Free Republic

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency for 11 counties on Thursday, as a historic lake-effect snow event threatens to blanket parts of the state. Up to five feet of snow are possible in Buffalo and the surrounding areas as a storm system coming from the Great Lakes blankets the western part of the state. Heavy snow is expected to hit the area Thursday evening and continue for up to 48 hours. Hochul said Thursday that the state and Buffalo are prepared for the brunt of the storm. She urged locals to stay...

Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) announced Thursday that he will take over as the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee next year, opting not to become the ranking member on the Senate Health Committee, where he also serves as a senior member. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is the Senate’s chief oversight committee, which will give Paul broad jurisdiction over federal departments and agencies. Had Republicans won the Senate majority in last week’s elections, Paul could have spearheaded Senate investigations of the Biden administration. The committee has authority to receive referrals on all legislation...

“To the people of Los Angeles, my message is this: We are going to solve homelessness,” she said. “Los Angeles is no longer going to be unaffordable for working families — good jobs and affordable housing construction are on the way.”

My latest song. Beware of fools.

“He that is first in his own cause seemeth just; but his neighbour cometh and searcheth him. The lot causeth contentions to cease, and parteth between the mighty. A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city: and their contentions are like the bars of a castle. A man's belly shall be satisfied with the fruit of his mouth; and with the increase of his lips shall he be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof” (Proverbs 18:17-21).

"Did you conspire with the Trump family?" Allen Weisselberg was asked by a Trump lawyer. "No," he replied.... ...Allen Weisselberg, 75, testified for a second day in the criminal trial of Trump's family business in New York City... ....Under questioning from Futerfas, Weisselberg said the only person who knew he wasn’t paying the proper taxes on the perks was McConney.

Jiménez said investigations into the cause of the incident had begun but added that “everything indicates” an accident, and that she would share more details upon completion of the investigation. Jiménez also highlighted the “heroic” actions taken by the pilot who crash-landed the helicopter in an empty lot instead of a populated area. Images from the crash showed the smoldering remains of the helicopter and police cars around a grassy area.

.

Investigators are exploring the possibility that more than one person is behind the brutal murders of four University of Idaho students, which have sent shockwaves through the small college town of Moscow. Four days on from the murders, the killer or killers remain at large with no arrests made and no suspects named. Moscow Police Chief James Fry admitting on Wednesday: “There is a threat out there still”. Authorities in Moscow, Idaho, have released very few details about what happened to the four University of Idaho students who were murdered last weekend. Police have cautioned the small town of 25,000...

It was a Nuclear Hoax. The Biden administration’s unprecedented raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence is shaping up to be one of the most egregious abuses of power that has ever been committed by a sitting president. It is now nearly indisputable that it was a politically motivated raid over a paperwork dispute tantamount not only to blatant election interference into the 2022 midterms, but also a pre-emptive salvo on Biden’s presumptive presidential rival in the 2024 election. The FBI’s raid at the behest of the National Archives and Records Administration has not yielded the “nuclear secrets” that...

Snow is on tap for places such as Denver as the week progresses, but the Arctic cold that will accompany the winter precipitation is expected to be even more noteworthy.The cold might end up being even more notable than the snow itself, according to AccuWeather forecasters. Many locales could challenge record overnight lows and record low afternoon high temperatures late this week as Arctic air spills in from Canada. High temperatures from Idaho to northern Texas will be more reminiscent of overnight lows for this time of year as the mercury may reach only the teens to the upper 20s...

The latest suspected ICBM was fired at 10:15 local time (02:15 GMT) from near the North Korean capital Pyongyang, military chiefs in Seoul said. It reached an altitude of 6,100km on a lofted trajectory and travelled 1,000km (621 miles), reaching a speed of Mach 22, South Korea's military said. A lofted trajectory means the missile flies much higher into space but across a shorter distance than it would if fired on a normal trajectory. But Japan's defence minister Yasukazu Hamada said the missile had sufficient range to reach the US. "Based on calculations taking the trajectory into account, the ballistic...

