Free Republic

A California mayor is defiant after Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law in direct response to the city’s attempt to secure elections. The saga began on March 5, when Huntington Beach voters weighed in and passed ballot measure 1, the Voter ID and Election Rules Amendment. According to Ballotpedia, the charter amendment authorized the city to require voter identification for elections and allowed infrastructure to support the initiative. ... In 2023, then-Mayor Tony Strickland supported the measure in the face of pressure from local and state Democrats seeking to torpedo it. “Our democracy does not work if people do not...

SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Many residents of the Carolinas still lacked running water, cellphone service and electricity Wednesday as rescuers searched for people unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene caused catastrophic damage across the Southeast and killed at least 166 people. President Joe Biden will survey the devastation in the two states as floodwaters receded and revealed more of the death and destruction left in Helene’s path. More than 1.2 million customers still had no power Wednesday in the Carolinas and Georgia, where Helene tore far inland after initial landfall on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Some residents cooked food on charcoal grills...

Sen. JD Vance’s (R-OH) regard for the facts appeared to help him out perform the sugar-coated whimsy of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) during Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate. At least, that is the opinion of those polled immediately after the showdown by CBS News, which hosted the forum. According to the CBS poll as seen by the Hill, 42 percent of debate watchers say Vance, a Yale-trained lawyer, won the debate. Walz trails closely behind with 41 percent of viewers saying he was victorious. About 17 percent said it was a tie.

(Excerpted) As the chief architect of the Biden Administration’s pro-illegal immigration agenda, the secretary is now seething about the blowback his policies have received. When Mayorkas complains about the lack of “progress” on the immigration issue, he is expressing frustration that pushback from the American people has upset his ability to fully implement his destructive agenda. [Mayorkas] genuinely views his critics as national security threats, and as head of DHS has the power to weaponize the powers of the federal government against them. After all, this is the same man who commissioned a “Disinformation Governance Board” meant to censor political...

Monroe County Executive Adam Bello today joined Seventh Judicial District Administrative Judge Bill Taylor and Seventh Judicial District Supervising Judge for City Courts Melissa Barrett to announce the launch of the Eviction Diversion Resource Center (EDRC) at the Rochester Hall of Justice in connection to Rochester Housing Court. This innovative initiative will provide residents facing evictions with direct access to essential financial assistance programs and resources every Monday and Friday. Located on the Mezzanine Floor of the Hall of Justice, the Eviction Diversion Resource Center serves as a support hub, where Monroe County Department of Human Services (DHS) staff will...

U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will on Wednesday see their way clear to visit areas devastated by Hurricane Helene, arriving some 72-hours after former President Donald Trump made the same journey to the stricken zone. Trump journeyed to the disaster area early on Monday, visiting the devastated town of Valdosta in Georgia. The Republican nominee traveled with a Christian charity organization that brought trucks of fuel, food, water and other supplies, as Breitbart News reported. The death toll is now approaching 160 people, and power and cellular service remains unavailable in some places.

Former Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said Monday on CNN’s “The Source” that Vice President Kamala Harris is more conservative than former President Donald Trump on “free trade” and “rule of law.” Host Kaitlan Collins said, “A lot of people who are watching this show and have watched it are familiar with Republicans who come on who say Donald Trump is not fit for office. But I like his policies better than I like Harris’s. I mean, I think the first, maybe most prominent is the former attorney general, Bill Barr, who has certainly argued that. I wonder, what do you...

Contract proposals from the International Longshoremen's Association could "lock America back in the Stone Age for another six years," the CEO of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors warned on Tuesday. Appearing on FOX Business, NAW head Eric Hoplin told Maria Bartiromo the union's push to ban automation at gates and for cranes moving containers and unloading cargo is "unrealistic."... "Look around the globe. ...Rotterdam started moving to automation 30 years ago. We're already three decades behind," he said.... "The fact that the president is not intervening is a mistake," Hoplin continued. "So I've joined 200 other trade association CEOs representing...

A United Nations agency expressed “profound concern” on Monday over the Biden administration’s updated asylum restrictions along the U.S-Mexico border. ...the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) condemned the move in a public statement and called on the White House to reconsider....Matthew Reynolds, UNHCR Representative to the U.S. and the Caribbean, stated. “The regulation severely curtails access to protection for people fleeing conflict, persecution, and violence...Limiting or blocking such access is a violation of international refugee law and the humanitarian principles...” Biden on Monday tweaked the threshold at which the partial asylum ban would be deactivated...deactivating the asylum restrictions...

Roughly 25,000 striking dockworkers at ports along the East and Gulf Coasts of the U.S. are rallying for higher pay and stronger guardrails around their jobs being automated out of existence. Members of the International Longshoremen's Association, or ILA, a union representing the dockworkers, walked off the job Tuesday for the first time in nearly 50 years as they push for "the kind of wages we deserve," ILA President Harold Daggett said in a social media post on Tuesday. Those wages, union officials argue, should factor in the torrid inflation that eroded dockworkers' paychecks under their now lapsed labor contract...

