Free Republic

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania — A couple hundred die-hard supporters of John Fetterman’s campaign stood in the pouring rain Saturday morning in a Pittsburgh parking lot, a scene reminiscent of the former President Donald Trump supporters who stood in the rain for his rally in Greensburg in May. They were all waiting to hear him spell out the reasons why he should be the next senator from Pennsylvania. The event began with the special guest former Steelers running back Franco Harris, who delivered a mellow 90-second speech on why Fetterman should win in November. “Very, very important race in Pennsylvania," said Harris....

The Kremlin on Monday said that it doesn't know where Russia's "new Western border is," days after Russia illegally proclaimed the annexation of four Ukrainian regions: Kherson, Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia has yet to finalize the borders of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. "We will continue to consult with the people who live in those regions," Peskov said during a conference call, without elaborating. Peskov added that he could not go into detail about what format the consultation would take. "I've said all I can say on that," he added when asked for further...

Former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, said Sunday that Vladimir Putin's threats of using nuclear weapons would be "suicide" if the Russian leader were to deploy them. The world has been considering how to handle Putin's recent threat to launch nuclear weapons amid the months-long war with Ukraine. A Latvia defense official previously told Insider that Putin is "bluffing" and is a test to see the reaction from Western nations. During an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation," moderator Margaret Brennan asked McMaster who served as one of President Donald Trump's national security advisers, his thoughts on what...

Amore might be the loneliest Republican in Massachusetts. He's a moderate running in a party dominated by pro-Trump conservatives. And he's the only statewide Republican candidate who called for Trump's impeachment after the Jan. 6 insurrection. Most of the Republicans running for statewide office in Massachusetts embrace Trump and his conservative positions. So do many Republican voters, who reject the moderate Republicanism of Gov. Charlie Baker and derisively call him and Amore RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only. "I got a hate-mail yesterday about how I’m 'Rino-scum' because Charlie Baker made me his only endorsement," Amore said, while campaigning on...

Presidential drawdowns for military aid to Ukraine has left the United States with dangerously low levels of weapons stockpiles, according to a report obtained by Newsmax. President Joe Biden has used drawdowns – which allow the president to withdraw existing weapons, ammunitions, and material from existing U.S. military stocks to assist other nations – to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia. A Bank of America Securities report obtained by Newsmax's Logan Ratick said that presidential drawdowns have reduced U.S. weapons stockpiles to levels not seen in decades.

New research shows how doctors can improve the timing of surgery for some heart attack patients by analyzing the levels of a particular protein. Troponin is a protein involved in muscle contraction that is released into the bloodstream after a heart attack. Clinicians use troponin levels, along with other tests, to determine whether a patient is having a heart attack and to decide on treatment options such as coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. In the study, researchers found that some patients who have lower levels of troponin would benefit from having earlier surgery. However, the researchers show that patients...

The leftist Big Tech overlords may finally face a day of reckoning as the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to the Section 230 law that governs how tech platforms moderate free speech. SCOTUSblog tweeted Oct. 3 that SCOTUS granted a writ of certiorari to Gonzalez v. Google, “involving the scope of tech companies' immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.” USA Today summarized that the case will have “potentially enormous consequences for social media.” It is the “court’s first test of the broad immunity social media companies have enjoyed under a provision known as Section...

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed on Monday that protests inside the country were the work of Israel and the United States. At least 92 people have been killed in protests over the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the morality police. Amini was pronounced dead on September 16 after she was detained for allegedly breaching rules requiring women to wear hijabs and modest clothes. Her death sparked Iran's biggest wave of popular unrest in almost three years. Khamenei spoke about the protests this week for the first time since they began, telling an audience...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) will make an appearance at a political event in New Hampshire this week amid speculation that he’s eyeing a 2024 presidential bid. The New England Council on Monday announced Hogan would be appearing at a Politics and Eggs event on Thursday, a part of a larger series held jointly between the New England Council and the New Hampshire Institute of Politics & Political Library at Saint Anselm College.

Progressives are on the quiet hunt for a new generation of leaders, eagerly awaiting the outcome of the midterms to plot their next steps. “We’ve been talking about fresh blood for years,” said one Democratic strategist who reluctantly supported President Biden in the 2020 election. “Years! And every time we go back to the dinosaurs because we say we have nothing better.” Progressives’ two biggest national fixtures — Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — themselves aren’t young and some in the party are ready for a blank canvas in 2024 or beyond, particularly if Biden decides not...

