Free Republic

Ivan F. Boesky, the flamboyant stock trader whose cooperation with the government cracked open one of the largest insider trading scandals in the history of Wall Street, has died at the age of 87. A representative at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, owned by Ivan Boesky’s daughter, confirmed his death. No other details were given.

State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan cleared the courtroom Monday over a dramatic spat with the defense’s first main witness, Robert Costello, causing a period of mayhem at former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial. Mr. Costello, a lawyer who once spoke to Trump lawyer-turned-accuser Michael Cohen, seemed to take exception to one of Judge Merchan’s objection rulings, uttering “Jeez,” and then sighing, “Strike it.” “You don’t say ‘jeez.’ And you don’t say “strike it,’ because I’m the only one who strikes it,” Judge Merchan told Mr. Costello, an experienced attorney and prosecutor. He also told him not to give...

An attorney who once represented Michael Cohen testified Monday that Donald Trump’s fixer-turned-foe had told him the ex-president “knew nothing” about the hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels — moments before irking the judge by rolling his eyes and muttering on the stand. Robert “Bob” Costello, the second witness called by Trump’s lawyers at his Manhattan criminal trial, contradicted previous testimony by Cohen that the real estate mogul was aware of the deal to pay Daniels $130,000 to silence her story about having a tryst with him. “Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about...

A revision to the municipal code made it illegal for groups of four or more people to convene in public spaces for commercial recreational activities without a government stamp of approval.They come in packs. They're often crunchy. They're chameleons: a downward-facing dog one moment, a cobra or child the next. (What versatility!) They do handstands and breathe peacefully. And we can't have any of that. At least, not on public land. By "they," I'm referring to the world of yogis. And by "we," I mean the city of San Diego, which revised its municipal code in March to prevent groups...

D.C. Police Captain Shot 5 Blocks From His Station A Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department captain who oversees the 4th District Station in the nation’s capital was shot in the head while commuting to work on Monday afternoon. The incident occurred as part of an apparent carjacking attempt around 12:10 PM in the area of 7th Street and Oneida Place Northwest, just five blocks from the police station. According to D.C. police Chief Pamela Smith, the officer was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, with the gunshot wound reportedly being superficial. The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department engaged in a...

"There is no nice metaphorical way to deal with the rising wave of fascism," director Ali Abbasi said when asked why he wanted to make the film about the former president's rise to power in 1980s America. "I think it's time to make movies relevant. It's time to make movies political again."One of the most anticipated moments of the 77th Cannes Film Festival finally arrived Monday night with the world premiere of the Donald Trump drama The Apprentice, starring Sebastian Stan as a young version of the real estate mogul in his pre-MAGA days. Only Francis Ford Coppola’s wildly ambitious...

The Kansas City Chiefs kicker was mocked by Pearl Jam's front man at a Vegas show after the pro athlete's Benedictine College's commencement speech went viral last week.Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder and an order of nuns at Benedictine College can be added to the growing list of those denouncing the divisive commencement speech given by Kansas Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker at Benedictine College last week. At a sold-out Las Vegas Pearl Jam concert on Saturday at the MGM Grand, Vedder joined Butker naysayers — including the National Football League — in denouncing the speech where Butker condemned abortion, euthanasia,...

"For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel! "For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me. "Know ye not that they which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize? So run, that ye may obtain. And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown; but...

Commentary by Cam Edwards on NRA elections: I have a passing acquaintance with Bob Barr thanks to my longtime tenure at NRA News. We've had a few conversations over the years at the Annual Meetings, and he's been a guest on Cam & Co in the past, though it's been awhile since he's been on the show. I have nothing against Barr as a person. He's a fascinating conversationalist and a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, but I confess he wasn't my first choice for NRA president this year. [snip] There were a lot of positive signs over the...

President Joe Biden’s latest blunder came on Sunday when he claimed that he was vice president during the pandemic and that former President Barack Obama sent him to Detroit, Michigan, to “help fix it.” Biden’s factually false comment came during a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dinner in Detroit, the Daily Beast reported. “And when I was vice president, things were kinda bad during the pandemic, and what happened was Barack said to me, ‘Go to Detroit and help fix it!’” Biden told attendees, per a viral video from the event. Biden left the vice presidency...

