Free Republic

Democrats are leery of supporting Republican spending measures after the White House forced through clawbacks of funding already approved by Congress.With a government funding deadline looming in September, Democrats face the same quandary that dogged them earlier this year: Should they cut a spending deal with an administration that has routinely undermined Congress’s power of the purse, or filibuster their way into a shutdown? Back in March, Democrats agonized for days over whether to supply the votes needed to allow a G.O.P.-written stopgap spending measure to move ahead. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, and nine other...

POSEN, Ill. - A Chicago woman has been charged in connection with a road-rage shooting on I-57 in April. The shooting happened around 2:36 p.m. on April 30 on I-57 near 127th Street, according to Illinois State Police. The victim pulled over at a Mobil Gas Station in Posen and called police before they were taken to a local hospital with serious injuries. State police said they identified 24-year-old Octavia Howleit as a suspect after an "exhaustive" investigation. Howleit was arrested Monday and charged with aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm.

NOGALES, Ariz. (AP) — Inside an armored vehicle, an Army scout uses a joystick to direct a long-range optical scope toward a man perched atop the U.S.-Mexico border wall cutting across the hills of this Arizona frontier community.The man lowers himself toward U.S. soil between coils of concertina wire. Shouts ring out, an alert is sounded and a U.S. Border Patrol SUV races toward the wall — warning enough to send the man scrambling back over it, disappearing into Mexico.The sighting Tuesday was one of only two for the Army infantry unit patrolling this sector of the southern border, where...

The director of national intelligence gave the Justice Department little warning before she demanded an investigation. President Trump made clear this week that Tulsi Gabbard was back in his good graces. A few weeks ago, Mr. Trump excoriated Ms. Gabbard, one of his top intelligence officials, over a video she filmed during a trip to Asia that he saw as self-promotional, and she was left out of some meetings in the lead-up to the U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, according to two people with knowledge of what happened. But on Tuesday...

A previously unreported order by Elon Musk to cut satellite communications over a portion of Ukraine disrupted a counteroffensive by Kyiv in the autumn of 2022. Reuters investigated the billionaire's order and its implications for countries increasingly reliant on his Starlink internet service. KYIV - During a pivotal push by Ukraine to retake territory from Russia in late September 2022, Elon Musk gave an order that disrupted the counteroffensive and dented Kyiv’s trust in Starlink, the satellite internet service the billionaire provided early in the war to help Ukraine’s military maintain battlefield connectivity. According to three people familiar with the...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a split decision Thursday rejected an Oregon administrative rule that barred a woman from becoming a foster parent because she said wouldn’t respect the sexual orientation of an LGBTQ+ child.Jessica Bates, of Vale in Malheur County, had sued the state, alleging its policy violated her rights to free speech and religious freedom. Bates, a widowed mother of five, said on her application to become a foster parent that her religious beliefs prevented her from following a rule requiring her to “respect, accept and support” the sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression...

[Catholic Caucus] The Miracles of the Rosary & Marian Apparitions (Miracles pt. 7)This article is the seventh in a 10-part series that will explore miracles as proof of the truths of Catholic doctrine. In this installment, we consider some of the numerous miracles attributed to the Most Blessed Virgin Mary including those attributed to the Holy Rosary as well as some of her many apparitions on earth.Father John Hardon defines a miracle as follows: “A sensibly perceptible effect, surpassing at least the powers of visible nature, produced by God to witness to some truth or testify to someone’s sanctity.” Along...

@RepThomasMassie During August recess, Speaker Johnson and Leader Thune plan to call the House and Senate into session every four or five days, with practically no one there, for the sole purpose of preventing Trump from making recess appointments. Here was today’s House “pro-forma” session...

Officials with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner on Thursday confirmed that Food Network star Anne Burrell took her own life last month, according to multiple media reports. The beloved 55-year-old celebrity chef, host of the network’s “Worst Cooks in America,” was found on June 17 in her shower, unresponsive with an assortment of approximately 100 pills surrounding her, PEOPLE reported. ... According to the Chief Medical Examiner’s report, her death was caused by “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of diphenhydramine, ethanol, cetirizine, and amphetamine.” Both cetirizine and diphenhydramine are antihistamines. Amphetamines are often used...

Activists on Wednesday called for more protests of a new law that they say weakens Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdogs, following the first major anti-government demonstration in over three years of war. The legislation, which has also drawn rebukes from European Union officials and international rights groups, has put increased pressure on President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and endangered his public support at a critical phase of the war. Also on Wednesday, delegations from Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul for a third round of talks in as many months. The talks appeared to have lasted less than an hour and yielded no breakthroughs....

