Free Republic

A new report from CNN has revealed that the suspected shooter of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Luigi Mangione, told a Pennsylvania judge during his arraignment on weapons charges that $8,000 in USD and $2,000 in foreign currency was planted on him. While standing before a judge at the Blair County Courthouse in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the judge read the entire criminal complaint against Mangione after he noted that no one had read the complaint to him since he was arrested. While arguing why Mangione should be denied bail, prosecutors stated that police found $8,000 in US cash and $2,000 in foreign...

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...

Vice President Harris is still pumping Democratic donors for cash weeks after her blowout election loss — but its leaving supporters spent, critics said. “With Trump nominating MAGA loyalists left and right, there is nothing more important than making sure we can fight back and hold him accountable,” read an email from Kamala HQ which The Post received nearly three weeks after election day. “That’s why we need you to step up today. Yes, today.” “Our records show that you haven’t pitched in to support our Harris Fight Fund program yet,” the missive scolded. “We know the election didn’t turn...

Vice President Harris is still pumping Democratic donors for cash weeks after her blowout election loss — but its leaving supporters spent, critics said. “With Trump nominating MAGA loyalists left and right, there is nothing more important than making sure we can fight back and hold him accountable,” read an email from Kamala HQ which The Post received nearly three weeks after election day. “That’s why we need you to step up today. Yes, today.” “Our records show that you haven’t pitched in to support our Harris Fight Fund program yet,” the missive scolded. “We know the election didn’t turn...

The Justice Department has ordered the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to suspend most searches of passengers at airports and other mass transit hubs after an independent investigation found DEA task forces weren't documenting searches and weren't properly trained, creating a significant risk of constitutional violations and lawsuits. The deputy attorney general directed the DEA on November 12 to halt what are known as "consensual encounter" searches at airports—unless they're part of an existing investigation into a criminal network—after seeing the draft of a Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) memorandum that outlined a decade's worth of "significant concerns" about...

A driver was struck and killed while getting out of his car to cross a Rhode Island highway where people were seen scrambling to pick up loose cash, according to reports. Kevin Elliot McCourt stopped his car on I-95 in Providence around 5:40 a.m. Wednesday and had already walked across the southbound lanes when he was fatally struck by a Volkswagen SUV on the northbound side, WJAR reported. The deadly accident came as civilians and cops were filmed chasing down dollar bills that were flying around on the same highway, NBC News said. However, police have not yet confirmed if...

Scottsdale police said the three suspects arrested over the last few days came into the country on the Visa Waiver Program.. SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Three people from South America arrested in Scottsdale have been accused of breaking into homes in the East Valley as part of a professional crime ring based in Chile. "These are professionals," Scottsdale Police Chief Jeff Walther said during a news conference Tuesday. "These are Chilean burglary crews that are coming into the country on a Visa Waiver Program." The department used helicopters and drones to search neighborhoods near Pima and Jomax roads after it was...

Cracks in the Democrats’ blue wall are only part of the story as last-minute campaign reallocation of advertising dollars spell out a shift to defense. “I’ve never seen such panic.” Well before early voting began or nominees were even official for the major parties, it remained clear that seven battleground states were pivotal to securing the White House. Now, with a week remaining in the race, reports show Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is pulling money from “TWO key swing states,” to shore up a third as well as a less-considered commonwealth. Daily Signal columnist Tony Kinnett reacted to the...

Vice President Kamala Harris is under fire for accepting campaign contributions — originally sent to President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign before he backed out — from a Chinese auto executive with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Officials with Driving Force Action PAC wrote to Harris on October 11: We are deeply concerned about the reported $50,000 in political contributions your campaign received from Stella Ke Li, a Chinese national and senior executive at BYD, a Chinese electric vehicle company with close ties to the CCP and a company identified as a national security threat on par with Huawei....

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) revealed Monday that the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror organization has hidden $500 million in cash and gold in a bunker underneath the Al-Sahel Hospital in Beirut, Lebanon. “Iran sends suitcases of cash and gold to the Iranian embassy in Beirut, and then directly it goes to Hezbollah,” said IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, detailing Hezbollah’s other economic resources in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Turkey. Hagari also said that Iran sent Hezbollah money earned by selling Iranian oil in Syria. (A recent U.S. government report indicated that after being choked by sanctions under President Donald Trump,...

