Free Republic

It’s not the sort of sentiment that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles would likely share publicly, but according to a report from Time, Donald Trump’s longtime aide has expressed private concerns about the information bubble surrounding the president. Two White House sources told the magazine that Wiles shared her fears with officials that White House aides were giving the president “a rose-colored view” of how the war with Iran was being perceived domestically, “telling Trump what he wanted to hear instead of what he needed to hear.” The report added that the chief of staff urged colleagues to...

6 November 2026 Friday of week 31 in Ordinary Time Saint Léonard de Noblat, Romanesque collegiate church of St LéonardReadings at MassThis is a preview of Universalis. The Universalis app gives you every day of every year, not just the single week you’re seeing now, and it doesn’t need the Internet. It gives you the official New American Bible version for the readings at Mass. As well as the Mass, it gives you the Liturgy of the Hours. It costs $9.99-12.99 on your phone, or £19.99 (about $26.50) on your computer. Get it now.Liturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First readingPhilippians...

“The main problem is not turnout. The main problem is that many people who voted for Trump/Vance in 2024 voted for Democrats in 2026.” That was Vice President JD Vance’s diagnosis of why Republicans lost so soundly in the midterm elections. And the data supports it. Nearly every demographic swung heavily toward Democrats, including groups central to Trump’s coalition: young men, working-class voters, and voters in rural counties. The coalition that carried Republicans to victory just two years ago had turned sharply against them. But what explains that shift? According to Caroline Downey at National Review, the answer is horseshoe...

Eight people have been arrested in connection with a large-scale check fraud scheme involving fraudulent activity at least 17 churches in Manatee County between September 2025 and May 2026. The Manatee County Sheriff's Office launched an investigation in December 2025 after a pastor at Harvest United Methodist Church in Lakewood Ranch reported a significant decrease in mail. Parishioners had begun questioning whether their monthly tithe checks had arrived and several later discovered their checks had been stolen and deposited into other individuals' bank accounts. What began as one church's report grew into a multi-month investigation that identified more than 20...

The chances have increased for Ukraine to receive additional U.S. assistance, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday, reacting to Democrats’ overwhelming victories in the midterm elections. Ukraine needs to consolidate bipartisan support in the U.S. and “move toward” the new political infrastructure, he added in an interview with a Ukrainian news channel posted on the social platform X. Zelensky said at least $16 billion in assistance was withheld by the U.S. and needs to be disbursed, and he said Ukraine needs a “package” from the U.S. to fortify itself in the face of ongoing Russian attacks. It was not immediately...

With all the shocking reports from the 2026 election to date, California’s may be the worst. Here are the current state results as of Thursday evening, two days after the election. Take a look and see if you notice anything strange. .... Notice that in both the Governor and Lt. Governor races, the Democrats lead 53 to 46. Look at the other top races…

Dear John Thune, They did it again. The democrats thumbed their nose at the American people because they think we can't stop them, that their good buddies in the republican party WON'T stop them, because YOU DIDN'T PASS THE SAVE AMERICAN ACT. Here in Georgia we really got a kick in the *ss. Keisha "Phat" Bottom and her roster of heavyweight BLM DEI incompetents right down the ticket- even in red areas. All because YOU DIDN'T PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT. We have our vaunted old rinos here- Kemp, Raffsen*ssh*le, Carr and their Maduro machines are kept completely in line...

Bike lanes. Housing vouchers. A new police chief and many more new apartments, even in single-family neighborhoods. And above all, data to find out if City Hall programs are working. Mayor-elect Nithya Raman won’t represent a radical ideological break from her opponent, one-term incumbent Mayor Karen Bass. Like Bass, she’s a Democrat who believes in ending homelessness, keeping the city safe and delivering basic services. But Raman is expected to push the city to the left on public safety, while also advancing urbanist policies that favor public transit, greater housing production and the redesign of city streets to improve safety...

Explanation: It is time to say goodbye to NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory. After nearly 22 years of service, the satellite re-entered Earth's atmosphere on November 4 at 7:39 EST over the North Sumatra region of Indonesia. The featured image is a mosaic created in 2018 using some of the first million images captured by the satellite's Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope. Swift had a combination of instruments, including an X-ray telescope and a gamma-ray telescope, that worked together to enable humanity to study, in unprecedented detail, the fastest and most energetic explosions in the universe. The most recent solar maximum accelerated the...

[Catholic Caucus] Marian Theologians Renew Appeal to Cardinal Fernández Over Vatican Doctrinal Note A year after the publication of Mater Populi Fidelis, the International Marian Association says its detailed criticisms remain unanswered.A year after the Vatican published its controversial instruction Mater Populi Fidelis, a group of leading Marian theologians has sent a new letter to Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández noting that he has yet to respond to criticisms they had made of the document last December.The Theological Commission of the International Marian Association (IMA) also mentioned in their Nov. 4 letter to the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the...

