Free Republic

DeSantis began 2023 as the best positioned Republican candidate to challenge Trump for the party's presidential nomination, according to polling tracked by 538. But he begins 2024 as another name on the growing list of rivals who failed to shake the former president's popularity among the GOP --- DeSantis' early actions since leaving the race have already sparked speculation that the governor, who is only 45, could make another White House run in the future. A source close to him said that he has privately expressed interest in running again as early as 2028 and has brought it up as...

...House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agreed during her trip to Scotland with a suggestion that the U.S. military is an egregious polluter. Asked by questioner if the U.S. military is "exempt" from climate talks even though it is "a larger polluter than 140 countries combined," Pelosi responded by saying, "We recognize that as well.".. ...The House speaker's comments came during the U.N.'s COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, where Pelosi also promoted her party's $1.75 trillion climate and social spending bill, which Democrats hope will pass in the House next week....

When the Classic West and East, two two-day concerts in Los Angeles and New York headlined by the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, were announced earlier this year, comparisons to last year’s wildly successful Desert Trip were immediate and inevitable. Like that once in a lifetime bill bringing together six iconic acts of one era, Classic West and East featured six bands from one era, in this case the ‘70s, joining together for a special bill. That is really where the comparisons end though. Unlike Desert Trip, which was much more about the event, night one of Classic West, held at...

A son and a brother of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) are accused in two lawsuits of defrauding a former business partner and an investor of millions of dollars in a hedge fund deal that went sour, court records show. The Democratic vice presidential candidate's son Hunter, 38, and brother James, 59, assert instead that their former partner defrauded them by misrepresenting his experience in the hedge fund industry and recommending that they hire a lawyer with felony convictions. The legal actions have been playing out in New York State Supreme Court since 2007, and they focus on Hunter...

Spying: They call it the CIA's "dirty laundry": declassified documents on assassination plots, domestic surveillance, abductions and the like. But those fighting the terror war can't win without getting their hands dirty. In announcing the public release of nearly 700 pages detailing controversial CIA activities over the quarter century preceding the mid-1970s, the agency's director, Gen. Michael Hayden, remarked that it provided "a glimpse of a very different time and a very different Agency." But if America is to combat the elusive terrorist enemies we face today, our intelligence agencies may well have to return to some of their aggressive...

ORLANDO, Fla. -- New surveillance video was released, Friday, taken inside Orlando International Airport as former astronaut Lisa Nowak stalked and prepared to attack a romantic rival. SURVEILLANCE: Nowak Stalks Woman At OIANowak was in the airport for at least three hours, waiting for Air Force Captain Colleen Shipman. Nowak changed her appearance twice, ending up in a trench coat and wig. Orlando police said Nowak tried to kidnap Shipman in the airport parking lot, because they were both involved with Astronaut Bill Oefelein. Prosecutors released the surveillance DVD as part of their case against Nowak. They would not comment...

AN EXASPERATED father has discovered, at his expense, that cyberspace is not the ideal arena for family feuds. Two weeks ago Steve Williams became so fed up with his daughter's messy bedroom that he built a website featuring pictures of his slothful offspring's lair in an attempt to shame her into action. However, the public humiliation, proved to be a short-lived victory. While it did spur his daughter, Claire, into tidying her room, it also whet her appetite for revenge. With the help of her father's friends, the 20-year-old business student has now set up a rival website that displays...

Those who are long of tooth recall Chevy Chase’s news routine on Saturday Night Live, especially his weekly riff, “Generalissimo Franco is still dead.” That was based on true stories of the removal of assorted organs from the dying General, with doctors’ assurances he was still alive. That also led to Don Henley’s classic, “Dirty Laundry,” with the lines, “Is the head dead yet? Get the widow on the set....” This is ancient news, but it’s relevant to the Democrats. Like the Generalissimo, that Party has had major organs removed, but is allegedly still alive. As a student of US...

No crime is more inconceivable, more horrific, than a parent killing his own small, innocent child. So the story from Illinois of a very evil man reportedly punching, then stabbing his 8-year-old daughter and her 9-year-old friend to death for going out on a Mother's Day bike ride past curfew chills the bones. Can we officially cringe when both the TV news business and Hollywood see this story and silently think, "Ka-ching"? Lisa Marie Presley is trying to make it as a pop-rock singer again by doing a dull carbon copy of the old Don Henley news-satire song "Dirty Laundry,"...

Orlando interim Mayor Ernest Page's first month in office was marred by at least six confrontations between his wife and a woman she accused of being his mistress, court records show. The animosity peaked March 30, when a court injunction ordered Wanda Page to stay at least 500 feet from her husband's nonprofit community group on South Kirkman Road. A day later, Orlando police closed the investigation after being told complaints of stalking and battery had been nothing more than a misunderstanding. The 63-year-old Republican and his wife could not be reached for comment Thursday evening. ..........In a sixth incident...

The cheering that surrounds John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards for vice president may fade quickly if the Bush campaign’s negative researchers are on the ball. Edwards has a real vulnerability in the way he raised campaign money during his abortive presidential bid. The North Carolina senator and former trial lawyer leaned heavily on his former peers for campaign funding. More than half of his donations came from trial lawyers, and 22 of his top 25 contributions came from his former colleagues at the bar. While trial lawyers will not win any popularity contests, their support of Edwards, per se,...