from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), raising the possibility that one of the senators’ phones was hacked. “My phone is in the hands of the FBI now,” Graham said at the Hill & Valley Forum in remarks reported by The Washington Times. “So I get a message, I think, from Schumer, it ain’t from Schumer, and next thing you know, my phone’s, I don’t know what. Anything you can create apparently can be hacked.” Taylor Reidy, a spokesperson for...

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) received a stunning rebuke Wednesday on what should have been a slam-dunk resolution to oppose antisemitism followed by a rare procedural defeat on legislation to clarify mining regulations. The events, hours after Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced they would force a vote to expel Johnson, do little to show Johnson has a firm hand on the wheel. The Antisemitism Awareness Act, introduced by Reps. Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Jared Moskowitz (R-FL), would mandate that when the Department of Education enforces federal anti-discrimination laws it uses a definition of antisemitism put forward...

Former President Trump declined to commit to accepting Wisconsin’s November election results in an interview Wednesday, the latest instance of Trump hedging over whether he will contest the results of the election. “If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results,” Trump told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an interview Wednesday. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country. “But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” he added. Trump...

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R), who has been under the microscope this week for an anecdote about killing her dog, defended her actions Wednesday, saying she shot the “dangerous” pup in order to protect her children. “It was a dog that was extremely dangerous,” Noem said Wednesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.” “It had come to us from a family who had found her way too aggressive.” “We were her second chance. And she was — the day she was put down was a day that she massacred livestock that were part of our neighbors,” she continued. “She attacked me....

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Monday on “Deadline” that freedom of the press could end if former President Donald Trump wins re-election in November. Wallace said, “The annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner is one of the symptoms, one of the signs of a healthy, functioning democracy.” She continued, “It’s a coming together and, at its core, the president doing everything right celebrates and honors the free press. Behind the levity, though, there was something darker, a darker undercurrent, if you will, and a point that the president had to make. And it was more profoundly serious. Because at this exact...

Vice President Kamala Harris continued her 2024 abortion tour in Jacksonville, Florida, to rail against the state’s six-week abortion restriction that went into effect Wednesday and to cast blame on former President Donald Trump. Harris spoke for about 15 minutes at the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center in Downtown Jacksonville, where she not only slammed the state’s heartbeat bill, but also decried abortion restrictions in other states that have been passed or gone into effect since the Supreme Court issued its Dobbs decision in June of 2022. The Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade — which had for 50...

Embattled House Speaker Mike Johnson, who will face a historic vote next week in the House of Representatives to remove his gavel and strip him of the Speakership, is plummeting among Republicans and supporters of former President Donald Trump and surging among Democrats and supporters of Democrat President Joe Biden. When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) calls the privileged resolution on a motion to vacate Johnson from the Speakership, Democrats intend to vote to save Johnson’s job by voting for the motion to table Greene’s resolution. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House who has essentially...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) criticized the motion to vacate that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is bringing against him next week in an effort to oust him from the Speaker’s office. After Greene announced at a press conference Wednesday that she would move on her motion, Johnson—who has repeatedly broken the Hastert Rule and caved on Ukraine aid with no border funding—called the motion “wrong.” “This motion is wrong for the Republican Conference, wrong for the institution, and wrong for the country,” he said, according to CNN Capitol Hill reporter Melanie Zanona.

Liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore said Monday on CNN’s “The Source” that the college protests were a danger to President Joe Biden being re-elected in November. Partial transcript as follows: KAITLAN COLLINS: There’s a CNN poll that showed today 81 percent of voters, who are under the age of 35 disapprove of how President Biden has been handling this war. I mean, we’re seeing it on campuses. There is a question of what we’re going to see in November. I wonder what you think he should be doing differently to change those numbers. MOORE: Thank you for asking that question,...

Joe Biden’s aides spliced a 24-second scripted video of the president eight times, raising concerns about whether he can deliver simple remarks without mistakes. About one-third of Democrats doubt Biden’s mental fitness, a Harvard/Harris survey recently found. Another poll revealed 82 percent of Americans harbor concerns about his physical and mental health. Only about one-third of voters say Biden is physically or mentally fit to serve a second term, Quinnipiac found. Politicians often record remarks on camera for social media, but few short videos are as heavily edited as Biden’s 24-second video. The exception to the repeated jump cuts would...