Free Republic

Monday, Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) warned Russian President Vladimir Putin to consider how many “body bags” he is willing to accept if he were to invade Ukraine. Menendez said on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that the Ukrainian people would “do whatever is necessary to defend” their country. He added an insurgency from Ukraine would “send a lot of Russia’s sons back to Russia in a body bag.”

GOP politicians talk a big game about fiscal conservatism and balancing the budget—especially with a $29.8-trillion-and-counting national debt and runaway inflation. But which elected Republicans actually practice what they preach? To find out, we looked at SpendingTracker.org’s rankings for how much spending each Senate Republican voted for during the previous session of Congress. (Data for the ongoing session is, by nature, incomplete). We looked at the data for all the spending they voted for, not just bills that ultimately were passed, because SpendingTracker says this gives a “fuller picture of intentions versus results.” Here are the 10 most fiscally-conservative Republicans...

Colin Flaherty died Tuesday January 11th, with family at his side, in the house in which he grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. He was 66 years old and suffered from cancer. Probably best known for his books, White Girl Bleed a Lot and Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry, he was a very successful podcaster, live-streamer, and author. Colin’s books on the color of crime were praised by a number of blacks, including Thomas Sowell and Allen West. Larry Elder interviewed him, most recently on March 15, 2021. The Huffington Post, of course, called his reporting “race-baiting,” and Heidi Beirich...

White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci and his wife at the end of 2020 had more than $10.4 million in investments according to financial disclosures published by Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.). Director of the National Institutes of Health, Fauci is the highest-paid federal employee, having earned $434,312 in 2020, according to Forbes. The multi-million dollar investments were in various Charles Schwab accounts, shown in Fauci's 178-page financial disclosure. "Dr. Fauci lied to the American people. He is more concerned with being a media star and posing for the cover of magazines than he is being honest with the...

President Joe Biden removed from a commission that monitors Holocaust sites a Trump appointee with ties to white supremacists. In a letter obtained by a reporter for Politico, the White House asked Darren Beattie on January 14 to resign from the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad by the end of the day or be removed.

The seditious conspiracy charges brought by the Justice Department on Thursday against the leader of the Oath Keepers and other members of the right-wing group signal the government is prepared to take on an ambitious fight to show that they joined the Jan. 6, 2021, attack as part of a coordinated effort to deny President Biden the White House. The indictment contains the first sedition charges that have been brought following the riot and mark a significant escalation in prosecutors’ efforts by drawing a connection between the physical acts of mayhem that day and the broader effort by former President...

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday promised that he would be staging a “comeback,” his clearest indication yet that he plans to run for the White House in 2024. He said it would be a “comeback the likes of which nobody has ever seen.” He made the pledge at his first rally speech of the 2022 election season. He also blasted “tyrannical” vaccine mandates, runaway inflation and a national crime wave in a brick-by-brick takedown of President Biden’s first years in office. In the nearly two-hour speech in Florence, Arizona, he piled on top of the mounting defeats for Mr....

Households are facing at least a £3,000 ($4,000) spending squeeze in 2022 as soaring energy bills send inflation through the roof. Economists expect inflation to hit a 30-year high in what has been dubbed ‘Awful April’, forcing the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR) to re-evaluate its already gloomy forecast less than a month after making it. Chancellor Rishi Sunak is under increasing pressure from many in his own party to step up and ease the swelling crisis. Experts predict basic household spending will be £2,440 ($3,300) higher than at the start of the pandemic. But on top of...

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Two days after the presidential election on Nov. 2, 2020, the Oath Keepers were already convinced that victory had been stolen from President Donald Trump and members of the far-right militia group were making plans to march on the U.S. Capitol. “We aren’t getting through this without a civil war,” the group’s leader, Stewart Rhodes, wrote fellow members, according to court documents. “Too late for that. Prepare your mind. body. spirit.” Five days after the election, when The Associated Press and other news outlets declared Democrat Joe Biden the winner, the documents say Rhodes told Oath...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Sunday would not say if he plans to file to run for U.S. Senate by next month’s deadline, days after reports surfaced that GOP heavyweights are urging him to mount a bid. Asked by moderator Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” if he is going to run for U.S. Senate, Hogan refused to answer directly, instead asserting that he is focused on combating COVID-19 and the current omicron wave in the Old Line State. “Feb. 22 is like a month away and right now we're just focused on the day job as governor...

