Free Republic

State Sen. Nicole Mitchell, DFL-Woodbury, was arrested Monday morning in Detroit Lakes and booked into the Becker County Jail for suspected first-degree burglary. Detroit Lakes Police Chief Steve Todd said at 4:45 a.m. on Monday, a 911 dispatcher received a call from a homeowner on Granger Road who reported that there was a burglar inside their home. Todd said officers arrested the woman inside the home and she was identified as Mitchell. Mitchell, 49, was booked into Becker County Jail and was still listed on the jail’s roster early Monday afternoon. Mitchell was elected to the Senate in 2022 and...

The University of Texas at Austin is laying off dozens of employees who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles in response to a state law that banned such programs, according to the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors. Employees who had previously worked in DEI roles received layoff notices Tuesday. That came months after the university had reassigned them from those positions to comply with the legislation, which went into effect Jan. 1. The school declined to provide a specific tally of the number of people affected, though the AAUP said 60 is a “conservative...

With tech layoffs at their highest since the 2001 dot-com crash, the job hunt is getting harder and many in the industry are being forced to settle for pay cuts if they can find a new gig at all. Allison Croisant, a data scientist with about a decade of experience in technology, was laid off by PayPal earlier this year, joining the masses of unemployed across her industry. Croisant has one word to describe the process of looking for a job right now: “Insane.” “Everybody else is also getting laid off,” said Croisant, who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, where she...

Maryland hasn’t elected a Republican senator in nearly four decades, but according to new polling, that streak could soon come to an end. A Goucher College poll released Tuesday has former Governor Larry Hogan edging out either of his likely Democratic opponents. In a hypothetical race against Prince George’s County Executive Angela Alsobrooks, 44 percent of respondents said they’d back Hogan, 40 percent said they’d vote for Alsobrooks, and 11 percent were undecided. In a hypothetical race against U.S. Rep. David Trone, Hogan took 43 percent of respondents, Trone took 42 percent, and 10 percent of respondents were undecided. "What...

Wisconsin voters on Tuesday approved a pair of Republican-backed constitutional amendments that will change how elections are run in the critical battleground state, according to projections from The Associated Press. The first measure, labeled on the ballot as Question 1, will ban the use of private funds in election administration — often referred derisively to by conservatives as “Zuckerbucks.” The second measure, Question 2, narrows the role and definition of an election worker. Specifically, the measure asked voters to decide whether “only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums.” Opponents had...

Douglas Macgregor presents the REAL State of the Union! You won't want to miss these insightful perspectives, reflections, and unique viewpoints. (10 minute YouTube video at the link)

The shockwaves rippled up and down the ballot as incumbent state House members, judges and other state leaders were forced into runoffs or defeated outright Texas voters on Tuesday handed more power to the insurgent wing of the Republican Party in an expensive and vengeful primary election, punishing GOP lawmakers, judges and a House speaker who defied hard-right state leaders and their supporters in recent years. The shockwaves rippled up and down the ballot. Most notably, Speaker Dade Phelan, R-Beaumont, was forced into a runoff with a well-funded challenger, David Covey, after being targeted by ultra-conservative donors and activists, who...

Here’s a look at some key races:27th District: The northern Los Angeles County seat currently held by Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Santa Clarita) probably will be one of the most competitive partisan House races in the country come November. Because both parties have coalesced around their respective candidates, Democrat George Whitesides is favored to advance out of the primary to battle Garcia in the fall. A second Democrat, business owner Steve Hill, is also on the ballot .. Early results showed Garcia(R) in first place with more than half the vote and Whitesides in second place.40th District: In an inland suburban...

BELTON, Texas (KWTX) - Bell County voters head to the polls on Tuesday as four republican and one democratic candidates are up for election in the Texas House District 55 primary election. The issue at the center of the race revolves around school choice, which Governor Greg Abbott has made a priority. School choice is a concept that uses public tax dollars to help pay for private education and other educational services through an Education Savings Account, similar to Health Savings Accounts...He was one of 21 republicans to vote school choice out of a House bill last year. Shines says...

Three incumbent judges on the state’s highest criminal court — all opposed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, who disagreed with their ruling on an election law case in 2021 — were behind in early returns in Tuesday’s Republican primary.Paxton and an allied organization, Texans for Responsible Judges, targeted three Republican judges on the Court of Criminal Appeals, saying they should be replaced after ruling that the Texas Constitution prohibited the attorney general from investigating election fraud unless invited to do so by a county prosecutor. Presiding Judge Sharon Keller — seeking a fifth six-year term — was almost 26 percentage...

