Free Republic

Two weeks after becoming the Democratic nominee for president, Vice President Kamala Harris’s surge in enthusiasm and support has considerably narrowed the 2024 election. Last week in these pages, we wrote that while there was limited data available, Harris was clearly an improvement over President Biden. Now, new national and state-level polling suggests that assessment might be even more prescient, and points to an election that will be much closer than many had expected. Indeed, national polling underscores just how much the race has tightened. According to the 10 most recent public polls conducted after Biden’s withdrawal and aggregated by...

As the world prepared for an unprecedented gold medal bout, the referee presiding over the Olympic women's boxing finals warned both competitors to not punch each other in the testicles. The warning, which came from the official as two dudes prepared to make Olympic history by competing in the very first all-male match for the gold in the final round of women's boxing, reflected the Olympic Committee's goal to encourage fairness and sportsmanship. "Please, no punches to the yam bag," Olympic boxing referee Claude Laurent said. "If these men do not adhere to the rules and insist on swinging at...

Iran’s Power and Security Bubble Burst Following Haniyeh’s Assassination The killing of Ismail Haniyeh significantly weakened the political and regional power of Khamenei’s regime, causing its sense of security to collapse. After this event, the biggest question people around the world wanted answered was: What will the Iranian regime do? However, the Khamenei regime, weakened by the election boycott and the killing of Raisi, and with the new government under President Pezeshkian not yet formed, will not be able to endure a heavy war in the region. This is because its repercussions in Iran will lead to increased protests and...

The official website for the Kamala Harris campaign for president has no policies listed whatsoever — two weeks after she entered the race. There is a “Meet Kamala Harris” section, a “Take Action” section, a “Store” for campaign merchandise — and, of course, a “Donate” button. But as far as policies — there is absolutely nothing on the website. In addressing campaign headquarters last month, Harris defined her campaign loosely as a quest for a better future — which she contrasted to what she called former President Donald Trump’s desire to return America to an evil past: Our campaign has...

[Catholic Caucus] The Vatican’s Response to the Olympic Scandal Rewards the Mental Gymnastics of Conservative Catholics The recent scandal of the Paris Olympics has brought all of this together in a blasphemous tableau. In it, we saw not only the LGBQT+ portrayal of the Last Supper but also the celebration of the French Revolution, complete with the decapitated head of Queen Marie-Antoinette singing along to a heavy metal song. But the most anti-Catholic touch of all has now been delivered by Francis’s Vatican, with its Communiqué about the opening ceremony.In his Principles of Catholic Theology, Cardinal Ratzinger compared Vatican II’s...

Google has violated US antitrust law with its search business, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing the tech giant a staggering court defeat with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans get information online and to upend decades of dominance. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” US District Judge Amit Mehta Mehta wrote in Monday’s opinion. “It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” The decision by the US District Court for the...

At least two missiles believed to be from Iran have struck American base at Ain Al-Asad in western Iraq.

The smartest people I know are Freepers. Hopefully, y’all can give me some advice My 72yo wife has ulcerative colitis (UC), she’s in her 6th month of trying to get it into remission. UC is bleeding ulcers in your colon – therefore rectal bleeding and diarrhea, poor girl has it hugely. Her last UC episode, which went into remission within a couple months, was 17 year ago when she was 55yo. She’s taken all her biologic initial dosages of Remicade. We have Medicare and Medigap insurance, we live in KY in a major metro area. Her blood test results are...

The first Monday in August has arrived with panic sweeping through the finance sector, as nearly $2 trillion was wiped out of the S&P 500 at market open. Investor anxiety over a looming global recession triggered a selloff that sent U.S. stock futures plummeting and raised urgent questions about the Biden’s administration’s economic policies. As trading began on August 5th, a staggering $1.93 trillion was wiped out from the S&P 500, with stock index futures taking a massive hit. S&P 500 futures fell more than 4.4%, while Dow futures were down 3%, translating to a loss of 1,212 points. The...

In a sure sign that a stable hand is at the wheel, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger is tweeting out inspirational Bible verses. Intel’s stock plummeted at the end of last week. Sunday afternoon, Gelsinger quoted Proverbs—the New International Version translation. The bit of poetry came amidst a collapsing stock price at Intel following the news that the company had missed quarterly targets and would cut thousands of jobs. “Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you. Give careful thought to the paths for your feet and be steadfast in all your ways,” Gelsinger posted, quoting Proverbs...

