Free Republic

President Biden will travel in the coming days to Puerto Rico and Florida to tour damage from Hurricane Fiona and Hurricane Ian, respectively, the White House announced late Saturday. The president and first lady will travel to Puerto Rico on Monday, followed by a trip Wednesday to Florida. The White House did not disclose where the president would visit in either location or with whom he would meet.

Yet another former ally of Vladimir Putin has been found dead in mysterious circumstances. Pavel Pchelnikov, 52, was the director of communications at Digital Logistics, a subsidiary of Russian Railways which was hacked by Ukrainians earlier this year. Initial reports suggest he was killed by a gunshot wound after he was found dead on the balcony of his Moscow apartment at around 6:30am on Wednesday. -Excerpt- Mr Pchelnikov is the latest in a string of high-ranking Russian officials to have died in mysterious circumstances since the start of the war in Ukraine...

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said on Sunday he doesn’t condone violence in response to question about former President Trump saying that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has a “death wish.” “I don’t condone violence, and I hope no one else condones violence,” Scott told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” when asked about Trump’s statement.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has steered another lucrative grant to study bat viruses to the same company suspected of conducting gain-of-function research at the mysterious Chinese laboratory where some experts believe COVID-19 was hatched. EcoHealth Alliance last month began a multi-year study of “viral sequences and isolates for use in vaccine development,” according to a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci runs. The $3.3 million study, which involves bats and coronaviruses, is set to run through August 31, 2027. “It should be noted that EcoHealth Alliance was awarded a new NIH grant ten days ago,...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) policy of shipping migrants from the border to left-leaning jurisdictions has been a winner in the GOP — but it could cost him at home with key Latino constituencies. The push by GOP governors to transport migrants from border states comes amid a surge in migration from Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, a trio of Latin American countries with left-leaning authoritarian leaders.

VIDEOLarry Summers who was Treasury Secretary during the Bill Clinton administration recently pinpointed the exact day that inflation began surging. As you can hear from him, this inflation was entirely AVOIDABLE. However, a certain event occurred on the day he was referring to. Can you guess what that was?

Come take a walk with us through our dazzling display gardens. Our display garden is meant to be shared, enjoyed and also help you feel inspired for your own garden. This video is from our peak bloom season May 2021 in Salem, OR.

Norwegian Cruise Line confirmed on Saturday that New York City has approached the company inquiring about using a cruise ship to house an influx of illegal immigrants to the city but said no deal has yet been reached. The New York Post reported this week that Adams was finalizing a deal with the cruise line to house the influx of migrants for six months so they can be processed before being housed by the city’s shelter system. The report estimated that 15,500 illegal immigrants have poured into the nation’s largest city since May as illegal immigration at the border continues...

Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL), the Democrat nominee for governor in Florida, continued to send out fundraising emails while parts of the state were dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, despite claiming he would be “ceasing campaign operations.” During a virtual press conference on Friday to discuss Hurricane Ian’s impact on the state, Crist announced his campaign would be temporarily “ceasing campaign operations.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a bill into law Thursday making the state a refuge for transgender kids and their families who travel there to receive the gender-affirming care they’re banned from accessing in their home states. The new law, which will go into effect on Jan. 1 next year, takes direct aim at Alabama and Texas for those two states’ efforts to criminalize parents who allow their transgender children to receive hormone therapy and other types of gender-affirming treatments.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill to restrict prosecutors from using rap lyrics as evidence against criminal defendants in California.

A top FBI official accused Trump-hating former agent Peter Strzok of doing long-term damage to the bureau’s reputation with a “sustained pattern of bad judgment” and “selfishness” in the newly released draft of the 2018 letter firing him. David Bowdich, who was deputy director of the bureau when he penned the brutally harsh draft of the dismissal letter, told Strzok the damage he caused to the bureau would last for years. He referred specifically to Strzok’s use of “an FBI device,” an apparent reference to the shocking text messages sent on bureau cell phones between Strzok and his paramour, Lisa...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law Friday that will decriminalize jaywalking across California, ending the familiar practice of police handing out tickets to pedestrians on the argument that the law is enforced more often against minorities than other people. The new law, AB 2147, known as the “Freedom to Walk Act,” could bring an end to a cultural difference that has marked otherwise libertine Californians as being uniquely deferential to laws governing pedestrian traffic. The difference between Californians, who ostensibly tend to obey “don’t walk” signals, and urban dwellers elsewhere in the country, who are notoriously defiant when it...

Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) wanted regulatory reform, in part to reverse some of the Biden Administration's reversals of Trump-era reforms intended to expedite permits for fossil fuel projects. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) needed Manchin’s vote in the 50-50 Senate to enact his latest spending extravaganza, the Inflation Reduction Act, which was primarily a massive climate and “green” energy subsidy arrangement. It gives Schumer allies some $370 billion in wind, solar, battery, and other funding, tax credits, and subsidies. In exchange, Schumer would offer a path for Manchin’s reform bill. Manchin voted YEA and promptly got bushwhacked. Once he’d helped...

Several instances of political violence, many with victims supporting conservative causes, have occurred since President Biden warned of the threat supporters of former President Trump pose to the country including attacks on anti-abortion activists, political canvassers, and the murder of an 18-year-old in North Dakota. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic," President Biden said during a September 1 speech in Philadelphia that earned widespread criticism from conservatives and even some on the left. "They promote authoritarian leaders, and they fan the flames of political violence that are a threat...

German Federal Economy Minister Robert Habeck expressed concern over the looming energy crisis this winter, telling German media that the situation was extremely tense and there is a possibility that Germany may run out of gas. Habeck spoke on Friday, appealing to Germans to reduce their consumption of natural gas ahead of this winter a day after the German government launched a new price break programme to help Germans with the rising costs of energy.

On September 27, two explosions severely damaged Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, setting off wild speculation about possible sabotage. Another two breaks in the pipeline, a tad to the north in Sweden’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), were later identified but no explosions were reported. According to news sources citing Danish officials, each explosion was equivalent to 500 kilograms of TNT, the size of very large anti-shipping mines. Not only the US Navy (together with its NATO allies) but also the Russian Navy conduct naval exercises in the Baltic Sea...

Michel Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of immunology and pharmacotherapy at the Université libre de Bruxelles in Belgium, suspects his third dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may have sent his cancer into overdrive. Goldman, 67, is one of Europe’s best-known champions of medical research and a lifelong promoter of vaccines. But he told The Atlantic he wants discussion of the COVID-19 vaccine to be transparent — so he went public about his suspicion that the Pfizer booster shot he received on Sept. 22, 2021, may have induced rapid progression of his angioimmunoblastic T-cell lymphoma (AITL), a type of lymphoma he’d been...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom allowed local refineries to produce their “winter blend” of gasoline a month early in a bid to reduce gas prices, which have soared back to near-record levels even as prices in the rest of the country have slowly fallen from their peak. The move repeats a similar effort by Gov. Jerry Brown ten years ago, and is an admission that the state’s environmental regulations are partially to blame for the fact that California has higher prices than the rest of the country — more than $2.50 higher, as of today.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are abandoning their long crusade to repeal the Affordable Care Act, making the 2022 election the first in more than a decade that won’t be fought over whether to protect or undo President Barack Obama’s signature achievement. The diminished appetite for repeal means the law — which has extended health care coverage to millions of people and survived numerous near-death experiences in Congress and the courts — now appears safer than ever. With just more than a month before the next election, Republicans in Congress and on the campaign trail aren’t making an issue of Obamacare. None...