Elon Musk's angular truck appears to be headed for the scrapyard of history, and Jeremy White of Wired is not mourning. He slams the Cybertruck as an overhyped experiment that never lived up to its billing: produced for less than four years, plagued by recalls and design flaws, and now being phased out at Tesla's Texas factory to make room for the company's autonomous Cybercab. Despite Musk's boasts of "off the charts" demand and more than a million reservations, US sales remained modest, with under 50,000 delivered by March of last year and fewer than 12,000 sold in the first...

The Texas midterm elections have wrapped up, but questions about one race in Tarrant County are heating up. A candidate suspended her campaign and still won, but that's not the most controversial part. "Well, there has been an issue, an occurrence with House District 93," Tarrant County Democratic Party Executive Director Reyne Telles said. Telles said the issue centers on Ericka Lomick, the Democratic candidate. Unofficial results show she beat Republican Alan Blaylock, a former Fort Worth City Council member, by one percentage point. The problem? Lomick withdrew from the race in late September when questions about her eligibility to...

Having now read the blame storming, post election data and punditry, I would like to offer my own take, for the little it is worth. I usually do not engage in Vanity posts. Please forgive this one or ignore it. Two storms collided to make a super storm that destroyed the GOP and likely the country. In one corner: Trumpism. The man believes in getting things done. See a problem, solve the problem. And that, in our lifetimes, has been refreshing and amazing to behold. For example, America has been screwed by bad trade deals and partners for years and...

Donald Trump will be blocked from putting a “rightwinger” on the US supreme court, according to Chuck Schumer, the soon-to-be Senate majority leader, in remarks that were a preview of how Democrats intend to wield their power come January.In an interview with the Associated Press, Schumer said Democrats would not confirm “any crappy nominees” to the supreme court, lower courts or Trump’s cabinet.“The bottom line is we’re not going to allow a rightwinger on the court,” Schumer said. Four supreme court justices are in their 70s, and its two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, are the oldest...

Beloved, when we see through the eyes of Almighty God's ETERNAL agape love, we will NEVER be the same and will be totally free! John 8:32! The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand! Maranatha! David Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word that you have heard. 8 At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because[a] the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining....

China’s state-run Global Times wrote in the wake of the U.S. midterms that “the ‘myth’ of Western-style democracy is losing its appeal, even in the West.” The Chinese Communist paper did not explain why it decided to put its own cheap shot of “myth” in scare quotes, as the word was not quoted from any other source, and the point of the editorial was that democracy is mythical because the citizens of the U.S. and other Western nations do not actually believe their votes bring them better government. The Global Times was enthralled with public opinion polls that showed deep...

A Democrat candidate in Minnesota who defeated a Republican incumbent in the midterm election Tuesday owns a Somali daycare center that is linked to a huge fraud settlement. The Democratic Farm Labor Party (DFL) (the official name of the Democrat Party in the state) candidate Abdi Daisane is the CEO of Blooming Kids Child Care Center in St. Cloud, Fox News reported Friday, noting he won Minnesota’s House District 14A seat. Over several years, the childcare center has received over $7 million from the state’s Child Care Assistance Program, the report continued: His childcare business also received $598,251.62 from the...

On Thursday, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the Federal Aviation Administration will replace outdated floppy disks at more than 400 air traffic control facilities with the Enterprise Information Display System by the end of 2028.A 2024 Government Accountability Office report found 90 percent of the nation's critical air traffic control infrastructure was due or past due for a technology refresh, amid recent high-profile software meltdowns and operational delays.Upgrades have already launched at five sites including Atlantic City International Airport and Nashville International Airport, with the new system replacing four legacy setups dating back to the 1980s across 435 facilities total.Duffy...

Demographics, age, and social views: Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, Silent Generation. The intersection of demographics, age, and social views explores how a person’s place in society—particularly their generational cohort—shapes their perspective on cultural, political, and systemic issues. Decades of data, notably from researchers like the Pew Research Center, reveal clear patterns in how social views evolve across different age groups. Khan Academy·khanacademymedicine1. The Core Generational FrameworkSociologists and demographic researchers categorize the population into distinct age cohorts to track shifting trends over time: USC Libraries Research Guides +1Generation Z (Born 1997–2012): Digital natives, highly diverse, and fiercely progressive on...

Of course, it was the Iran war—though I don’t think people, including Vice President JD Vance, are fully putting their finger on why.Fairly close to 100% of the electorate, whether they love or hate Donald Trump, understand him not as somebody to follow into a military campaign of his own impulsive choosing, unprovoked by any national emergency.Though in his arrogance and presumption it would have been hard for any underling to put it to him, there was something else: the unique and sequined nature of his legitimacy.His freakish rise in our politics is so much the reciprocal of the illegitimate...