Groceries are going up again in New York State. It's wild. You are going to look at some of the items and think how ridiculous the prices are. For example, wait until you see how much the regular price of peanut butter is at one local grocery store (and we are not talking about the JUMBO jar of peanut butter). Price Tracker' from Katie Morse and Channel 2 is going on again where they will post weekly prices of some of the most common items at the most popular grocery stores. You can see an example below, but it is...

TRENTON, NJ – Inflation is being reigned in and food prices are coming down. That’s what we’re told each time the Biden administration talks about food prices here in New Jersey, but if you’ve been food shopping in the past few weeks in New Jersey, you know this is not true. Over the past few weeks, the prices of eggs, meat, milk, and other essentials skyrocketed once again and there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight. In New Jersey, as part of the larger Northeast and New York-Newark-Jersey City areas, there has indeed been a noticeable increase in...

BILLINGS — A Montana Army National Guard recruitment poster is being taken down statewide after an editing mistake was pointed out on social media. The poster reads: "It’s more than college money….It’s the spirit of tradition." But in the background, images of German Nazi World War II soldiers are prominent, which sparked outrage online. "I’m sure that somewhere, the (Public Affairs) office for the National Guard is squirming, to say the least,” said Randy Stiles, a district commander for the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Billings, on Friday. Last fall, the poster was distributed across Montana. "I can see their...

President Joe Biden gave a press conference Thursday night after the release of a report from special counsel Robert Hur … Biden was combative, forcefully rejecting Hur’s claims that he has a poor memory. But the president was also repeatedly inaccurate, making the claims that were clearly contradicted by Hur’s report. (1)Where the classified material was stored … Biden embellished his argument with a false claim. Biden said: “All the stuff that was in my home was in filing cabinets that were either locked or able to be locked.”Facts First: The special counsel’s report says … classified documents, about Afghanistan,...

Two men have been arrested in the theft of LGBTQ Pride flags from outside a queer couple’s home in Arlington, Virginia, over several months. Matthew Henshaw, 20, was arrested and charged in three of the five thefts that occurred from September to January; he was charged with three counts of bias-motivated unlawful entry and three counts of petit larceny, the Arlington County Police Department said in a statement Friday. Joseph Digregorio, 23, was charged with one count of petit larceny in connection with one of the thefts. The men are both active members of the U.S. Army with the 3rd...

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) declared that “undocumented Americans” — presumably a reference to migrants in the country illegally — were “the people we [Democrats] care about most” in an appearance on All In With Chris Hayes Wednesday night. In a discussion about the now-defunct border and foreign aid bill rejected by congressional Republicans, Hayes teed Murphy up by noting that in his 20 years of covering the issue of illegal immigration, the trade that is typically made gives Republicans more border security and Democrats a pathway to citizenship. “This time around, the negotiation didn’t have a path to citizenship. It...

If you thought that the resignation of Superintendent Monifa McKnight meant an end to MCPS’s leadership issues, you thought wrong! That’s because the person the school board plans to appoint as interim superintendent has problems of her own, some of them documented in a local government investigation as well as in Maryland courthouses... Monique Felder, who the school board has announced it is planning to appoint as interim superintendent tomorrow... During her tenure in Nashville, the public schools were the subject of many articles in local media. The story most directly tied to Felder was her acceptance of payments from...

Navy captain’s yelling and public “humiliation” of her officers and crew was so severe and frequent — once for the mistake of pointing out dolphins swimming nearby the ship’s bridge — that sailors were afraid to bring bad news to her attention. That “fear culture” aboard the USS Lake Erie, a scathing Navy investigation found, could have created “a higher risk of having a safety or operational mishap” and an “unsafe command environment where sailors do not … exercise sound judgment.”… As the commander of the Lake Erie, the report found, DeFant grabbed or struck her officers while they were...

I am reporting from just north of Eagle Pass Texas. 4 people who crossed into the United States got intercepted by National Guard who sent them back. Raw Footage. I am covering the Migrant / Border Crisis.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for a "national divorce" between red and blue states amid the escalating standoff over migration at the Texas border. The Georgia congressman responded to a post on X listing Democratic-leaning states that have sided with the federal government in the dispute with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. "When I said we need a National Divorce this is exactly what I'm talking about and a serious example as to why," Greene wrote. Greene's national divorce idea is not new — she has often suggested splitting up the United States along political lines— but it is divisive. It...