Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed the Laken Riley Act into law, giving federal authorities broader power to deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally who have been accused of crimes. He also announced at the ceremony that his administration planned to send the “worst criminal aliens” to a detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The bipartisan act, the first piece of legislation approved during Trump’s second term, was named for Riley, a 22-year-old Georgia nursing student who was slain last year by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. illegally. “She was a light of warmth and kindness,”...

A lawyer from one of Manhattan’s most prominent law firms will lead the appeal of President Trump’s criminal conviction, according to court papers filed on Wednesday that formally announced the appeal. The participation of the lawyer, Robert Giuffra Jr., a co-chair of Sullivan & Cromwell and one of New York’s better-known appellate lawyers, adds muscle behind Mr. Trump’s long-anticipated attempt to overturn his conviction. He was found guilty last year on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. Mr. Giuffra’s involvement underscores how New York’s legal power players have warmed...

Rus [freeper: The Mayor] is in the hospital

President Trump on Wednesday issued an executive order that prioritizes and frees up federal funding for school choice programs, directing the Secretaries of Education and Labor to "review their respective discretionary grant programs and each submit a plan" within 90 days on how to expand school choice. The executive order also directs the secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to submit a plan to Mr. Trump for how military families can use Defense Department funds to send their kids to the school of their choosing. More broadly, it directs the Department of Education to prioritize school choice programs through its discretionary...

On November 24, at the southeastern frontier of the European Union and NATO, Romanian voters delivered an unexpected victory to a rightwing populist named Călin Georgescu in the opening round of the country’s presidential election. Always considered a longshot, Georgescu had been polling in the single digits just weeks before surging to claim first place with 23 percent of the vote. The result shocked Romania’s two dominant parties, who found themselves on the sidelines as Georgescu campaigned for the runoff against another anti-establishment candidate who came in second place, Elena Lasconi of the reformist Save Romania party.Then, on December 4,...

Rachel Feltman: The public health world is filled with heroes, but it doesn’t exactly produce a ton of celebrities. One notable exception is Anthony Fauci. This physician-scientist and immunologist is best known to most people for his service as chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden from 2021 to 2022. But while his work during the worst of the COVID pandemic made him a household name, Fauci has been a celebrated figure in his field for decades, thanks to his nearly 40-year tenure as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His new book, On Call: A...

President Trump’s favorability rating at the start of his second term is significantly higher than it was when he first took office in January 2017, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday. In the survey, conducted a few days after Trump was sworn into office, 47 percent of registered voters said they had a favorable opinion of Trump, while 45 percent said they had an unfavorable view of him. Another 8 percent said they either had not heard enough or refused to answer. That’s a marked change from the results of a similar survey conducted a few days after...

To defend and burnish Tulsi Gabbard’s image as her political star was rising, her congressional campaign hired a public-affairs firm in 2017 that tried to suppress coverage of an alleged pyramid scheme connected to her Hindu sect, according to interviews, emails and Federal Election Commission records. Gabbard, a former House member who is now President Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, was raised in the Science of Identity Foundation, a sect tied to a direct-marketing firm accused of running a pyramid scheme in several countries. Neither Gabbard, the sect nor the firm, QI Group, wanted the relationships scrutinized. Gabbard’s...

Former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison for trading bribes for political favors. Federal prosecutors levied allegations of bribery, extortion and acting as a foreign agent against Menendez, then-chair of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in fall 2023. Last summer, he became the first public official ever convicted of acting as a foreign agent while in office. A New York jury found the senator and his wife, Nadine, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, gold bars and luxury cars from three New Jersey businessmen. In exchange, Menendez protected the halal meat...

“Grasping at straws” doesn’t even begin to properly define The Washington Post’s latest barking mad line of attack against X owner Elon Musk: Virtue-signaling on his video game ethics. The seriousness of Post technology reporter Drew Harwell’s insane 1,694-word agitprop against Musk to rile up the gamers across the cyberverse could be summed up by his headline: “Does Elon Musk cheat at video games? An investigation.” Yes, he actually called this an “investigation.” The piece just went downhill from there: “The world’s richest man has admitted to paying to boost his online warriors into global leaderboards, raising questions about his...

