Free Republic

ALBANY – Gov. Kathy Hochul and her husband, Bill, brought home much more bacon in 2023 than the year before. The couple made around $2 million in adjusted gross income in 2023, up a staggering $1 million from 2022, media reports covering the pair’s tax returns indicate. The tax return reportedly shows Hochul, who is in the second year of her first full term, and her husband paid $610,000 in federal taxes and $123,090 in state taxes.

This is Patrick Douglas Scruggs. Patrick is a federal prosecutor who helped put Capitol trespassers in prison, and perpetrated the narrative that these people were grave threats to society. In September, 2023, a driver on a bridge hit Mr. Scrugg’s car. Mr. Scruggs got out of his car, broke the driver’s window, and proceeded to stab him over and over again with a knife. A couple got out of their car and tried to help the stabbing victim, then Mr. Scruggs tried to stab the couple. Scrugg’s attorney stated that his client is innocent until proven guilty, and has asked...

Last year saw “the highest number and rate of abortions measured in the United States in more than a decade,” according to a report from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute. In 2023 — the first full calendar year following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade — there were an estimated 1,026,690 unborn babies killed in abortions in the formal U.S. health care system and a rate of 15.7 abortions per 1,000 women of reproductive age, the institute’s Monthly Abortion Provision Study found. That number is a ten percent increase in abortions from 2020.

The crisis in Cuba has seen its government approach the United Nations for aid to address its food shortage, as residents take to the streets in a rare sign of social unrest Cuba is "on the verge of total collapse" as the country has been hit by blackouts with residents taking to the streets calling for "food and power". The crisis has seen the Cuban government approach the United Nations for aid to address its food shortage. As the Caribbean island goes through its harshest economic crisis in three decades, the communist regime is resorting to hitherto unseen cries for...

President Biden on Tuesday touted the decrease in crime in 2023, citing data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI). The FBI data, released on Tuesday found that the U.S. experienced 11 percent less crime in cities over 1 million people compared to 2022, 13 percent fewer murders overall and 6 percent less violent crime. “Across America, families want the same thing: the freedom to feel safe in their community. To know their kids are secure. My Administration is making it a reality,” Biden said in a statement. Biden said that in 2020, before he took office, “the prior administration...

Just bizarre! Nearly 64 years to the day (July 19, 1969) since Democrat Sen. Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, just off Martha’s Vineyard, another bizarre drowning has taken place connected to a high-profile Democrat. The personal chef of Barack and Michelle Obama has drowned mysteriously in a pond on the property of their $12 million Martha’s Vineyard estate. He reportedly drowned after being out on the pond in a paddle-boat with another person in a paddle boat. Details are sparse. The Obama’s issued a statement saying they are “heartbroken.” The Obamas’ Martha’s Vineyard mansion...

Lawfare is the vengeful exercise of raw political power to punish political enemies. It is unadulterated fascism, and the destruction of the American system of justice. What a week! Consider what has happened this week: SCOTUS delayed Jack Smith's Jan. 6 trial -- possibly until after the election. Judge Cannon is likely to delay the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case at least until the summer. Fani Willis and Nathan Wade are likely to be removed from the racketeering case, delaying and perhaps ending their RICO persecution of Trump. Trump has appealed Letitia James' Draconian penalties to New York Appeals Court which...

Americans are increasingly turning to their credit cards to cover everyday expenses, with debt hitting a new record high at the end of December, according to a New York Federal Reserve report published Tuesday. In the three-month period from October to December, total credit card debt surged to $1.13 trillion, an increase of $50 billion, or 4.6% from the previous quarter, according to the report. It marks the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003 and the ninth consecutive annual increase. There was also an uptick in borrowers who are struggling with credit card, student and...

A California teenager accused of being behind a flurry of swatting incidents across the country targeting schools and the homes of FBI agents has been arrested in connection with a swatting attempt at a Florida mosque last year, according to court documents filed by state prosecutors. Alan Winston Filion, 17, was arrested last month at his home in Lancaster, California, and extradited to Florida on Tuesday, court documents say. He was charged as an adult on four felonies, including charges related to false reporting that triggered law enforcement response. Filion entered a not guilty plea to the charges. He is...

Existing home sales fell to their lowest point in 28 years in 2023, while the median price of a home reached a record high, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Sales of previously owned homes dropped to 4.09 million last year, marking the lowest annual level of home sales since 1995, the report found. The median price of an existing home, on the other hand, rose to an all-time high of $389,800. Home sales fell 1 percent last month alone and fell 6.2 percent compared to December 2022, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate...

