Free Republic

On December 6, we celebrate St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, the fourth-century archbishop of Myra in Lycia (on the southern coast of modern-day Turkey). None of his writings is extant, but his examples of Christian generosity, virtue and love endure to this day. St. Nicholas is the living embodiment of the words "faith without works is dead" (James 2:20). He is also the patron and protector of two cathedrals – Brooklyn and Los Angeles – in our Archdiocese. St. Nicholas of Myra, along with St. Patrick of Ireland, has the rare distinction of being one of the only saints in our...

Two Illinois brothers were indicted in a superseding indictment on charges related to a scheme to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private health care insurers and for participating in a money laundering conspiracy with the fraud proceeds. According to court documents, Minhaj Feroz Muhammad, 37, and Sufyan Feroze, 35, both of Naperville, owned and controlled, sometimes through straw owners, four clinical laboratories located in Illinois and California. Their scheme allegedly sought to defraud Medicare, Medicaid and private insurers by submitting fraudulent claims of over $293 million for COVID-19 laboratory testing services that were never provided, for which insurers paid at least...

I absolutely love seeing the left-wingers and corporate media squirm and whine about deportations, I really do. Every little story about how someone who “never did nothing to nobody” that ends with someone here unlawfully makes me smile. “No one is above the law,” Democrats routinely say without irony, which is fighting harder than they fight for anyone other than child genital mutilation to keep gang members, wife beaters and any other kind of illegal alien from being subjected to our laws. They hate you, they hate us, they hate everything and want to see whatever they can’t control be...

The problem with getting a free pass on your responsibilities is that, after a while, you begin to think that you don’t have any. That’s what’s happened to the Democrats. They’ve gotten so used to thinking the rules don’t apply to them because ORANGE MAN BAD that when the rules do get applied to them, it feels like outrageous oppression. Take the “illegal orders” video, a combination of stupidity, narcissism, treachery, and blue falconry rarely equaled even by the low standards of the Dems. The six schmucks who appeared in it have been congratulating themselves on their “courage” for the...

Willie Jordan, 68, of Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, was sentenced to one year in prison, one year of supervised release, $142,991 in restitution, and forfeiture of $142,991 by United States District Judge Harvey Bartle III for two separate fraud schemes. The defendant was charged by information with two counts of wire fraud and pleaded guilty in July of this year. As detailed in court filings and statements made in court, Jordan was a deacon and trustee for Religious Organization #1, located in Philadelphia, Pa. Jordan was responsible for managing and overseeing various financial matters involving Religious Organization #1, including collecting funds...

In Buffalo, New York, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers arrested an illegal immigrant, Saim Irgi, 39, from Turkey, who resisted officers during his apprehension and attempted to grab one of the officers’ tasers, yelling “Allahu Akbar” as he was forcefully removed from his vehicle. Irgi was taken into custody on November 5, after officers were forced to tase him. He has a violent criminal history, including charges of assault in New Jersey and charges for strangulation, assault, and reckless endangerment in Pennsylvania. ICE Buffalo acting Field Office Director Tammy Marich said in a statement: Saim Irgi is a violent...

A new bombshell has dropped in the case of Thomas Matthew Crooks, the individual who attempted to assassinate President Donald Trump at a campaign event in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year. Ever since the shooting, questions have remained about Crooks’ motive and his history. The government has not exactly been forthcoming with information about the would-be assassin. But a New York Post report has revealed details that have been hidden until now. Then-FBI Director Chris Wray told Congress after the July 13, 2024, attack that the bureau had found nothing in Crooks’ online history that pointed to a motive or political...

A mother and son face felony and misdemeanor charges stemming from an investigation into ballot tampering at a West Scranton polling place during the Nov. 4 municipal election. The Lackawanna County district attorney’s office charged Kathie Sico, 67, and Michael Sico, 46, both of Chestnut Street, Dunmore. The probe began after the county Bureau of Elections received a report from a voter who alleged they were handed a ballot with Kathie Sico’s name already written in for judge of election for Scranton Ward 6 Precinct 1. The election bureau referred the complaint about the incident, which occurred at the Jackson...

Ever since the 2016 presidential election, a troubling swath of Americans have developed a not-so-rare condition known as “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Those suffering from the condition often exhibit several symptoms, including paranoia, hysteria, intense hostility toward President Donald Trump, aggression toward his supporters, and a tendency to dye one’s hair purple. It appears that the number of people experiencing this malady has not declined over recent years. Indeed, it has actually increased, according to psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert, who discussed the matter during a recent appearance on Fox News with Harris Faulkner. When asked to identify the condition, Alpert responded, “People...

The state’s core program to close its psychiatric hospitals and shift care to less-restrictive community programs — the centerpiece of its legal obligation to people with severe mental illness — has instead been used for the past decade to do the opposite, a Spotlight PA investigation has found. Created more than 30 years ago, the Community Hospital Integration Project Program, or CHIPP, was designed to get people and dollars out of restrictive and expensive state-run psychiatric hospitals and into more effective, community-based care. The money saved by closing hospital beds would be sent to counties. Former state officials told Spotlight...

