Free Republic

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A former top aide to California Gov. Gavin Newsom has been indicted on federal charges alleging her involvement in a scheme to steal campaign money from former federal Health Secretary Xavier Becerra. Dana Williamson was arrested and appeared in court Wednesday in Sacramento. She pleaded not guilty to all charges, and a judge ordered her released from custody. The federal indictment lists four other co-conspirators. It alleges that Williamson developed a plan with Sean McCluskie, a longtime Becerra aide, to siphon money from one of Becerra’s dormant state campaign accounts to give to McCluskie to pad...

Top Trump administration officials met Wednesday with a key GOP lawmaker about an effort in the US House to force a vote on releasing Justice Department case files related to Jeffrey Epstein... White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged the meeting later Wednesday when asked about reporting that administration officials were huddling with GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert. “Doesn’t that show the level of transparency when we are willing to sit down with members of Congress and address their concerns?” she told reporters at the press briefing. Leavitt added: “I’m not going to detail conversations that took place in the Situation...

The resignations at the top of the BBC feature on almost every front page, alongside a slew of critical headlines. "BBC Bosses Quit In Disgrace" says the Daily Mail while "Beeb Boss Quits Over Trump Lies" says the Sun. According to the Daily Telegraph, the decisions by Tim Davie and Deborah Turness to step down have left the BBC "facing its biggest crisis in more than a decade" with senior MPs demanding a "major shake-up". The Financial Times says the simultaneous departures underline the scale of the problems at the corporation. The Guardian reports that the resignations have caused "shock"...

The new moniker combines the royal family's name, Windsor, chosen by King George V in 1917, with Mountbatten, the surname of Andrew's late father, Prince Philip. The UK's former Prince Andrew may have lost his title, his house and assets granted by the Crown along with his reputation after his connection with disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein came to light, but on Wednesday he gained something. And that something was a hyphen to his new name. The disgraced royal will from now be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and not, as was previously announced, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The...

The Liberals are no closer to resolving internal divisions despite frontbenchers getting set to agree on dumping net-zero policy. An announcement of dumping the policy, extending coal-fired power and embracing nuclear is expected to follow shortly after the party's shadow cabinet convenes in Canberra on Thursday. The decision follows a five-hour meeting between all 51 Liberal MPs and senators, where a majority spoke in favour of ditching Australia's goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, according to people in the room. Championed by the ascendant conservative faction, the party's climate shift is a blow for Liberal moderates who see their chances...

President Trump is being misled into a regime-change war close to home. Few Americans nowadays find much to celebrate in the Iraq War or the intervention that overthrew Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. Regimes were successfully changed both times, but what came after the dictators’ downfall was civil war, regional instability and mass-migration flows that exported many of those nations’ troubles to their neighbors. Now the Trump administration wants to do to Venezuela’s despot, Nicolás Maduro, what George W. Bush did to Saddam Hussein and Barack Obama did to Gaddafi. That will predictably do to the Americas – including the US –...

I'm old enough to remember when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed. It was 2010, and I had just joined Twitter the previous fall while I was on maternity leave following the birth of my second son. That means I recall exactly how Obamacare's passage unfolded. It was forced on an unwilling American people by the Democrats, who shoved it through Congress without a single Republican vote. Many people, myself included, warned it was a bait-and-switch scheme that wouldn't lower healthcare costs but would usher in single-payer socialized medicine. Now that we're facing another negotiation on Obamacare subsidies, it's time...

Leaders and activists say they are feeling the weight of the moment, after Australia's first treaty with Aboriginal people was signed and formalised as law today. Victoria's treaty has become Australia's first modern treaty agreement with the country's Indigenous owners, in a move labelled "historic" by the United Nations human rights chief. Yiman and Ghangulu man man Mick Gooda, who has spent decades advocating for the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, said he was "so happy and pleased" for the people of Victoria. Indigenous man wearing a navy shirt and glasses. Mick Gooda says the Victorian treaty...

The House Oversight Committee released some Jeffrey Epstein emails this morning, and, sure enough, Donald Trump is in the Epstein Files. Like a malignant ghost that haunts the President’s dreams, Epstein has risen from the great beyond to point his bony finger at Donald Trump, saying, “it was you all along.” Or has he? In an April 2, 2011 message to his associate and fixer Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein wrote “i want you to realize that that dog that hasn’t barked is trump.” Then, the word VICTIM appears in a black box, followed by “he has never once been mentioned. police...

