Free Republic

The 75 largest cities in America were collectively $288 billion in debt at the end of fiscal year 2022... 53 major cities that do not have enough money to pay their bills. Yet all of them claimed their budgets were balanced, as is required by law. That means lawmakers understated each city’s debt by not including future costs like employee pensions and healthcare ... New York City has a taxpayer burden of $61,800, the largest by far despite being the most populous. The city has only six cents saved up for every dollar it will need to spend on retiree...

There could be a new meeting planned between the Hungarian Prime Minister and former U.S. President Donald Trump in just over a week’s time, financial news portal Bloomberg reports. According to the U.S. news outlet, the two leaders could meet as early as March 8. in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. The rumors have not been confirmed by official sources yet, Bloomberg only quoted a “person familiar with the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity”.

doesn’t matter which big American city you go to these days, most are in absolutely horrendous condition. The public transportation system stinks of human waste. My old friend Professor Paul Magelli from the University of Illinois told me that when he took the Amtrak from Champaign to Chicago, it smelled like “piss”. Trains in other countries didn’t smell like that. Richard Florida is a big urbanologist. He is an elite for sure. He tweeted out this article and it is worth reading. The author of the article is aware of what is happening in American cities, but like Richard Florida,...

“They want systemic lawlessness. They want high retail theft,“ says Seneca Scott, founder of Neighbors Together Oakland. It’s ”managed decline from eviction moratoriums, managed decline from defunding police, managed decline from $950 you can steal from stores, not being able to catch people.” “Mega billionaires are giving money to defend the police movements. The same individuals are the largest investors in AI autonomous security,” Mr. Scott said. He has been documenting how Oakland, California became, as he describes it, an “urban hellscape.” Once a progressive Democrat and labor organizer who represented thousands of union workers in California, he says woke...

In August, The Gateway Pundit shared a bombshell report that was taken completely by an up-to-then-buried Michigan State Police report. The report, which outlined a statewide investigation that turned into a nationwide investigation of a potentially massive voter registration scheme, was shared with us by the MIGOP Director of Election Integrity, Phil O’Halloran. After publishing the report that exposed a massive cover-up by Michigan’s Democrat Attorney General Dana Nessel and Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of an explosive, statewide investigation by the MI State Police, Muskegon, MI Police Department, we began to receive tips from individuals who read our...

The proportion of registered Democrats who have a firearm in their home has jumped significantly over the past few years.. rising crime in urban areas could be behind the increase. In November 2023 the survey found 41 percent of Democrats said they live in a household with a gun, up from 33 percent in a similar survey .. in August 2019. Notably, 33 percent of Democrats also said they lived with a gun in a similar NBC survey conducted in March 2004, indicating the sharp rise has been concentrated over the past four years. ... The data also showed a...

Why Are People In Denial That Urban America Is A Dystopian Hellscape?The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have one, and a certain species of smug urban progressive won’t admit America’s cities are falling apart.Increasingly, the news is dominated by urban crime and other catastrophes in America’s cities. Several large cities, and notably every major city on the West Coast, are deeply unsafe, and this should be a source of national shame. There’s a constant flurry of eye-popping news in this regard, yet it’s nearly always followed by a chorus of Democratic politicians and leftist urbanites telling...

As I watch former Presidential candidate and US Secretary of State John F. Kerry (although the always bitter Hillary Clinton comes to mind as well), I roll my eyes at the staggering hypocrisy of “climate envoy” John Kerry flying the globe in his private jet while entering the US into climate scams that most Americans don’t want. And lecturing us in that droning voice on why we are bad people if we drive a gas-powered car. But Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum approves of Kerry’s message. Even the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is on board with the WEF’s...

There is so much wrong with America’s cities, it’s hard to see why any contributing member of society would live and/or work in one of them. Some of the issues arise from far-Left local governance while others are generated by more widespread Leftist policy. These are coupled with an organic workforce evolution, as the United States transitions from an industry-based to an information-based economy. The result is urban areas caught in a downward spiral — and, as with any sinking vessel, threatening to suck everyone nearby down with them.

We frequently evoke the ideals of American excellence and exceptionalism. But earlier this week when I visited Kensington, Pennsylvania , what I saw was a third-world reality within our own country. Those needle-ridden streets are the direct consequence of a porous southern border and disastrous domestic policies that pay people to do the opposite of what we want them to do. What I witnessed revealed to me the profound reality of the double consciousness that permeates our nation — the stark contrast between the grand ideals we champion versus the harsh realities faced by those dwelling in the depths of...

