Free Republic

DENVER/HOUSTON (Reuters) - As Texas officials moved to restrict abortion, promote Christianity in schools and the state's power grid teetered on collapse, oil worker Steven Beaman and his wife Hayley Hollands decided it was time to live elsewhere. By April, Beaman had joined a communications firm in Colorado, leaving behind a more than decade-long career in oil and gas, and Hollands, an attorney, soon followed, forsaking the state over its increasingly strident politics and polarization. "It is kind of the first time I've reckoned with the idea that I don't think I'm going to live in my home state ever...

Wall Street’s massive selloff on Friday plunged the Dow into a bear market as investors appear resigned to the fact that the Fed has abandoned hopes for a “soft landing” and will continue to aggressively raise interest rates to fight inflation — even if it means a deeper recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 700 points, while the S&P 500 dropped nearly 100, shedding 2.65% from its pre-market starting point. The tech-dominated Nasdaq Composite plunged more than 300 points, or 2.75%. The Dow is now 20% off its all-time high — which would officially place it in...

WASHINGTON, DC — The expert codebreaking team at the NSA is working to decipher all the statements Biden made in his speech today, which the White House has promised to walk back as soon as they figure out what on earth he was saying. "We have all our top minds and most powerful AI working around the clock to determine what Biden meant when he said 'The Republicans are taking credit for the budsdacunclapsn.'" said Special Agent Buggs Derpflibbit. "Whatever he meant, I think we are confident in saying the official White House position is exactly the opposite." "Lebbinkrurumplit!" said...

Biden Responds To McCarthy's 'Commitment To America' Plan: 'Thin' Goals. Youtube video ay link.

In no region of the country did migration in the years before and into the pandemic pack such a devastating economic punch as the Bay Area.Bay Area counties collectively saw a net loss of $14 billion in adjusted gross income in 2019 and 2020 from migration, according to the Business Journals' analysis of nationwide county-by-county census and tax data, led by San Francisco’s loss of nearly $6.9 billion. Collectively over this time, the region saw a net loss of almost 60,000 tax filers. (This analysis includes, in addition to the Bay Area’s nine counties, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey...

DUBAI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - State-organised rallies took place in several Iranian cities on Friday to counter nationwide anti-government unrest triggered by the death of a woman in police custody, with marchers calling for the execution of "rioters".The pro-government marches followed the strongest warning yet from authorities when the army said it would confront "the enemies" behind the unrest -

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked legislation that would have required super PACs and other groups to disclose donors who give $10,000 or more during an election cycle, a blow to Democrats’ efforts to reform campaign financing laws. In a procedural vote Thursday morning, the Senate failed to advance the Disclose Act on a 49-49 vote along party lines. No Republicans voted for it. At least 60 votes would have been required for the Senate to end debate on the bill and advance it. Spending in election cycles by corporations and the ultrawealthy through so-called dark money groups has skyrocketed since...

The U.S. Border Patrol is reporting more than three times the number of encounters at the U.S.-Mexico border than it experienced under former President Donald Trump, punctuating what Republicans have defined as a "crisis" level situation at the southern border that has emerged under President Joe Biden's leadership.

An Alaskan radio station has denied a vicious ad paid for by Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) Super PAC against Donald Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka because it was “over the line in terms of decency,” Must Read Alaska reported Thursday. McConnell has supported pro-impeachment and 21-year incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the Alaskan Senate race with huge money from the Senate Leadership Fund, which he controls. The PAC has spent heavily to protect his establishment ally from losing to Tshibaka, who is gaining momentum and tied with the incumbent in the polls. The McConnell-backed ad mentions an audit involving Tshibaka’s time in...

Armed police are going door-to-door while gun-toting mercenaries are guarding polling stations as Russian stages sham referendums in occupied Ukraine. 'Voting' is now underway in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions on whether or not to become provinces of Russia - with the results fixed by Moscow. But, just to make extra sure, Kremlin officials, military police and hired guns are keeping a careful eye over the process - with Ukrainian politicians reporting that they are kicking front doors in to force people to cast their ballots. Serhiy Haidai, governor of occupied Luhansk, said some towns under Russian occupation have...

Real estate investors have largely done well for the past few years. But with higher interest rates, things could be about to change. The U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rates by 0.75 basis points on Wednesday, marking the third such hike in a row. Higher interest rates translate to bigger mortgage payments — not good news for the housing market. But cooling down housing prices is part of what needs to be done to bring inflation under control. “For the longer term what we need is supply and demand to get better aligned, so that housing prices go...

