Free Republic

Portland leaders approved a measure Wednesday that could lead to big financial bills for the landlord of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the South Waterfront neighborhood. The measure, passed in a 9-2 vote by the City Council, will create a new fee for private property owners who lease their buildings to be used as detention centers. Its aim, according to proponents, is to recoup costs incurred by city government, residents or businesses because of activities related to such facilities. While not named in the ordinance, the ICE facility near South Macadam Avenue is the only such building...

Fool's Ball, Week Pigskin Pickem Thread, Week 14 Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

The Supreme Court has permitted Texas to keep its newly redistricted, GOP-favorable congressional map in 2026. Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson dissent.

We are shocked! The normally august Audie Cornish didn't go full Scarborough—someone known to drop f-bombs. Still, it was surprising to hear Cornish, the mannerly host of CNN This Morning, utter something out of character today. Mike Dubke, who served as White House Communications Director for three months during the first Trump term, suggested that one thing protecting Pete Hegseth from being fired is the difficulty that would be involved in the confirmation process for a replacement. Responded Cornish: "So, this is not a military term, but you're saying they're SOL. Basically, there's no other options out there." Get the...

Ruh-roh. Sounds like trouble in Democrat Land. Seems Josh Shapiro caught wind of some things Kamala Harris wrote about him in her memoir, things he considers LIES. --SNIP-- Harris wrote that the governor wanted to be “in the room for every decision” if she became president, adding that he often hijacked conversations and frequently needed to be told he wouldn’t have equal power.

Accused DC pipe-bomber Brian Cole Jr.’s face was revealed for the first time since he was busted for allegedly planting explosive devices outside the Republican and Democratic National Committees ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot.

FOUR UNIDENTIFIED MILITARY-STYLE drones breached a no-fly zone and flew towards the flight path of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s plane at sea near Dublin Airport late on Monday night, The Journal has learned. The plane landed, slightly ahead of schedule, just moments before the incident happened at about 11pm. The drones reached the location where Zelenskyy’s plane was expected to be at the exact moment it had been due to pass. The drones then orbited above an Irish Navy vessel that had secretly been deployed in the Irish Sea for the Zelenskyy visit. Sources have said that the drones took...

An Appeals court has ruled that President Donald Trump can continue deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. The Washington D.C. Court of Appeals order is an administrative stay, not a ruling on the merits, according to the Dec. 4 order. “Ordered that the district court’s November 20, 2025 order be administratively stayed pending further order of this court. The purpose of this administrative stay is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the motion for stay pending appeal and should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits of that motion.”

Our entire safety net is designed to catch people at the very bottom, but it sets a trap for anyone trying to climb out. As income rises from $40,000 to $100,000, benefits disappear faster than wages increase. I call this The Valley of Death. Let’s look at the transition for a family in New Jersey: 1. The View from $35,000 (The “Official” Poor) At this income, the family is struggling, but the state provides a floor. They qualify for Medicaid (free healthcare). They receive SNAP (food stamps). They receive heavy childcare subsidies. Their deficits are real, but capped. Every dollar...

After a delayed vote because of the government shutdown, hundreds of nurses at four UnityPoint hospitals in the Des Moines area are voting this weekend on whether to unionize with Teamsters Local 90—an election being closely watched by non-union nurses across Iowa who are also struggling with understaffing and patient violence. The postponed UnityPoint vote among 1,776 health care professionals at Blank Children's Hospital, Iowa Lutheran Hospital, Iowa Methodist Medical Center, and Methodist West Hospital has been rescheduled for Sunday, Dec. 7, through Tuesday, Dec. 9. It's the state's largest private-sector union election ever, according to Teamsters. "I'm excited. I'm...

Ms. Bondi has just stated that the current Administration would like to restore faith in the FBI. She also said the pipe bomber evidence had been gathering dust. Kudos to Cash Patel and Dan Bongino, and the fine forensic work of the FBI! Since it has taken 5 years to solve this case, please post the questions you would like to see answered in your lifetime, here, regarding this case.

