Free Republic

On Thursday, Target and the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a recall of 240,000 Pillowfort Weighted Blankets after two sisters, 4 and 6, died of asphyxia after they got trapped inside the blanket and suffocated in April 2022. The blankets include zippers, which the girls had used to seal themselves inside, causing them to become trapped and suffocate. The deaths occurred at the girls’ family home at Camp Lejeune, a North Carolina Marine Corps base camp where their father is a staff sergeant. After the two fatalities, Target received two other reports of children who had also gotten...

Zelensky brought his flag and his ask for cash and weapons to Congress during the prime time hours on Wednesday night, much to the fawning of American legislatures. In response, many who are critical of the massive expenditure to Ukraine, and of the US involvement in a war against Russia at all, took to Twitter to express their disdain. They were banned, and many speculated that it was bots who were to blame. Many accounts shared a photo of the two most powerful women in American politics, Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who are second and...

US bishops conference resoundingly silent after Biden signs same-sex ‘marriage’ lawThe U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued statements before and after the Senate passed the Respect for Marriage Act, but has said nothing since the self-proclaimed Catholic president signed it into law.WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — While the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a statement of condemnation both before and after the Senate’s passage of the so-called “Respect for Marriage Act” (RMA), which enshrines “same-sex marriage” into federal law, no such condemnation has been forthcoming since President Joe Biden signed the bill into law on Dec. 13.LifeSiteNews reached out...

Most of New York is going to have a dreary Christmas weekend. Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday declared a state of emergency for the entirety of New York in preparation for the massive storm that’s forecast to wallop the Northeast over the holiday weekend. The measure will go into effect at 6 a.m. Friday when Winter Storm Elliott — dubbed a “once-in-a-generation” weather event by the National Weather Service — is expected to bear down on the area.

VIDEO AT LINK................... Dec. 22 (UPI) -- A Florida sheriff's deputy responding to a report of an injured hawk on a sidewalk arrived to find the bird of prey engaged in a battle with a long black snake. The Alachua County Sheriff's Office said Deputy Nick Aldous recently responded to a report of an injured hawk on a sidewalk near Gainesville, and the deputy arrived to find the hawk had a black snake wrapped around its body. Body camera footage posted to Facebook by the sheriff's office shows Aldous using gloves and towels to unwrap the snake from the hawk's...

Worsening heat waves, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, and flooding have caused immense human suffering — and countless deaths — in recent years. And because there’s been little progress or collective action to meaningfully change the way we live, more people are going to experience the effects of climate change and die. It’s a depressing future to think about. In fact, experts say more and more people — especially young people — are now suffering from eco-distress or climate anxiety, a kind of fear related to worries about the environment and climate change’s lasting impacts on the world. According to the American...

At least three people were killed and four others injured in a shooting in central Paris on Friday, the local mayor said. An unidentified 69-year-old man opened fire at the Ahmet-Kaya Kurdish cultural center in the city’s 10th arrondissement, Le Parisien reported. The mayor of the arrondissement, Alexandra Cordebard, said three people died and four others were injured in the barrage of gunshots, which rang out in the Rue d’Enghien, a street lined with small shops and cafes, CNN reported.

WASHINGTON — Before Donald Trump became president and after, his exceedingly complex and voluminous tax returns came under regular scrutiny by the Internal Revenue Service. The number of agents assigned to the audit team: one. After Trump left office, the IRS said it was beefing up the audit team, to three. The tax agency itself acknowledged that it was still overwhelmed by the complexity of Trump’s finances and the resistance mounted by the former president and his sophisticated army of accountants and lawyers, which included a former IRS chief counsel and raised questions early last year about why even three...

Rahul Ligma (L), Elon Musk (C) and Daniel Johnson (R) Humiliating the press is one of the United States’ greatest traditions. Since the nation’s founding, intelligent and upstanding men have attacked journalists as annoying nerds unconcerned with truth. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1807, "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." So when Rahul Ligma and Daniel Johnson fooled reporters into believing they were real Twitter employees who were fired by Elon Musk, the two cemented their statuses as Washington Free Beacon Men of the...

The Democrat-led Congress is giving a parting gift to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as her long tenure as the party’s leader in the lower chamber comes to an end.The 2023 omnibus spending bill contains a provision that renames a federal building in California after the 82-year-old congresswoman.Republican Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina pointed out that the outgoing speaker was so honored in a Tuesday tweet.“$65 million in two programs for Senator Leahy, and a federal building named for Nancy Pelosi,” he said, referring to Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont.“Swamp gonna Swamp,” Bishop said.The provision that renames the San...

