Free Republic

Outgoing Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Richard Shelby (R-AL) slipped $656 million worth of earmarks into the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill. Congressional leaders dropped the $1.7 trillion, 4,155-page omnibus spending bill at 1:30 a.m. ET, giving lawmakers little time to digest the implications of the mammoth legislation. While the bill may have many major reforms that are readily apparent, lawmakers also slipped hard-to-find earmarks into the bill. Many lawmakers, such as Shelby, are retiring and face few political repercussions for pushing a bill that contains many special interest carveouts and increases the deficit.

Vladimir Putin on Tuesday angrily gave marching orders to Russia’s security forces to redouble their efforts to root out traitors and spies working to undermine his regime. -snip- “Maximum composure, concentration of forces is now required from counterintelligence agencies, including military intelligence,” Putin said. “It is necessary to harshly crack down on the actions of foreign special services, promptly identify traitors, spies and saboteurs.” In an uncharacteristic break from the official line that the so-called “special military operation” is going according to plan, Putin admitted the situation was “difficult” in the four regions of Ukraine that were illegally annexed by...

Three people have died after a blast tore through a pipeline near the Russian–Ukrainian border in the third explosion to hit infrastructure in days. Photos and video today showed pillars of fire erupting from the Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline in the Vurnar district of Chuvashia, Russia, per Reuters. Local officials on Telegram and the TASS news agency said the flow of gas through the pipeline has been cut off as of 1:50pm local time. Three people have died and one has been injured, emergency services told TASS. The Chuvashia regional Emergencies Ministry said the pipeline blew up during planned upkeep work new...

I miss Rush so much. There are a few people in my life who constantly look to me to inspire them, tell them there is hope, encourage them. But the person who did that for me was Rush Limbaugh. “I’ll tell you when it’s time to panic,” he used to say. Except you know what? Deep down, Rush was never going to come to that point where it was time to panic. He had a deep-seated, abiding faith in America and her institutions; of her founding by God; of her (still) unique place in all the world. For those reasons,...

All of North Korea’s ICBM tests have been performed at a steep angle to avoid neighboring countries. Some experts have said without the standard-trajectory launch of ICBMs, the reliability of North Korean weapons cannot be guaranteed. Touching upon those doubts, Kim Yo Jong suggested North Korea might fire an ICBM at a normal trajectory, a launch that could be considered as a much bigger provocation to the U.S. as the weapon would fly toward the Pacific Ocean. “I can clear up their doubt about it. They will immediately recognize it in case we launch an ICBM in the way of...

OUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Police charged a 26-year-old man with murder after a former Eastern High School student was killed in a wrong way crash on Hurstbourne Parkway over the weekend. According to Alicia Smiley, a spokeswoman for the Louisville Metro Police Department, Porfirio Cruz Hernandez is charged with murder, wanton endangerment, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs and operating a motor vehicle without a valid operator's license. As of Monday afternoon, Hernandez remained hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. The crash took place around 4 a.m. Sunday at the intersection of South Hurstbourne Parkway and Fegenbush Lane. Police said...

Carina Nebula (NGC 3324) captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) (NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI) The powerful James Webb Space Telescope is a mighty technological tool. Astrophysicists first conceived it over 20 years ago, and after many twists and turns, it was launched on December 25, 2021. Now it's in a halo orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 point, where it will hopefully continue operating for 20 years. It's only been a few months since its first images were released, and it's already making progress in answering some of the Universe's most compelling questions. In a newly-released image, the JWST peered deep inside massive clouds...

What can regular people do to take back their country from woke radicals? Take over local institutions, one at a time. One of the things I get asked from time to time by readers is, what can ordinary people on the right, Christians and conservatives, do to help save the country — besides voting on Election Day? It’s a good question, and it comes from the very understandable feeling of helplessness many people feel about the direction of the country and, let’s be honest, the collapse of Western civilization that’s now well underway. It’s especially easy to get frustrated after...

Ukraine’s Ministry of Finance has announced that it received $2 billion from the US, allocated through the World Bank (WB) mechanism to support the Ukrainian state budget, Report informs with reference to TASS. “The state budget of Ukraine received grant funds in the amount of $2 billion from the World Bank trust fund,” the country’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement. “The funds were provided by the United States through a World Bank Trust Fund under the Public Expenditure Support for Sustainable Governance in Ukraine project,” the agency added.

Maybe you've read of the often life-threatening plight of Americans who've been injured by COVID-19 vaccines, and you want to help. Please start by giving generously to React19, an organization that represents more than 20,000 COVID-19 vaccine–injured Americans. Founded in November 2021 by a small group of vaccine-injured folks, React19 is a nonpartisan organization raising awareness of the struggles of vaccine-injured people by telling their stories, offering support, and lobbying elected officials. While the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System has tallied more than 400,000 people who've been injured by these vaccines, the government hasn't developed a plan to study them....

