Free Republic

Politician says his family member’s mafia ties allowed him to walk free. APennsylvania Democrat made a chilling confession during a Wednesday city council meeting that may invite a criminal investigation. The Erie City Council held its bi-monthly meeting earlier this week, during which council members addressed the recent death of Marchello Woodard, a man who was fatally shot. 'You know, Nick, I could blow your head off.' During the meeting, council President Mel Witherspoon (D) explained why he had not attended the man's funeral or the rally held in his honor, claiming that the events "brought some things back to...

Republican Congressman Ryan Mackenzie (PA-07) is leaving his Democrat challengers in the dust as he builds momentum heading into the 2026 election. Mackenzie has already out-raised the entire Democratic field combined, a clear sign that grassroots donors and conservative backers are rallying behind his America First, pro-growth agenda that mirrors President Donald Trump's. While Democrats scramble to find a viable contender, Mackenzie is strengthening his war chest and proving himself to be the one to beat in this key battleground district. In the second quarter, Mackenzie raised an impressive $800,000, ending the period with nearly $1.2 million in campaign cash,...

As more businesses go cashless, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) wants to make it illegal to refuse legal tender. Fetterman, along with Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), introduced the Payment Choice Act on Thursday. It would require businesses to accept cash without “It’s simple,” Fetterman said, “if you’re open for business in America, you should take U.S. dollar.” Under the proposed legislation, businesses must either accept cash or provide a device that converts cash to a prepaid card so long as it does not charge a fee. Businesses could refuse payments made with $50 bills or larger. Failure to comply would come...

2024, prices jumped 800% at PJM Interconnection, a “traffic controller” part of the grid that provides service in 13 states as well as D.C. .. PJM operates the largest power grid in the U.S., with around 67 million customers—that’s more than 20% of the American population. ... amid a dwindling supply and an increase in demand, “Prices for power plants landed at $269.92 per megawatt-day, compared to $28.92 per megawatt-day” in 2023. ... prices are set to spike again, and the projection for this year is around 20%. If you live in Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey,...

---snip--- A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement that federal agents from Homeland Security Investigations and the Internal Revenue Service, along with Enforcement and Removal Operations Officers, “conducted a federal court-authorized search” of the store. The spokesperson said agents took 14 people without legal status into ICE custody pending removal proceedings. Denisse Agurto, executive director of Unides Para Servir Norristown, said 17 people were detained in the raid, and as many as 23 were taken into custody.

GOP U.S. Rep. Scott Perry raised nearly $900,000 in the latest campaign fundraising period, while Democratic frontrunner Janelle Stelson raised over $500,000 since jumping into the 2026 race on Monday. Both campaigns released statements touting their second-quarter fundraising totals in what could shape up to be a rematch of the 2024 10th Congressional District general election that Perry won by about 5,100 votes. Patriots for Perry announced that Perry’s $885,000 haul in April, May and June was the most he has ever raised in a non-election year. Perry has $1.2 million in available cash. Perry spent nearly $239,000 in the...

Today is the first anniversary of the shooting of the Republican presidential candidate while on stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. Once it became clear that the hit had not succeeded, the awful corrupt American media lost all interest in the story, which remains the most under-investigated presidential assassination attempt of the last hundred years. Curious. Here is the column I wrote a year ago with a few annotations twelve months on: Let's cut to the chase - the US Secret Service: In on it? Or just totally crap? To get that out of the way: At the bare minimum, the Secret...

Had that information been shared, federal and local law enforcement in Butler, Pa., could have provided heightened security for the president.. A new report on the Butler, Pa., assassination attempt on President Trump reveals that the Secret Service received classified intelligence regarding a threat to Trump's life 10 days before the rally, but failed to share the information with other key agencies. The damning report comes from the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) one year after a gunman's bullet grazed Trump's right ear during a campaign rally speech. The shooter, Thomas Crooks, killed attendee Cory Comperatore as he was protecting...

Pennsylvania emergency call system is experiencing periodic disruptions on Friday because of problems with the state’s 911 connection vendor, according to the Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency (PEMA). The issue was first noticed around 2 p.m. by the state’s Next Generation 911 provider, PEMA director Randy Padfield said at a Friday news conference. “The system continues to have some intermittent connectivity issues at this point in time that they’re still trying to troubleshoot,” Padfield said, although as of recently “it seemed like a majority of the calls were being delivered.” If callers can’t connect to 911, PEMA advises them to bypass...

Shooter's motives still unclear despite extensive investigation into the attack that nearly changed American history.. As the one-year mark nears since the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump, questions remain unanswered; notably, why did Thomas Matthew Crooks carry out the attack, and how did he get so close? Despite the year's passage, the mystery endures surrounding the 20-year-old Pennsylvania native’s motivation. Fox News Digital spoke with two former federal officials about the lingering questions. Former FBI agent John Nantz said Crooks did not fit the profile of a politically motivated extremist. "Crooks looked not so much like an ideologue, not...