The arctic blast rocking the country is expected to reach its highest intensity on Friday, producing what the National Weather Service (NWS) is describing as “widespread disruptions” heading into the holiday weekend as over half the U.S. population finds itself under a winter storm warning, watch, or advisory. The blizzard, dubbed Winter Storm Elliott, has triggered dramatic temperature drops across the U.S., with some cities seeing temperatures plummet 40 degrees in less than an hour, smashing records.

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire businessman and media mogul, is interested in acquiring either Wall Street Journal parent company Dow Jones or The Washington Post, a source familiar with his thinking told Axios. Why it matters: Bloomberg wants to expand his media empire and sees Dow Jones as his ideal fit, but he would buy the Post if Jeff Bezos were interested in selling, the source said. The combination of Bloomberg and Dow Jones would create an unparalleled business news behemoth. Details: Bloomberg, the source notes, would be interested in a potential acquisition of either property, but Dow Jones — the...

Kari Lake and her attorneys appeared in court Thursday for day two of her historic election contest trial against Maricopa County and Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs. The trial Thursday was set from 8:30 MST to 4:30 MST.The Gateway Pundit reported on day one of Kari Lake’s election trial live from Mesa, Arizona, where we witnessed bombshell testimony from cybersecurity expert Clay Parikh, election investigator Heather Honey, a Maricopa County whistleblower, and RNC roving attorney Mark Sonnenklar.... over 72% of Election Day voters were Republican. Only 17% were Democrats.This is election interference.Following the court trial, Kari Lake spoke to...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota convenes its most diverse Legislature to-date in January, with some of its newest members saying they plan to use their history-making elections to pass policies to protect the minority communities they represent. Solidifying transgender rights, banning “conversion therapy,” safeguarding abortion access and legalizing marijuana are among the goals shared by some of the newly elected lawmakers and seasoned legislators who have been working for years on issues important to underrepresented communities. Now, they feel there is momentum to push the issues forward. “It’s really going to change the dynamics of what people expect lawmakers...

A book that is expected to hit bookshelves next month will detail one of the issues that reportedly caused President Joe Biden to explode into fits of rage during his first years as president. Author Chris Whipple, in his forthcoming book, “The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House,” describes how the scenes of illegal aliens flooding the U.S. southern border caused Biden to erupt into states of fury, dropping f-bombs in front of aides. “Meanwhile, illegal immigrants kept arriving. And Biden was furious,” the book says, according to a copy obtained by Fox News. “Aides had rarely...

Brian Kilmeade confronted Rep. Steve Scalise Friday morning over plans to become the next Speaker of the House amid Kevin McCarthy’s apparently stalled bid. “Congressman, it looks like Kevin McCarthy is stuck,” Kilmeade noted. “He does not have the votes. Matt Gaetz wrote a column, ‘I am never voting for him. He stands for nothing,’ Kilmeade continued before asking, “Have you been approached being the next speaker if McCarthy can’t get it done and what do to those people who don’t want to vote for him who from in your party?”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned home to Ukraine on Friday, following his visit to the United States earlier this week. “I am in my office,” Zelensky said in a video posted to Telegram early Friday. “We are working toward victory.” Zelensky traveled to the U.S. on Wednesday to meet with President Biden and American lawmakers and speak before a join meeting of Congress. It was his first known trip outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded nearly 10 months ago. President Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine following a meeting with Zelensky at the White House on Wednesday, vowing to stand...

Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Craydon was growing weary of answering questions about his tunic every time he went to the skate park.While much of the country is in full holiday “wait until next year” mode, Kari Lake is spending her run-up to Christmas weekend using the legal system to get some answers about what went wrong in Maricopa County on election day. Last week, I wrote of my admiration for Lake’s unwillingness to roll over and play dead for the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media.The lawsuit brought by Lake’s legal team was originally...

A plan is starting to form just in case there is no solution to the resistance against Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the Speaker. According to reports, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise is being told to be on standby. This may not sit well with McCarthy, but the Republican Party has to get a Speaker in place as quickly as possible if they are going to stop this runaway train.

It’s Christmas in America, a time of hope, joy, and forcing yourself to be nice to your loudmouth, opinionated neighbor who thinks Antifa may be on to something and Black Lives Matter is the cat’s meow.However, nobody — I mean nobody — is going to get me to say nice things about Joe Biden this Christmas. He may win grudging praise from me from time to time when, like a broken clock, he’s accidentally right about something.Generally, I don’t make friends with people who call me a racist because I disagree with them. And someone who deliberately gins up hysteria...