President Trump told reporters on Friday that Barack Obama owes him “big” for the Supreme Court’s decision that Presidential Immunity applies to the former President after Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard found evidence that Obama fabricatied and led the Russia Collusion hoax to sabotage then-President Elect Trump in 2016. .... Snip.... Trump responded on Friday, signaling that Obama committed crimes, but may be safe. “He’s done criminal acts, there’s no question about it, but he has immunity,” Trump said. “But it doesn’t help the people around him at all.” “He owes me big. Obama owes me big!” the President...

Dating is hard, but blaming all men for your horrible choices is easy. A new New York Times piece, “The Trouble With Wanting Men,” by Jean Garnett, posits that the trouble with wanting men is … men. Like, all of them. It’s part of a genre of man-hating thought pieces that turn hetero love and dating into an all-out gender war — and totally absolve women of any agency or responsibility in their relationships. There’s no accountability or introspection, just the big diagnosis that men are the problem, from a woman who has decided to pursue open relationships, casual sex...

[Catholic Caucus] Detroit archbishop fires renowned conservative professors from Sacred Heart Seminary'The firing of Ralph Martin and Eduardo Echeverria from Sacred Heart Seminary … is an act of a thin-skinned, petty tyrant,' said Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine.Current and former colleagues and students of conservative Professors Ralph Martin and Eduardo Echeverria were shocked and dismayed to learn on Thursday of their firing from Sacred Heart Seminary (SHS) by Detroit’s progressive new prelate, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger.Last month, Weisenburger came under fire for eliminating nearly all public celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) and prohibiting ad orientem in the Novus...

Congressional Democrats are not changing their economic message to appeal to red district voters this summer; they say President Donald Trump and the Republican Party have done that work for them. Armed with talking points highlighting the cuts to health programs, social services and climate efforts in Trump’s domestic policy megabill, progressives this August recess are touring deep red and in-play GOP districts. They’ll be making the same pitch they’ve been touting for months: Republicans want to, and have already, cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of public benefits. “Donald Trump ran for office promising to lower...

While the F-35 is a capable 5th-generation fighter, it is a transitional “stopgap” that is becoming increasingly vulnerable to the evolving threats from China and Russia. To maintain air dominance, the U.S. must rapidly develop the 6th-generation F-47. The F-47 is envisioned not just as a faster, stealthier fighter, but as a “quarterback” for the entire battlespace, orchestrating drones, cyber operations, and other assets.

A group of teenage boys murdered a 15-year-old schoolgirl and left her body in the woods to decompose in a sickening plot to 'earn a ticket to hell.' Elyse Pahler was killed in Templeton, Florida, on July 22, 1995, by her fellow Arroyo Grande High School pupils Royce Casey, Jacob Delashmutt, and Joseph Fiorella. She was stabbed to death as a sacrifice to the devil before her body was hidden in a field. Elyse's death is now the subject of ID's true crime documentary series A Killer Among Friends' latest episode, Devil in the Hallways. The episode lays bare the...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered: Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Endemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe. The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration — 274,224 — was the highest ever recorded. The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both. Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly...

Louisiana is one of 30 states with criminal penalties related to exposing or transmitting HIV. Most of the laws were passed in the 1980s during the emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Since then, several states have amended their laws to make them less punitive or repealed them outright, including Maryland and North Dakota this year. But Louisiana’s law remains among the harshest. The state is one of five that may require people such as Smith to register as a sex offender if convicted, a label that can follow them for over a decade. And state lawmakers considered a bill to...

A Seattle woman has accused the US Navy's Blue Angels of 'terrorizing' her elderly cat before its death, then violating her rights after they blocked her on social media for complaining, according to a new lawsuit. Lauren Ann Lombardi's 14-year-old cat Layla died on August 11 after suffering from congestive heart disease, which the cat mom claims was worsened by noise from the Blue Angels. 'Layla's final days on Earth were marred by sadistic suffering - cowering in terror beneath furniture while her ailing heart struggled against the Blue Angels' relentless noise pollution,' her federal lawsuit said.

Sofia Baig was shocked when she visited San Francisco open houses last month that were so crowded, she was physically bumping into people. There wasn't enough space for the dozens vying for one rental unit. Baig, her husband and newborn have to move to the city by mid-August as their Stanford student housing expired. Their search felt like a flashback to the 2010s, with bidding wars, an inventory desert and applicants writing "love letters" to landlords on their merits with attached resumes. Dark Sky Weather Live Accurate Weather Forecast Ad Dark Sky Weather Live Accurate Weather Forecast appnado.com call to...