The family of a young woman gunned down at a Manhattan Burger King demanded justice Saturday as they thanked supporters at a makeshift memorial. Kristal Bayron-Nieves, 19, was killed during a robbery while working the night shift last week. Her mother, Kristie Nieves, 36, clutched a big teddy bear handed to her by a supporter. She came to the crime scene, walking distance from the family’s home, with a sister, brother-in-law and cousins. She began speaking to reporters and well-wishers but did not get far. “Thank you everyone and everyone who supported me including my family” she said, growing increasingly...

Rep. Ruben Gallego isn’t mincing words about Jan. 6, 2021, rioters at the Capitol, saying in a new “Daily Show” interview: “F--- them.” “When it comes to insurrectionists? F--- them. I don’t give a f---,” the Arizona Democrat said in a clip airing Thursday on the Comedy Central show. Gallego’s comments were featured as part of a segment of “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse” on the anniversary of the deadly riot at the Capitol, when a mob of supporters of then-President Trump stormed the building as Congress met to certify President Biden’s Electoral College win. “Look, I was scared for...

A Miami rapper known as Wavy Navy Pooh was shot to death Friday evening as he was ambushed while in a car driving in West Kendall, multiple law-enforcement sources told the Miami Herald. The rapper, whose real name is Shandler Beaubien, 28, was gunned down while in a car at Southwest 152nd Street and 127th Avenue, near Zoo Miami. While Miami-Dade police had not officially confirmed his identity, his death was already buzzing on social media on Friday night. Beaubien was suspected of being involved in a series of shootings in North Miami-Dade over the past year — and police...

The woman who led the Government unit tasked with drawing up Covid-19 restrictions was thrown a “boozy” leaving party during the Christmas lockdown, it can be disclosed. “Dozens” of officials from Cabinet Office’s Covid-19 taskforce attended the event on Dec 17 2020, to mark the departure of Kate Josephs, the director-general at the time, The Telegraph has been told. The revelation comes after No 10 was forced to issue an apology to the Queen on Friday, after this newspaper revealed that two parties were held in Downing Street the night before the Duke of Edinburgh’s funeral. Confirming that an apology...

Chinese officials are banning spectators from cheering during the upcoming games in a bid to stop the spread of COVID-19. The elaborate precautions are even tighter than the ones enforced during the summer’s Tokyo Games, as Beijing has maintained a “Zero COVID” policy since early in the pandemic. Everyone — including the athletes — is asked to clap instead of shouting, cheering, or singing. Athletes must be vaccinated — or face a 21-day quarantine — take tests daily and wear masks when not competing or training.

The National Weather Service issued a tsunami advisory Saturday morning for Alaska, Hawaii and the West Coast following the eruption of an (underwater volcano) near Tonga.According to the weather service, “Tsunami advisories mean that a tsunami capable of producing strong currents or waves dangerous to persons in or very near the water is expected or is already occurring. Areas in the advisory should not expect widespread inundation. Tsunamis are a series of waves dangerous many hours after initial arrival time. The first wave may not be the largest.”

Defenders of Ray Epps contend he has not been arrested because he didn't break the law during the Capitol riot, but a woman caught on video standing next to him is facing up to a year in prison for being in a "restricted area" — something Epps was also filmed doing. Raechel Genco was seen on video standing just feet away from Epps on Jan. 6 as he whispered into the ear of her boyfriend, Ryan Samsel, who promptly led a mob that stormed a police barricade. But unlike Samsel, the 38-year-old Pennsylvania woman simply stood by. And unlike Epps,...

He’s male. He’s Scandinavian. He’s considered by some as “too masculine” and “too aggressive.” And now, he might be getting canned. No, I don’t mean me. I’m talking about Victor E. Viking, who has been the mascot at Western Washington University in Bellingham for 99 years. According to a report from June of 2021, WWU’s Legacy Review Taskforce is “concerned about the harm caused by asking all members of the Western community to identify with a figure that is potentially exclusive on the basis of both ethnicity and gender.” Already, in December, the task force convinced the university’s Board of...

More than 40 years after Al Gore started sounding the alarm that global warming threatened the planet and human existence, the former vice president is still preaching the perils of climate change. Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth made him a wealthy man and he won an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, even though his predictions have not panned out.

A new study finds bald eagle population is dropping due to them contracting lead poisoning The birds eat organs left behind by hunters, which contain gunshot ammunition Experts say other animals are feasting on the remains and are being poisoned Bald eagles may have recovered from near extinction, but the birds are now at risk of another threat - lead poisoning. ...