Free Republic

California’s State Senate passed a bill last week to give unemployed illegal migrants $300 weekly unemployment checks for up to 20 weeks, despite the fact that the state faces a $32 billion budget deficit. As Breitbart News reported last month: California’s fiscus has fallen in the space of one year from a surplus of $100 billion, partly based on federal cash for coronavirus relief, to a staggering deficit of $32 billion. In his revised budget, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) cautioned legislators to maintain “prudence.” But under SB 227, “excluded” workers who are in the country illegally would be able to...

Russia's defences could be 'more fragile than thought', western officials have warned amid growing signs that Ukraine's counter-offensive has begun. Ukrainian forces have advanced in Novodonetsk by up to five or six kilometres, it has emerged. Officials claim 'fierce battles are going on' for control of the settlement.American and European military officials advising Kyiv have claimed that Kremlin defensive lines may be fragile, an insider told The Economist today. Semyon Pegov, a prominent Kremlin-affiliated 'milblogger', confirmed that Ukraine had 'some success' in an attack in Novoselivka-Ugledar and claimed updates from the Russian-controlled region were 'more and more alarming every hour'....

Robert Hanssen, 79, a former FBI agent who admitted to spying for Moscow, has been found dead in prison. He was discovered unresponsive at a maximum-security facility in Florence, Colorado, on Monday morning.

Transgender youth: 'Forced outing' bills make schools unsafe. TULSA, Okla. -- Al Stone-Gebhardt worked hard in school to make sure he graduates in May, and he spent hundreds of dollars on commencement regalia, but he is fully prepared not to participate in the ceremony. The 17-year-old, who is transgender, said he feared his high school, Tulsa Union, might use his deadname — the name he was given at birth but no longer uses — on his diploma and during the ceremony instead of his legally changed name. He has had teachers call him by his birth name, sometimes inadvertently, and...

Explanation: What's happening at the center of the Trifid Nebula? Three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear near the bottom, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, cataloged as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulas known. The star forming nebula lies about 9,000 light years away toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). The region pictured here spans about 20...

There’s no place like home? Mayor Eric Adams wants regular New Yorkers to literally welcome migrants flooding the Big Apple by revealing his latest idea to potentially put thousands of asylum seekers into private dwellings while paying local homeowners and landlords. “It is my vision to take the next step to this faith-based locales and then move to a private residence” Hizzoner said Monday during a City Hall press conference. “We can take that $4.2 billion — $4.3 [billion] maybe now — that we anticipate we have to spend and we can put it back in the pockets of everyday,...

Former DeSantis Press Secretary Christina Pushaw came directly to the Florida Governor’s office after working in Ukraine on behalf of Volodymyr Zelenskyy. There is a clear commonality of interest in the actions of Pushaw both in Ukraine and in Florida.Once the national DeSantis operation was fully constructed and funded, in August 2022 Pushaw left the governor’s office to assemble and coordinate the previously solicited social media influencers for the 2024 operation.After organizing the operatives, Pushaw is now spearheading a U.S. online influence campaign.In essence, a registered foreign agent is now working on the social media platform Twitter to construct disinformation...

Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) made an apparent threat of kidnapping charges against Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in a tweet on Monday. The California Democrat was likely referring to a recent flight of more than a dozen immigrants to Sacramento who, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said, possessed "documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida." ".@RonDeSantis you small, pathetic man. This isn't Martha's Vineyard. Kidnapping charges? Read the following," Newsom tweeted, providing a link to California's penal code.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was likely never the elite Soviet spy that the world has been led to believe, an investigaton by the German news outlet Der Spiegel has revealed. -snip- according to Der Spiegel's report, the majority of Putin's work was actually limited to "banal" administrative tasks. Citing one of Putin's former colleagues at the KGB's Dresden office, it says his "work consisted primarily of endlessly reviewing applications for West German relatives' visits or searching for potential informants among foreign students at Dresden University." The report says that Putin is rarely mentioned in Stasi — the name of the...

The most comprehensive census yet reveals that there could be twice as many of the invasive animals than previous estimates indicated. Colombia’s invasive hippo population is even larger than researchers had thought, according to the most thorough census of the animals conducted yet. Scientists were already concerned about the hippos — considered the largest invasive animal in the world — threatening native plants and animals in the country, and had been calling for drastic measures to reduce the population. The census results have only heightened that fear. A few years ago, researchers estimated how fast the animals were reproducing, to...

