Free Republic

More than 30 workers with the Kentucky Department of Corrections were caught having sex with inmates behind bars during a 16-month period, while others were found smuggling drugs and guns. A shocking investigation by Herald-Leader revealed 59 cases of employee-on-inmate sexual offenses in the past five years, with 35 cases involving possible criminal charges. Most recently, 42-year-old Amanda Kulka was charged with third-degree sodomy earlier this month for allegedly having a sexual relationship with an inmate half her age. The inmate, who has not been identified, was serving a lengthy sentence for burglary, assault and theft, according to the outlet....

Former Republican strategist Tara Setmayer was stunned by new reporting that former President Donald Trump's allies are pushing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for an endorsement of the former president, and that Trump expects McConnell will cave soon. This is in spite of the fact that the two of them have had an icy relationship since the Jan. 6 attack, with McConnell publicly condemning Trump's actions, and the former president repeatedly attacking McConnell and suggesting he would be forced out under Trump's second presidency. "I have to go back to the Mitch McConnell thing for a second," Setmayer told...

Kentucky’s attorney general is investigating a health care company that wired $200,000 to James Biden the same day he wrote a check for that amount to his brother and future president Joe Biden. James Biden worked as a consultant for Americore Holdings LLC, a Florida-based hospital chain that later collapsed. Americore declared bankruptcy in Kentucky in 2022 under federal law amid reports of massive staff departures, poor patient care, and poor equipment at one of the hospitals in the state. It’s not clear whether the probe by the office of Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, extends to members...

In early 2020, Mandi Fugate Sheffel, 42, opened a tiny bookstore in her hometown of Hazard, in eastern Kentucky. Everyone thought she was crazy. Downtown Hazard was a forbidding place to start any business, much less a bookstore. The coal mines that once supported the area had closed over the past few decades. Many brick buildings from Hazard’s heyday were gone, bequeathing a gap-toothed look to Main Street. The rest were empty or occupied by attorneys and bail bondsmen. What’s more, Fugate Sheffel couldn’t afford a website or employees. She had never run a business before. And she had a...

Senate Republicans eager to ram Ukraine funding through the upper chamber are just as eager to dismiss their voters as dimwitted and “shortsighted.” “Our base cannot possibly know what’s at stake at the level that any well-briefed U.S. senator should know about what’s at stake if Putin wins,” said North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, according to Punchbowl News Monday. Senate lawmakers spent the weekend advancing another $61 billion to Kyiv following last week’s embarrassing rejection of a bipartisan compromise bill that threatened to codify the invasion on the southern border. The more than $95 billion foreign spending package headed for...

GOP Senators blocked a hidden migration bailout for the Democrats’ sanctuary cities and states when they voted against the border bill pushed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The GOP revolt leaves Democrat mayors and city politicians scrambling for funds they need to support and hide President Joe Biden’s growing population of poor migrants during the 2024 election year. “It’s a huge problem for the Democrats because the Biden administration was counting on being able to shovel all this money onto the state and local allies,” said Jessica Vaughan, the policy director at the Center for Immigration Studies, adding:

Florida earned its reputation as the retirement capital of the US.. A fixed income in retirement can go a lot further in some states than others .. ... To make the most of your retirement savings, you should retire in a state where the cost of living and tax rates are friendly to retirees, if you have the resources to. You should also consider factors like the quality of the state's healthcare system and the abundance of activities that you enjoy.' Colorado, which ranked second for the best state to retire in 2024, offers similarly taxpayer-friendly conditions, with no estate...

Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is quietly pressuring GOP Senators to promise their support for his border bill before it is released to the public for debate. Multiple media reports say the still-secret bill is largely complete. But its release has been delayed until McConnell can lock in at least 20 of the 49 GOP Senators, perhaps by making minor changes. The draft bill is also being reviewed by the Senate’s Committee on Appropriations because the Biden administration wants roughly $15 billion to operate its migration program in 2024. The money is needed by Democrats to process, transport, feed,...

Sen. Rand Paul sits down with Tucker Carlson on X/Twitter about why he came out as "Never Nikki" in the 2024 election and his book advocating the protection of Dr. Anthony Fauci. SEN. RAND PAUL: It gets to me when I see people who I think care more about the borders of Ukraine than our own Southern border. And I see these people every day because they are the entire Democrat caucus up here, but they are half of my caucus. Half of my Republican caucus is, as we speak, ready to sell out, and they're ready to sell out...