CNBC personality Rick Santelli said on Thursday’s “Squawk Box” that it takes a $1.19 to buy what a dollar bought before the coronavirus pandemic. Santelli said, “Our Consumer Price Index read for the month of December by Bureau of Labor Statistics expected to be up 0.2% up 0.3%. And if you strip out food and energy, it is exactly as expected, which is up 0.3%.” He continued, “Let’s go along here. Year over year, CPI is expected to be up 3.2. It’s up 3.4. The best it’s been was 3.0 in June of last year. That is the best since...

One of the greatest betrayals in our history happened while America slept.. When Biden met with Lula da Silva, the founder of the Marxist Brazil’s Workers’ Party and a convicted criminal, it was a victory lap for both socialists. Lula da Silva, Brazil’s former leader, had survived his bribery conviction and rigged an election that overthrew Jair Bolsonaro: his conservative patriotic predecessor. Biden had survived his own trial by fire during the midterms which locked down the 2024 Democrat nomination. Lula also met with fellow Marxists: Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Biden and Lula talked of “democracy” and “fighting...

Brazil’s Federal Police (PF) acted to fulfill 46 search and seizure warrants and one arrest warrant on Monday against people suspected of financing the January 8, 2023, Brasilia riot. That day, thousands of supporters of conservative former President Jair Bolsonaro flocked to the heart of Brasilia – home to the nation’s Congress, Supreme Court, and presidential office – to protest against the election of socialist President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Lula defeated Bolsonaro and began his third presidential term on January 1, 2023. The protest turned into a riot after the protesters stormed the premises of Brazil’s Congress, Supreme...

House Oversight member, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene, has confirmed that the "unnamed" foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden with $10 million, was none other than Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky. The now infamous FBI FD-1023 form provide by Wray had redacted Zlochevsky's name but detailed a $10 million bribe to the Bidens with someone connected to Burisma. Putting it all together... We know that Zlochesvsky was already paying Hunter an exorbitant sum, $83,000/mo, to sit on the board of his Ukrainian energy company. We know Zlochevsky was facing a corruption investigation in Ukraine by prosecutor Viktor Shokin. We...

The Babylon Bee sits down with Siaka Massaquoi to talk about how the FBI recently separated him from his pregnant wife at the airport and arrested him over charges related to January 6th. What really happened on January 6th and what was Siaka doing at the Capitol Building?

It was a year of reckoning, a year in which humanity finally began to understand that it faces an existential threat, a threat unlike any we have ever faced before, a threat that will wreak havoc on our fragile planet if we fail to stop it—and it may already be too late. We are referring, of course, to pickleball. Nobody knows where it started. Some scientists believe it escaped from a laboratory in China. But whatever its origin, it has been spreading like rancid mayonnaise ever since, to the point where pickleball courts now cover 43 percent of the continental...

President Joe Biden escaped the confines of the White House and the travails of high office for a host of other diversions in 2023, spending more than a third of the past year ensconced at a getaway spot, a report Monday details. According to the New York Post, peripatetic Biden could be found on his absences from Washington, DC, at either one of his Delaware residences, a posh vacation site or Camp David, according to a review of public records by the outlet.

Back on July 23, the Obamas’ personal chef Tafari Campbell “disappeared while paddleboarding in the waters of Edgartown Great Pond on Martha’s Vineyard.” The death of the 45-year-old was “ruled an accident,” but troubling questions failed to float away.Campbell had posted videos of himself swimming laps, so it was strange that an able swimmer perished in eight feet of water, in a pond for the most part half that depth. Several reports mentioned another paddleboarder who saw Campbell go under. According to the Daily Mail, the observer was a 26-year-old female who worked for the Obamas, but the eyewitness remained...

Murders and shootings dropped in New York City in 2023 — but the number of assaults continue a troubling upward trend, according to a year-end review of NYPD data. Overall crime in the five boroughs squeaked through the year on a high note — down .5% through Dec. 24 when compared to the same period last year, NYPD data show. Murders declined 11%, with 380 so far this year compared to 429 in 2022. Shootings plunged 24%, with 967 so far this year vs. 1,277 in the same span last year.

DeSantis’ campaign and super PAC have spent more than $160 million to boost him, and he spent the better part of 2023 on the road. “If I could have one thing change, I wish Trump hadn’t been indicted on any of this stuff,” he told the Christian Broadcasting Network last week. “It sucked out a lot of oxygen.” “He tried to ‘out-Trump’ Trump among Trump supporters instead of going for the ‘maybe Trump/move on from Trump’ voters, and it was a fatal strategic choice,” Cullen said. Polling shows that his numbers were strongest before he actively began campaigning for president...