Free Republic

Gov. Kathy Hochul reportedly authorized payment of nearly $2 million in taxpayer money for outside ghostwriters to help draft her State of the State speeches. Most of the money was paid to Deloitte Consulting and the Boston Consulting Group to help the state’s first female governor shape her vision, according to the New York Times. Hochul’s office shelled out $871,000 on three outside firms to help prepare this year’s speech – with Boston Consulting Group racking up the largest amount of $838,000 for what it listed in records as “SOS support.” Representatives for three of Hochul’s predecessors — fellow Democrats...

Jane Seymour saw a "white light" during a near-death experience. The actress, 72, famed for playing Bond girl Solitaire in 1973's Live and Let Die alongside Roger Moore as 007, said she could have been killed when she contracted bronchitis while filming a movie and went into anaphylactic shock due to wrongly administered antibiotics. She told The Times about her vision during her brush with death, when she was asked if she believes in an afterlife: "I have no idea. I do know that I left my body [after the near-lethal antibiotics]". "I did see the white light and I...

Explanation: What's that red ring in the sky? Lightning. The most commonly seen type of lightning involves flashes of bright white light between clouds. Over the past 50 years, though, other types of upper-atmospheric lightning have been confirmed, including red sprites and blue jets. Less well known and harder to photograph is a different type of upper atmospheric lightning known as ELVES. ELVES are thought to be created when an electromagnetic pulse shoots upward from charged clouds and impacts the ionosphere, causing nitrogen molecules to glow. The red ELVES ring pictured had a radius of about 350 km and was...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is pushing a tough-on-crime agenda ahead of an expected presidential bid with his support for two bills in the state legislature, including one that would challenge the U.S. Supreme Court. DeSantis is backing a bill that would authorize the death penalty for child rapists. Under the legislation, a jury - by a vote of at least 8-4 - can recommend a death sentence for sexual battery on a child under age 12. 'We are authorizing the death penalty for child rapists,' DeSantis said Monday morning during an interview with an Orlando radio state. 'My view is...

Donald Trump's campaign team has dismissed the finding of a poll that suggests Florida Governor Ron DeSantis would be the preferred 2024 Republican candidate against Joe Biden in key swing states. A survey from GOP firm Public Opinion Strategies shows that DeSantis, who has not confirmed he is running for president but is expected to do so soon, would beat Biden in Arizona and Pennsylvania in a hypothetical 2024 face-off by 48 to 42 percent and 45 percent to 42 percent respectively. The poll of 500 registered voters in Arizona and Pennsylvania also showed that Trump would lose to Biden...

On a Wednesday in April 2020, Gigi Hadid dispatched an Instagram story detailing her recipe for spicy vodka sauce for two. It was a few weeks into the lockdowns, and all over the country, boules of sourdough quivered, forgotten as they sat proofing on countertops, their creators’ attention turned elsewhere. To a place where acerbic met sweet, where cheesy met creamy, where all of that met al dente, and where, best of all, it happened in less time than it took to stream an episode of Tiger King. Americans watched with bated breath as Hadid added one half cup of...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday threatened to build a state prison next to Walt Disney World as payback for the company's attempt to circumvent the authority of his oversight board. The Republican governor ramped up his war against the Magic Kingdom by declaring the state legislature, controlled by his party, will void Disney's legal maneuvering that effectively stripped his new oversight board of authority over the company. And he promised more crackdowns to come next week as he rains down war on theme park giant in order to keep Mickey, Minnie and company from living happily ever after. DeSantis...

Former President Donald Trump said Friday if he is elected president in 2024, he will liberate Americans from the regulatory onslaught of the Biden administration."Cutting wasteful and job-killing regulations was a key part of my America-First economic agenda that built the greatest economy in the history of the world," Trump said in his latest "Agenda 47" campaign policies video posted to social media, including on his Truth Social account."As I work to quickly save America from Joe Biden's economic disaster — and that's what it is: one of the great economic disasters of all time — I will restore my...

A massive mob ransacked a Los Angeles gas station and stole thousands of dollars worth of alcohol, condoms and snacks during an illegal street takeover - as cops said they were unable to intervene due to being outnumbered. Footage from Sunday around 2am showed a group stopping traffic in the Compton intersection of Alondra Boulevard and Central Avenue to drift their cars before charging toward a nearby Arco. Deputies said they couldn't intervene as a mob of about 100 people broke the windows of a mini-mart and wiped it clean because they were outnumbered. Those involved appeared to be mostly...

