Free Republic

In California’s notoriously expensive Bay Area, living out of one’s vehicle has increasing appeal. Recreational vehicle (RV) parks, once the domain of seasonal workers and adventurous retirees, now host local residents with full-time jobs aiming to cut costs — by avoiding high housing costs altogether. These days, RV parks are filling up even more with state residents aiming to save cash. Among them are brothers Stefan and Sebastian Goins, who recently made the leap to RV living after six years of rent hikes in their Pleasantville apartment. They drained their savings to buy a $24,000 32-foot long traveling trailer. But...

Sometimes people just vote with their feet. And a new poll out this week suggests many New Yorkers might be willing to do just that. The Marist poll reveals that one in three New Yorkers are planning to leave the State in the next five years. After the week we’ve just had I suppose you might sympathize with the 7% of respondents who said they want to leave because they’re fed up with the weather. It hasn’t been much fun trying to get around the streets as Mayor Mamdani´s paid volunteers made their unsupervised efforts to push the snow around....

One of the first tasks that a new Mayor has in New York City after taking office is to present a budget. Given that an annual New York City budget is well north of $100 billion, you would think that this is a serious undertaking. But our new Mayor is the 34-year-old play-acting college socialist Zohran Mamdani. How does he handle the task? Mamdani kicked the process of with a press conference at City Hall on January 28. Here is a transcript and video of his remarks. Excerpt: I want to speak directly to New Yorkers, who have for too...

A fire at an oil refinery in Cuba has been brought under control quickly, as the country faces a deepening fuel crisis. Black smoke clouds could be seen billowing from the Ñico López Refinery in the capital Havana on Friday. No-one was injured and an investigation into the blaze has been set up, Cuba's energy ministry said in a post on X. The fire occurred close to where two oil tankers were moored in Havana Bay. Cuba's fuel shortage has worsened after the US blocked Venezuela's oil shipments to the island. Venezuela, a long-standing ally of Cuba, was previously believed...

A set of internal documents published by the Republican members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee (Judiciary GOP) has sent shockwaves through Brussels. Released under the title The EU Censorship Files, Part II, the investigation presents documentary evidence of a sustained strategy by the European Commission to influence public debate on social media and digital platforms, pressuring major tech companies to censor lawful content, alter their internal rules, and restrict certain political viewpoints. https://twitter.com/JudiciaryGOP/status/2018683758006665352 The revelations go far beyond an abstract debate over content moderation. According to the material made public, the Commission has directly or indirectly intervened in at...

Senior officials in Iran have acknowledged that the country has been “thrust into survival mode” amid growing and increasingly violent protests against the Islamic Republic’s regime, the New York Times reported. At least 16 people have been killed during a week of unrest in Iran, rights groups said on Sunday, as protests spread across the country, sparking violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces. Deaths and arrests have been reported throughout the week, both by state media and rights groups, though the figures differ. The protests are the biggest in three years. Some senior figures have struck a softer tone...

A great crisis in 2008, followed by an even greater one in 2020, as an "authoritarian, severe, unyielding" leader from the baby boomer generation resists a historic moment of change afoot in the US. Would you believe this was all predicted almost 25 years ago? In a book championed at the highest levels of the Trump administration, no less? Oh, and it was also written by the guys who invented the term "millennial." It was all prophesied in 1997 in Neil Howe and William Strauss' "The Fourth Turning," and, depending on who you ask, it was either a breakthrough in...

Two of the nearly 100 Minnesota mayors demanding answers about the state’s unfolding fraud crisis described a climate of relentless uncertainty that has left some constituents "scared" about what lies ahead. "My community is reaching out to me because they're not getting answers from DHS, from other legislators, and they're scared. There's so much unknown… and, as a mayor, we are the front line. We try to help them," South St. Paul Mayor Jimmy Francis said on "Fox & Friends" Wednesday. So far, that help has involved putting concerned constituents in contact with county officials to find the answers they...

The 2007 implosion of two Bear Stearns hedge funds that invested in risky mortgage bonds led to the wider crash of the financial system, and as it turns out years later, a fairly sizable and eyebrow raising settlement paid by mega bank JPMorgan to the convicted pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. The hedge funds went belly-up in the summer of 2007, the first public casualty of the smoldering financial crisis that would take down Bear, then Lehman Brothers, and were it not for a government bailout, the entire financial system in 2008. After Bear’s collapse, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon, at the...

Record heat waves, blazing wildfires and oppressive humidity are transforming the world’s tourism industry as holidaymakers struggle to deal with the havoc wrought by climate change. That’s seen a growing number look beyond traditional hotspots like Greece and Portugal in favour of ‘coolcations’ – visiting parts of the world that offer milder climes. Already, nearly half of Virtuoso’s luxury travel advisers say their clients are altering plans due to climate change. Heat waves in Europe saw tourist sites including the Acropolis in Athens and the Eiffel Tower in Paris shut this summer, and the region is tipped to see a...

