Free Republic

President Biden's rented Secret Service vehicles burst into flames in a parking lot Monday, just one day after he left his Nantucket vacation. Biden spent Thanksgiving on the ritzy Massachusetts island with his family last week. The Secret Service rented five vehicles from Hertz to carry the president and his family, and all five of them caught fire in the parking lot, according to footage first obtained by the Nantucket Current. Footage shows firefighters spraying down the smoldering remains of one vehicle's engine block. The five vehicles included a Chevy Suburban, Ford Explorer, Infiniti QX80, Ford Expedition, and a Jeep...

At the end of October, Jeep brand President Christian Meunier told Motor Trend that Jeep was in search of just the right name for the battery-electric Wagoneer S. The people who come up with names had "a few in the basket," but Jeep planned to get help from the community for more ideas via a contest to launch this month. That contest is called Name the New Wagoneer and it is now official. All one has to do is head to the website, enter a few identifying details, enter a name of 50 characters or less, and submit it to...

I first started writing a blog in 2009, after Barack Obama’s election. My first post, America’s Original Sin, addressed the then-nascent movement to disparage and denigrate America because the Founding Fathers didn’t have the foresight in 1787 to write a constitution that would dovetail with the mores of 21st-century snowflakes.The title of my blog, Imperfect America, is followed by a quote attributed to the French philosopher, Voltaire: “Perfect is the enemy of the good.” Our nation is a billboard-sized testament to that adage. Rarely have we seen perfect, but we frequently see good. And that’s the problem with leftists… They...

Synod for a Synodal Church: dialogue, listening and discernment continueLeaders of the continental stage of the Synod for a Synodal Church meet in Rome on Monday and Tuesday, providing them the opportunity of meeting directly with the Secretariat of the Synod guiding the process.On Monday morning, in the offices of the Secretariat of the Synod, a Meeting of the Presidents of the International Reunions of Episcopal Conferences and their Continental Taskforce Coordinators took place.A representative of each continent presented specific information regarding the continental stage introduced by the Synod Secretariat on 27 October. For each territory – Asia, Africa, Oceania,...

A sombre Alexander Lukashenko bade farewell at the open-topped coffin of his long-serving foreign minister today as speculation continues to churn over whether the diplomat may have been assassinated. The Belarusian president has reportedly ordered toxicology tests after Vladimir Makei died suddenly at the weekend. -snip- Makei's funeral was held in Minsk this morning amid as yet unverified claims the veteran diplomat and former spy, 64, was killed in a Moscow sting operation due to his clandestine contacts with the West concerning the war in Ukraine and efforts to prevent Belarus being incorporated into Russia by Vladimir Putin. -snip- Makei...

More than 300 people are still dying each day on average from covid-19, most of them 65 or older, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...roughly two to three times the rate at which people die of the flu... Today, nearly 9 in 10 covid deaths are in people 65 or older — the highest rate ever, according to a Washington Post analysis of CDC data. Epidemiologists tend to divide the pandemic into three distinct periods. In the first year, from March 2020 to March 2021, the United States experienced about 500,000 deaths. The toll was...

President Biden on Tuesday will meet at the White House with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to discuss the lame-duck session. The meeting with the “Big Four” will take place at 10:30 a.m., and the president and the leaders will discuss legislative priorities through the end of 2022, according to the White House. The meeting will be Biden’s first with McCarthy, who is the presumed incoming Speaker in the next Congress after the House flipped to Republican control in the midterms. “The...

Image Credits: Lordstown Motors Lordstown Motors has starting shipping its all-electric Endurance pickup trucks manufactured by Foxconn, a milestone that seemed impossible earlier this year. Lordstown Motors, which has experienced investigations, executive upheaval and a shortage of capital, said Tuesday that its full-sized EV truck received full homologation with certification from both the EPA and CARB that clears the way for the company to start customer sales. The first batch of 500 EV pickups, made at an Ohio factory now owned by Taiwanese hardware manufacturing company Foxconn, are on their way to fleet customers, according to the company. The announcement...

I am standing on the stoop of an empty brick row house in Pittsburgh, looking into my phone and rotating my head from side to side. The house is in an alleyway facing the back of a church. The mailbox is stuffed with rain-soaked junk mail. The rental company’s website finishes scanning my face and an algorithm decides that I do resemble the photo on the passport I uploaded earlier. I get a text with a temporary six-digit key code. There is no one waiting to greet me as I enter. Inside, there’s a living room painted crisp white, a...

Florida woman Amanda Ramirez is suing Kraft Heinz Foods Company after her cup of microwavable macaroni and cheese took longer than 3.5 minutes to be fully ready for consumption. snip In a class-action lawsuit filed on Nov. 18 in the U.S. District Court in Miami, Ramirez accuses Kraft Heinz of false advertising because her 2.39 ounce cup of Velveeta Shells & Cheese was not "ready in 3½ minutes" as its packaging claimed it would be, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported. The crux of the complaint is that customers are falsely led to believe the product will be ready for consumption...