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Ex-Gov. George Pataki says a fellow Republican could win the New York City mayor’s race next year if Big Apple Dems skew any more to the left. Pataki, the last Republican statewide office-holder when he left Albany in 2007, suggested Sunday that a GOPer’s chances would considerably improve if a lefty progressive such as city Comptroller Brad Lander defeats moderate incumbent Mayor Eric Adams in the Democratic Party’s primary next June. “We know that Mayor Adams is going to be challenged. [Comptroller] Brad Lander … has already announced that he’s running for mayor,” Pataki said on 770 WABC’s “The Cats...

New York CNN — Google has violated US antitrust law with its search business, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing the tech giant a staggering court defeat with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans get information online and to upend decades of dominance. The decision by the US District Court for the District of Columbia is a stunning rebuke of Google’s oldest and most important business. The company has spent tens of billions of dollars on exclusive contracts to secure a dominant position as the world’s default search provider on smartphones and web browsers.

TikTok video embedded in commentary video at 11 or so minutes: young lady saw homeless being bussed, fed, and paid to attend Kamala rally. Hers starts at 11:36 and she also mentions that is why they were careful with filming angles. (Always be very suspicious of strange camera angles!)

The prevailing logic regarding the Iranian nuclear weapons program is this. The Iranians are on the verge of having sufficient highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make several nuclear weapons. After they acquire this material they will then have to engineer the nuclear weapons into which this HEU will be placed. At some point in this process, the Israelis will stage a preemptive strike and eliminate the threat. It will all be fine. 3 min video Iran testing nuke? Why? Why do we assume that the Iranians will act this way? They know as well as we do that the Israelis...

Ukrainian tank crews are struggling with their M1A1 Abrams tanks, the M1 Abrams variant Kyiv is now using against Russia. They believe that the Abrams is not suited for modern warfare in the Donbas region. The tanks are reportedly challenging to maintain, spare parts are hard to acquire, and the tank must be kept in the rear for fear it will be destroyed. M1 Abrams Tank: What’s the Problem in Ukraine? Ukrainians also believe that condensation from the humid, foggy, and rainy weather obscures instruments onboard. They have complained that the M1 Abrams gun is not effective against buildings and...

Well, here's another nice mess NASA and Boeing have gotten us into. ... space station docking ports as the most expensive and coveted parking spots on or above the Earth because that's exactly what they are. There are only a handful of them, reaching one costs tens of millions of dollars, and they're reserved months or even years in advance. And, needless to say, there's no possibility of double-parking. Every docking port needed by the next vehicle must first be vacated by the current one. The dock currently occupied by Starliner is needed by a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule and...

House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi confirmed that she spoke with President Biden and fielded calls from worried Democrats, many of whom were disgruntled about their 2024 election odds, before he quit the race. Pelosi (D-Calif.), one of the most influential Democrats in Congress, in a Monday interview on ABC News’ “Good Morning America” denied that she “was burning up the airways” to push Biden out — right before divulging that she spoke to him after “people called me.” “It was always about him,” the former House speaker claimed. “And why I said I didn’t make calls, because people said I...

...‘Practically hidden in the choking pall of tobacco and celebrity, a young woman was perched on a bar stool watching the game, waiting, calculating,’ Bronstein recalled, breathlessly. ‘She was almost sedated, nursing a glass of wine and smoking cigarettes. ‘The quiet observer was Kamala Harris, the woman whom many now think is an odds-on favorite to be President of the United States,’ he gushed in the 2018 article – a time when she was briefly leading in the polls for the Democrat nomination. ‘But on this night, she was a political rookie, barely a year into her first term as...

Elon Musk has hit back at Keir Starmer as the war of words between the pair intensified. The prime minister slapped down the billionaire tech boss for claiming “civil war is inevitable” in the UK in the wake of the far-right riots which have taken place across the country in the past week. The PM’s official spokesman said: “There’s no justification for comments like that and what we’ve seen in this country is organised illegal thuggery which has no place on our streets or online. “We’re talking about a minority of thugs that do not speak for Britain and in...