It’s no surprise that everything is more expensive these days.

We’re only a little over one week into President Trump’s second term, and already the Press Secretary’s office has had to debunk three “fake news hoaxes.” “Debunking Latest Fake News Hoaxes,” reads the press release from The Office of Communications. “President Donald J. Trump has been subjected to more manufactured Fake News hoaxes than any president in history,” the memo explains, “and it hasn’t gotten any better in his second term.” It starts with the biggie: HOAX: Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and media outlets claim President Trump’s directive to pause radical, wasteful government spending means an...

A type of Trema micrantha. (Daniel Pineda Vera/iNaturalist/CC BY 4.0) Scientists have discovered cannabidiol, a compound in cannabis known as CBD, in a common Brazilian plant, opening potential new avenues to produce the increasingly popular substance. The team found CBD in the fruits and flowers of a plant known as Trema micrantha blume, a shrub which grows across much of the South American country and is often considered a weed, molecular biologist Rodrigo Moura Neto of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro told AFP in 2023. CBD, increasingly used by some to treat conditions including epilepsy, chronic pain and...

39:49 VIDEO AT LINK............. Thanks to Ransomnote for the link!...........

Watchdog group to lend Hill Dems a hand on oversight A left-leaning watchdog group is working to gather materials that could feed Congressional investigations into the Trump administration. The nonprofit group American Oversight, which shared its plans first with POLITICO, is preparing for a scenario where Democrats reclaim the majority in either the House or Senate in the 2026 midterms, which will give the party the ability to issue subpoenas, schedule committee hearings and launch agency probes. Dubbed the “Parallel Investigations Initiative,” it will look similar to what American Oversight did during the first Trump administration, when Republicans also enjoyed...

[Catholic Caucus] McElroy’s appointment to Washington is a seriously misguided political moveCatholic America is reeling from the surprise of the new presidency’s political appointments at every level, which are decisively reshaping the political landscape.One of the most unexpected developments has not come from the White House but from the Vatican: the retirement of Cardinal Wilton Gregory as Archbishop of Washington left a vacancy for Rome to fill following his resignation in 2022. This appointment has suddenly acquired political significance that eclipses accompanying pastoral and spiritual considerations.According to the Catholic journal the Pillar, the papal nuncio to the United States, Cardinal...

Report: Tony Dungy in consideration to run for Michigan senate seat Source: http://On3.com Coach Dungy is one of my all time sports heroes. He is always ready to share his testimony as a follower of Jesus Christ. I love and admire him.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) called the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s rescission of its funding freeze memo President Trump’s “first major loss” of his second White House term. “This is Trump’s first major loss. When we fight, we win. We may not have majorities in the House and the Senate, but we DO have the power to loudly educate and mobilize against the mass looting the Trump admin is attempting against our veterans, healthcare, education, and more,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote in a Wednesday post on X, less than an hour after the news about the reversal broke. The Office of...

The Johnstown Flood Museum in downtown Johnstown has been closed indefinitely due to flooding caused by a valve failure on the building's third floor, museum officials said. Water poured through the walls, resulting in damage to the facility. Fortunately, items of historic importance, such as artifacts and archives, were not affected, officials said. The damage primarily involves carpets, drywall, and ceiling tiles, which need to be dried out or replaced.

President Donald Trump has announced plans to open a facility on Guantanamo Bay to house 30,000 illegal migrants. The U.S. military base in Cuba has historically been used to hold terror suspects since 9/11 and detainees include some of the accused masterminds. Trump's move is part of his unprecedented crackdown on the border on illegal migration since the moment he entered office last week. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted raids across the country and deportation flights have left the United States daily. Trump said the facility with 30,000 beds will be used to keep the 'worst of the worst'...