If Iran is in the news because of its nuclear program, the greatest threat to the country’s well-being isn’t economic sanctions or the Sunni-Shiite schism. Rather, the greatest threat to Iran may be that the country is running out of water. The problem is so severe that social unrest, economic dislocation, even out migration can all be imagined. One government advisor recently predicted that as many as fifty million Iranians—seventy percent of Iran’s population—may be forced to leave because of a lack of water. Water problems are a proxy for bad governance, and Iran has water problems galore. By contrast,...

New York State Attorney General Letitia James quietly circulated a petition Saturday to other Democrats pushing an end to the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza. An early draft of the petition circulated to multiple elected officials and obtained by The Post did not condemn Hamas terrorists for the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. “We are united in this moment by a truth we can no longer ignore: a famine is unfolding in Gaza before the eyes of the world,” according to the draft, which claimed to be on behalf of a “coalition of multiracial, multiethnic, and multifaith elected officials.” “There...

The Adams administration has inked a nearly $1 billion contract with the hotel industry for emergency shelter space — despite boasting that the migrant crisis is tapering off, The Post has learned. Taxpayers are on the hook for the $929.1 million reupped with the Hotel Association of New York City Foundation as the total city population still includes a whopping 86,000 people, including homeless individuals and asylum seekers. “These hotel units will be used by social services vendors to house emergency shelter clients who have entered the [Department of Homeless Services] shelter system,” the agency said in a notice posted...

Former White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel confirmed Wednesday that he is considering a run for president in 2028 on the Democratic ticket, taking advantage of a vacuum in leadership. Crain’s Chicago Business reported: “’Of course’ it’s fair to say he’s considering running for president, declared Rahm Emanuel, hands for the moment neither waving nor pointing but resting on the table. ‘I’m looking at the (Democratic) field and, most importantly, what I have to contribute.’” Emanuel was the architect of Democrats’ victory in the 2006 midterm elections, when they ran socially moderate candidates in swing districts...

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton said Monday on MSNBC’s “Ana Cabrera Reports” that if President Donald Trump attempted to take control of Greenland with military force, it “would provoke an impeachment crisis almost immediately.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump downplayed the likelihood but did not completely rule it out. He said, “I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there, you need that. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people which will take care of and will cherish them and all of that, but...

Former Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday on MSNBC’s “Chris Jansing Reports” that Pope Francis was not “living in some alternative world,” so he understood the climate crisis. Kerry said, “He boldly stood up in front of Congress despite the fact there were some denialists there. He spoke the truth. And the climate crisis presents us, ironically, with one of the great economic opportunities of all time. And I think that, you know, the Holy Father knew that there were jobs there, but also the people who get most affected by the downside of what’s happening are the...

Long Island Rep. Laura Gillen is urging the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to hold an emergency hearing on the nationwide “surge” in deadly traffic accidents — after an unsettling investigation revealed that a serious car crash occurs every seven minutes on Long Island. “The failure to secure our roads has led to thousands of lives being cut short, families being ripped apart, and a terrible void being left in too many communities,” Gillen wrote in her letter compelling the committee to take action. The Democratic lawmaker’s campaign comes after an investigation by Newsday revealed that Long Island drivers get...

The Democrat Party is on an impressive losing streak. The Dems comprehensively lost the 2024 presidential election, they're obsessively focused on being on the 20 side of the 80-20 transgender athletes issue, and then they elected David Hogg as the Democratic National Committee's Vice Chair. Hogg, not known as one of the country's brightest thinkers, is using his newfound importance as vice chair to make media appearances and demonstrate in exact detail why he was a terrific choice to lead the party. If you're a Republican. In a CBS News appearance this week, Hogg said in an interview that his...

Bangkok -- Search teams in Myanmar recovered more bodies from the ruins of buildings on Friday, a week after a massive earthquake killed more than 3,100 people, as the focus turns toward the urgent humanitarian needs in a country already devastated by a continuing civil war. United Nations humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher, who is also the emergency relief coordinator, will visit the area on Friday in an effort to spur action following the March 28 quake. Ahead of the visit, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed to the international community to immediately step up funding for quake victims “to match the...

Sunny Hostin told her co-hosts Friday on ABC’s “The View” that President Donald Trump’s second term was an “existential crisis.” According to Hostin, Democrats need to stop playing by the rules. When asked about politicians skipping town halls, Hostin said, “It’s very un-American, and it’s cowardly. If you are just, you know, stepping in line the way Republicans generally do behind a candidate that is harming the economy, I mean, you need to listen to the people that put you in office. Instead of being so concerned about maintaining power, why not be more concerned with helping people? That’s the...