Free Republic

Chicago is hiking property tax bills by $42.7 million, keeping the city’s long-running tax hike tradition alive as it tries to manage its runaway pension debt. Mayor Lori Lightfoot chose in 2020 to tie property tax hikes to inflation with a maximum of 5%. After inflation reached a 40-year high, the city will instead use a 2.5% adjustment for tax hikes. Lightfoot said the increase will cost the owner of a $250,000 home $34 more each year, equating it to extra toppings at lunch. “To put that in terms that I can understand, that’s about the price of an Al’s...

A man in California was arrested last weekend after a family argument at a funeral turned ugly, resulting in a mass brawl that saw the suspect allegedly hit someone with his car and knock over the casket containing the deceased.(snip) Lieutenant Matt Stonebraker of the Richmond Police Department told SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle website, that grass was damaged by the car. Several headstones and vases were also damaged, and a water main was broken close to the funeral plot where the family met, causing flooding in the area.(snip) After the physical fight, "one of the family members tried to...

A librarian in Louisiana filed a lawsuit against two men and a conservative organization alleging they defamed her when they attacked her for supporting the teaching of books involving the LGBTQ community. Amanda Jones, a middle school librarian and the president of the Louisiana Association of School Librarians, alleged in the lawsuit that a “public campaign” against her started after she spoke out against removing certain books from the Livingston Parish Library system at a board meeting. The lawsuit states that Citizens for a New Louisiana posted on its Facebook on July 20, the day after the meeting, criticizing “anti-censorship...

Oct. 20, 2010— -- When you're President of the United States, you can lose a vote, you can lose popular support, and you can lose a round of golf. But you're never, ever supposed to lose the biscuit. That's what they call the card the president is meant to keep close at hand, bearing the codes that he has to have in order to launch a nuclear attack. And for several months during the Clinton administration, a former top military officer says they lost the biscuit. Watch "World News with Diane Sawyer" for more on this story tonight on ABC....

This is exactly what many people predicted would happen after the Uvalde school shooting in Texas, and the horrific police response. With the Uvalde police response fresh on their minds, parents showed up in El Mirage, Arizona after the elementary school was locked down. Apparently, an armed man tried to gain entry to the school. The police were following their lockdown protocols and would not let the arriving parents into the building. Scuffles with law enforcement began breaking out as desperate parents wanted to protect and save their kids. Subsequently, police opened fire on the parents with tasers then began...

In 2020, we took pains to emphasize that, although he was a significant underdog in our forecast, then-President Donald Trump could absolutely win reelection. Frankly, I’m not sure we’ve taken the same care this year when it comes to Democrats and the U.S. House. Their chances to hold the House started out in the Trump-in-2020 vicinity when we launched our forecast — 13 percent — and now they’ve risen to 20 percent amidst an improving political environment for Democrats. It’s still not terribly likely Democrats win control of the House. But it also means that a GOP takeover is far...

GOP Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, who could potentially lead the powerful House Oversight Committee if Republicans take control of the lower chamber after the 2022 midterms, said high-profile conservative congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Lauren Boebert of Colorado have shown interest in becoming members of the panel. In a recent interview with Politico, Comer — who is currently the Oversight ranking member — said that if he led the panel, it would not devolve into "a dog-and-pony show." "This isn't a committee where everybody's gonna scream and be outraged and try to make the witnesses look like...

On Saturday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Dina Titus (D-NV) responded to an estimate by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that the Inflation Reduction Act won’t have much of an impact on inflation this year or next year by saying that many economists say “inflation is already coming down. Gas prices are coming down. So, I believe that you will be able to feel it.” Host Fredricka Whitfield asked, “But do you worry that many Americans won’t actually feel the impact of the bill — some of the impact, for a long time? I mean, it’s called the Inflation Reduction Act. But...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=741V_QQbgls

I’ve decided to endorse Liz Cheney for the Republican nomination for the House seat in Wyoming it’s my first time endorsing in a GOP primary.

Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 19:13–15 Friends, in our Gospel for today, Jesus proposes that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are like children. Why? For starters, children don’t know how to dissemble, how to be one way and act another. They are what they are; they act in accordance with their deepest nature. “Kids say the darndest things,” because they don’t know how to hide the truth of their reactions. In this, they are like stars or flowers or animals, things that are what they are, unambiguously, uncomplicatedly. They are in accord with God’s deepest intentions...

