Free Republic

At the beginning of Monday’s Chicago City Council meeting, residents addressed Mayor Brandon Johnson about the city’s spending on non-citizen migrants, tax increase proposals and more.

A manhunt is underway in Manhattan after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot Wednesday morning, according to multiple local news outlets. Brian Thompson, 50, was reportedly shot in the chest near the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue just before 7 a.m. Thompson was transported to Mount Sinai West in critical condition, but was later pronounced dead, the New York Times reported. It has not been confirmed that Thompson was staying in the New York Hilton, but he is visiting New York City from Minnesota for an investor conference, which was scheduled for today. The New York Police Department is...

While Biden announces $1 billion for African nations, Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina are still struggling after the catastrophic storm. Biden received vicious criticism following his announcement. “We need humanitarian aid for Americans displaced from their homes in Western NC!!” X user Kelly McCarty said.

As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven't been appointed to key positions. ABC News spoke to more than a half dozen longtime and new African American conservatives and Republicans within Trumpworld, in and outside of Washington. Last month, the president-elect appointed Scott Turner, who was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump's first term, to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ...

Democrats flip final House seat of the 2024 elections, narrowing Republicans' majority Democrat Adam Gray has flipped California’s 13th District, handing Republicans a slimmer majority in the House.

San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie will have to tackle the city’s nearly $1 billion budget deficit when he takes office on January 8, and he may be forced to cut staff and services to overcome a shortfall of the city’s own creation. San Francisco imposed draconian lockdown policies during the coronavirus pandemic, while also adopting lax policing policies that allowed crime and homelessness to skyrocket. Many of the city’s residents — including tech employees, now able to work from home — moved elsewhere. As a result, San Francisco has recovered from the pandemic more slowly than any other major city...

We're sure you'll learn to love the new Outlook for Windows app [not] Microsoft is preparing to kill off the old Windows Mail, Calendar, and People apps by the end of this month and shift users to the Outlook for Windows app.In November, Microsoft confirmed there would be no reprieve for the apps. It will be possible to export local emails, calendar events, and contacts that users have stored in Mail, Calendar, and People into the new Outlook up until December 31, 2024. After that, however, the ability to send or receive mail will be revoked."The new Outlook for Windows...

An NBC News hit piece accusing Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, of habitually coming to work at “Fox and Friends Weekend” hung over and smelling of alcohol has been refuted by over a dozen Fox News personalities and guests who have worked with him, including his two cohosts. The NBC story, which is based on ten anonymous sources, claims that Hegseth’s drinking “concerned” his colleagues at Fox News. “Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend,’ which began in 2017, they...

The arguments are expected to start at 10 p.m. EST. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments against a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. The arguments are expected to start at 10 p.m. EST. You can watch live here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6qhn5MQWn0

Summary: This is, of course, a discussion of the email that Pete's mom sent to him during his divorce (2018) chastising.She says that the email was sent in haste when she was upset about Pete's divorce and shortly after sending it she apologized for the email and expressed her regret for sending it.She fully supports Pete and thanks President Trump for considering him for the SecDef post.

VIDEOThe pain! The pain! Oh, the unbearable PAIN!!! Yes, PAIN is what one of the extreme TDS hosts of Morning Joe, Jonathan Lemire, was experiencing right after asking a question to the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte which was obviously meant to elicit a critical Trump slamming answer. What Lemire got from Rutte instead caused him PAIN so severe that it is probably still reverberating inside his tortured TDS soul.

Coca-Cola is scaling back its packaging sustainability goals, igniting outrage from environmental activists. The beverage company, which has long been criticized for being one of the world’s top producer of plastic pollutants, changed its “voluntary environmental goals” this week. It now aims to use 35% to 40% recycled material in its packaging by 2035 — a drastic reduction from its previous goal of 50% by 2030. Coca-Cola explained in a press release that its “evolution is informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress and identified challenges.” Coke is also changing its recycling goal....

