Free Republic

Without officially declaring for a 2024 presidential campaign Friday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, former President Donald Trump laid out a platform of strong-on-crime policies to "liberate our communities from the scourge of crime," "protect the innocent," "deliver justice to the guilty," and "defend our police.""Law and order is at the very heart of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," Trump told the crowd at a midterm campaign event at Treasure Island Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. "Without law and order, there is no justice, there is no safety, there is no prosperity, and there is no...

Naomi Biden will be the first member of a first family to be married at the White House since 1971

Sprite is retiring its green plastic bottles after more than 60 years. Coca-Cola said Wednesday it's changing the packaging from green to clear plastic beginning August 1 as part of broader efforts to become more environmentally responsible. Sprite's current plastic contains green polyethylene terephthalate (PET), an additive that can't be recycled into new bottles, a key initiative for the company as it looks to reduce plastic waste. "Taking colors out of bottles improves the quality of the recycled material," Julian Ochoa, CEO of R3CYCLE, a plastic group helping Coca-Cola improve its recycling, said in a statement. "When recycled, clear PET...

Gov. Tom Wolf is taking the Republican-controlled General Assembly to court over its approval of a proposed constitutional amendment that could lead to erosion of abortion rights in Pennsylvania. In the lawsuit filed on Thursday in the state’s Supreme Court, Wolf maintains that the state constitution explicitly recognizes a personal right to privacy including the right to terminate a pregnancy. He claims the proposed amendment violates that right. The abortion-related amendment was included as part of a package of unrelated proposed amendments identified as Senate Bill 106 that received its first airing in a late-night Senate committee meeting on July...

Former President Donald Trump appears to be on his way to another election endorsement victory.According to a survey by polling firm Data Orbital that was on Monday, former Phoenix-area newscaster Kari Lake has taken a massive double-digit lead over the next-closest candidate vying for the Republican Party gubernatorial nomination.Arizona’s primary election is on Aug. 2.“With mail-in ballots already being returned, Kari Lake shows a commanding 11-point lead over Karrin Taylor Robson. Lake is pulling away from the field as a poll conducted by Data Orbital earlier in July showed Lake only 4 points ahead of Taylor Robson,” the polling firm...

Uprising Bakery & Cafe in Lake in the Hills, which closed Saturday after its front windows were smashed and epithets written on the walls, re-opened Sunday and Monday to long lines and community enthusiasm. The cafe had planned an all-ages drag show Saturday night but had experienced backlash over the previous few weeks. The cafe and the performers were committed to putting on the show, right up until their hands were forced by the overnight destruction. On Monday morning, cafe owner Corinna Bendel-Sac released a video message on Facebook thanking the community and the Lake in the Hills police for...

A federal judge handling the re-trial of two men charged in connection to an alleged kidnapping plot of Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer decided Tuesday that information about the first trial, the acquittals of two other men and text messages with an FBI informant cannot be included as part of the evidence presented before the jury during the second trial slated to begin next month.

Conflicting timeline reports and identical language used by numerous officers in separate reports raise questions.. A 104-page report issued three months after the events at the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, 2021, said the Capitol Police’s Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU) was ordered by supervisors not to use “heavier, less-lethal weapons,” like flash bangs. However, video evidence—along with Capitol Police Use of Force Reports obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times—exposes conflicts in timelines, the brutality of the unprovoked attacks against Jan. 6 protesters, and how leadership ordered the deployment of munitions on a peaceful crowd. The Video Evidence.. Victoria White.. According...

Elon Musk is pleading for more investment in lithium, the silvery-white metal that's crucial to making electric-car batteries. He recently complained about the metal's "insane" costs and said anyone who enters the refining business basically gets a "license to print money." The billionaire has a point. As the auto industry shifts away from dirty fossil fuels and toward cleaner battery power, lithium is in the spotlight. Demand for the metal has skyrocketed in recent years, as has its price. Questions still remain about whether the world will manage to mine, refine, and ship enough lithium to support the green revolution...

After telling an adult female prosecutor that courts didn’t let “girls” litigate in the “old days,” a federal judge tried to ban her from his courtroom for life. An appellate court unanimously reversed that prohibition, and one Donald Trump appointee called him out for behavior “beneath the dignity of a federal judge.”U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes, an 80-year-old Ronald Reagan-appointee to the Southern District of Texas, imposed the sanction on a Assistant U.S. Attorney after the lawyer made errors that resulted in the dismissal of an indictment. The 5th Circuit ultimately reversed Hughes’ ruling. Hughes rebuked the prosecutor: “You’re supposed...

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser is asking the National Guard to mobilize in an effort to deal with the migrants that are being bused to the city from southern states. The mayor, who has championed accepting migrants entering the country illegally as a human rights issue, requested the DC National Guard be activated indefinitely to assist with what she called a "humanitarian crisis." Bowser is asking that the DC Armory be used as a processing center and DC National Guard resources be used to help field migrants as they arrive by bus. Migrants by the busloads have been sent to...

