Free Republic

Efforts to build a bridge where the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, stood until Tuesday are estimated to cost anywhere from $400 million to several billion dollars, according to reports. Punchbowl News reports — citing sources from the Biden administration, Capitol Hill, and Annapolis — that the undertaking to replace the bridge, which collapsed after a cargo ship named Dali crashed into one of its pier foundations, will cost “several billion dollars.”

Around the world today, lots of countries claim to be “democracies”; but then the state thugs use various ploys to assure that no opposition can ever prevail. Among such ploys, the tactic currently in vogue is to gin up some collection of flimsy criminal charges to get the opposition leader and/or his/her supporters arrested or otherwise sidelined. If you haven’t been following the subject closely in recent months, you may not realize how pervasive the use of this tactic has become. Sure, imprisoning the opposition leaders has long been part of the playbook of the worst thugocracies. It’s what you...

The mistakes of the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan wars appear lost on many. Today, we hear stirring calls to arms against Russia from a totally corrupt and dangerous media supporting a rogue American regime. Unfortunately, several establishment Republicans stand in support. Senators Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham are at the forefront of the Republican establishment’s support for confronting Russia. I would include Senators John Cornyn and John Thune in the mix, along with House members like Dan Crenshaw and, certainly, former House member Liz Cheney.Even if the United States were to win such a war on the battlefield, we would...

Gordon Sondland, the former ambassador to the European Union who testified against former President Donald Trump during the Democrats’ first impeachment attempt, has registered as a foreign agent of Ukraine.During the impeachment hearings, Sondland gave contradictory testimony about a White House meeting in exchange for investigations of 2016 election interference and Burisma Holdings, a company tied to the Biden family business.It is unclear what specific work Sondland produces for Ukraine. His registration leaves blank for what “purpose” he works for the embattled county and only notes he works for a “Foreign Principal.” It also does not specify any compensation.

After changing his stance and reversing course multiple times in the past week on how he plans to ensure section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act does not expire at the end of the year, Johnson settled on including a clean short-term extension of the tool until April 19, 2024, in the National Defense Authorization Act, something he said he would not do just days prior,” the report continued. However, the Examiner noted that the most conservative members of the party as well as the centrist Republicans are against that.

Apair of political heavyweights on the right side of the aisle witnessed the ends of longstanding and potentially existential court cases against them on Tuesday, setting the stage for their potential resurgences and renewed scrutiny of allegations against prominent figures. While Texas GOP Attorney General Ken Paxton reached an agreement with prosecutors to drop securities fraud charges after nine years, American Conservative Union head Matt Schlapp saw a former Herschel Walker campaign staffer rescind his claims of sexual battery and defamation and end a civil suit against him. Paxton has been a legal titan for the American right for years,...

Tax documents for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and for a major foundation funded by leftist billionaire George Soros show the organization that purports to represent the U.S. business community has turned hard left in recent years.The Tides Foundation’s public filings from 2018 to 2022 show the Soros-funded organization has given more than $12 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation over that five-year span. In 2018, the Tides Foundation gave the Chamber’s foundation $450,000. In 2019, Tides gave the Chamber group $1,450,000. It gave another $100,000 in 2020, followed by $10 million in 2021 and another $175,885...

A well-funded environmentalist group played a key role in the push to remove dams in the Pacific Northwest’s Klamath River ahead of premature deaths of thousands of salmon. American Rivers — an organization that has received millions of dollars from left-of-center environmentalist grantmaking organizations in recent years — was “the orchestrator of the Klamath dams removal project,” according to Siskiyou News, a local outlet in Northern California. The drawdowns of several reservoirs pursuant to the scheduled removal of four dams in the river preceded the deaths of “hundreds of thousands” of young salmon in the waterway, according to Oregon Public...

How deeply is law enforcement interfering in the daily lives of American citizens? How deeply is law enforcement interfering in the daily lives of American citizens? For example, it was recently reported that the FBI labeled Americans who “support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction as potential domestic terrorists.” Then what? What does the FBI, and those who cooperate with the FBI, do to such Americans? Does the FBI label FBI employees who support biology as potential terrorists? Or, is the FBI saying that no FBI employees support the biological basis for sex and gender distinction? The FBI...

The agenda version is front and center with the widespread media pronouncement that the GOP bid to impeach President Biden has stalled. Wouldn’t you know it — CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Politico and others on the left all reached exactly the same conclusion at the same time. It’s not a coincidence, it’s a conspiracy. They think and act the same way because they’re on the same team. They’re wrong that the probe is dead, but in saying so prematurely, they reveal their goal. From the get-go, they made certain the public would never know the full...

