Free Republic

A cover I did for fun. New original song on Friday.

A former top FBI counterintelligence agent based in New York who investigated the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia in 2016 is accused of illegally working for — a Russian!Charles McGonigal was charged with money laundering and violating US sanctions law by working for Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, the Justice Department said Monday. McGonigal, who led the bureau’s NYC counterintelligence division between 2016 and his retirement in 2018, was arrested Saturday evening at JFK Airport. He pleaded not guilty to four counts in Manhattan federal court Monday and was released on $500,000 bond. Sergey Shestakov, a court interpreter who also...

Inflation in Venezuela hit 234% in 2022, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said on Monday, representing a slowdown from the previous year, as the South American country struggles with a deep and lengthy economic crisis. Rodriguez provided the inflation rate during a meeting with Turkish and Venezuelan business leaders. Venezuela's central bank infrequently publishes economic data, and has not given inflation data since October. For months, socialist President Nicolas Maduro and his government was able to keep a lid on consumer price inflation with rigid economic policies, including anchoring the exchange rate, limiting public spending and increasing taxes.

A local high school football star who suffered a major heart attack last November is asking for the public’s help in getting a new heart. Former Columbine High School football star, Markus Martinez, has been in hospital bound since November.

Space issues have become so acute at the Seattle-King County morgue in Washington state that local officials are considering keeping bodies on gurneys and partnering with local funeral homes for storage as emergency stop-gap measures. “A key indication of just how bad things are … the medical examiner’s office is now struggling with the issue of storing bodies because the fentanyl-related death toll continues to climb,” Seattle-King County Public Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said at a Board of Health meeting last week, according to KTTH radio. “Obviously, they have finite space in the coolers they use, and that space...

Vladimir Putin is said to have turned against the head of the feared Russian Wagner mercenary group after he 'failed to take the hint' and kept on bragging that his forces were achieving more success than Russia's army. Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has fallen out of favour with the Russian president after he continuously gloated his private paramilitary fighters were more superior and successful than the country's conventional forces, experts say. Earlier this month, Prigozhin bragged that his fighters had single-handedly taken control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar, which has been razed by fighting. Putin is said to...

This is the true story of how President Trump saved my life.In early 2017, I was diagnosed with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and its partner in death, End Stage Renal Disease (ESRD).In the emergency room, my blood pressure was 242 over 160. It’s a miracle I didn’t stroke out and die.I was quickly diagnosed, spent days in the hospital and then began years of dialysis and the debilitating wait for that most elusive of gifts: a kidney transplant.On July 10, 2019, President Trump signed his ground-breaking “Advancing American Kidney Health” Executive Order. (Here is a link to the video from...

Scientists have identified biomarkers that could provide an early warning system for three common and dangerous pregnancy complications: pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes, and a liver condition called intrahepatic cholestasis. All three conditions are dangerous; early diagnosis and treatment is key to preventing poor outcomes and lifelong consequences. Their causes are not fully understood, and nor is their connection to the gut microbiome, which is affected by pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions. A team led by Dr. Siqian Chen decided to investigate whether specific changes in the microbiome—detected using levels of short-chain fatty acids, metabolites which are produced following the fermentation of microbiota—could...

Former President Donald Trump posed for a photo at his South Florida resort with convicted Philadelphia mobster Joseph “Skinny Joey” Merlino, according to a report Monday. ​ Trump, 76, ​is flanked by Merlino and his friend in the photo, which was taken earlier this month at the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach and obtained by the Philadelphia Inquirer. ​ The trio, wearing golf outfits, flash Trump’s customary thumbs-up sign in the pic. Trump is wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, while Merlino’s friend has a red “Keep America Great” ball cap.

An Arkansas man who was infamously photographed putting his feet on a desk inside then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office during the January 6, 2021, insurrection was found guilty on eight counts by a Washington, DC, jury Monday. Richard Barnett, 62, also known as “Bigo,” was charged with eight federal crimes relating to his actions at the US Capitol that day, including entering and remaining in a restricted area with a deadly or dangerous weapon and obstructing an official proceeding. Barnett will be sentenced in early May and will stay released on home detention with a GPS ankle monitor until then,...

In his own discreet way, President Joe Biden’s “personal” attorney Bob Bauer is back in the news again. On Saturday, Bauer released a statement about a new discovery of documents chez Biden. According to Bauer, the Justice Department "took possession of materials it deemed within the scope of its inquiry, including six items consisting of documents with classification markings and surrounding materials, some of which were from the President's service in the Senate and some of which were from his tenure as Vice President."