The White House press office declared a mid-morning “lid” on Tuesday as the Supreme Court weighs the fate of the Title 42 pandemic migration policy — while border communities and major US cities brace for a potential humanitarian crisis. A White House pool report sent at 10:35 a.m. relayed that President Biden’s staff declared the lid, which means that no public events are planned or likely to happen. It’s unusual to call a presidential lid so early in the day, since major domestic or international news could prompt schedule changes. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts paused plans Monday to...

CDC said that increases in Strep A, flu and RSV cases are tied to lockdowns ... Leading US health officials have finally acknowledged that pandemic restrictions they supported may have fueled a boom in respiratory bugs currently overwhelming hospitals. Healthcare systems across the country have been pushed to the brink after an unseasonably high number of flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases with some pediatric units forced to erect inflatable tents to treat patients in parking lots. ... In a statement to DailyMail.com, the CDC said it was 'hearing from some doctors and state health departments about an apparent...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JNGuCwHiBs

There's nothing like gathering the family during the holidays to watch a good old-fashioned Christmas movie! There are so many timeless classics out there, full of iconic moments we love to relive again and again! Our researchers watched all the Christmas films ever made and found the 9 absolute greatest Christmas movie moments: That time when John McClane throws a terrorist out the window onto a police car and says "Welcome to the party, pal!": Aw yeah, CLASSIC. That part where John McClane puts a Santa hat on that dead German terrorist and sends him down the elevator: I HAVE...

(NEXSTAR) – Officials across several U.S. states are warning against a rise in scams that leave SNAP beneficiaries without any money in their account and no other way to buy groceries. One mom in Oklahoma didn’t realize she had been victimized until she tried to buy a $1 drink. Her EBT card was rejected for “insufficient funds,” Nexstar’s KFOR reported. She later found out someone had spent all $462 at a market in Brooklyn, New York. A single father of eight kids, also in Oklahoma, recently had $800 stolen from his account. “I don’t have that extra support. I can’t...

It's time for every American to wake up to what our nation has become. Now that we're approaching the three-year anniversary of COVID-1984's global demolition (or "Great Reset" in World Economic Forum parlance), reality looks very different from what many people once perceived it to be. Raise your hand if you thought "free" nations would declare the authority to close millions of small businesses until they went bankrupt and folded. Or whether never-before-used, experimental cocktails of mRNA "vaccine" would be coercively injected into citizens. Did you think governments would conspire to cover up "vaccine"-related injuries and deaths? Did you expect...

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed the death Monday. It was the third death attributed to a recalled Takata airbag in a Fiat Chrysler sedan in 2022 and the fifth in total involving such airbags in any car over the past year. Fiat Chrysler’s latest “Do Not Drive” warning concerns around 276,000 vehicles, including 2005-2010 Dodge Magnums, Chargers and Challengers, and Chrysler 300 sedans of the same model years. Owners of these vehicles are encouraged to check if their cars’ Takata airbags are included in the recall and to call 833-585-0144 to schedule tows and repairs free of...

Viridi Funds announced that the Viridi Cleaner Energy Crypto-Mining & Semiconductor ETF (NYSEARCA:RIGZ) will liquidate and de-list from the New York Stock Exchange. RIGZ was actively managed and provided market participants with exposure to the cryptocurrency mining industry and indirect exposure to crypto-assets such as Bitcoin (BTC-USD) and Ethereum (ETH-USD). RIGZ, which jumped out of the gates with a 15% rally in its first 48 hours of trading, caught a wave of upward momentum from the crypto craze. The fund soared 133% in its first four months of trading, alongside Bitcoin’s peak. However, since the fund topped out at $56.63...

This week, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) and the Second Amendment Foundation announced that United States District Judge Roger Benitez has issued an order enjoining the fee-shifting provision in California SB 1327, which was enacted as retribution for Texas’s SB 8 abortion law in order to suppress legitimate challenges to firearms regulations. The opinion in Miller v. Bonta (Miller II) can be viewed at FPCLegal.org. “When a § 1983 plaintiff needs representation, § 1021.11(a) makes any attorney understandably reluctant, if not terrified,” wrote Judge Benitez in his opinion. “The provisions of § 1021.11(a) would expose the attorney to the risk of...

Former President Donald Trump, in a statement on Monday, called out President Joe Biden’s immigration policy and urged Congress to take “three crucial actions” to address the ongoing migration crisis at the nation’s southern border.Trump faulted Biden for inviting “millions of illegal aliens to infiltrate our country in a gigantic unlawful invasion.”“Now, after announcing on April 1, 2022 that he would end my Title 42 protections at the border, and declining to appeal numerous court rulings, Biden is getting what he always wanted: the termination of the most effective border security policy in modern history,” Trump added.NEW!President Donald J. Trump:“By...