Free Republic

Defense attorney Randy Zelin said Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central” that the prosecution in former President Donald Trump’s business record trial “fell way short” of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Host Kate Bolduan said, “The burden of proof is an important one to remind everyone: It’s on the prosecution, right? They need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that he commit, that Donald Trump broke the law. And you think after listening to all of this, you think they fell short. How?” Zelin said, “They fell way short, because let’s start with reasonable doubt. What is reasonable doubt? And it’s...

A government scientist is the latest official whose attempts to evade the Freedom of Information Act have landed him in hot water.The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is based on an important principle: any document that the public pays for belongs to the public. Whenever a government official writes or records something as part of their taxpayer-funded duties, ordinary citizens have a right to request a copy, with some exemptions for privacy and security. Politicians, of course, hate that kind of accountability. And every so often, they get caught hiding their official correspondence from FOIA requesters. Hillary Clinton's attempts to...

Gov. Gavin Newson (D-CA) is backing off a law he passed mandating a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers. As a Wall Street Journal editorial points out, Newsom is only doing this because the state feels the burden of this stupid law. California has already pummeled private businesses with stupid $20 minimum wage laws, which remain in place. But… Since the fascist state of California picks up much of the state’s healthcare tab, Newsom is backpedaling: The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal wrote: The state’s budget deficit has ballooned to $45 billion. Mr. Newsom projects that the new...

POLITICS Federal appeals court rebuffs claims of D.C. jury bias in Jan. 6 case By Melissa Quinn May 28, 2024 / 1:07 PM EDT / CBS News Washington — A federal appeals court in Washington upheld the conviction of a former New York City Police Department officer who was charged for his actions on Jan. 6, 2021, after he claimed that he couldn't get an impartial jury in Washington, D.C. The unanimous three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a ruling Tuesday that defendant Thomas Webster was wrong when he argued...

First it was Mrs. Alito’s day-long flying of an upside-down American flag that Democrats said required Justice Samuel Alito to recuse from the pending Supreme Court cases involving Jan. 6 defendants and Trump’s appeal concerning presidential immunity. Less than a week later, Democrats pounced on the news that an Appeal to Heaven flag hung outside the Alitos’ beach house. Clearly, the conservative justice must now recuse in the high-profile cases, the corrupt media declared, parroting their Democrat pals.On the contrary, there is no basis for Justice Alito to recuse. And the only thing clear is how insane the efforts to...

Once again, our Illinois politicians believe they have the magic that will cure the crime that riddles our city of Chicago. I recently learned that our state’s Democratic lawmakers plan to introduce House Bill 4409 to amend the Illinois Crime Reduction Act of 2009 in order to rename "offenders" as "justice-impacted individuals." That is right — with the magic of rewording, we will no longer have "offenders" or "criminals." Instead, we will have "justice-impacted individuals" and the implication could not be clearer: rather than being seen as criminals who victimized society they will be seen as victims of the system....

The manufactured “border crisis” is a real-life experiment to test a theory put forth by two sociology professors at Columbia University in 1966. It is a “crisis” brought about solely by the refusal of the Biden administration to enforce existing immigration law which is a primary duty of our chief executive in the White House. Former President Barack Obama has orchestrated the “border crisis” from behind the scenes because of his blind adherence to the Cloward-Piven strategy he learned while at Columbia University. Leftist sociologists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were professors there while he was an undergraduate from...

It has not escaped the attention of media observers that the current outbreak of violent campus demonstrations is but the latest in a series of disruptive left-wing movements, starting with Occupy Wall Street in 2012, followed by the Black Lives Matter riots over the summer of 2020 and now the anti-Israel protests. The right, too, has been associated with disorderly conduct — most notably during January 6 and the Charlottesville rallies — but neither of these events were as well-planned or long lasting as what progressives have been up to. And this fact has led many journalists to speculate as...

Democrats are so desperate to keep the Supreme Court from torpedoing their lawfare efforts against former President Donald Trump that members like Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., are openly vowing to launch a coordinated attack on the judicial branch if they don’t get their way. Last week, The New York Times published a smear piece on Justice Samuel Alito “to indict the conservative judge as a partisan ideologue corrupted by far-right politics” all because an “Appeal to Heaven” flag flew outside his New Jersey beach home last year, my colleague Tristan Justice explained. The story came days after another hit piece...