The U.S. government said it is banning telecommunications and video surveillance equipment from several prominent Chinese brands in an effort to protect the nation’s communications network. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted unanimously on Friday to expand its ban on the sale and import of Chinese technology from firms that pose an “unacceptable risk to the national security” of the United States. The decision implements the directive in the Secure Equipment Act of 2021 signed by President Biden in November that places additional restrictions on companies including Huawei and ZTE, surveillance camera makers Hikvision and Dahua, and two-way radio manufacturer...

(No search results) Several top conservatives are warning that if House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy, the Republican nominee for Speaker of the House, does not win the speakership election on the floor of the House on Jan. 3, 2023, a “doomsday scenario” could emerge where Democrats undercut GOP power. In such a scenario, concerns are rising that so-called moderate—or establishment Republicans—are willing to band together to make a deal with the Democrats to elect a moderate Republican as speaker with Democrat votes in exchange for a House rules change that hands the incoming Democrat minority significant power over how subpoenas...

-Vyacheslav Taran, 53, died after the helicopter he was travelling in crashed near the resort town of Villefranche-sur-Mer after taking off from Switzerland - Mystery now surrounds his death, since they crashed in good weather - and after another passenger reportedly cancelled last minute - Taran is third cryptocurrency entrepreneur to die unexpectedly in recent weeks - It comes just days after businessman Tiantian Kullander, 30, died 'in his sleep' A Russian billionaire has become the latest cryptocurrency businessman to die in mysterious circumstances after his helicopter crashed in good weather near Monaco. Entrepreneur Vyacheslav Taran, 53, died after...

NATIONAL DAY OF GIVING National Day of Giving encourages giving back. It takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. #GIVINGTUESDAY We’ve just spent the weekend shopping and searching for the best possible deals. National Day Of Giving reminds us to give to those in need. Whether we look to our favorite causes or charities, it is a great reminder to lift others up during a generous time of year. On the Tuesday after Thanksgiving charities, families, businesses, community centers, and students around the world will come together for one common purpose: to celebrate generosity and to give. HOW TO OBSERVE GIVING...

On August 15, 1977, the Big Ear radio telescope on the campus of Ohio State University recorded a 72-second narrowband signal onto a paper tape. Several days later, Jerry Ehman, an astronomer at the university, studied the tape and found the signal so unusual that he scrawled the word Wow! next to the data points. Since that time, the signal has been discussed at great length in the astronomy community, but nobody has been able to explain its origin. The researchers focused their efforts on that star system using two telescopes, the Green Bank Telescope and the Allen Telescope Array....

Donald Trump made bold statements on his Truth Social account over the weekend, saying that the Republican candidate for AZ Governor, Kari Lake, should be ‘installed’ as Arizona’s next governor. Trump made the statements as six counties prepared to meet the Monday deadline to certify the 2022 midterm election results in what will begin the process of contesting the highly troubled November elections. Media reports show that with 99 percent of the vote reported in Arizona, there is just 0.6 percent separating Lake from the projected victor, her Democratic opponent Katie Hobbs. But Republican outcry, led by Lake and former...

Police: Handcuffed suspect shot officer while being removed from car at Denver jail by: Phil Rankin Nov 29, 2022 DENVER (KDVR) — A suspect being removed from a police car at the downtown Denver jail Monday night shot an officer in the neck, the Denver Police Department said, before at least one other officer shot the suspect multiple times. Police believe the suspect, arrested earlier in the evening, had a concealed weapon on him while handcuffed inside the back of the police car. The suspect was taken to the hospital in critical condition, according to DPD. The department did not...

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

Chinese protesters overturned a vehicle and trashed a COVID-19 testing station as unprecedented uprisings continued late Monday — defying a huge police crackdown that even saw cops force-checking pedestrians’ phones. Videos shared online showed a crowd jubilantly destroying the testing tent in Guangzhou, one of several cities to see protests late Monday, albeit smaller than those over the weekend. As throngs of people filled the streets — some waving white sheets of paper, the symbol of the protests — several were seen tipping over a van seemingly connected to the testing station. Other footage showed a large military vehicle moving...

A Florida man has been arrested after a Netflix binge and traffic stop led police to psychedelic mushrooms. According to police, 44-year-old Christopher Singleton was pulled over last Friday night on State Road 44 in Wildwood, for a license plate violation. Police say the pickup truck Singleton was driving was unregistered. As the officer approached the truck, he could smell marijuana and asked Singleton if there were drugs in the truck, to which Singleton replied, “Yes, I have like oil, like vape stuff.” During a search of the truck, police found a Crown Royal bag tucked into the center console...