WASHINGTON — A provision tucked into the funding package the Senate passed Monday night as part of a bipartisan deal to reopen the government would allow senators to sue the federal government for potentially millions of dollars if their data is obtained without notifying them. The legislative language would uniquely benefit eight Republican senators who were recently found to have had their phone records — but not the contents of their calls or messages — accessed as a part of the investigation that led to former special counsel Jack Smith’s probe of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S....

The House on Wednesday passed a funding bill that will end the government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, by a margin of 222-209. President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign the bill later Wednesday. The legislation will fund the government through Jan. 30 and provide funding for some government agencies for the remainder of the fiscal year.

The police have warned of a new method that scammers are deploying to fraudulently open accounts with payment service providers (PSPs) — using digitally modified copies of Singapore identity cards (IC). Scammers would use a softcopy of a IC and use digital tools to replace the original facial image on that copy with another facial image. They would then submit the doctored copy online to PSPs to set up payment service account. When PSPs conduct mandatory facial liveness checks, the scammers would then instruct an accomplice who resembles the doctored image to undergo the checks. -Advertisement- The police said some...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ Can You See Me Now?” Sgt. Trevor Nicholas Tate, 6th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 11th Airborne Division, provides roadside security during exercise Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center-Alaska 23-02 in the Yukon Training Area, Alaska. (Army photo/John Pennell) Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. This is how you handle terrorists! Students with the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps program from Tolleson High School, Arizona,...

A court in Vietnam handed jail sentences on Wednesday (Nov 12) to two former local officials who wagered millions of dollars under false foreign names, in a closely-watched gambling trial, state media reported. The pair were part of an illegal gambling ring run by South Koreans out of a swanky Hanoi hotel and comprising more than 140 people, prosecutors had alleged. The outfit was said to include former government and communist party officials, entertainers and businesspeople who placed bets totalling more than US$106 million. The slot, roulette and baccarat machines at the gilded King Club in the capital's five-star Pullman...

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman defended his voting record and addressed the criticism he's received from some in his own party for meeting and sometimes voting with President Trump. "I vote a 91% Democratic line, and if Democrats have a problem with somebody that votes 91% of the same times as you are, more than nine out of 10 times, then maybe our party has a bigger problem," he said in an interview that aired Wednesday on "CBS Mornings." Fetterman voted with Republicans over a dozen times to fund the government and end the government shutdown while most Senate Democrats held...

The world wants an American climate leader, and Gavin Newsom is happy to play the part — even if the country he represents isn’t quite ready to follow.BELÉM, Brazil — Gavin Newsom can’t get out of a meeting or a talk at the international climate talks here without being swarmed by reporters and diplomats eager for a quote, a handshake, a photo.On a tour Tuesday of a cultural center with Gov. Helder Barbalho, the leader of the Brazilian state hosting the talks, a passerby recognized them both. “There’s the governor,” he exclaimed. “And there’s the California governor.” Later in the...

A key Atlantic current could be pushed to the brink of collapse within decades, supposedly ushering in a new ice age and dramatically raising sea levels, climate scientists have claimed in a controversial new study published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. The apocalyptic predictions came as a result of a collaboration between researchers at the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego — weeks after one-time climate alarmist Bill Gates publicly downplayed the impact of temperature fluctuations on the planet.

A federal judge ordered the release of more than 600 people arrested as part of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Illinois, according to CNN affiliate WLS, dealing a blow to federal efforts to detain and deport as many undocumented people as possible. US District Judge Jeffrey Cummings on Wednesday morning sided with attorneys from the National Immigrant Justice Center and the ACLU. The plaintiffs alleged more than 3,000 people were arrested between June and October in “Operation Midway Blitz.” Now, 615 of those arrested must be granted bond by noon on November 21, according to the ruling, which applies...

Things are going from bad to worse for Chuck Schumer.Leading congressional Democrats thought they had it made. Force a government shutdown, sabotage President Donald Trump’s agenda – at least for a time – and then extort their Republican opponents on Capitol Hill for all kinds of cash to fund their pet projects. Then Sunday (Nov. 9) rolled around, and seven Senate Democrats and one Independent voted with Republicans to push through a temporary government funding bill. That sets up a fight on the House floor, but the 41-day-old shutdown is, for all intents and purposes, over.Democrats got nothing but a...

I attended Jim's graveside service. I feel like I should post something about it, to give Freepers and his Family some peace. I'm sure his son Chris has many things to do besides make a post about this, so I'm going to do one for him. Hope he doesn't mind. It was a small and Solemn service. A Navy Funeral Presence was there... from the near by base of Lemoore Naval Air Station. They did the United States Flag folding ceremony, and also played Taps. The Rabbi who presided over it, said a wonderful prayer, about mourning death... it wasn't...