Free Republic

Disgraced former Gov. Andrew Cuomo can keep his pandemic memoir money — at least for now. An Albany County court ruled Tuesday that a now-defunct state ethics watchdog overstepped its authority when it ordered Cuomo to surrender the $5.1 million he received from a controversial book deal inked while still in office. The Joint Commission on Public Ethics, which was wound up at the end of June, had argued that Cuomo – who resigned amid multiple scandals last year – improperly used staff and other state resources while writing “American Crisis: Leadership Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic” in 2020. But...

The NBA will be off on Election Day. The league's schedule for the coming season will have all 30 teams playing on Nov. 7, the night before the midterm elections. The NBA is hoping teams use that night as an opportunity to encourage fans to get out and vote, plus amplify the need for civic engagement. But on Nov. 8, which is Election Day, no NBA teams have games scheduled. Teams are being encouraged to share election information -- such as registration deadlines -- with their fan bases in the weeks leading up to Nov. 8.

President Joe Biden flouted coronavirus mask protocols on Tuesday after his wife Jill Biden tested positive for the virus. The president was spotted removing his mask to deliver a speech and immediately coughed into his hand after shaking hands with Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that Britain has requested permission for its RC-135 spy plane to fly over Russia, a move it termed "a deliberate provocation". A U.K. Ministry of Defence source denied that Britain had asked permission to fly a spy plane over Russia. The Russian Defence Ministry said that Russia's airforce had been tasked with preventing any violations of Russian airspace.

President Joe Biden signed a $430 billion climate spending bill on Tuesday, insisting it would fight inflation. “We’re cutting deficits to fight inflation by having the wealthy and big corporations finally pay their fair share,” Biden said at the signing ceremony at the White House.

he Air Force on Tuesday said it had successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) nearly two weeks after postponing the launch amid increased tensions with China over Taiwan. The unarmed Minuteman III, which is capable of holding a nuclear payload, was launched at 12:49 a.m. Pacific Time from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., with its reentry vehicle landing roughly 4,200 miles away near the Marshall Islands, according to a statement from Air Force Global Strike Command. The statement said the test demonstrated U.S. readiness and reliability, as well as the “expertise of our strategic weapons maintenance personnel and of...

Reading all the professional political chatter from both wings of the uniparty bird about the DOJ position on the Trump raid in Mar-a-Lago, something sticks out to me that readers here will relate to, but others, likely not so much. Consider this written to all the reasonable and intellectually honest people. You see, there is an actual mechanism that is being ignored by members within the professional DC silos and the DC ‘outrage’ stenographers. I was reminded of it when reading the professional obfuscation in the Wall Street Journal as they outlined how Merrick Garland “weighed the raid on Mar-a-Lago...

Intel officials told VICE World News Hadi Matar had been in contact with members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. .. The 24-year-old man accused of stabbing author Salman Rushdie had been in direct contact with members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on social media, European and Middle Eastern intelligence officials told VICE World News. Hadi Matar has been charged with attempted murder after Rushdie, 75, was repeatedly stabbed on stage ahead of a speaking event in Chautauqua, New York, on Friday. On Sunday, Rushdie’s son Zafar Rushdie said his father was in a critical condition and had sustained “life-changing” injuries...

Don Lemon stated on July 27, 2013 in a commentary on CNN: "More than 72 percent of children in the African-American community are born out of wedlock." CNN's Don Lemon says more than 72 percent of African-American births are out of wedlock In the middle of a national conversation about race following the George Zimmerman acquittal, CNN anchor Don Lemon gave an on-air commentary that went viral on social media. The focus of the commentary was a five-point list of recommendations. "Black people," Lemon said, "if you really want to fix the problem, here's just five things that you should...

