Free Republic

With persistent inflation eroding wage gains, more Americans are struggling financially just as the peak shopping season kicks into high gear. Holiday spending could come at a high cost if it means tacking on additional credit card debt just as interest rates rise.

Elon fired 99.4% of twitter staff and the site is still running so far.https://twitter.com/Timcast/status/1593598019827646464 BREAKING:Musk is now running Twitter with less than 50 key employees, down for 7,500 at its peak.“Everything is normal, we may be profitable soon.” He says.https://twitter.com/sweatystartup/status/1593399867732332544

FRANKFURT (Reuters) -Euro zone banks are set to repay nearly 300 billion euros ($310 billion) in loans to the European Central Bank next week, the ECB said on Friday, the biggest cash withdrawal from the euro zone's financial system in the euro's 22-year history. The move is part of ECB efforts to fight record-high inflation in the euro zone by raising the cost of credit and it is its first step towards mopping up even more liquidity next year by trimming its multi-trillion-euro bond portfolio. The euro zone's central bank said lenders would repay 296 billion euros worth of the...

Autopsies performed on four University of Idaho students who were found dead inside a rental house near campus showed that all four were stabbed to death, the Latah County coroner said Thursday. The killings have shaken Moscow, an Idaho Panhandle college town of 25,000 residents that last saw a homicide about five years ago, according to Coroner Cathy Mabbutt. “It’s pretty tough,” Mabbutt said. The autopsies were performed in nearby Spokane County in Washington state, and the bodies were subsequently released to the victims’ families. Here is a look at what is known about the killings, and what remains a...

The FIFA World Cup is right around the corner. The 32-team quadrennial event is all set to kick off this Sunday at Qatar’s Al Bayt stadium. But even as hosts Qatar ready themselves to showcase their world-class football stadiums, human rights groups are increasingly calling for a boycott of the tournament. Over the last decade, as Qatar prepared itself to host the first-ever FIFA World Cup in the Arab peninsula, Humans Rights groups pointed out the several violations the Gulf state was committing. The monarchical state was accused of employing slave labor from South Asia to build the infrastructure required...

Ayear after moving to Bridge City, Texas, 8-year-old Samuel Kulovitz thought his life couldn’t get any worse. He had made no friends in the swampy oil refinery town and spent most of his time in his family’s mobile home. He missed Florida and playing on the beach there with other children. But life did get worse. He hit puberty. For Kulovitz, who was assigned female at birth, “growing into being a young woman horrified me,” he said. “I kept crying and crying, and I didn’t know why I didn’t like it.” Then, at age 11, Kulovitz started venturing onto social...

It seems like the apple doesn’t really fall too far from the tree. While the GMC Hummer EV is a zero-emissions vehicle designed to be a strong statement of General Motors’ dedication to the electric vehicle revolution, some of the pickup truck’s behavior definitely seems to be very similar to its gas-guzzling combustion-powered predecessors. The Hummer EV is equipped with a mammoth battery pack that has roughly 210 kWh of capacity. That’s about the size of a Model S Plaid and Model X Plaid’s battery pack combined. With this in mind, it is no surprise that charging such a massive...

Citizens traveling over Thanksgiving weekend are in for more pain at the pump in President Joe Biden’s (D) America. In a report on Tuesday, GasBuddy said the “Projected average price of $3.68 on Thanksgiving Day will break record set 10 years ago.”

The Azerbaijani parliament on Friday announced its historic decision to open an embassy in Israel. The embassy will be located in Tel Aviv, and will be the first embassy in Israel of a country with a Shi’ite majority and a Shi’ite government. Outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid said: "I welcome the decision by the National Assembly of Azerbaijan to open an embassy in Israel. Azerbaijan is an important partner of Israel and home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Muslim world. The decision to open an embassy reflects the depth of the relationship between our countries."...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemMatthew 13 The Parable of the Net 47 “Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. 48 When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. 49 This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous 50 and throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will...