In an effort to excuse Joe Biden's participation in the dubious business activities of his son Hunter, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) attempted to rebut Hunter's former business associate Tony Bobulinski's testimony at a House Oversight Committee by asking him "to name a single crime he witnessed Joe Biden commit." Bobulinski cited "corruption statutes, RICO, conspiracy, and FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) offenses" when he was interrupted by the Congresswoman's assertion that "RICO is not a crime, it is a category of crimes." Jason Galanis, another former business associate of Hunter, recounted "Hunter got his father on the phone during a...

As they vet candidates for a potential third-party presidential ticket, No Labels is reaching out to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. A source in the two-time Republican presidential candidate's political orbit told Fox News on Thursday that the centrist group has made outreach to Christie in recent days. Christie, who ended his 2024 GOP nomination campaign in mid-January, appeared to leave the door open to a possible third party run in an interview with former Obama adviser David Axelrod that was released earlier in the day. Asked on Axelrod's popular podcast if he's considering a third-party presidential bid, Christie...

Miller told DailyMail.com he felt 'threatened' by the January 6 Select Committee Bombshell claims give an look inside the panel's alleged intimidation to stop a direct witness sharing a story that didn't 'fit their narrative' Said panel wanted him to stay silent about Trump authorizing the National Guard Donald Trump's former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller claims the January 6 committee threatened to 'make his life hell' if he kept claiming his former boss authorized National Guard deployment during the Capitol riot. In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com, the former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center said he became 'fearful'...

The Justice Department took the rare step earlier this month of moving to dismiss a $3.3 billion civil fraud lawsuit against Dish Network — months after founder Charlie Ergen and his wife donated more than $113,000 to President Biden’s re-election campaign late last year. Ergen, a former professional poker player who helped launch what was then called EchoStar Communications in 1980, has battled the federal fraud claim for nearly a decade. But the Tennessee native saw his luck change shortly after he and spouse Candy contributed $100,000 to Biden’s super PAC and maxed out with matching $6,600 donations to the...

DEVELOPING STORY: The massive spending bill presented by House Republican leaders is filled with millions of dollars in funding for LGBT organizations — including $845,000 for gay garden parties.Envision: You in Colorado, an organization focused on LGBTQ individuals, will received $845,000 of your tax dollars to host gay-themed garden parties and art shows.

Members on the leftist state Supreme Court in Washington have ruled that the bar exam for prospective lawyers is racist, so candidates can do something else to qualify, like do an apprenticeship or an internship. Fox News said the court decided the traditional test "disproportionately and unnecessarily blocks marginalized groups from entering the practice of law." Further, they said, it is "at best minimally effective for ensuring competent lawyers."

New York Democratic Attorney General Letitia James took her first step toward seizing the assets of former President Donald Trump as part of the more than $450 million civil fraud judgment he faces. James' office filed judgments in Westchester County, which indicates that the state is getting ready to try to seize Seven Springs, Trump's golf course and private estate, CNN reported Thursday. The judgments were entered with the Westchester County Clerk's Office on March 6, one week after Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay the major fraud fine and well before Trump's deadline to satisfy the judgment. The...

Immigration judges dismissed deportation cases against some 200,000 migrants under President Biden because the Department of Homeland Security failed to file the required paperwork before their court dates, according to a new report. The DHS’s failure to file thousands of notices to appear before scheduled hearing dates left courts without jurisdiction to handle deportation cases and rule on asylum claims, according to a report released Wednesday by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. “These large numbers of dismissals and what then happens raise serious concerns,” the TRAC report, which includes data through February 2024, states. The nonpartisan research...

Policy violations that ordinarily would lead to firings instead resulted in promotions for officers responsible for protecting top congressional leadership. Corruption is endemic at the highest levels of the United States Capitol Police, especially among the special agents and officers who serve in the department’s dignitary protection detail, a Blaze Media investigation has found. Internal discipline reports show a pattern of officers failing upward. Proven instances of fraud, forgery, theft, perjury, and drunk driving on duty going back to the late 1990s led to promotions rather than dismissals and prosecutions, discipline reports obtained by Blaze Media show. High-ranking USCP officials,...

President Joe Biden has issued a new environmental federal regulation to begin phasing out gas-powered cars, requiring American automakers to produce Electric Vehicles (EVs) as part of his sweeping green energy agenda. On Wednesday, Biden announced the rule to require that a majority of new cars sold in the U.S. market are EVs or hybrids by 2032, the New York Times details: Nearly three years in the making, the new tailpipe pollution limits from the Environmental Protection Agency would transform the American automobile market. A record 1.2 million electric vehicles rolled off dealers’ lots last year, but they made up...