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman (PA) broke ranks with his party once again after sharply condemning fellow Democrats who have called to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Fetterman warned that dismantling ICE would undermine national security and border enforcement, arguing that such calls play into harmful political rhetoric rather than addressing the real challenges of immigration reform. The rare voice of common sense within the party, Fetterman emphasized that ICE plays a vital role in protecting the United States. "ICE performs an important job for our country. Any calls to abolish ICE are [100 percent] inappropriate and outrageous," the senator...

Six agents were suspended by the U.S. Secret Service for failures connected to last year's attempted assassination of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania, an official told ABC News. The personnel moves were confirmed four days shy of the anniversary of the July 13, 2024, shooting incident that left Trump's ear bloodied. Corey Comperatore, a firefighter attending Trump's campaign rally that day, died in the attack. Countersnipers in Trump's Secret Service who were on-site killed the shooter, identified by the FBI as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. In the aftermath of the shooting, an independent review by the Department of...

A Coca-Cola driver in Houston, Pa., says leaders of his local Teamsters union threatened to fire him if he didn’t join the organization and pay dues. And now, he’s taking them to federal court. “I don’t support Teamsters politicking. My job definitely shouldn’t hinge on whether or not my hard-earned money is funding it,” said Josh Hammaker, who filed the complaint with the National Labor Relations Board earlier this month. “It’s bad enough I have to pay any money to Teamsters officials just to keep my job, but the NLRB should at least prevent union officials from automatically taking political...

A tell-all describes how the war in Gaza loomed over the 2024 campaign and strained Biden’s reelection bidJosh Shapiro’s Judaism was not a factor in Kamala Harris passing him over as a running mate, according to a 2024 election tell-all, contradicting a narrative Republicans eagerly peddled. If anything, Harris rejected Shapiro because they had too much in common — both were former attorneys general who hoped to be president. That and poor chemistry knocked Shapiro out of the running, according to How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, by political reporters Josh Dawsey, Tyler Pager and...

The Pennsylvania transgender coach who had been canned for inappropriate conduct, was rehired, but ultimately resigned over a porn video showing him smoking meth, recently admitted he was the one who had sent the incriminating video. David Yates, who coached tennis at Gettysburg High School and switched to the name “Sasha” in 2022, was not rehired following a pair of incidents which included him allegedly “stripping down to bra and panties” in the girls’ locker room. But Yates later reapplied for the position, and had the backing of many who claimed he’d been let go due to “transphobia.” A district...

Philadelphia police are investigating a deadly mass shooting that left three dead and 10 others injured in the Grays Ferry section of the city. The shots broke out just before 1 a.m. Monday on the 1500 block of South Etting Street. Police say they were actively monitoring the block for reports of large gatherings and loud music earlier in the weekend. Multiple arrests were made throughout the weekend. Officers were responding to a nearby call when they heard the gunfire. When they arrived on scene they found 12 shooting victims, three of whom died. Additionally, another person was injured while...

Philadelphia's public school system, according to documents provided to the Free Beacon, teaches identity politics and hosts radical pro-Hamas employees.. Philadelphia’s public school system has become an "absolute cesspool" of anti-Semitism and anti-American hatred, according to local parents, who say Gov. Josh Shapiro (D.) has "completely ignored" their pleas for help. Since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, Philadelphia school officials have publicly defended terrorism, called for the release of convicted cop killers, claimed Israel is an "apartheid theocracy," and denounced the United States as a "criminal Amerikan empire." The Philadelphia school district settled a federal discrimination case with the Department...

Two of the nation’s Ivy League institutions have yet to produce documents related to a congressional tuition price-fixing investigation launched earlier this year. This, according to a subpoena issued by House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to the University of Pennsylvania and Brown University, both of which have been accused of colluding with the nation’s six other Ivy League schools to inflate tuition prices and maximize profits. Citing authority vested by the U.S. Supreme Court, committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the documents requested – regarding communications with other universities – will give lawmakers insight into crafting legislative reforms. Some may...

Former collegiate female UPenn Swimmer Paula Scanlan reacted to the news that trans-identifying male swimmer Lia Thomas would be stripped of all titles he earned while competing in the women's sport, and the university has agreed to apologize for allowing him to compete as a female.Speaking from a press event on Tuesday, Scanlan reacted to the news that her former school, the University of Pennsylvania, has agreed to comply with President Donald Trump's Department of Education resolution agreement about Title IX and correct its violations after allowing a male to compete in women's sports, specifically Thomas."Wow, that's the first thing...

Transgender swimming champion Lia Thomas will be stripped of past University of Pennsylvania Division I swimming titles after the Trump administration put pressure on the school to award the titles to competitors who were born female. The university will also issue formal apologies to every biological female competitor who lost out to a biological male, following an investigation by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), which found UPenn violated Title IX by “allowing a male to compete in female athletic programs and occupy female-only intimate facilities.” “Today’s resolution agreement with UPenn is yet another example of the...