The 22-year-old man who was arrested for allegedly mowing down dozens of Los Angeles sheriff’s recruits deliberately with his SUV, leaving several critically injured, has been released from jail to allow police to gather more evidence. Nicholas Joseph Gutierrez, who was charged with attempted murder of a peace officer, was released at 9:49 p.m. Thursday, according to jail records that cited an insufficient complaint, CNN reported. “Due to the extreme complexity of the investigation, which includes ongoing interviews, video surveillance review, and additional evidence needed to be analyzed, homicide investigators have released Mr. Gutierrez from the Sheriff’s Department custody,” authorities...

The conference addressed 12 of 24 proposed rule changes put forward by GOP members (pdf). Republicans, who will take control of the House in January 2023, are leaving more controversial rule changes for consideration after Thanksgiving. Several of the rules proposed serve to weaken the power of the speaker as many Republicans remain lukewarm about the prospect of a Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). One of the new rules passed by the conference would make it easier to remove a sitting speaker. Specifically, the rule allows a majority of the GOP caucus to vote to remove the speaker....

If forecasters are right, a notorious meteor shower may put on a surprise showing soon, right after its expected peak. The meteor shower in question is the November Leonids. Most years, the Leonids are really nothing to wake up early for, producing an average hourly rate of 10 meteors an hour, barely double the background sporadic rate. But every 33 years or so, the Leonids are the source of great storms of meteors, as the Earth plows headlong into the stream of debris laid down by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle on its 33-year orbit around the Sun. The orbit of Comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle....

As of tonight, a full eight days after the election, it finally looks like several sources (e.g., RealClearPolitics, New York Times) have “called” enough Congressional races to be (almost) sure that the Republicans will control the House starting in January. When all the votes are finally counted (Christmas?), the margin of control is likely to be either 2 or 3 seats, and no more than 4. America, you owe a deep debt of gratitude to my home state of New York. Even after a Republican seat was eliminated by population loss, the Republicans picked up four seats among the remainder...

We Are Being Warned That Meat Prices Could Go Up Another 40 Or 50 Percent If you have been to the grocery store lately, you have probably noticed that meat prices have gone up dramatically. Unfortunately, we are being warned that things could get much worse in 2023. All over the northern hemisphere, cattle ranchers are dramatically reducing the size of their herds due to relentless drought conditions. Meanwhile, the bird flu has already resulted in the deaths of nearly 100 million chickens and turkeys in the United States and Europe. On top of everything else, progressive politicians throughout the...

A week after the midterm elections, The Washington Post reported something that didn't please their Trump-hating subscribers. It turns out leftists were wrong to imply Donald Trump took classified documents to Mar-a-Lago to sell to our enemies. The story by Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey was headlined, "Investigators see ego, not money, as Trump’s motive on classified papers."

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NATIONAL VICHYSSOISE DAY November 18th recognizes a cold soup that is loved by many. It is National Vichyssoise Day. #NationalVichyssoiseDay Made thick with pureed leeks, onions, potatoes, cream and chicken stock, Vichyssoise is traditionally served cold though sometimes is eaten hot. In the United States, Vichyssoise is pronounced: vish – e – swaz. Culinary historians debate the origin of Vichyssoise. However, the man most credited with the reinvention of the soup is French chef Louis Diat. Back in 1950, New Yorker Magazine interviewed Diat, who was the chef at the Ritz Carlton in New York City; he told them: “In...

In the wake of the Republican midterm election trickle, a coalition of left-wing Democrats led by Media Matters founder David Brock is planning a multimillion-dollar counteroffensive against congressional Republicans. With funding from some of the biggest donors in Democrat politics, Brock’s new nonprofit group, “Facts First USA,” plans undermine congressional Republicans as soon as they take control the House of Representatives. The group intends to spend $5 million-a-year to push back against an expected onslaught of investigations into Joe Biden’s incompetent and corrupt administration, as well as his notoriously corrupt family’s foreign business dealings. Brock has stepped away from his...

You see Qatar's refusal to sell alcohol in stadiums as a disgrace, I see this refusal as another illustration of the clash of civilizations that pokes a finger in the eye of Western culture. This time it happens on the biggest stage of all.