Free Republic

Japan's biggest steelmaker, Nippon Steel Corp... has hired former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to help with its effort to acquire U.S. Steel ... "We look forward to working alongside him to further emphasize the ways in which Nippon Steel's acquisition of U.S. Steel bolsters the country's economic and national security," Nippon Steel said ... Pompeo had not been given a specific job title within the company. ... Although both steelmakers have received all regulatory approvals outside of the United States for their proposed $14.9 billion merger, they face political opposition and regulatory scrutiny from within the United States....

We all know relationships can be complicated, but few are quite as complicated as the one between Apple and Google. Cue Apple’s creepy new attack ad on Google—with a clear message for its 1.4 billion users—stop using Chrome on your iPhone. So, why now? Google is on a mission to convert Safari users to Chrome. It currently relies on Safari to drive most search requests from iPhones—enabled by a financial arrangement between itself and Apple, whereby Google search is the default on Safari. But that arrangement could soon be curtailed by monopoly investigations in the US and Europe. And so...

Of the 18 people whom state and local public health experts were able to interview, 16 reported eating meats sliced at a deli in the month before they got sick. There are no reports of people getting sick after eating packaged deli meat. It’s not exactly clear what meat is to blame for the listeria in this outbreak, the CDC says. The CDC and the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service are investigating, but no recalls have been issued. Most people who were sick reported eating turkey or liverwurst, and some reported eating ham. The meat came...

From time to time I reach back into my memory bank and write about my past. This one was a memory that I have been wanting to share for years, and I finally put my memory to type.Everyone has memories they cherish from times when they were growing up. I have many memories, but none of them are as memorable as the ones I have of the Summer of “73”. That Summer holds some of the most cherished memories of my teen years. Yet it also includes memories of doing things that would lead to more bad behavior in my...

The suspect in the Trump rally shooting searched online for information on the arrest of a Michigan mass shooter and his parents, who were prosecuted in a 2021 high school shooting. He visited websites for how to build explosives. And in the minutes before he fired shots in an attempted assassination of Donald Trump, he screenshotted a picture from a livestream of the Butler, Pennsylvania, rally. A week before the shooting, Thomas Matthew Crooks searched online for the date of the Democratic National Convention and where Trump planned to speak, as well as other searches for Trump and President Joe...

A sloppy update to software made by US cybersecurity giant CrowdStrike has taken PCs and servers used by airlines, railways, banks, broadcasters and even medical facilities around the world offline. For anyone following US politics over the past decade or so, the company’s name should be eerily familiar.CrowdStrike is making global headlines (and causing global headaches) this week after an update released Friday morning afflicted thousands of corporate machines running Microsoft products with the infamous blue screen of death error. While the company has already put out a fix, the buggy update is expected to cause billions of dollars and...

-snip- Having talked to Donald Trump this week, I am more convinced than ever that he has the strength and the bravery to fix it, to save Ukraine, to bring peace — and to stop the disastrous contagion of conflict. -snip- The Ukrainians have shown they can and will win. Even today, they are pushing Putin back again in the Kharkiv region, and they are exacting a huge toll on the Russians in Donetsk. Their heroism is incredible. But the war has been going on too long, and the cost is immense, in lives, in economic misery and instability. I...

“Her name is Ann. She lives in rural America, drives a minivan and is pro-life. While she has always been protective of her four kids, she’s become increasingly religious and concerned about the welfare of other children.” Cue the ominous music. You may not know it, but “Ann” and others like her have been identified by Biden’s Dept. of Homeland Security as top “radicalization suspects.” Training profiles, just like “Ann’s,” are used by the office of Terrorism and Violence Prevention to inform agents on who to keep a close eye on. Shamefully, this is just one in a series of...

How fares the Next Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) project? The NGAD is designed to produce a new generation of fighter aircraft, replacing much of the Air Force’s legacy fleet and bringing a suite of new capabilities to the long-range strike mission. The NGAD was also supposed to revolutionize the defense industrial base (DIB) and change the way that the United States builds and buys fighter planes. But there are evidently some troubles. The Air Force seems to be backpedaling on its commitment to the NGAD, and the entire project appears to have left the DIB cold.

“USA! USA! USA!” the crowd chanted as Terry Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, a professional wrestler, took the stage Thursday at the Republican National Convention to endorse Donald Trump.

