Free Republic

Audits of 12 school districts has state Auditor General Timothy DeFoor believing school boards are playing a “shell game” with taxpayer funds by moving money into reserve accounts to allow them to make a case for raising property tax rates. State laws limit how much school districts can raise property taxes and sets limits on those increases but allows for exceptions to be granted in one of two ways: ask voters’ permission through a referendum or ask the state Department of Education for a referendum exception. “These 12 districts collectively raised taxes 37 times during the four years we reviewed...

Philadelphia is experiencing a crime wave like no other in its over 300-year history. Theft, muggings, assaults, carjackings, and homicides are all plaguing the city's communities. And, while these stories continue to humiliate Philadelphia, Democratic government officials continue to sit idly by, silently giving their consent to the policies that have turned the city's jails into doors. But now, the criminals may have committed the ultimate sin - stealing a car from a player on its beloved football team, the Philadelphia Eagles. PHILADELPHIA PROSECUTOR SHOULD BE REMOVED FROM OFFICE Maybe this will finally cause Democrats to start taking crime seriously...

A Democratic Pennsylvania State senator – Steve Santarsiero – sponsored a "queer prom" event which featured lube, condoms and a drag queen show for minors, Libs of TikTok reported. When Fox News Digital reached out for comment about the drag queen performance, the state senator boasted his support of the event which occurred at a Planned Parenthood-sponsored youth program called the "Rainbow Room," which is located in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The "Queer Prom" was open to minors starting at age 14 and offered goodie bags of "Condoms, lube, dental dams, latex dam[s]." Fox News followed up with the senator on...

The policy covers pronoun usage, preferred bathrooms and diversity training for staffA school district in Pennsylvania recently released a proposed policy that prohibits educators from informing parents of their child's gender identity or preferred pronouns unless required by law. The Upper Moreland School District's proposed policy on "Transgender and Gender Diverse Students" was discussed at a school board meeting on Jan. 17. Pronoun usage, preferred bathrooms and diversity training for staff are all covered under the new policy.

Californians are expecting skyrocketing natural gas bills this month, but this can’t all be blamed on the weather, according to industry insiders. Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas), which serves about 5.9 million households and businesses, warned customers to expect “shockingly high” January bills that could be 128 percent higher compared to December. Those who typically paid around $65 a month last winter are likely to pay about $160 this year, SoCalGas said in a statement Dec. 29. Those with bills around $130 a month could see charges jump to $315. Last December, wholesale natural gas prices already cost five times...

Joe Biden’s office at his think tank, the Penn Biden Center at the University of Pennsylvania, reportedly housed numerous classified documents. The scandal has sparked a review from the Biden regime’s own Department of Justice. Approximately ten classified documents are in question, and were found prior to the midterm elections by Joe Biden lawyers, according to a CBS report. NATIONAL FILE has reported shocking details about vaccine sale profits and an internal staff shakeup at the University of Pennsylvania related to foreign money including money specifically intended to increase Chinese enrollment at the university. University of Pennsylvania financial documents obtained...

The Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia - known as 'ground zero' for the city's drug epidemic - is in crisis due to widespread abuse of an animal tranquilizer called xylazine. Addicts are shooting up in broad daylight, hunched over in a stupor or passed out on the streets. Many have raw, gaping wounds in desperate need of medical attention. And there are needles, syringes and garbage littered across the sidewalks. 'I've never seen human beings remain in these kinds of conditions,' said Sarah Laurel, who runs outreach organization Savage Sisters.

In December 2020, US Attorney General Bill Barr said there was “no evidence” of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. Barr said there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, defying President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to reverse the results. ... Barr repeated this claim several times since leaving office as President Trump’s Attorney General. Now there is proof that Bill Barr is and was lying. ... On Thursday former Trump adviser Jeffrey Clark, the Director of Litigation at the Center for Renewing America, joined Steve Bannon on The War Room. Jeffrey Clark told Steve...

"We received nothing from the Republican National Committee (RNC), nothing from the Republican Governor’s Association (RGA), and nothing from the many conservative PACs across the country—including the Pennsylvania PAC that had previously threatened to turn its back." "The third important and immediate change we must make is to adjust our attitude toward mail-in voting. If we plan on winning statewide offices, we have no choice but to embrace this method of voting. Our Nov. 8 win, among election day voters, was wiped away by the hundreds of thousands of mail–in votes Democrats secured before a single vote was cast on...

he House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Wednesday demanded the University of Pennsylvania release information about anonymous donations from China to the Penn Biden Center, where classified documents were found, over concerns the Chinese Communist Party may have influenced Biden administration policies through the contributions.