Starts with Chuck Schumer wheeling Diane Feinstein into the Senate, quotes on her "working here" comments indicating (irritated at reporter- either know or don't know- Alzheimer's/Stroke. Alongside was Pelosi's daughter who thinks Newsom will appoint her senator from CA). Three Blind Mice: Biden, Fetterman, Feinstein. NO excuse for a party to keep people in their seats, incompetent and their policy (chinese spies included) only to KEEP power in their hands. Holiday Inn NYC- owned by Golden Seahorse, LLC a CCP company/developer--making full census 190/day rooms paid for by fedgov (93K a day, 2.8 mill plus a month) housing non-working illegal...

These witches of beast-wick must have been wicked hungry. A Canadian nature lover’s attempt to capture wildlife on camera backfired terrifyingly after she inadvertently documented what appeared to be “naked witches eating a carcass” at night right by her house. Social media posts depicting the alleged deer-crunching coven are currently blowing up online, with viewers speculating the nighttime noshers were conducting some sort of satanic ritual. “I don’t know what the heck was up with that,” Corinea Stanhope, 36, told Kennedy News of the spine-tingling sight. “It really freaked us out, it’s not something you see every day.” The Powell...

For reasons that are completely beyond me, newly-minted 2024 presidential candidate Tim Scott decided to go on The View on Monday. As expected, the end result was checkered at best despite Scott doing his best to get his message out as he battled five left-wing hacks being cheered on by an audience of hardcore Democrats. I’ll start with one of the few highlights for the South Carolina senator. In it, he makes some good points about the idea that the United States is systemically racist. Naturally, Sonny Hostin was leading the charge in asserting that for the panel. Was there...

... Normal breasts were reclassified as "abnormal structures of the body caused by congenital defects." As such, in an individual diagnosed with gender dysphoria, who is born with female characteristics and identifies as male, the presence of a female chest is an abnormal body structure caused by gender dysphoria ..." [Sources below at the URL for the Tweets]

For decades, a giant, inflatable rat with beady eyes, sharp teeth and a pustule-covered belly has loomed over union protests, drawing attention to various labor disputes. As New York City deals with an influx of actual rats, Scabby the Rat has become that rare thing, like Pizza Rat or Buddy the Rat — a rodent New Yorkers can rally behind. But in the era of TikTok and influencer culture, middle-aged Scabby faces a new challenge: staying relevant. “It’s kind of unfortunate, changing times, older members of the public know exactly what the rat is for,” said James Smith, union activity...

The Rushingbrook Children's Choir's rendition of the National Anthem in the Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol was interrupted mid-song by the Capitol Police on the grounds that singing this song is considered "an unauthorized protest." Spokesperson for the choir Christina Chapman Heffernan's attempt to present evidence that the performance was authorized in advance by Reps. Russell Fry, Joe Wilson, and William Timmons was brushed aside by Capitol Police Officer Jack Boute who insisted that "some Capitol visitors might consider it offensive. It is our national anthem. Why should foreign visitors be subjected to it? On top of this,...

Simply irresponsible. Biden’s budget that is! Biden signed the debt ceiling bill craftted by McCarthy (RINO-CA) and Schumer (Communist-NY). Its allows for uncontrolled spending and borrowing for at least 2 years. And as Milton Friedman once said “There is nothing more permanent than a temorary Federal program … or debt limitiations. With Biden signaling that government has gone wild with no controls on fiscal responsibility (and Elizabeth Warren flailing her arms and screaming for regulations on cryptocurrencies), cryptos today are getting demolished. China, Japan and the BRICs realize that there are no controls on ANYTHING coming out of Washington DC....

Video Monday shows President Donald Trump’s attorneys arriving for a meeting at the Biden Department of Justice. Following the video release, Trump took to TruthSocial to write that he would soon be charged with crimes and arrested by the Biden DOJ. President Trump’s attorneys were summoned to the Department of Justice for a meeting on Monday. During his attorneys’ meetings, President Trump wrote on TruthSocial “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT...

Florida’s Governor is unfazed by surveys showing him trailing Donald Trump in early 2024 GOP Primary states. Ron DeSantis told Brian Kilmeade he’s only just begun his campaign and that his campaign is in “really good shape” despite being down by double digits in pivotal early states. “I just started running. I mean, a lot of people didn’t know I was going to run or weren’t sure. So I think we’re actually in really good shape in the long run,” DeSantis said. “We’ve got a great plan and I think we’re going to be very strong in Iowa, New Hampshire,...

Kennedy's return to Instagram comes just before he's set to appear with Elon Musk in a Twitter Spaces livestream slated for Monday afternoon Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is back on Instagram more than two years after the platform removed his account for sharing false claims about the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccine. Kennedy, 69, was first banned from Instagram in February 2021, after the platform said it had “removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines," CNN reported at the time. On Sunday, The Washington Post reported that the platform had restored his personal account. “As...