BRUSSELS (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy received a second $1 billion promise of military aid in as many days Tuesday during a whirlwind tour of three European Union countries, while President Vladimir Putin warned that hitting Russian soil with Western-supplied weapons could set the war on a dangerous new path. The aid pledge for 2024 came from Belgium, which topped up the money with a commitment to give Ukraine 30 F-16 fighter jets in the next four years. “Our task is to use the first F-16 on the battlefield this year and in such way fortify our positions,” Zelenskyy...

NEW: Donald Trump just filed a response to Jack Smith's holiday weekend motion to modify release conditions to prohibit the former president from making statements about law enforcement involved in classified documents case: I can tell you as someone who has covered these proceedings diligently including attending court hearings, Cannon will not take lightly Smith's failure to confer with defense in any meaningful way before posting the motion. Trump motion on left, Smith's footnote on right: My followers already know this because after Smith filed his motion, I noted how many times Judge Cannon has scolded prosecutors for making vague...

Judge Cannon just denied Jack Smith's gag order. She slaps him a bit for full effect.

Federal agents found evidence in 2016 that Hunter Biden connected prospective Chinese business partners with then-Vice President Joe Biden during the vice president’s official trip to Beijing aboard Air Force Two, IRS whistleblower emails obtained by the House Ways and Means Committee show. Breitbart News Senior Contributor Peter Schweizer first reported that Hunter flew on Air Force Two in 2013 with Joe Biden to China. Ten days after the trip, Hunter’s firm raked in millions from a subsidiary of the Chinese government’s Bank of China. “They got to meet Dad. All very good. Talk later,” Hunter emailed in December 2013,...

A crowd shouted down far-left anti-Trump actor Robert De Niro during his speech on Tuesday outside a Manhattan courthouse where former President Donald Trump stood trial. De Niro’s speech was part of a Biden campaign stunt to capitalize on the lawfare waged against the former president. De Niro took the podium to audible anger from the surrounding crowd. Instead of reading his remarks, De Niro appeared to respond to the crowd’s frustration over his partisan remarks. “*&*^ you,” one man audibly shouted. Additional voices continued to lambast the actor. While De Niro began to speak, he appeared distracted by the...

Over the last few weeks, a Russian blitz has claimed more than a dozen villages in northeast Ukraine, near the country’s second-largest city. This summer, Russia will likely continue its offensive push... Russia’s ability to carry out these attacks is in some ways surprising. War is expensive...Yet Moscow has managed to keep paying for its war machine.... to China, the benefits of a Russian victory in Ukraine may outweigh the costs. Among those benefits: The war has entangled the U.S. and its allies in a faraway conflict, straining the U.S. military’s ammunition stockpiles. It has made Russia, a big military...

The Biden campaign on Tuesday morning staged a press conference outside of the Manhattan courtroom where closing arguments were set to begin in the business records trial of former President Donald Trump. Speaking at the press conference were actor Robert De Niro, and two former Capitol police officers on January 6, Harry Dunn — who is running for Congress, and Michael Fanone. DeNiro unleashed full Trump Derangement Syndrome, claiming that if Trump were elected, he would “never” leave office. “He will never leave!” DeNiro said, claiming that Trump would make himself “dictator for life.” The move smacked of desperation. Trump...

Citizen Free Press Robert De Niro shows up outside Trump courthouse for attention. Of course he's wearing a face diaper. 1:40 VIDEO AT LINK................ Why is he even there? Little Man Syndrome attention whore..............

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF)on Monday launched the Neo Space Group to work on the kingdom's nascent satellite and space industry, its first investment in the sector. One of the world's largest sovereign wealth funds, the PIF has already invested heavily in sports, gaming and so-called Saudi giga-projects including Neom, a $500-billion futuristic megacity under construction in the desert. ... Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto ruler, Saudi Arabia has sought both to open up and diversify its oil-reliant economy. ...

KEY POINTS Closing arguments in the criminal hush money case of former President Donald Trump began in New York. Trump, who is headed to a rematch against President Joe Biden in November’s election, is the first former American president to face a criminal trial. The Republican is charged with falsifying business records related to reimbursements to his former lawyer Michael Cohen for a 2016 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A defense lawyer told jurors in a New York courtroom Tuesday that former President Donald Trump “is innocent” of crimes related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn...

The CTA has committed to providing as many as 250 buses for use during the Democratic National Convention this summer, even though the agency has faced staff shortages that led to service cuts in recent years. The head of the union that represents bus drivers says he anticipates having enough staffing for both the DNC and regular scheduled bus service. But designating buses for the convention has some advocates concerned. “Pulling CTA operators from their regular routes to a specified task that doesn’t serve all of Chicago is of tremendous concern,” said Kyle Lucas, with the transportation advocacy group Better...