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a Sunday interview he’s not afraid of facing backlash from former President Trump for backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) campaign against the former president. “I’ve got the Trump antibodies,” Massie, a surrogate for DeSantis’s campaign, told “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream when she asked whether he’s worried about the “price” he “might pay” for backing DeSantis over Trump. Massie pointed to his opposition to the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, signed into law under Trump on March 27, 2020, to aid in the pandemic recovery early on. Massie said...

Representative Thomas Massie (R-KY), a surrogate for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), said on this week’s broadcast of “Fox News Sunday” that former President Donald Trump’s multiple indictments would “ripen into convictions.” Massie said, “You know, the main thing I hear from people back home is there mad that nobody’s held accountable in Washington DC. I think we need to hold Trump accountable. snip The lawsuit itself is ridiculous, but the underlying facts aren’t disputed, and I think people are going to kind of recoil from that when all that stuff starts coming out this summer. And the polls that show...

In December, the United States Supreme Court agreed to hear the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. U.S. Food and Drug Administration case, in which restrictions surrounding mifepristone will be considered. Originally, the state of Texas was the only one in the country included in the lawsuit, but a judge has ruled that three more will be allowed to join in as well. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk granted a motion allowing Idaho, Missouri, and Kansas to join as plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The states argued that the case will affect them, particularly as “out-of-state organizations are sending thousands of abortion...

A Kentucky lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow a rape and incest exception to the state’s law protecting preborn children from abortion. Nearly all preborn children have been protected from abortion in the state since August 2022, when Kentucky’s trigger law was allowed to go into effect. Now, Senator David Yates has filed Senate Bill 99, legislation that would allow abortions in the cases of rape and incest, as well as in instances where, according to the Courier-Journal, “maternal health was in question” and the preborn child is diagnosed with a “lethal fetal anomaly or the fetus is...

Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) said Wednesday on CNN’s “News Central” that Republicans anti-trans political ads were an example of “anger politics.” Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You said this PAC is about supporting candidates who push back against the national trend of anger politics and division, and I wonder how you define, anger politics and division.”

@RepThomasMassie The FDA license for the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA shots should be revoked immediately. Evidence shows the licensure approval process was corrupted by politics and corporate lobbying.

Emergency risk protection orders: They are laws that temporarily remove firearms from the possession of a person who may be experiencing a mental health crisis. Supporters of these measures say they help prevent those in crisis from harming themselves or others. What You Need To Know21 states and Washington D.C. have emergency risk protection order lawsThey allow police to temporarily take someone’s firearms if they are in crisis and could potentially harm themselves or othersThese laws are sometimes called red flag lawsKentucky lawmakers plan to file a similar measure during the 2024 legislative session These orders are commonly referred to...

LOUISVILLE (KSP / News Release) – Kentucky State Police (KSP) Post 1 in Mayfield has positively identified remains found nearly 25 years ago thanks to the help of advanced DNA technology. On May 6, 1999, human remains were discovered in Lake Barkley, Lyon County, Kentucky, by two fishermen. The individual was located wrapped in heavy tire chains and anchored with a hydraulic jack. At the time, investigators were unable to identify the male using traditional investigative techniques. In 2016, the body of the victim was exhumed in hopes that further examinations would help make an identification. Despite extensive efforts using...

Joe Scarborough: self-hating Southerner? Scarborough -- originating from the "cracker counties" of the Florida panhandle -- sometimes likes to stress his Southern upbringing, and describe himself as a "simple country lawyer" who attended two southern state universities. But the Morning Joe host has developed an ugly habit of mocking southern Republicans by putting on their supposed accents. We've caught Scarborough doing that twice in the case of House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer of Kentucky, who at least sports an accent. Check out this instance of Scarborough fantasizing Comer saying [at 0:25], of his supposed lack of evidence against Joe...

The World Health Organization has been urgently pushing a new Pandemic Treaty, officially known as the “Zero draft report of the Working Group on Strengthening WHO Preparedness and Response to Health Emergencies to the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly.” A Republican Congressman, Dr. Rich McCormick from Georgia, slammed the need for such a pandemic treaty and specifically referenced the World Health Organization in a much-needed speech on the House floor. Much like other international organizations, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, World Health Organization, is vying to gain more authority through pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response accord,” Rep. McCormick said....

House Republican leadership pulled two bills reforming the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act from the floor, as Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., faced backlash for allowing two bills to be introduced on the surveillance law.Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., a member of the House Rules Committee, confirmed to the Washington Examiner late Monday evening that neither of the bills reforming Section 702 would come to the floor for a vote this week. Republicans have been split on how to extend Section 702 of FISA, so Johnson had intended to introduce both bills Tuesday and have the one with the most votes advance to...