The second election of Donald Trump, along with Republican victories in both houses of Congress, sets the stage in the United States for a confrontation between democracy, which depends on representative institutions to form a government, and the rule of unelected elites, which relies on claims of expertise to control the state. Already, internal opposition to Trump is organizing within the federal agencies. CNN reports that Pentagon officials are discussing disobeying official policy. Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has declared that he would refuse if Trump asked for his resignation. Some would like to see a reprise of the orchestrated...

The federal judge who oversaw Hunter Biden’s tax case blasted President Joe Biden for trying to “rewrite history” in his justification for pardoning his son. District Judge Mark Scarsi wrote in a five-page order Tuesday that some of the “representations contained” in the president’s Sunday statement announcing the pardon “stand in tension with the case record.” Scarsi specifically took issue with Biden’s rationale that his son’s tax problems were all caused by his struggle with alcohol and drug addiction. “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States … but...

CABERNET FRANC DAY On December 4th, Cabernet Franc Day celebrates this exquisite wine. Also known as Cab Franc Day, this is a day to learn more about this kind of wine. Cabernet Franc is often referred to as the father of another popular wine, Cabernet Sauvignon. This is because Cabernet Franc and Sauvignon Blanc forged together to make Cabernet Sauvignon. Cabernet Franc is usually used as a blending grape in Bordeaux. This black grape is usually blended with Merlot, Petit Verdot, and Malbec. However, lovers of this grape want people to know Cab Franc is so much more than a...

PHILADELPHIA, Saturday, Dec. 3. The following is a special dispatch to the Evening Telegraph: WASHINGTON, Saturday, Dec. 3 -- P.M. The Government has received information that Gen. SHERMAN had captured Millen, on the Georgia Central Railroad, on the 29th ult. His army was concentrated, and it is thought has moved to Savannah before this. By the arrival of the steamship Fulton, we have intelligence from Port Royal to the 30th ult. We learn that the publication of newspapers at that place has been, for the present, prohibited, and that all citizens had been enrolled, and are now used for the...

WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s pick to run the Drug Enforcement Administration withdrew and his selection for defense secretary faced growing skepticism from some GOP senators, marking the latest challenges to the president-elect’s efforts to staff his second term’s top positions. On Tuesday, the DEA pick, Chad Chronister, a Florida county sheriff, said that the “gravity of this very important responsibility set in” and that he concluded he should pull his name. He had come under attack from conservatives for a 2020 arrest of a pastor who defied Covid-19 restrictions and held a large church service. Meanwhile, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to run...

The CEO of UnitedHealth was fatally shot in the chest Wednesday morning outside the Hilton hotel in Midtown in what police say was a targeted attack. Brian Thompson, 50, was at the hotel at around 6:46 a.m. arriving early for a conference when a masked man allegedly waiting for him fired at the CEO repeatedly and fled eastbound off of 6th Avenue, police sources told The Post. Thomas was rushed to the Mt Sinai Hospital in critical condition, where he was later pronounced dead, police said.

A German military helicopter was fired upon by a Russian ship in the Baltic Sea, the latest escalation in tensions between Moscow and the West, a report in German media states. A Bundeswehr (Federal German armed forces) helicopter was shot at by a Russian ship in the Baltic Sea with a signalling flare, the German Press Agency (DPA) has said. When this event is alleged to have taken place has not been made clear, but Deutsche Welle states the Russian ship responsible for the dangerous act was a “tanker”. A signal flare launcher is generally a gun in the conventional...

If you’ve never heard the word “impoundment” before, you will – often – next year. And for good reason. Because this battle will determine whether government spending can ever be brought under control. Last year, President-elect Donald Trump said that “For 200 years under our system of government, it was undisputed that the president had the constitutional power to stop unnecessary spending through what is known as impoundment.” Since he’s been elected, he’s given every indication that he intends to reclaim this power. Indeed, the success of his “Department of Government Efficiency” run by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy depends...