Despite his grandson saying he was 'limited' as he turned 100, Jimmy Carter spent his birthday in the sunshine enjoying a military flyover at his Georgia home. Carter - the first American president to reach the century mark - was able to watch a flyover of four F-18 jets and several vintage planes that graced the skies over Plains, Georgia as part of the town's celebrations. He was also feted at Plains High School, where Carter graduated in 1941 and which now serves as the visitor center for the national park that features sites from his early life, including the...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) acknowledged “there are serious challenges in the world” like the tensions in the Middle East and the port strike, but “many of these challenges are as a result of Donald Trump’s policies and things he set in motion and we need serious people right now to address that.” Host Neil Cavuto asked, [relevant exchange begins around 1:00] “[T]his message coming today about, now you have a port strike going on, you’ve got this turbulence in the Middle East again, that seems to be a constant,...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “OutFront,” CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama adviser David Axelrod stated that 2024 Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) “has had an interesting relationship with China.” And said that he expects Walz’s GOP counterpart, Sen. JD Vance (R-OH), to go after both that and the Biden-Harris administration’s policies on the Middle East during Tuesday’s vice presidential debate. Columnist, CNN Senior Political Commentator, and former Bush official Scott Jennings stated that the Biden-Harris stance towards Iran has been ineffective and they’re trying to get Israel to hold back.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has survived a second non-confidence motion in parliament in as many weeks. The motion, brought by the opposition Conservatives, was aimed at bringing down his minority Liberal government and triggering a federal election. The motion failed after Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre again fell short in his effort to gain the backing of other political parties in parliament. Poilievre tabled this second non-confidence motion the day after his last one failed. This motion accused the government of failing Canadians on affordable housing, the cost of living, and crime - key issues that the Conservatives have been...

Mayor Adams’ corruption indictment involving the government of Turkey seems like weak tea compared to other recent scandals. But it also indicates just how intertwined America’s ruling class has become with foreign governments — and foreign money. ... Adams asserts that the prosecution is payback for his criticism of Biden-Harris immigration policies ... American politics, all the way to the top, is riddled with corruption and foreign cash ... Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) revealed an extravaganza of gold bars and envelopes full of cash (along with a Mercedes and, weirdly, basement carpeting) in exchange for favors ... involving gifts and...

Many Americans who return home after being illegally detained overseas arrive to find they've been billed thousands of dollars by the IRS—including late fees for unpaid taxes. That's the bizarre situation in which hostages Evan Gerskovich, Paul Whelan, and Vladimir Kara-Murza found themselves after they were released from detention in Russia last month. All three men say they faced a battery of surprise financial issues after returning home, including tax charges and hits to the credit stemming from bills they were unable to pay while behind bars. "I got one of those bills from the IRS saying, you owe this...

On Tuesday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Situation Room,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) said that Iran has “been using Hezbollah, one of their proxies, to attack Israel for the better part of the last year” and launched an “unprecedented attack on Israel” today, but “when Donald Trump was President, we had more chaos at home and abroad, and he has no plans to bring stability, either to the Middle East, or throughout the nation, when we’re facing serious challenges here.” After listening to Trump saying that Biden and Harris are absent, Shapiro stated, “Well, first off, Wolf, let’s speak truth, Iran...

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief suggested Monday that Springfield, Ohio, “has blossomed by reason of the infusion of individuals from another country.” Alejandro Mayorkas, the Cuban-born secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, chose not to name the city, nor the resulting blight that many Americans face amid lower wages, higher rents, civic chaos, and minimal support or respect from local politicians. Mayorkas, a careful lawyer, also chose to bury the memory of two Springfielders killed during the claimed blossoming.

Iran warned Israel and the United States against any reaction to its massive missile strike against the Jewish State on Tuesday night. “Should the Zionist regime dare to respond or commit further acts of malevolence, a subsequent and crushing response will ensue,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations wrote in a post on X. Iran’s legal, rational, and legitimate response to the terrorist acts of the Zionist regime—which involved targeting Iranian nationals and interests and infringing upon the national sovereignty of the Islamic Republic of Iran—has been duly carried out. Should the Zionist regime… — I.R.IRAN Mission to UN, NY...

CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour has sparked outrage as she insisted that Iran does not want conflict at the exact moment the nation was raining missiles on Israel. The British-Iranian journalist claimed live on air that the Islamic Republic does not want its conflict with Israel to 'escalate,' and suggested the Jewish state is to blame for Tuesday's attack. 'Nobody, nobody, not the Lebanese nor the Iranians want this to escalate even further. Iran does not want an Israeli or a U.S. war against it. It is unlikely to be able to resist that, it does not want it,' Amanpour told...