Free Republic

President Joe Biden shrugged off the latest unexpectedly high inflation numbers on Tuesday even as they triggered a sudden plunge in the stock market. “I think we’re going to be fine,” Biden told reporters Tuesday night when asked about the disappointing data release earlier in the day. The president spoke briefly to reporters after traveling to Delaware from the White House to vote in his home state’s primary election. When asked by a reporter whether he was worried about the latest inflation numbers, Biden replied, “No, I’m not.”

A Boston grandmother has been fined $2.1million by the IRS for failing to report $4.2million in a Swiss bank account given to her by her Jewish father who fled Nazi persecution in the 1930s. Monica Toth's father, a successful businessman, opened the account shortly before his death in 1999 in case his daughter ever needed to flee the country to escape persecution as he did. Her father was traumatized by his family's experience of escaping Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s, when he relocated to Argentina, where his daughter was born, according to Reason. 'Like many who fled Germany or later...

Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 and 2020 presidential campaigns are being fined thousands after unlawfully hiring illegal aliens for top staffer roles, according to a Federal Election Commission (FEC) ruling obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The Aug 11. ruling, which is not yet public, concluded both Sanders’ campaigns broke federal law after “knowingly” employing three “foreign national” staffers from Mexico and Argentina who participated in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Both campaigns have agreed to pay an FEC penalty...

Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor Provides a PreviewWe are less than one week away from the release of the first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, but how does the observatory find and lock onto its targets? Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) – developed by the Canadian Space Agency – was designed with this particular question in mind. Recently it captured a view of stars and galaxies that provides a tantalizing glimpse at what the telescope’s science instruments will reveal in the coming weeks, months, and years. FGS has always been capable of capturing imagery, but its primary...

Former Baltimore Ravens safety Ed Reed, who spent nearly his entire career playing alongside a friend and fellow player charged with murder, believes that the $100,000 fine the Washington Commanders levied against defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio is “not enough.” On Friday, the Washington Commanders fined Del Rio $100,000 for referring to the January 6 Capitol riots as a “dust-up.” Del Rio had made the “dust-up” comment while addressing a tweet in which he questioned the emphasis the left has placed on the January 6 riots while seeming to not possess the same level of interest in prosecuting those who...

Today starts week two in United States v. Sussmann, Special Counsel John Durham’s false statement case against Michael Sussmann. Today starts week two in United States v. Sussmann, Special Counsel John Durham’s false statement case against Michael Sussmann. According to the grand jury indictment, Sussmann lied to former FBI General Counsel James Baker when he told Baker he was not acting on behalf of any client when he provided Baker with data supposedly establishing an Alfa Bank-Trump connection, when in fact Sussmann represented both the Hillary Clinton campaign and Rodney Joffe. After a brief interlude on Friday to accommodate the...

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Trump has paid the $110,000 in fines he racked up after being held in contempt of court for being slow to respond to a civil subpoena issued by New York’s attorney general. Trump paid the fine Thursday but must still submit additional paperwork in order to have the contempt order lifted, the office of Attorney General Letitia James said Friday. A message seeking comment was left Friday with Trump’s lawyer.

Progressive Oberlin College lost a huge case in appeals court last week that forced the school to pay $31 million to a bakery, which it falsely accused of carrying out racist actions in a 2016 incident. Gibson's Bakery – a 135-year-old family business near the campus of Oberlin College – was the site of an unfortunate incident. The owner's son allegedly confronted three black Oberlin students who attempted to shoplift bottles of wine. According to the police report, one of the suspects assaulted a store employee when confronted about the stolen wine. The three students pleaded guilty to attempted theft...

Your Democratic neighbors won’t be ordered to vote for laws that ostracize you from society, steal your property, or send you away to a concentration camp. They will do it burning with pride.

City council members of Keene, New Hampshire, voted on Thursday to continue to enact regressive coronavirus policies, opting to mandate masks in indoor areas yet again. However, the Keene City Council took the policy a step further, choosing to fine “repeat violators” up to $250. On Thursday night, in a 10-3 vote, city councilors opted to reinstitute a mask mandate for all indoor spaces in Keene. The rule, which goes into effect Monday, applies to all ages ten and older, with exceptions for those with certain disabilities. However, while previous mandates across the country would often target businesses for failure...