HONOLULU (AP) — A jury on Thursday found two Native Hawaiian men guilty of a hate crime for the 2014 beating of a white man who was fixing up a house he purchased in their remote Maui neighborhood. ...In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Justice sought to prosecute Alo-Kaonohi and Aki and secured a federal grand jury indictment in December 2020 charging each with a hate crime....Prosecutors alleged during the trial in U.S. District Court in Honolulu that Alo-Kaonohi and Aki were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman’s race when they punched, kicked and used a shovel to beat him...

Kari Lake, the perpetually soft-lit, camera-ready political newcomer from Arizona, may have lost her bid to become the state's next governor, but it's unlikely she'll leave the spotlight. A Phoenix-area news anchor for 22 years, Lake called it quits in 2021 and decided to go all in on politics. She fended off better-funded, more qualified GOP challengers in the primaries and ran a ground game in the general election in which she regularly made headlines for tearing into fellow reporters and mocking her political opponent. Lake ran a full Trumpist campaign and pushed a familiar but divisive message that questioned...

As most are well aware by now, the disgraced founder of FTX Sam Bankman-Fried was the Democrat party’s second-largest donor just behind George Soros. As reported by The Gateway Pundit, in the 2020 presidential election, Bankman-Fried dished millions to the Biden campaign and followed it up by handing out over $40 million dollars to democrats in the 2022 primaries and midterms. Forbes reported last year that Bankman-Fried also donated to six RINOs who voted to impeach President Trump. Forbes reported : Since July, Bankman-Fried has made $5,800 contributions, the maximum individuals can give directly to Congressional campaigns, to the committees...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R.-Utah), who was the losing Republican presidential nominee in 2012, voted on Wednesday to move forward to a final vote in the Senate on the “Respect for Marriage Act,” which would recognize same-sex marriages in federal law. “While I believe in traditional marriage, Obergefell is and has been the law of the land upon which LGBTQ individuals have relied,” said Romney. “This legislation provides certainty to many LGBTQ Americans, and it signals that Congress—and I—esteem and love all of our fellow Americans equally.” “This legislation provides important protections for religious liberty—measures which are particularly important to protect...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A small business lobbying group filed suit Tuesday to block the Treasury Department’s upcoming requirement that tens of millions of small businesses register with the government as part of an effort to prevent the criminal abuse of anonymous shell companies. The National Small Business Association argues that the new reporting rule violates the U.S. Constitution...

Businesses and associates linked to the Biden family allegedly exchanged over $2 million in wire transfers with a Shanghai investment fund controlled by the Bank of China over a five-year period, according to a Treasury Department document obtained by Republican members of the House Oversight Committee. Biden-linked operatives allegedly exchanged $2,461,962.60 in total with the Shanghai firm through 93 wire transactions between 2014 and 2019, according to a Suspicious Activity Report obtained by House Oversight Republicans, which also identified Hunter Biden as a “politically exposed person.” The revelation comes amid a House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family’s financial...

Maybe securing the border isn’t the fix. A reporter tried to set Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene straight by telling her that most fentanyl coming across the border from Mexico is carried by U.S. citizens, not immigrants. When challenged, the reporter said his source was the Cato Institute. Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid responsible for 88 percent of opioid overdose deaths in the United States, is showing up in campaign ads across the country. The message is simple: Fentanyl would disappear if illegal immigration disappeared. This is wrong. If anything, border crackdowns have exacerbated the crisis. Much of this narrative places blame...

When FBI Director Christopher Wray testified before the Senate earlier this week, we noted how he refused to answer if FBI agents were dressed as Trump supporters inside the Capitol on January 6. The Recount posted the video, saying that Rep. Clay Higgins was insinuating that the FBI helped instigate the January 6 storming of the Capitol. Yes, and? Here’s another highlight of Wray’s testimony. As we reported back in August, Wray, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, reminded Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley that he had to leave at 1:30 because he had a plane to catch. “You’ve got...