[Catholic Caucus] Finishing Off Traditionalists As time passes, we understand more and more clearly how the civil war unleashed by the Church leadership against the “traditionalists” has developed and toward what goals it tends.We properly speak of a civil war because it is really an internal struggle, albeit one that began in terms opposite to the prevailing dynamic of such a phenomenon: it is not a portion of the people that rises up against those in power and seeks to undermine them, but rather those in power who seek to crush a portion of the people. All this is...

cientifically, it’s called ectogenesis, a term coined by J.B.S. Haldane in 1924. A hugely influential science popularizer, Haldane did for his generation what Carl Sagan did later in the century. He got people thinking and talking about the implications of science and technology on our civilization, and did not shy away from inventing new words in order to do so. Describing ectogenesis as pregnancy occurring in an artificial environment, from fertilization to birth, Haldane predicted that by 2074 this would account for more than 70 percent of human births. His prediction may yet be on target. In discussing the idea...

DESTIN, Fla. – Beachgoers in Destin were in for a sight Tuesday morning along the Emerald Coast. Boo Freeman posted a video to Instagram showing a giant water spout that had formed off the coast of Destin in the Gulf.

When Biden met with historians last week at the White House, they compared the threat facing America to the pre-Civil War era and to pro-fascist movements before World War II President Biden paused last week, during one of the busiest stretches of his presidency, for a nearly two-hour private history lesson from a group of academics who raised alarms about the dire condition of democracy at home and abroad. The conversation during a ferocious lightning storm on Aug. 4 unfolded as a sort of Socratic dialogue between the commander in chief and a select group of scholars, who painted the...

With Los Angeles County health officials announcing last month masks will no longer be required indoors, a letter surfaced signed by doctors and researchers from USC and UCLA suggesting mask mandates were ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID-19 in the county. The February letter from researchers and medical professionals at UCLA’s Geffen School of Medicine and USC’s Keck School of Medicine was sent to the LA County Board of Supervisors asking the board to end mask mandates. “The time to end local mask mandates is now,” the letter reads. Data shown within the letter suggest there was a continued...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Puerto Rico’s governor on Tuesday announced a public-private partnership to overhaul the island’s cruise ship docks as part of a $425 million project to boost the U.S. territory’s tourism sector. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said the project aims to transform Puerto Rico into the Caribbean’s main cruise ship destination by modernizing, repairing and expanding nine docks located in the capital of San Juan to receive larger vessels and more passengers. “It’s an extremely important day for tourism in Puerto Rico,” said Carlos Mercado, executive director for the island’s Tourism Company. San Juan Cruise Port —...

A man is accused of driving a company car through a Lee County neighborhood crashing into garages and hitting a resident on Friday. According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, Riquelmis Cazadilla, 50, is accused of crashing a company car into four garages in North Fort Myers. Deputies went to Seaside Harbour Drive and found the garages smashed into by a car. A victim also sustained non-life threatening injuries after, reports say, he was hit by Cazadilla while driving. Another person also claims Cazadilla swerved in an attempt to hit her but missed.

Will explains the deep connections between the bureaucratic state, the FBI's Mar-a-Lago raid, and the 87,000 new potential IRS employees.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A man armed with an AR-15 dies in a shootout after trying to breach FBI offices in Cincinnati. A Pennsylvania man is arrested after he posts death threats against agents on social media. In cyberspace, calls for armed uprisings and civil war grow stronger. This could be just the beginning, federal authorities and private extremism monitors warn. A growing number of ardent Donald Trump supporters seem ready to strike back against the FBI or others who they believe go too far in investigating the former president. Law enforcement officials across the country are warning and being warned...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Six people were hospitalized following a shooting near the Methodist North Hospital in Raleigh overnight. Memphis police say the incident began at the BP gas station at Raleigh LaGrange and Sycamore view around midnight. Police said 19-year-old Reginald Felix, a 17-year-old and a 16-year-old were in a stolen Infiniti SUV when they were shot at the BP gas station. Police say a fourth victim was also shot and taken to the hospital by a private vehicle. The three teens then went to the Tanglewood Apartments nearby where a 14-year-old and a 25-year-old got inside the car and...

When federal agents raided the home of former President Donald Trump, a first in our history, the Department of Justice had to have been aware of the fallout. There can't be a single official there who doesn't know how the Justice Department looks to roughly half the country. The Russian collusion hoax, the fake kidnapping plot against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, the fabrication of evidence to secure spy warrants on Trump campaign officials, and the actual spy operation, Crossfire Hurricane, on the Trump campaign itself has degraded the DOJ's credibility with conservatives for years.