A woman was arrested in South Korea on Thursday on two murder charges from New Zealand, where the bodies of two long-dead children were found last month in abandoned suitcases, authorities said. Authorities didn't immediately say if the 42-year-old suspect was the dead children's mother. New Zealand police had earlier told their South Korean counterparts that the mother might be living in South Korea. South Korean police detained the woman in the southeastern port city of Ulsan, based on a South Korean court warrant issued after New Zealand requested her provisional arrest as part of an extradition process, according to...

President Biden shocked viewers of his Friday speech to teachers when he recognized an audience member and told the crowd, “She was 12, I was 30.” Biden lit up social media with the confounding and seemingly inappropriate aside. He did not say what he did when he was 30 and the woman was a preteen. “You gotta say hi to me,” Biden said mid-speech at the National Education Association headquarters in DC. “We go back a long way. She was 12, I was 30. But anyway, this woman helped me get an awful lot done.” The audience of teachers and...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (7News) — Terry Robinson from Tallahassee rented a car to visit friends in D.C. He said after hanging out until about 1 a.m., he parked his car in a lot outside his friend’s building. 7News met him Thursday morning as A-1 towing was about to remove his car that fit the profile: Toyota or Honda, all four wheels were gone, the car held up by yellow soda crates and lug nuts all over the pavement. Also, no arrests were made. “I’m from Florida,” Robinson told 7News, “I come to visit and this is what happened.” He said the...

Suitcases Arranged In Outdoor Experiment Suitcases in the decomposition experiment. (Paola Magni) A crime scene can present itself in any form and size. In recent weeks, an Aotearoa New Zealand family who'd purchased abandoned goods from a storage locker made the harrowing discovery of two sets of human remains hidden inside two suitcases. Sadly, this is not a unique case – bodies of murder victims are found in suitcases with astonishing regularity. But they present a particular challenge for police investigating the crime, which is where forensic science comes in. Why suitcases? Forensic case history and crime news are sadly...

Framing the Nov. 8 election for Pennsylvania governor as a fight against “dangerous extremism,” Democratic candidate Josh Shapiro spoke to 200 supporters Thursday afternoon in Bethlehem. Shapiro, who is Pennsylvania’s attorney general, is running against Republican Sen. Doug Mastriano, whom Shapiro called out for his views on banning abortion & doubts about the 2020 presidential election. This guy is the most dangerous, extreme candidate ever to run for governor of PA-and by the way the most dangerous & extreme running in the nation right now,” Shapiro said of his opponent, who campaigned in the Lehigh Valley with a Nazareth stop...

For years, most of the media, the federal Justice Department, and other Democrats have waged a vendetta against Donald Trump, perpetuating endless investigations in search of crimes. So far, their efforts have failed, but that's not stopping another left-wing loon from boarding the Trump Derangement Syndrome train. Since New York attorney general Leticia James could not find a crime, she has promised voters that she would destroy Trump, and now, since election is coming soon, she's suing Trump and his family for alleged fraud for supposedly claiming that their property was worth more than it is. If the Trumps committed...

Boeing has agreed to pay $200 million to settle charges brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claiming the aviation giant misled investors about the safety of its 737 MAX airplane. The 737 MAX was involved in two crashes that killed all aboard in 2018 and 2019, now understood to be at least partly caused by flaws in the aircraft's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) software. Boeing admitted MCAS played a role in both accidents. MCAS was intended to automatically kick in and help prevent the 737 Max from stalling in a particular flight scenario where the aircraft's angle...

It’s Election Day in parts of Ukraine — but only because Russia imposed it. Vladimir Putin ordered referenda on annexation held in the parts of the Donbas that Russia still controls — and some areas it no longer does — in order to justify the seizure of those areas. That seizure will allow Putin to claim that any further Ukrainian advances in those areas are an invasion of Russia, which will unlock his ability to order full mobilization … and potentially other options.We’ll get to the full-mobilization issue in a moment, but let’s stick to the referenda first. Ukrainian authorities...

The United States Air Force Academy recently circulated promotional information among its cadets for the Brooke Owens Fellowship, which specifically bans 'cisgender men' from applying. The email sent on September 14, encourages cadets to apply to the program, which states: 'If you are a cisgender woman, a transgender woman, non-binary, agender, bigender, two-spirit, demigender, genderfluid, genderqueer, or another form of gender minority, this program is for you. 'If you are a cisgender man, this program isn’t for you...but we encourage you to check out our spinoff programs, the Patti Grace Smith Fellowship and the Matthew Isakowitz Fellowship Program.'