President Trump was back in a Manhattan court on Monday in Alvin Bragg’s Soviet-style ‘hush money’ lawfare trial. The prosecutors earlier Monday rolled out their ‘star witness’ Michael Cohen, a convicted perjurer, to take the witness stand. Cohen shocked the public when he admitted he stole tens of thousands of dollars from Trump and lied to Trump Org. CFO Allen Weisselberg. After the prosecution rested their case, Trump’s defense team called attorney Robert Costello to the witness stand.

Iranian strongman Ebrahim Raisi — aka "the butcher of Tehran" — is dead in a Sunday helicopter crash that his countrymen and women are celebrating, so now would be the perfect time for the New York Times to avoid interviewing the Iranian dissident he tried to have assassinated. Wait, what? Raisi was "elected" president in 2021 after decades of coming up through the bloody ranks of Iran's hardcore Shiite Muslim theocracy. He earned the "butcher" moniker for his part on the 1988 "death committee" that quickly sentenced more than 5,000 dissidents to death — and just as quickly had them...

I apparently accidentally edited my tagline. Been here nearly 25 years and haven't (deliberately) edited that tagline in two decades I have NO recollection of how to DELIBERATELY edit one's tagline. How do you edit your tagline.

GROOM, Texas (KVII) — The couple killed in a shootout with law enforcement on I-40 near Groom was transporting more than $3 million worth of cocaine purchased from a Mexican drug cartel. The Putnam County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee said it began investigating Edward Stevenson, 60, and Elizabeth Stevenson, 51, through undercover drug buys. On Thursday, detectives executed a search warrant at their home in Cookeville, about 90 minutes east of Nashville. They seized 3/4 of a pound of methamphetamine, fentanyl, multiple firearms, body armor and ammunition. At the time of the search, detectives received information that the Stevensons were...

WASHINGTON — Indicted first son Hunter Biden suggested in a new interview that he didn’t introduce his father to an executive from a Ukrainian gas company that was paying Hunter a million-dollar salary — despite testifying to Congress that then-Vice President Joe Biden dined with the very same Burisma Holdings executive. The 54-year-old brazenly backpedaled days after a fresh report that “sugar brother” Kevin Morris, who has bankrolled Hunter since meeting him at a presidential campaign fundraiser in late 2019, is “completely tapped out” after giving or loaning the scandal-plagued Biden at least $4.9 million. President Biden’s son told The...

CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic-run facility in Pennsylvania forced migrant children to live in “deplorable” conditions, according to internal Biden administration emails obtained via a Freedom of Access to Information Act (FOIA) request by the American Accountability Foundation (AAF). On Saturday, April 10, 2021, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Acting Director Tracy Renaud forwarded a message alleging that children in a Pittsburgh-area facility were living in horrific conditions and being refused basic medical care. USCIS operates under the Department of Homeland Security (HHS). “We received the message below from one of our detailees who is working at the...

WASHINGTON – The Biden administration was slammed Monday for offering its sympathies to the Iranian people over the deaths of the oppressive theocracy’s president and foreign minister in a weekend helicopter crash. “The United States expresses its official condolences for the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, and other members of their delegation in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran,” the State Department said in an emailed statement on Monday.\ ...

A Frontier Airlines passenger forced an entire flight to deboard after she refused to comply with exit row instructions. Video of the incident posted to social media shows the unidentified woman visibly angry with airline employees as fellow passengers pleaded with her to get off the plane.

It's almost Pride Month, you guys, so you know what that means: We're about to be smacked in the face with gay for 30 days straight. But don't forget, during those other eleven months of the year, they're still coming after your kids. For instance, here's a scene from a PG-rated Netflix kids' series called Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous, a show I assumed would be okay for my kids to watch, though apparently it wasn't, cuz watch this: A show about dinosaurs running around trying to eat people and they insert a lesbian love scene! That scene comes from Season...

New findings show that a strain of the H5N1 influenza virus has developed only a minimal capacity for airborne transmission. In March, the United States reported its first detection of the highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza in dairy cattle, with outbreaks spreading to nine states by May. The transmission method among cattle remains unclear. However, a study published in Nature Communications revealed that a similar H5N1 strain, subtype clade 2.3.4.4b, which previously caused an outbreak in farmed mink in 2022, was capable of airborne transmission to a small group of ferrets. This is the first time that a member of...