UPDATE: (Aug. 12, 2022, 3:13 p.m. ET): NBC News on Friday obtained a copy of the warrant used in the FBI's search of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, as well as the related property receipt. The FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents in the search, according to the documents. This week, in addition to having his private residence searched by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, former President Donald Trump was deposed in an investigation by the New York Attorney General’s office. There he apparently didn’t say much other than that he was asserting his Fifth Amendment...

MADISON, Wis. — It’s sadly not new for a business on Madison’s east side, but EVP Coffee’s owner calls the latest burglary a one-two punch — showing a side of her neighborhood she never expected to see. “There was glass everywhere, the cash register was thrown on the floor,” owner Tracy Danner said. Danner’s general manager encountered quite the mess Wednesday morning at EVP Coffee. “The door was open, the ATM was stolen,” Danner said. As shocking as it looks, it wasn’t the first time this has happened. It’s Danner’s second break-in at the East Washington Avenue location in 10...

The advisory initially covered 23 Metro Detroit communities Saturday morning, but was updated to include only 13 by Saturday afternoon. The advisory was lifted for the following communities: Clinton Township, Flint, Flint Township, Rochester Hills, Pontiac, Auburn Hills, Orion Township, Utica, Troy, Sterling Heights and Lapeer. Officials say that crews have identified the location of a leak on a 120-inch water transmission main that distributes finished drinking water from a Lake Huron water treatment facility. According to Great Lakes Water Authority, an estimated 935,000 people were impacted as of Saturday morning. Officials are investigating the cause of the water main...

[Catholic Caucus] Coincidences? I think not.I recently wrote:I am convinced that one of the reasons certain bishops and priests seem determined to suppress the TLM and isolate, marginalize the people who want it is because the TLM unsettles, disturbs, annoys, irritates, needles, vexes clerics involved in one of the sins that cries to heaven.[…]The first thing you would have to do is change the way people worship. Change how they pray, and over time over time you change what they believe. In the Vetus Ordo the changers perceive an obstacle to changing the Church’s doctrines, especially in the sphere of...

"Communism is neither a trend of thought, nor a doctrine (but) an evil specter forged by hate, degeneracy, and other elemental forces (spirits) in the universe. In another dimension, not visible to us, it took the form of a serpent, then..a red dragon...it keeps company with Satan, who hates God. It exploits low-level beings and demons to wreak havoc on humankind. The goal of the specter is to ruin humanity." (How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World, The Epoch Times, Preface xxii)

BANGOR, ME — Stephen King fans have long been perplexed as to how the man who wrote The Shining, the Dark Tower series, and Misery could possibly be the same guy who logs onto Twitter and tweets like a 7-year-old chimpanzee with anger issues. Well, you can consider this mystery solved: the King estate confirmed today that the famed author actually died when he got hit by that van back in 1999, and they've just been releasing manuscripts they found stuffed in his dresser drawer since then. But what about the insane rants posted on his Twitter account? Enter this...

She's on to bigger things than the constituents whose wishes she ignored: https://archive.ph/P3jm7

Explanation: Mimas, small 400 kilometer-diameter moon of Saturn, is host to 130 kilometer-diameter Herschel crater, one of the larger impact craters in the entire Solar System. The robotic Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn in 2010 recorded this startling view of small moon and big crater while making a 10,000-kilometer record close pass by the diminutive icy world. Shown in contrast-enhanced false color, the image data reveal more clearly that Herschel's landscape is colored slightly differently from heavily cratered terrain nearby. The color difference could yield surface composition clues to the violent history of Mimas. Of course, an impact on Mimas any...

The surge in gun crimes in Minneapolis is claiming Black victims at a vastly disproportionate rate to the city's demographics.Last year, police counted one Black shooting victim for every 150 Black residents in Minneapolis, compared to one white victim for every 3,768 white residents, according to data presented to the City Council this week. White people comprise about 60% of Minneapolis' population, versus 19% Black or African people, according to census data. Yet only 9% of shooting victims are white so far in 2022, compared to 83% Black, the data from Minneapolis police show. Two-thirds of the victims are also...