The Greek government will fine all unvaccinated people aged 60 and over €100 (£85/$113) every month after mandatory jabs are enforced from next month. The new policy came as part of an amendment to existing legislation on the mandatory vaccine policies introduced by the government earlier this week and will see anyone born prior to December 31st, 1961, unless they can prove they have recovered from the Wuhan virus in the last six months or have particular vulnerability to vaccine side-effects, newspaper Ekathimerini reports.

An 84-year old German man has been fined 250,000 euros ($297,000 USD) for storing a collecting of World War II-era weapons in his basement, including a 45-ton Nazi tank, according to German media reports. The court in Kiel, Germany convicted the man under the country’s War Weapons Control Act after a search of the octogenarian’s home resulted in the discovery of a large collection of wartime military weapons stored in his underground garage, including the Panther tank, a torpedo, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, automatic pistols and 1,500 rounds of ammunition, the Register reported. The defendant, whose name was kept...

The NFL will pay very close attention to whether unvaccinated players follow Covid protocols this season, and if they don’t, the players will end up paying the league.According to another in a series of recent and aggressive new restrictions targeting unvaccinated players, the NFL announced on Saturday that if a player violates one of the league-mandated Covid protocols that applies to unvaccinated players, they will receive a $14,650 fine.The new penalty comes on the heels of another restriction announced this week in which the league said that if a Covid outbreak among unvaccinated players caused a game to be canceled,...

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal asked for by Ford regarding import duties on some Ford Transit Connect vans. The decision could cost Ford up to $1.3 billion in penalties. The vans were built in Turkey and imported into the U.S. The problem, though, is that Ford declared that they were passenger vans. That meant that the company only had to pay 2.5% import duty on the vehicles, rather than the 25% duty levied against cargo vehicles as part of what is commonly referred to as the “chicken tax.” * snip * It [the Justice Department]...

BEIJING—Alibaba Group, the world’s biggest e-commerce company, was fined 18.3 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) by Chinese regulators on Saturday for anti-competitive tactics, as the ruling Communist Party tightens control over fast-growing tech industries. Party leaders worry about the dominance of China’s biggest internet companies, which are expanding into finance, health services, and other sensitive areas. The party says anti-monopoly enforcement, especially in tech, is a priority this year. Alibaba was fined for “abusing its dominant position” to limit competition by retailers that use its platforms and hindering “free circulation” of goods, the State Administration for Market Regulation announced. It said...

Grier reportedly admitted to agents that he had drunk several beers and multiple shots of alcohol before boarding the plane. He apparently fell asleep on the flight and awoke to flight attendants yelling at him for urinating on his seat. While he was apparently passed out, however, Grier allegedly struck a flight attendant who asked him multiple times to put on his mask, which had apparently fallen off while he was asleep. Grier reportedly told federal agents that he had no recollection of this. Unfortunately for Grier, he is facing federal charges of interfering with a flight crew and attendants....

A venture capitalist and political fundraiser was sentenced today to 144 months in federal prison for falsifying records to conceal his work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials, evading the payment of millions of dollars in taxes, making illegal campaign contributions, and obstructing a federal investigation into the source of donations to a presidential inauguration committee.Imaad Shah Zuberi, 50, of Arcadia, California, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Virginia A. Phillips, who also ordered him to pay $15,705,080 in restitution and a criminal fine of $1.75 million.In November 2019, Zuberi pleaded guilty to a three-count information...

Pennsylvania, under the leadership of Democrat Gov. Tom Wolf (D), has threatened at least 150 restaurants with fines for operating after the governor again shut down indoor dining last week. Last week, Wolf announced a set of mitigation strategies to curb the spread of the Chinese coronavirus, which suspends indoor dining at “bars, restaurants, breweries, wineries, distilleries, social clubs, and private catered events” until January 4, 2021. The order also prohibits private gatherings of more than ten people, though it excludes places of worship. However, it urges churches, synagogues, and mosques to “find alternative methods.” Additionally, outdoor gatherings are capped...

Gotcha.

In ongoing police activity over the weekend in the area of Tel Aviv to prevent coronavirus spread, police stopped a vehicle at a roadblock. The passengers were checked and one of the passengers was confirmed to have tested COVID-19 positive. When asked what they were doing in the area, the riders replied they had come to walk around and visit the city of Tel Aviv. They were sent back to their houses to isolation and fined by police. The police said: "In ongoing police activities to prevent the spread of COVID-19 across the country, in the north in the synagogue...