Free Republic

Three members of a California family pleaded guilty Monday to conspiracy for their role in a ring that shipped $600 million worth of stolen catalytic converters from California to New Jersey, federal prosecutors said. Brothers Tou Sue Vang, 32, and Andrew Vang, 28, along with their mother, Monica Moua, 58, were part of “a national network of thieves, dealers, and processors” who provided the stolen auto anti-smog devices to a metal refinery for more than $600 million, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney's office. Twenty-one people from California and New Jersey have been charged in the case, prosecutors...

President Biden is in a dead heat with former President Donald Trump in Michigan and holds narrow leads over his GOP rival in Minnesota and Colorado in a hypothetical 2024 rematch, according to a poll on Monday that focuses on key battlegrounds. *** This is particularly true in Colorado, where Mr. Biden has a 4-percentage-point lead over Mr Trump despite having won by a much larger margin in 2020. *** The emerging 2024 race is tight, with 44% of Michigan voters supporting Mr. Biden, 43% supporting Mr. Trump, 8% supporting someone else and 5% undecided.Mr. Kimball said the majority of...

He was fast and then furious. A man caught speeding down a Georgia freeway was bewildered when cops slapped him with a $1.4 million ticket last month. Connor Cato was driving home through Savannah on Sept. 2 when Georgia State Patrol caught him going 90 in a 55-mile-per-hour zone, he admitted to WSAV-TV. While he expected a hefty fine, Cato was astounded when he was handed the seven-figure charge. He called the court assuming the fee was a typo but was reportedly told he either had to pay the sum or appear in court. “‘$1.4 million,’ the lady told me...

Explaining the passing of a beloved family pet to one's children is an arduous task, fraught with emotional challenges. For Suzanne and Dillon White, this experience took an unexpected turn, making it all the more unique. The couple tirelessly scoured their Minnesota home, meticulously searching every nook and cranny, desperately seeking their senior cat named Kitty. The search persisted until the early hours of the morning, only for them to resume their efforts at 6 a.m. However, their endeavors proved fruitless, leaving them with the somber realization that it was time to disclose the unfortunate truth to their three children....

VIDEO AT LINK.................. Oct. 17 (UPI) -- The Carolina Reaper is no longer the hottest chili pepper in the world, after the same grower unveiled Pepper X. Carolina Reapers average 1.64 million Scoville Heat Units, while Pepper X rates an average 2,693,000 SHU, a team at South Carolina's Winthrop University determined. Jalapeño peppers typically come in at 3,000 to 8,000 SHU. Guinness World Records announced Pepper X is now officially the world's hottest chili pepper. Ed Currie, founder of Puckerbutt Pepper Company and creator of the Carolina Reaper pepper, unveiled Pepper X on popular YouTube channel First We Feast. He...

Ukraine has used U.S.-made cluster-bomb-tipped rockets from the ATACMS system for the first time, it is claimed, with the weapon said to have taken out nine Russian helicopters while they were still on the ground. Ukraine claims to have taken out nine helicopters and associated support equipment on the ground in a series of coordinated strikes against Russian-occupied airfields overnight. Per a statement from the Ukrainian government the strikes in the early hours of Tuesday morning were against airfields in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine including Berdiansk and Luhansk and as well as the nine military helicopters Ukraine says ammunition stores...

Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce and Rory McIlroy are part of a group which has invested €200 million ($210,970m) in the Alpine Formula One team. In June this year the Renault Group confirmed it had sold a 24% stake in the Alpine grand prix team to a consortium of investors made up of Orto Capital, RedBird Capital Partners and Maximum Efforts Investments -- which included Wrexham FC owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny.

SEATTLE, October 17, 2023--(BUSINESS WIRE)--(NASDAQ: RDFN) — A homebuyer must earn $114,627 to afford the median-priced U.S. home, up 15% ($15,285) from a year ago and up more than 50% since the start of the pandemic, according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. That’s the highest annual income necessary to afford a home on record.

A resurgence of citizen activism is making waves on Capitol Hill. Conservatives across the United States are rallying behind Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as he vies for the position of Speaker of the House. Breitbart News reported that conservatives are “melting” phone lines with calls to GOP members of Congress, urging them to put an end to internal divisions and unite behind Jordan. “I haven’t seen anything like this in years,” one top House GOP aide told Breitbart News. “They are literally melting the phone lines. Some offices’ numbers are permanently busy. Thousands and thousands of people are calling their...