Well....if you can't dazzle em with brilliance. Baffle em with...nukes? A huge freight train moving specialist military equipment associated with a nuclear-arms wielding division of Russia's Defence Ministry has been spotted on the move, prompting fears of an escalation in Putin's war. A series of BPM-97 armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and other military vehicles were seen travelling through central Russia in a clip posted on the Telegram messaging app by pro-Russian channel Rybar on Sunday. The APCs are thought to have been upgraded with more capable turrets, reinforced ambush and mine-proof armour and an air purification system designed to allow...

Though it was actually the first operational space shuttle to be retired from NASA service, the Orbiter Vehicle-103 (OV-103) Space Shuttle Discovery certainly earned that retirement after more than 27 years in service. As the third operational orbiter – preceded only by Columbia and Challenger – Discovery actually launched and landed successfully 39 times, more spaceflights than any other craft to date.

With the latest polls showing a tightening race, Mehmet Oz returned to Philadelphia on Sunday night to meet with local Black clergy members to press his case to be elected to the U.S. Senate. The Kingdom Empowerment International Ministries was celebrating its 13th anniversary as a congregation with prayer services, live music, and a visit from the Republican candidate. A dozen clergy members, GOP ward leaders, and a visiting doctor from Haiti gathered for a round-table talk with Oz about topics including safer neighborhoods, better schools, and accountability for where federal tax dollars go in the city. The subject on...

China’s Communist Party boasted this weekend of packing Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, site of the party’s most famous massacre, with over 200,000 people to celebrate the fall of China to communism. The event follows a month in which as many as 70 cities and towns across China were forced into pandemic lockdowns, allegedly to prevent the spread of Chinese coronavirus. China is one of the few countries left in the world to respond to increasing rates of Chinese coronavirus cases by forcing cities full of millions of people into lockdowns, attracting criticism from the World Health Organization (W.H.O.) and scaring away...

The Orange Southwest Supervisory District’s website was hacked Saturday and inundated with “hate speech, symbols, and photographs targeting transgender invidividuals,” superintendent Layne Millington wrote community members on Saturday. The incident prompted district leaders to disable its website and social media accounts, Millington wrote, and to refer the matter to local and federal law enforcement. “While the speech has been disgusting and disturbing, it has not been threatening,” he wrote. According to Millington, the hacking appears related to a recent incident involving the Randolph Union Middle/High School girls’ volleyball team. District officials have declined to elaborate, citing federal privacy laws. But...

The Supreme Court declined Monday to consider the latest challenge to a federal ban on bump stocks, keeping in place the prohibition on devices that essentially allow shooters to fire semiautomatic rifles continuously with one pull of the trigger. By declining to grant an appeal, the justices not only avoided taking up a gun-related issue, they also sidestepped the latest challenge to the so-called administrative state. Under then-President Donald Trump, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives banned bump stock devices in 2019. Trump had ordered a review of the devices after a mass shooting in 2017 in Las...

The withdrawal of Russian forces from a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine has prompted two powerful allies of President Vladimir Putin to do something rare in modern Russia: publicly ridicule the war machine's top brass. Russia's loss of the bastion of Lyman, which puts western parts of Luhansk region under threat, touched a nerve for Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya. Kadyrov, who has been close to Putin since his father and former president of Chechnya, Akhmad, was killed in a 2004 bomb attack in Grozny that also killed a Reuters photographer, suggested that...

A senior aide for the congressional January 6th committee is a former advisor for a consulting firm tied to Hunter Biden and his work with the controversial Ukrainian energy company Burisma, The National Pulse can reveal. The company has been under investigation by the Justice Department for engaging in unregistered foreign lobbying on behalf of its Ukrainian client. Despite these concerns, former Blue Star Strategies Senior Advisor William C. Danvers is currently working for the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th riot at the U.S. Capitol. Danvers is employed as a Senior Researcher, according to congressional records, where...

A man with a penchant for getting naked turned heads when he showed up at a courthouse in the buff. Alejandro Colomar, 29, has racked up an eye-watering €3,000 (£2,700) in fines for walking around the streets of Valencia, Spain, without clothes on multiple occasions. And the self-proclaimed nudist, who claims his naughty hobby is not illegal, even showed up at the courthouse totally disrobed to contest his many fines on Tuesday (September 27).

A Vermont high school is cracking down after female students complained about a transgender student in their locker room — and the school’s solution is to ban the girls from their own locker room. According to a report from local CBS News outlet WCAX, the controversy arose when a transgender teammate allegedly made remarks that made some of the others on the team uncomfortable. The school informed parents via email that officials were investigating claims that the girls on the team had harassed their transgender teammate. But in the interim, the transgender student is still allowed full use of the...