Free Republic

Former national security adviser John Bolton on Friday said former President Trump’s response to the most recent charges in the classified documents case show that “he thinks he can do whatever he wants.”

@DarrenJBeattie What the hell did DeSantis mean that Trump should have "leaned in more" on Jan 6?

"For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. "The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified of all her children." "And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death." Luke, Chapter 7 1 Now when he had ended all his sayings in the audience of the people, he entered into Capernaum. 2...

One way to “defund the police” is by not hiring officers – a strategy supported by many in Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s camp. The problem is, failing to hire more officers is backfiring. It leads to higher costs, some of which are very hard to count but easy to see. To date Chicago has spent $126 million on police overtime in 2023, according to a WTTW analysis of city records. This is ahead of last year, when the city spent a record $210 million on police overtime. The bump is because police strength is down by more than 1,700 since...

Carlos Pena's livelihood has been crippled. It remains to be seen if he'll have any right to compensation.It took Carlos Pena decades to build his local business after immigrating to North Hollywood, California, from El Salvador. It only took a few hours to destroy it. While Pena is the one who created NoHo Printing & Graphics, where he fashioned commercial signs and banners, T-shirts, headshots, and other products, he is not the one who did the damage, despite the fact that he has been left with the bill and without a livelihood. In early August of last year, after...

The state of Illinois reached a new contract agreement with members of the AFSCME union that will cost taxpayers an additional $620 million over four years. Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Tuesday announced the agreement with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The state's previous contract with the union expired at the end of June. The $620 million in additional costs amounts to a raise of nearly 18% during that time. About $200 million of that would be during the current fiscal year. “Illinois is a pro-worker state, and when it comes to workers’ rights, my administration is...

@RandPaul This directly contradicts everything he said in committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it’s absolutely a lie. That’s why I sent an official criminal referral to the DOJ.

The nation's top health official implored states to do more to keep lower-income residents enrolled in Medicaid, as the Biden administration released figures Friday confirming that many who had health coverage during the coronavirus pandemic are now losing it. Though a decline in Medicaid coverage was expected, health officials are raising concerns about the large numbers of people being dropped from the rolls for failing to return forms or follow procedures. In 18 states that began a post-pandemic review of their Medicaid rolls in April, health coverage was continued for about 1 million recipients and terminated for 715,000. Of those...

Toshihiro Mutsuda was only 5 years old when he last saw his father, who was drafted by Japan's Imperial Army in 1943 and killed in action. For him, his father was a bespectacled man in an old family photo standing by a signed good-luck flag that he carried to war. On Saturday, when the flag was returned to him from a U.S. war museum where it had been on display for 29 years, Mutsuda, now 83, said: “It's a miracle." The flag, known as “Yosegaki Hinomaru,” or Good Luck Flag, carries the soldier's name, Shigeyoshi Mutsuda, and the signatures of...

Here’s hoping you have a very unhappy holiday! Ukraine is so eager to spite Russia, it passed a law changing when it celebrates Christmas. The country will now mark the holy day on Dec. 25, dropping the Russian Orthodox Church’s tradition of celebrating the holiday on Jan. 7. The bill’s sponsors believe the change will help Ukraine “abandon the Russian heritage of imposing the celebration of Christmas on January 7,” while helping Ukrainians “live their own life with new traditions [and] holidays,” The Guardian reported. The change was passed by Ukraine’s parliament earlier this month and signed into law Friday...

Chicago Public Schools has a school utilization problem. Over 34% are less than half full, 57% are underutilized, and 5% are overcrowded. Just 35% are at ideal capacity. The Chicago Teachers Union is preventing solutions. About 322,000 Chicago Public Schools students are set to return Aug. 21, with more than 1 in 3 students entering buildings less than half full. Nearly empty school buildings eat resources that should go towards students’ educations. Those educations are lacking when just 14% of CPS 3rd through 8th grade students from low-income families met proficiency standards in reading and 9% in math. School capacity...

Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop is filled with contracts and agreements between him and foreign business partners that could shine new light on his business dealings, and potentially implicate his father, insiders around the first son told The Post. Hundreds of documents are littered among the tens of thousands of emails contained on the laptop — but the files were not downloaded onto the device, and investigators cannot open most of them. During his father’s vice presidency and after, Hunter Biden and his family made millions of dollars from foreign sources trading on the family name, according to whistleblowers and bank...

Shayla Tapp was in the shower at her Roxboro home when she heard the knocking on her door. “I am in the shower,” she said she shouted. “I said it like three times.” Tapp, 36, grabbed a towel and was drying off as she stepped over the tub and out of the bathroom. Next she saw her backdoor fly off the hinges as about six police officers with guns drawn raced toward her shouting and cursing. “Shut the f — up,” the officers yelled, Tapp said. “Get the f — down.” Officers had been at Tapp’s house earlier that day...

A New York mother has shared how she receives $84,000 of taxpayer cash a year towards her son's private education. Melissa Petro's five-year-old son Oscar has ADHD, generalized anxiety, and a condition called pathological demand avoidance, which is defined by the Child Mind Institute as going to 'extremes to ignore or resist anything they perceive as a demand.' His challenging behavior resulted in expulsion from his Hudson Valley public school two years ago. Melissa and her husband scrambled to keep their son in education, turning to Otto Specht, a local Waldorf school, whose tuition fees, as well as the added...

A Florida woman was arrested after biting the top of another woman's ear off during a fight over vape pens and alcohol on July 4th, according to the Bay County Sheriff’s Office. Deputies responded to an assault and battery call at a home in Callaway, a suburb of Panama City, just after midnight. An investigation revealed the incident had occurred at a house party next door at 6526 Olokee Street that was thrown by unsupervised minors. When a fight kicked off between several men at the house party, 23-year-old Macy Regan attempted to leave and walk to her home next...

A transgender murderer who killed both her babies and stuffed one of their bodies into a Tupperware container is to receive tax payer funded breast implants. Jessica Marie Hann, born Jason Michael Hann, was sentenced to death in 2014 for murdering her 10 week old daughter Montana and her two month old son Jason in 2001 and 1999. Hann was convicted over the killing of the two children after authorities discovered their decomposed bodies in storage units in Arkansas and Arizona. ***Hann was originally held on death row at San Quentin following his trial but was transferred to Central California...

An explosion that set a homeless encampment in Seattle ablaze on July 21 was due to explosive devices, according to law enforcement. The devices that were detonated at the scene may have a connection to a fight for control over who is in charge of the drug trade among the homeless population in the area, KOMO reported Wednesday. The blaze the erupted July 21 was initially reported as a brush fire that was seen burning up numerous trees at the site near Interstate 5 and a hospital. Video footage shows the blazing inferno consuming everything in its path: The cause...

Police are searching for multiple suspects after five people were shot outside of a Safeway grocery store Friday night at around 9:00 p.m. in gun-controlled Washington. KIRO 7 reported that two of the shooting victims were in critical condition. Seattle police chief Adrian Diaz said, “Dozens and dozens [of rounds] were fired.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has charged a Plant City minor with animal cruelty after seeing the worst kind of clout-chasing video circulating on social media. The video, recorded last Thursday in a Plant City Hardee's parking lot, shows a group of teens handling a juvenile alligator roughly. One uses the gator's teeth to puncture a can of Arizona Twisted Tea, then shotgun the alcoholic beverage with the young reptile still clamped to the aluminum can. “The lack of respect and responsibility shown toward this animal was disappointing to see. … This serves as a strong reminder of...

When you buy a car, a piece of furniture, or a pleasure boat, you typically don’t ask the seller, “Is the manufacturer accredited?” We buy all kinds of things, even houses, despite no third party assessing the quality or integrity of the good or service being sold. Why do we behave differently with higher education? Informal higher-ed assessments abound. U.S. News, Forbes, Washington Monthly, the Wall Street Journal, and others assess the quality and reputation of colleges, and those judgments are eagerly read by the public. (I know, as one who formerly directed one of those rankings.) The federal government...