Evangelical pastor Franklin Graham, a longtime supporter of former President Trump, says he will not endorse Trump — or any candidate — in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. “I’m going to stay out of it until after the primaries have finished,” Graham told CBS News on Friday at the March for Life rally in Washington, D.C. Graham also told CBS News that it was an “easy decision” not to endorse someone during the 2024 primaries. CBS noted Graham doesn’t generally endorse primary candidates, but his remarks come as tensions have been rising between evangelical groups and Trump in the months...

Day of Prayer for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children Mark 3:22–30 Friends, in today’s Gospel, scribes accuse Jesus of driving out demons by Beelzebul—by Satan.The two great names of the devil in the Bible are "the accuser" and "the scatterer." Both are operative and visible in this story. And this helps us immensely to understand Jesus and his work.We see in in the Gospel of Mark that Jesus is known as an exorcist, someone who drives out the demonic. Jesus specifies that his work is in driving out Satan—which is to say, the accuser. The false way of organizing...

The dramatic fight for Soledar, part of the Battle of Bakhmut, is over — although Ukraine's leadership is still reluctant to acknowledge the loss.As a result of a localized offensive operation in January, Russian forces managed to gnaw through Ukrainian defenses and, after fierce urban fighting, seize what's left of the industrial town of 10,000.Although fighting in the area continues, The Kyiv Independent sources, as well as international monitors, all fully agree Ukraine doesn’t control the town.It's the first noticeable Russian success since their forces captured Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk after fierce fighting in June and July.

The heart-pounding incident happened around 11:15 a.m. Sunday when the pilot reported losing engine power while flying a survey assignment from the West Houston Airport, local outlet KTRK reported. The aviator attempted to land the Bonanza 35 single-engine plane on state Highway 99 in Cypress Rosehill. “I’m going to try to bring it in over the road and land with traffic,” the pilot was heard saying in a recorded live air traffic control communication obtained by KHOU11. Department of Public Safety spokesperson Officer Richard Standifer said the pilot reported that he apparently grazed the top of a semi-truck hauling TempurPedic-brand...

How many times have you heard President Joe Biden or Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) berate the Trump tax cuts as “a giveaway to the rich?” Biden and congressional Democrats now want to let expire major planks of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, former President Donald Trump's signature domestic achievement, particularly the incentives for American businesses to invest more here at home. We now have incontrovertible evidence that after five years since they took effect, the Trump tax rate cuts of 2017 raised revenues over this time period. For full disclosure, I should note...

Joe Biden’s special presidential envoy for climate, John Kerry, has just “hailed his fellow attendees at Davos, Switzerland, as ‘extraterrestrials’” for their devotion to saving Mother Earth These extraterrestrials all flew on private jets as part of their effort to change the world. Having failed to control the world through a Great Reset engineered through pandemic fearmongering connected to COVID-19 over the past three years, our cultural and political overlords now have combined self-worship, the fastest-growing religion in the world, with venerating the earth as an excuse to launch another tyrannical crusade. This crusade seeks to heal the spirit of...

A pig appears to have got the ultimate revenge at a Hong Kong slaughterhouse — knocking over and killing a butcher with the cleaver about to be used on him. Police told CNN that the pig had been shot with an electric stun gun at the Sheung Shui Slaughterhouse on Friday when it suddenly woke and pounced on a 61-year-old worker. The swine knocked over his would-be slaughterer — who seemingly dropped his 15-inch meat cleaver onto his own foot. Another worker found the butcher — named by local media as Cai — with the cleaver in his hand and...

Oleg Deripaska has been sanctioned by the U.S. A former top FBI official in New York has been arrested over his ties to a Russian oligarch, law enforcement sources told ABC News Monday. Charles McGonigal, who was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI's New York Field Office, is under arrest over his ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who has been sanctioned by the United States and criminally charged last year with violating those sanctions. McGonigal retired from the FBI in 2018. He was arrested Saturday afternoon after he arrived at JFK Airport following travel...

Fox News Weatherman Adam Klotz had a scary ordeal this weekend after he intervened when some teenagers were hassling an older man on the subway, and the boys then attacked him. According to several video clips Klotz posted on his Instagram account, he was riding the subway home after watching the New York Giants playoff game against the Philadelphia Eagles at a bar in NYC. In the video, Klotz has several visible injuries, including two black eyes, a laceration above one eye, and other bruises on his face. “You should see the other guy,” he joked, and then let out...