Tried to comment on Breitbart this morning and received a notification that I've been banned on all sites by Disqus. Anyone else have this problem?

Former President Donald Trump slammed California’s new “sanctuary law” for “gender-confused children,” which allows kids to go to the Golden State and undergo transgender-related medical procedures against their parents’ wishes.Trump, who is running for reelection in 2024, promised that “those involved in such activity will be charged with a host of federal laws, including laws against kidnapping, sex trafficking, child abuse, and the deprivation of civil rights.”Watch Below:President Trump SLAMS new California ‘sanctuary law’ for gender confused children. “State law will override their parents rights and allow the children to have barbaric and irreversible sex change operations against the wishes...

Feminist Phyllis Chesler, who broke with the left two decades ago over its tolerance for antisemitism and Palestinian terror, has written a scathing indictment of fellow feminists who have been silent in the face of documented rapes by Hamas in its Oct. 7 attack. Hamas launched a massive assault on Israeli towns near Gaza, killing more than 1,400, wounding more than 4,100, and taking roughly 200 people hostage. In addition, there were widespread reports of rape and sexual assault against Israeli women. Reuters noted on Oct. 14: Around 90% of the military dead have been identified and teams are half...

A bombshell report was released this year evidencing a scandal that ranks among the worst in its evil: the euthanization of patients for the sake of profit. It made enough of a splash to spur new industry protocols but apparently not enough to stop the entrenched practice of hastening the death of hospice patients. The November 2022 report, written by Ava Kofman for ProPublica, shows how hospice conditions create what seems to be an irresistible — and ultimately lethal — opportunity for corruption: The industry rakes in massive funds from Medicare, which delivers a flat daily cash benefit, but hospice...

Total Revenue from all sources for the US Government is down $437 Billion to $930 Billion from prior fiscal year ending September 30, 2022.(The Treasury Report contradicts itself on the first page as to the amount of prior year revenue, giving both $4.9 Trillion and $4.1 Trillion total revenue in 2022.) Total Revenue for the USA for the fiscal year ending September 2023 was $3.97 Trillion based upon the recently released financial statements by the US Treasury. Of that amount $1.48 Trillion was Social Security and Medicare taxes that are Trust Fund Taxes and not part of the General Fund....

House Session - October 17, 2023

On this date in 1817, Maggie Houghtaling (alias Peggy Densmore) was hanged in Hudson, N.Y. for infanticide. Houghtaling lived with the mother of 15-month-old Lewis Spencer. One awful day in August — just eight weeks before the consequent execution — the mother popped out of the house a few moments and left Lewis gnawing on a piece of bread under her roommate’s care. When the mother returned, she found the child “apparently in convulsions, its tongue protruded from the mouth, and covered with erosions — the inside of the mouth corrugated, and all the shocking symptons which may be supposed...

Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis has burned up $11.1 million of the $11.2 million he raised across July, August, and September, with no progress in the polls to show for it and donors increasingly reluctant to throw good money after bad.New filings show a campaign running out of firepower, with almost $6 million spent in July, with a precipitous drop to $3.8 million in August, followed by a crash to $1.3 million in September.They also show DeSantis’s campaign operation, which once boasted by far the biggest staff in the GOP race, is still being slashed, with 90 people on the...

Special Counsel Jack Smith is still hiding the names of his prosecutors in violation of federal Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) law.The Jack Smith Special Counsel refuses to release the names of his team members. Why is that? We know they are most certainly ALL Democrats. We know they lack integrity and honor.

Last month I attended a meeting of the Virginia Grain Producer’s Association to learn more about how the vast majority of grain is produced. I had the pleasure of being accompanied by three other CGA members, and, inevitably, the topic of scale came up. The VGPA farmers think in thousands of acres; CGA producers may be working with 100 or less. One of the challenges of building up a regional food system of any sort is balancing supply with demand. So the calculators came out and numbers were crunched, and it made me realize I don’t have a good handle...

One of Facebook’s corporate media “fact checkers” has falsely suggested that no Israeli civilians were harmed when Hamas launched a terror attack at a music festival earlier this month. On October 7, Hamas terrorists used paragliders to fly into a music festival in Israel, slaughtering hundreds of innocent concertgoers, mostly young people and families. The terrorists also raped, injured, and kidnapped many more, as Slay News reported. Eyewitnesses recalled horrific scenes of terrorists murdering innocent people as they ran for their lives, in some cases, pulling them from their vehicles as they fled and shooting them at point-blank range. The...