Voter ID requirement From 4 May 2023, voters in England will need to show photo ID to vote at polling stations in some elections. This will apply to: Local elections Police and Crime Commissioner elections UK parliamentary by-elections Recall petitions From October 2023 it will also apply to UK General elections. If you don't have accepted photo ID, you can apply for a free voter ID document, which is known as a Voter Authority Certificate. Find out more about accepted forms of photo ID, how to apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate, and what to expect on polling day.

Bonus song - I found the lyrics on the Internet, and I couldn't resist.

Golden State Warriors fan and Bay Area hip-hop legend E-40 was kicked out of Saturday night's playoff game between the Warriors and Kings in Sacramento, California, and he said "racial bias" led to his dismissal. Videos show the rapper, who was born Earl Stevens, talking to security at Golden 1 Center before leaving his courtside seats. The rapper issued a statement telling his side of the events, explaining that after being "subjected to disrespectful heckling" throughout the game, in the fourth quarter he "turned around and addressed one heckler in an assertive but polite manner."

This date was Easter Sunday in 1457, which would make it the date associated with one of the more memorable displays of theatrical brutality by Wallachian proto-vampire Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler. Having only just ascended the less-than-secure throne of Wallachia, a frontier principality pinched between the Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, the 25-ish prince and onetime Ottoman hostage had a bone-chilling inauguration plan to shore up his security both internal and external. He threw a big party in Targoviste for the nobles of the realm … and had a little surprise waiting for them. It wasn’t...

CHICAGO, IL — After Walmart announced plans to close 4 store locations in dangerous Chicago neighborhoods, Chicago Mayor-Elect Brandon Johnson issued a dire warning that this will leave many Chicagoans with fewer places to shoplift. "Citizens of this great city have the fundamental right to steal merchandise in their own communities without resorting to traveling to other neighborhoods," said Johnson at a local protest against the store closings. "If our youths don't have a safe place to work, shop, shoplift, loot, fight, do drugs, terrorize citizens, and smash windows, they may participate in riskier shoplifting, looting, and drug-consuming in affluent...

A shocking video captured a mob of California youth breaking into a gas station convenience store and then stealing what police say was thousands of dollars of products. The incident happened early Sunday morning in Compton, California, after a large group of people blocked an intersection as part of a street takeover, with video footage capturing cars drifting in circles and screeching around 2:30 a.m., according to KLTA. "It's unbelievable. Unreal. I've never seen anything like that happen here," Greg Johnson, a Compton resident and customer of the Arco Station that was looted, told ABC7 in reaction to the ransacking....

@TheInsiderPaper JUST IN - John Fetterman returns to Senate for the first time since mid-February, refuses to take questions

Children’s toy store Build-a-Bear is selling RuPaul-themed drag queen teddies in a supposedly adults-only section of its website dubbed the ‘Bear Cave’. The RuPaul Bear Gift Set features a teddy wearing a blonde wig, the garish lipstick and eyeshadow synonymous with the drag scene, with a gold sequin dress and heels. Drag queens have become a key battleground in the Western culture wars in recent years, as leftist activists increasingly insist that it is vital to expose children to often highly-sexualised drag performances from the cradle to college, in venues including schools and public libraries. RuPaul Charles, 62, is perhaps...

The extremist wing of the Republican Party is in a frenzy over allegations against Stop the Steal organizer Ali Alexander. Alexander has been locked in a feud with far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos for months. The longstanding rift between the two escalated during the now-defunct presidential campaign of Kanye West. Both have made serious allegations against the other, which each has denied. Yiannopoulos recently published new screenshots of messages alleging inappropriate behavior by Alexander, which he has been doing for weeks. Now, far-right figures are backing away from Alexander over it, and one of his key allies, Nick Fuentes, said he’s...

Chicago's outgoing mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has decided to give us one last gem before she leaves the public spotlight (hopefully, for good). After the violence in Chicago over the weekend, a reporter asked Lightfoot to comment on the riots that took place in the city. Here's the thing, a vast majority of the young people that came downtown came downtown because it was great weather and an opportunity to enjoy the city. That's absolutely entirely appropriate. There are a few that came with different intentions and they have and they will be dealt with. But I'm not going to use...

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Monday panned Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) proposal to extend the nation’s debt ceiling until May of 2024 as a “terrible idea,” making it clear to everyone in Washington that Democrats don’t want to debate the issue again before the next election. McCarthy formally unveiled his proposal to lift the debt ceiling for one year in exchange for a cap on non-defense discretionary spending and other reforms in a speech Monday to the New York Stock Exchange.