Company documents indicate BYD Americas president Ke Li is a Chinese national with 'right of abode' in US.. Vice President Kamala Harris's billion-dollar Clean School Bus program provided funding to Chinese EV manufacturer BYD Company's subsidiary in the United States, according to federal filings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. Months later, the subsidiary's top executive, a Chinese national, wired $50,000 in support of what is now Harris's presidential campaign. BYD Americas was selected in late 2022 to receive $395,000 under the administration's Clean School Bus program, which was spearheaded by Harris and EPA administrator Michael Regan, EPA documents show....

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Next week marks one year since Illinois outlawed cash bail, and advocates and critics of the change have been waiting patiently to see it if has been successful — or as some predicted, a disaster. A panel of stakeholders, including Cook County Chief Public Defender Sharone R. Mitchell Jr., spoke Wednesday about the largely positive outcomes of ending cash bail. "There were a lot of predictions about things that did not happen," said Mitchell.

'That's a model based off the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters they can pay for to own the cities, man,' said Trayon White D.C. councilmember Trayon White (YouTube) .... Trayon White, the liberal Washington, D.C., council member who said Jews manipulate the weather in a scheme to "own" American cities, was arrested by the FBI on Sunday for taking part in a $156,000 bribery scheme. ... White, who appeared poised to secure a third term on the council this November prior to the arrest, was detained by federal authorities at his "luxury high-rise apartment building" in D.C.'s...

President Biden would have total control over the millions of dollars raised by his presidential campaign if he chooses to drop out of the race against former President Trump, campaign finance experts told The Hill. **SNIP** The Biden campaign said there was $240 million in the Team Biden-Harris war chest — which include the campaign, Democratic National Committee (DNC) and joint fundraising committees — at the end of June. But neither the campaign nor the DNC responded to questions from The Hill about how much of that total was parked in the president’s campaign versus the national party committee. While...

The campaign previously said the single best hour of fundraising came immediately after Biden's debate against Trump The re-election campaign for President Biden says it has raised a whopping $27 million since his rocky debate performance against former President Trump. From the day of the debate through Friday evening, the Biden-Harris campaign told Fox News that it had raised $27 million. The updated figure comes after the campaign said on Friday that it raised $14 million in "a sign of strength of our grassroots support" on debate day and the morning after. The campaign also noted Friday that 11 p.m....

Senator Jon Tester took more money from lobbyists than any senator last year. Now, the Montana Democrat claims his Republican opponent is captive to private interests. Tester’s new $640,000 television ad campaign claims Tim Sheehy, who secured the Republican Senate nomination Tuesday, is "shady," because he’s "taken hundreds of thousands in lobbyist cash." Lobbyists have donated more than $458,000 to Tester from 2023-2024, besting his Democratic colleague Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), who raised $356,169. No Senate Republican incumbent comes close to Tester, who received more money from lobbyists than former House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.). Tester faces one...

Many Americans do not plan to enjoy a summer vacation in President Joe Biden’s America, a Fox News poll found in May, underscoring the economy as the number one 2024 issue for voters. The Fox News poll found: Of the 55 percent who are not taking a summer vacation, 73 percent do not have enough money to do so. Seventy-two percent said higher prices impact their summer plans. Fifteen percent do not have time and must remain focused on the daily grind. The last time a pollster asked Americans this question, in 2010, of those who were not going on...

Last week, I talked about the best places to keep your short-term cash, including Treasurys and certain certificates of deposit (CDs).Perhaps Warren Buffett is a Wealthy Retirement reader, because his firm, Berkshire Hathaway, is holding more cash in Treasurys than ever before: $189 billion. (As they used to say in the old New York state lottery commercial, “That’s a lot of bread!”)Interestingly, the only time Berkshire’s cash stash has declined since 2016 was in 2022, when the market had an awful year and dropped by more than 19%. That tells us that as the market was falling, Buffett was putting...

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo scored another win in his efforts to unravel the state’s new ethics commission, as part of an ongoing spat over his pandemic-era book deal. A mid-level appellate court upheld a lower court judge’s decision to scrap the Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government, COELIG, which had ordered the ex-gov to fork over proceeds from his pandemic era memoir. “The Legislature, though well-intentioned in its actions, violated the bedrock principles of separation of powers,” the five-judge panel wrote in its unanimous ruling. The former Governor, who stepped down in 2021 amid a wave of sexual harassment...

Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM... HAVANA -- Alejandro Fonseca stood in line for several hours outside a bank in Havana hoping to withdraw Cuban pesos from an ATM, but when it was almost his turn, the cash ran out. He angrily hopped on his electric tricycle and traveled several kilometers to another branch where he finally managed to withdraw some money after wasting the entire morning. “It shouldn’t be so difficult to get the money you earn by working,”... Fonseca is one of an...