President Trump has officially pardoned former Honduran President, Juan Orlando Hernández, who US officials said was at the center of one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world. A White House official not authorized to speak on the record confirmed the pardon was granted and the Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed his release on Monday.

Explanation: An example of violence on a cosmic scale, enormous elliptical galaxy NGC 1316 lies about 75 million light-years away toward Fornax, the southern constellation of the Furnace. Investigating the startling sight, astronomers suspect the giant galaxy of colliding with smaller neighbor NGC 1317 seen just right of the large galaxy's center, producing far flung star streams in loops and shells. Light from their close encounter would have reached Earth some 100 million years ago. In the sharp telescopic image, the central regions of NGC 1316 and NGC 1317 appear separated by over 100,000 light-years. Complex dust lanes visible within...

2025 FORMULA 1 ETIHAD AIRWAYS ABU DHABI GRAND PRIX Live Thread Circuit: Yas Marina Circuit, Yas Island First Grand Prix: 2009, Number of Laps: 58, Circuit Length: 5.281 km, Race Distance: 306.183 km, Lap Record: 1:25.637 Kevin Magnussen (2024)

1989. Joe Biden delivers a televised message from the Democrat party, calling on then President Bush to do more to stop the flow of drugs into the country. In addition to calling for more prisons and more cops, Biden said that Democrats want the creation of a strike force to attack drug dealers before they reach our borders. "Let's go after the drug lords where they live with an international strike force. There must be no safe haven for these narco-terrorists and they must know it." Times have changed a little.

Remember how Democrats shut the government down to squeeze out three more years of Obamacare subsidies for illegal aliens? Well, a fresh report from the Government Accountability Office throws a harsh spotlight on what they were really defending. Investigators set up fake applicants and let the federal marketplace do its thing. The system welcomed them with open arms. Officials approved subsidies for 90% of those phantoms. That’s a hit rate that would make any scam artist proud. GAO agents went undercover and flagged serious “fraud risks” in the advance premium tax credits. Their findings reveal the true prize Democrats fought...

Who exactly are the people responsible for directing air traffic in the sky? We did a deep dive into what these people are posting openly online, and what we found might disturb you.

[Catholic Caucus] Francis-instituted Vatican Commission says NO to Female Diaconate - English Translation of Full ReportAnnounced today -- report by Vatican News (followed by our translation of the full text of letter and report submitted to Pope Leo XIV):Petrocchi Commission says no to female diaconate, though judgment not definitiveA report presenting the results of the Commission’s work has been released. It rules out admitting women to the diaconate understood as a degree of the sacrament of Holy Orders, but says that it is not currently possible “to formulate a definitive judgment, as in the case of priestly ordination.” [Vatican News]***Summary...

Benjamin Netanyahu taunted Zohran Mamdani this week, saying he would return to New York, defying the socialist mayor-elect’s pledge to have him arrested on charges of war crimes. “I’ll come to New York,” Netanyahu told the Dealbook Summit at Lincoln Center on Wednesday via video from Israel. “Yes, of course I will.” Mamdani vowed during the election campaign to impose an International Criminal Court arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister in connection with the war in Gaza. Netanyahu also told the forum he wouldn’t meet with the Democratic mayor unless he accepted Israel’s right to exist. “If [Mamdani] changes...

Imagine drinking so much that you pass out on your couch, only to wake up in the morning and learn that a woman has accused you of sexually assaulting her while you were unconscious, and that an online mob is after you. That was the fate of an Oswego, New York man on October 11, after Olivia Henderson, a 23-year-old DoorDash driver in Oswego, delivered a food order to his residence on East Bridge St. The customer had selected the “leave at door” option in the DoorDash app, but upon arrival at around 11:15 p.m., Henderson claimed to have found...