Chevy Silverado EV enjoys strong demand The Chevrolet Silverado EV – GM’s direct competitor for the Ford F-150 Lightning – won’t go on sale until the spring of 2023 but the truck already enjoys a solid interest from potential customers. The electric pickup is part of General Motors’ plan to produce 400,000 electric vehicles between 2022 and 2024, and it is apparently doing a great job of attracting attention from future EV owners. GM’s CEO Mary Barra spoke earlier this week during an investors’ call following the release of the automaker’s second-quarter financial results and unveiled the Silverado EV enjoys...

Video at link................ Empty dealer lots, above-sticker prices and online sales—supply-chain issues and a shift toward electric vehicles have accelerated changes in the car-buying process. We visit a car dealer to see how consumers and sellers are adapting and what changes might be here to stay. Photo: Adam Falk/The Wall Street Journal The Senate deal to create a package of climate and healthcare spending measures would preserve—and in some cases expand—tax credits for electric-vehicle purchases, a potential boost for Tesla Inc., TSLA 1.86%▲ General Motors Co. and other auto makers. The surprise agreement struck late Wednesday between Sen. Joe Manchin...

Former Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher told CNBC's "Squawk Box" Thursday that it appears that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her husband Paul have engaged in insider stock trading."Paul Pelosi is getting a lot of attention," Fisher said, when asked about a report from Punchbowl News that House Democrats plan to announce a proposal next month that would ban lawmakers, their spouses and senior staff from trading stocks...."I'm sorry to see that Paul Pelosi and Nancy Pelosi and others appear ... to have taken advantage of inside information. Something needs to be done."

Nancy Pelosi explains the legislative bigthink behind one of the bills making its way through Congress. Someone with a sense of humor has added the perfect soundtrack to the audio. Buried in the babble is the comment: “If they’re putting things in, then we can put something out, even if Manchin doesn’t like it.” I hope Manchin is listening and spends some time decoding Pelosi’s explication. It’s a little scary that FOX News congressional correspondent Chad Pergram seems to understand Pelosi perfectly. He’s on her wavelength and she’s coming in loud and clear, at least to him. Perhaps Senator Manchin...

F 150 Lightning charging a Mustang Mach E Ford expects demand for its F-150 Lightning, Mach-E and the rest of its EV portfolio to grow significantly over the next few year. Ford What's happening Ford announced its plans to ramp global electric truck, van and SUV production up to 600,000 units annually by 2023. Why it matters Demand for EVs (and the batteries that power them) is expected to accelerate dramatically over the next few years. What's next Ford will begin using new, less expensive batteries in the Mustang Mach-E next year and in the F-150 Lightning by 2024. A...

Republican nominee for governor in New York, Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), released an ad slamming the Empire State’s cashless bail program and Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) – his general election opponent – for her inaction on the matter. The ad comes days after Zeldin was attacked during a campaign stop, and his accused attacker was subsequently released within hours. In the video, a narrator states: "A man aggressively attacks Lee Zeldin with a weapon. Only hours later, the attacker was released under New York’s dangerous cashless bail program. The very program Lee Zeldin has promised to overhaul as governor. Kathy...

Rep. Ted Budd (R-NC) is seeking to codify a Trump-era rule that limits states throwing up regulatory roadblocks to pipeline construction, Breitbart News learned exclusively on Wednesday.The congressman and Trump-endorsed U.S. Senate candidate is set to introduce a bill on Thursday which would cement the 2020 Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification Rule. The rule was created to limit states’ review power after Republicans in Congress reported that some states were using the permitting process detailed in Section 401 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to stop new energy projects.The bill is the House companion to Sen. Shelley Moore...

HIV virions (red) budding and being released from an immune cell (blue). (NIH Image Gallery) AIDS researchers announced on Wednesday that a fourth person has been "cured" of HIV, but the dangerous procedure for patients also battling cancer may be little comfort for the tens of millions living with the virus worldwide. The 66-year-old man, named the "City of Hope" patient after the Californian center where he was treated, was declared in remission in the lead-up to the International AIDS Conference, which begins in Montreal, Canada on Friday. He is the second person to be announced cured this year, after...

Chinese President Xi Jinping issued a warning to his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden in their fifth and latest conversation, warning that pushing the envelope on the sensitive issue of Taiwan would have serious consequences. As reports that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was considering traveling to the disputed island next month stirred an uptick in tensions between Beijing and Washington, Xi "highlighted that the historical ins and outs of the Taiwan question are crystal clear, and so are the fact and status quo that both sides of the Taiwan Strait belong to one and the same China," according to the Chinese...