Democrat Josh Shapiro, 49, was sworn in early Tuesday afternoon at the state Capitol in Harrisburg as Pa.’s 48th governor. Joining him was Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, who was sworn in Tuesday morning. Here is Shapiro’s inaugural speech, as prepared for delivery: I am humbled to stand before you today as Pennsylvania’s 48th governor. Along the winding road that led to this moment, I’ve been grounded in my faith and family. And so I begin by saying to my high school sweetheart and Pennsylvania’s first lady – I love you, babe. Lori and I are blessed with four amazing children...

HARRISBURG — When Republican state legislator Jim Gregory nominated his Democratic friend and colleague Mark Rozzi to be speaker of the Pennsylvania House this month, the move stunned close political observers and seemed to offer new hope for bipartisanship. As with the nation, politics in this critical swing state, the country’s fifth-most populous, have become bitterly divided in recent years along ideological, geographical and racial lines. Donald Trump won the state in 2016, and Joe Biden took it back in 2020. False claims over the legitimacy of the 2020 contest became prominent Pennsylvania GOP rallying cries in 2022 and reinforced...

Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro will be sworn-in next week on three Bibles with significance to his family and Jewish faith. Shapiro, Pennsylvania’s outgoing attorney general, will use a family Bible that he has used for swearing-in ceremonies since 2005, a Hebrew Bible that was in the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh during the 2018 massacre, and a Bible carried by a Jewish soldier from Philadelphia during the D-Day invasion in World War II. Pennsylvania Gov.-elect Josh Shapiro Shapiro, who embraced his deep Jewish faith on the campaign trail, will be the third Jewish governor in Pennsylvania history after Milton Shapp...

University of Pennsylvania, which hosted the Penn Biden Center where classified documents were found in November, received $47.7 million from China in the three years when Biden was affiliated with it. ... The University of Pennsylvania, the Ivy League institution which collected tens of millions of dollars from China while paying Joe Biden and hosting his foreign policy think tank, successfully pressured the Biden Justice Department to end an FBI counterespionage program targeting Beijing's increasing influence within U.S. academia. Attorney General Merrick Garland shut down the FBI's so-called China initiative in February 2022 shortly after more than 160 members of...

... sparking confusion and fury from victim's family Alexanda Kotey has vanished from the US prison system, official records reveal He was sentenced to life last year, but it is unclear where Kotey is located now There are 'several reasons' an inmate may be listed as not in the prison system Kotey's disappearance has sparked fury among the families of his victims One of the so-called 'ISIS Beatles' serving a life sentence for the torture and murder of western hostages has disappeared from the US prison system. Alexanda Kotey, 39, is no longer in custody at Pennsylvania's high-security Canaan prison,...

An experiment in bipartisan government in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives is less than a week old, and cracks are beginning to appear. If the compromise falls apart, the chamber will be plunged into chaos. Republican and Democratic leaders, at Speaker Mark Rozzi’s request, must find a way to move forward together, if they plan to serve the people of Pennsylvania this session. It’s time for Mr. Rozzi to honor the commitments he made in accepting the role of speaker, especially his pledge to change his registration from Democrat to Independent as a symbol of unity. After last week’s display...

The promise of bipartisan action in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives last week made for nice speeches but when it came time to get work on Monday, it appears to have disappeared. The first day of the special session that Gov. Tom Wolf ordered to focus on passing a proposed constitutional amendment to give past survivors of child sexual abuse some justice failed to see any action in the House except forming a six-member bipartisan committee to try to break the logjam. House Speaker Mark Rozzi, D-Berks County, issued a statement following a day of inaction by the chamber on...

The brutal, unrelenting cold that lasted for several days over the Christmas holiday froze off a sizable portion of Appalachia’s ample gas production, cutting off supply to power plants when they needed it most. Gas transmission pipelines said the gas they were promised simply didn’t show up. On the electric grid that connects Pennsylvania to 12 other states, at one point almost 25% of the capacity on the system either didn’t start up or broke while operating, leaving coal and petroleum-fired units to pick up the slack. PJM, a Valley Forge-based grid operator, is still analyzing what happened during the...

Rep. Scott Perry, who the Jan. 6 committee said sought a pardon for his involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 election, wants to turn the tables on the panel that investigated him now that the Republicans have gained a majority in the House. “Why should I be limited… just because someone has made an accusation?” Perry told This Week host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday when he asked if Perry would pledge not to serve on the investigation into the Jan. 6 committee.

Newly elected U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s ascendance into the pop culture pantheon might have reached a crescendo with news that orders are now being taken for a Fetterman bobblehead. On Friday, the 4-year-old National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum, located in Milwaukee, is selling a Fetterman bobblehead for $30 that is expected to ship — for an additional $8 — to buyers in May. Phil Sklar, co-founder and CEO of the Hall of Fame and Museum, said in a statement that the bobblehead was being released to coincide with Fetterman’s Jan. 3 swearing-in and National Bobblehead Day, which is...