WASHINGTON — Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat who was one of the longest serving members of Texas’ Congressional delegation and a longtime advocate for progressive causes, died on Friday amid her battle with pancreatic cancer. She was 74. Jackson Lee began her congressional career as an underdog, defeating four-term U.S. Rep. Craig Washingtonin the 1994 Democratic primary, before establishing herself as a fixture in Congress and Houston with ties to the highest reaches of the Democratic Party. Jackson Lee was a progressive fixture on Capitol Hill for decades. She was an early opponent of the Iraq War and advocate...

Despite the fact that Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries bullied the DNC into a temporary delay in holding a so-called "virtual roll call" to nominate President Joe Biden weeks before the Democrat National Convention, the DNC decided today to stick to their plans to nominate Biden early and lock him in as the candidate in early August. Chaos reigns still in the Democrat Party, as does the civil war that threatens to demolish the party even before they likely lose spectacularly this November.

President Trump recently floated the idea of eliminating the federal income tax. That tax became a fixture in 1913 when Congress ratified the 16th Amendment. The first U.S. Tax Code was about 400 pages. Today, with everything included, it’s more than 70,000 pages! Initially, the income tax was 1% on all incomes above $3,000 ($95,000 in today’s dollars) and applied to only 3% of the population. Today, the graduated rates start at 10% for families earning more than $30,000 and go up to 37% for families earning above $609,000. The rates vary greatly: The top 1% of taxpayers pay 45%...

A photo emerged of media magnate Rupert Murdoch sulking alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) during Sen. JD Vance’s (R-OH) speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on Wednesday night. (snip) “Rupert was in an ornery mood. He was lashing out at event staff and spewing profanity. He doesn’t like losing and this was a huge loss for him. At one point Don Jr’s face appeared on the Jumbotron and Rupert shook his fist and screamed something unintelligible,” a source who witnessed Murdoch’s tantrum said.

The DNC’s Rules Committee on Friday made the case for proceeding with Joe Biden’s virtual nomination while also outlining next steps in the process and how virtual roll call voting would work despite rumors of Biden dropping out, ABC News reported. In a letter distributed to other members of the rules committee on Wednesday morning and signed by Leah Daughtry and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, co-chairs of the Democratic National Convention Rules Committee, the committee declared its intent to “propose a framework for the best path forward” in their upcoming Friday meeting. Of course, this sudden new rule is being...

https://x.com/Perpetualmaniac/status/1814376668095754753

Dems return to Tammany Hall tactics with backroom dealings to boot Biden Smoke-filled Rooms? Should Biden opt to step aside, it is far from certain that Vice President Kamala Harris would be the automatic stand-in on the party ticket. As Democratic powerbrokers attempt to pressure President Joe Biden into bowing out of reelection, his departure could set up a messy selection process for his replacement that circumvents the primary electorate and threatens to send the party back to the days of Tammany Hall. Biden, 81, has faced calls to step aside as the party nominee in the wake of his...

In a shocking display of political manipulation, the left-wing establishment, terrified of the rising right, has trampled on democratic principles by enforcing a cordon sanitaire to block Orban’s Patriots for Europe from their rightful positions, betraying the will of millions of voters.A disgraceful spectacle is unfolding in the European Parliament. The left-wing establishment has united to exclude Viktor Orbán’s new “Patriots for Europe” group from offices that are rightfully theirs. This coordinated effort, known as a cordon sanitaire, is a blatant attack on democracy, showing the left’s desperation as they face the growing power and influence of right-wing voices in...

On the surface, this GOP convention is the most ebullient and unified in decades. Beneath it, many elected officials are deeply uneasy. The source of that agitation is Donald Trump’s running mate. At a glance, Mr. Trump’s choice of Sen. J.D. Vance makes sense, as he appears to be a prototype of Mr. Trump. Protectionist. Passionate. America First. But he isn’t Mr. Trump—not at all—in ways that are hugely consequential for the conservative movement and its future. In choosing Mr. Vance now, Mr. Trump sets him up for 2028, which means a monumental internal fight is coming. We’ll soon find...

U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a long-serving Democrat from Texas, has passed away at the age of 74. * * * The Gateway Pundit reported in June that Jackson Lee had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.