I'm old enough to remember when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed. It was 2010, and I had just joined Twitter the previous fall while I was on maternity leave following the birth of my second son. That means I recall exactly how Obamacare's passage unfolded. It was forced on an unwilling American people by the Democrats, who shoved it through Congress without a single Republican vote. Many people, myself included, warned it was a bait-and-switch scheme that wouldn't lower healthcare costs but would usher in single-payer socialized medicine. Now that we're facing another negotiation on Obamacare subsidies, it's time...

Until the time that Barack Obama took office, I had a reasonable amount of faith in the U.S. federal government. I knew that those on the Left in positions of leadership, as well as some on the Right, often concocted narratives for their own ends. The mainstream media decidedly leaned Left, and shaded every story, feature, event, and happening in the U.S. and around the world to their own point of view. Still, it was easy enough to get past what they were claiming. Maybe Some Good Could Result With the ascension of Barack Obama and his subsequent election as...

Thanks to the Schumer Shutdown and the Democratic Party's refusal to pass a clean Continuing Resolution, Americans are starting to feel the pain at America's airports. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is also sounding the alarm on this, saying the delays are due to staff shortages. "Many controllers are not coming to work because they have to find a job that will pay them," Duffy wrote in a post on X. In a scathing press release, the White House blamed Democrats for the delays (emphasis original): Americans are paying the price for Democrats’ sick political games as air travel grinds...

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman noted Saturday night on Fox News Channel’s “My View with Lara Trump,” hosted by the president’s daughter-in-law, that he’ll “get grief” for sitting down with her. Still, he said, having conversations is “really important.” “We can’t ever collectively turn our back to others and people are increasingly forgetting to remember that we really need each other,” Fetterman said. Both Democrats and Republicans are feeling the effects of a federal government shutdown. Fetterman was one of three Democrats to side with a Republican bill that would’ve paid certain federal workers during the shutdown. “I’ve been really consistent...

She’s so bad, and could very likely be Virginia’s next governor, to the horror of any decent American. Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), who spent most of this gubernatorial cycle ducking the press for obvious reasons, has a bold new strategy regarding job creation: not working with the president of the United States, because orange man…bad. When PBS NewsHour asked whether a Spanberger administration in Richmond would work with Trump to create job opportunities, the Virginia liberal said no. There’s some word salad, though she was clear that she felt working with the president of the United States to improve the...

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has signed a disaster declaration over SNAP funding, which is in danger of being cut off on Saturday due to the federal government shutdown. What the declaration does The declaration makes $5 million in state money immediately available to food banks. Shapiro made the announcement at a Friday afternoon news conference in Philadelphia. You can watch his complete remarks in the video player above. "Nearly two million Pennsylvanians rely on SNAP every month — and they shouldn’t have to wonder where their next meal will come from because of the dysfunction in Washington," Shapiro...

A former U.K. Metropolitan Police Detective Constable is speaking out, warning that he was told to drop his investigation into Islamic "grooming gangs" in London or he'd lose everything, including his children. The U.K. has tried very hard to cover up the scandal, with two survivors quitting an inquiry panel over claims Labour Party officials want the investigation to fail. Reports of sexual assaults, grooming, and forced prostitution go back years, with authorities turning a blind eye to the issue — fearing accusations of racism — INSANE 🚨 Jon Wedger the former Metropolitan Police Detective Constable in London, UK exposes...

This isn't something you hear often, but Andrew Cuomo is right. Yesterday, Townhall reported that the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are using the Democratic Party to infiltrate American elections and usher in the socialist takeover of the United States. Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist, is the trial balloon. Radical Leftists have also been taking over the Democratic Party for years; they're likely the reason the Democrats haven't voted to reopen the government. As Scott Jennings noted, the Democratic leadership is afraid of this increasingly violent, radical base. "The truth is, there's a quiet civil war going on in the...

HARRISBURG — How much are state and national groups spending to flood the airwaves, fill mailboxes, and buy up digital ads ahead of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention elections? That’s a harder question to answer than you might think, thanks to a mix of lagging reporting, weakly enforced rules, and a campaign finance system that requires little transparency. Many groups are trying to sway voters through independent expenditures — money spent without coordinating with the candidates’ campaigns. These expenditures are often made by groups that can’t legally give to candidates, including dark money nonprofits that don’t have to disclose their...

SNAP recipients are taking to TikTok and threatening to loot grocery stores if their food stamp payments don’t go through on Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown. “I’ma tell y’all straight up like this, I just got that text that the link is definitely cut the f–k off for November. Y’all better stay the f–k out of my way in these stores because I’m walking out with carts and I’m not paying for s–t,” one angry SNAP recipient fumed on TikTok. Another added: “You know what? Since they wanna take food stamps away, I’m gonna go to f–king Walmart,...