National Urban League President Marc Morial said Friday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is the “21st-century George Wallace.” On Fox News, DeSantis said, “We have school choice. That’s one of the reasons why our black students perform as high as just about any black students in the country. You go to Baltimore or Chicago, some of the kids are more likely to get shot than have a high-quality education. I don’t hear the NAACP talking about that.”

One grocery chain is fighting hard to keep stores open despite rampant shoplifting and an uptick in violence forcing many retailers to leave major cities across the country. Giant Food, which operates 165 supermarkets in D.C., Maryland, Virginia and Delaware, has taken multiple measures to combat theft and keep stores safe, according to a report in The Washington Post. That includes limiting store entrances; hiring security guards; restricting the number of items at self-checkout stands; putting less high-value items on shelves; and securing razor blades in containers that make noise if opened. Company president Ira Kress said he's seen theft...

Although this may seem to be an article focusing on Chicago, please realize Chicago is only being used as an example of the moral decay and corruption in virtually every major city in the United States. It serves as a stark warning to relocate if you are in one of these areas. As noted by ReallyGraceful in the video above, Chicago, Illinois, ought to be “a haven of the United States.” The third largest city in the U.S., it’s filled with world-class architecture and technological advancements. It’s a center for manufacturing and transportation industries and has become a tech sector...

Major urban areas in the U.S. are regaining some of the residents they lost when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed many out of cities into less dense areas, according to new Census data. U.S. metro areas grew by roughly 0.4 percent between 2021 and 2022, the Census estimates, with around two-thirds of the 384 recorded metro areas seeing population increases in that same period. Many metro areas in the south saw increases in the new data: the metro area around Phoenix, Ariz., crossed 5 million and the Villages, Fla., metro area went up by a significant 7.5 percent. The Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington...

Crime rates are soaring all over the nation, and this is especially true in heavily populated urban areas. The complete and utter lawlessness that we are witnessing has caused many pundits to describe our largest cities as “war zones”, and unfortunately that is not an exaggeration at all. In fact, there are some zip codes in Chicago where young adult males are more likely to be shot and killed than U.S. soldiers were during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq… For some residents, Chicago is more dangerous than Afghanistan was for U.S. troops during the Iraq war, according to a...

A Georgia school district and sheriff's office are investigating a student assault on a teacher caught on video Thursday at Heritage High School in Conyers, the Rockdale Citizen reported. What are the details?The attack was recorded from at least two angles and posted to social media. The first video shows a female student hollering in a female teacher's face inside a classroom: “I don’t give a f*** if you’re an adult or not! You’re not gonna talk to me like that, you dumbass bitch!” The teacher tells the student, "Get outta my face, baby." The Citizen reported that the student...

by Samantha Foster | 24NewsWhen Minneapolis police officers showed up in St. Paul last week to execute a search warrant for a murder suspect, they were met by toddlers — some still in diapers — who punched, kicked, cursed, and threw rocks at them. Children who can’t read or cross the street unattended hurled profanities and unabashed disrespect at law enforcement officers.WATCH: As they cussed, berated, and struck police officers with their fists, a bystander can be heard in the background encouraging the children by saying “Oreo head,” in reference to the black police officer at the scene - basically...

Country star Mickey Gilly, whose eponymous Texas honky-tonk inspired the 1980 film “Urban Cowboy” and a nationwide wave of Western-themed nightspots, has died. He was 86 years old. Gilly died Saturday in Branson, Missouri, where he helped run the Mickey Gilly Grand Shanghai Theater. He was performing recently like last month, but from last one week health was going bad. According to a statement from Mickey Gilly Associates, “he passed away peacefully with his family and close friends.” Gilly – a cousin of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis – opened Gilly, “the world’s biggest honky tonk” in Pasadena,...

When the street fighting comes to San Fran or NYC, look out for snipers.

The budget blueprint Newsom detailed this week includes $2 billion over two years in grants and tax credits to incentivize housing development... “Moving away from investments in housing that don’t focus on climate, health, integrating downtown, schools, jobs, parks and restaurants.” Jason Elliott, Newsom’s top housing advisor, said the governor’s budget interlaces housing, cost-of-living and climate policies to simultaneously address California’s top issues. “The whole government...It’s better for equity, it’s better for inclusion..." The $2 billion includes $500 million in grants for nonprofit and for-profit developers or local governments to construct more units on existing, but underused, urban land close...