Free Republic

The tense exchange between former President Barack Obama and current President Joe Biden was captured during Ethel Kennedy’s funeral this week. The moment in which Obama looked uneasy left viewers questioning the nature of the pair’s animated conversation.

by Jeff ChildersWe need to check in on developments with China. The New York Times ran a story yesterday headlined, “With Jets and Ships, China is Honing Its Ability to Choke Taiwan.” I’m not sure “honing” is the right verb for that mixed metaphor, but we got the idea. China put Taiwan in check yesterday with military chess pieces. In our intense focus on the upcoming elections, it’s easy to forget how rapidly the rush of events is overtaking the world in other places. Yesterday, the United States, Japan, South Korea, France and Britain held massive joint military drills near...

(*reported as of 9/16) Mohave: 🟥: 80,413 (⬆️ 10,103 from 2020) 🟦:18,573 (⬇️ 3,075 from 2020) Pinal: 🟥: 107,625 (⬆️12,811) 🟦: 65,055 (⬇️ 1,617) Navajo: 🟥: 26, 886 (⬆️ 1,802) 🟦: 22,329 (⬇️ 4,119) Santa Cruz: 🟥: 5,446 (⬆️356) 🟦: 13,604 (⬇️1,518) Apache: 🟥: 11,284 (⬆️ 1,043) 🟦: 26,728 (⬇️ 1,803) Yavapai: 🟥: 89,528 (⬆️ 9,007) 🟦: 32,200 (⬇️ 3,335) Cochise: 🟥: 31,523 (⬇️ 1,421) 🟦: 18,803 (⬇️ 2,718) Yuma: 🟥: 34,124 (⬆️ 1,891) 🟦: 30,173 (⬇️3,982) Coconino: 🟥: 23,175 (⬇️641) 🟦: 34,357 (⬇️ 4,244) Gila: 🟥: 16,667 (⬆️ 594) 🟦: 7,902 (⬇️ 1,063) Graham: 🟥: 10,398 (⬆️ 599) 🟦:...

A woman undergoing life-saving cancer surgery in Canada was offered assisted suicide by doctors as she was about to enter the operating room. The case comes as the number of people opting to end their lives under the country’s medical assistance in dying (MAID) program has risen thirteen-fold from 1,018 to 13,241 in 2022. Assisted dying, which was legalised in Canada in 2016, is now the fifth-leading cause of death in the country. The case will sound alarm bells in the UK, where a bill on assisted dying is set to be brought forward in parliament this month. If it...

New details are emerging about drones that flew over U.S. military bases last year, though there is still no explanation for where they came from. ... Exclusive video given to NewsNation by someone who lives near the base shows lights in the sky with the person who took the video describing the drones being the size of cars. Some of the new reporting has corroborated that description. According to The Wall Street Journal’s reporting, Pentagon officials who have seen the drones in person say they were about 20 feet long, traveling at around 100 mph or faster and at an...

EU ministers are debating alternatives to Russian gas imports as the Ukraine transit deal expires in December 2024.. Concerns are rising regarding rising Russian LNG imports and the effectiveness of EU sanctions on re-exports.. Some EU members advocate for stricter LNG reporting and alternatives like Azerbaijan are being discussed, but no concrete solutions are yet agreed upon.. European Union energy ministers are discussing the flows of natural gas from Russia to the EU as the transit deal via Ukraine is nearing its end. The ministers are also talking about the issue of Russia’s LNG shipments to the bloc, which have...

On the menu today: We didn’t get a second debate between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, but perhaps last night gave us something even better — Harris forced to face tough questions about the Biden administration’s record from a questioner who cared about the details and wasn’t going to let her filibuster. Meanwhile, speaking before a union in Philadelphia, President Biden boasts that he can’t wait to see Donald Trump get sentenced for his felony convictions. For a long stretch, Americans have hungered for real leadership. We’ve yearned for a figure who was sharp, well-versed on all the...

Nothing proves the title better than the recent reinstatement of a mask mandate in San Francisco hospitals. Every clinical doctor knows the data overwhelmingly proves they don’t work “to prevent the spread of the flu, COVID and other seasonal illnesses,” the ostensible, official reason for re-masking.Note the adjective “clinical” doctor to contrast MDs in the trenches caring for sick people with bureaucrat MDs who, like Fauci, have never cared for patients in the real world but who dictate how the clinicians must practice medicine.For most viruses, a cloth surgical mask is as effective as a screen door on a submarine....

NATIONAL PASTA DAY October 17 celebrates all things pasta on National Pasta Day. Plus, October is National Pasta Month, giving pasta lovers a chance to celebrate all things pasta! #NationalPastaDay While we find noodles all over the world, pasta is a type of noodle of traditional Italian cuisine. The first reference dates to 1154 in Sicily and was first attested to in English in 1874. Typically, it is made from an unleavened dough of durum wheat flour. The flour is mixed with water or eggs and formed into sheets or various shapes. It can then be served fresh or dried...

This is NOT a voter poll - This is a Gambler Money poll - Individual state betting - Pennsylvania: Trump 59% - Kamala 41% - Michigan: Trump 56% - Kamala 44% - Wisconsin: Trump 56% - Kamala 44% - Nevada: Trump 50% - Kamala 50%

Israel official: Yahya Sinwar was eliminated.

Fox News host Harris Faulkner expressed surprise during a town hall with former President Donald Trump at how many women in the audience were worried about biological men playing women’s sports. Faulkner hosted a town hall with an all-female audience, which aired Wednesday on “The Faulkner Focus.” She noted that “transgender issues” had become a major part of the campaign cycle before asking the audience how many worried about how it pertains to athletics. “How many of you are worried about biological men and boys competing against women and girls in sports?” Faulkner asked the audience. “That’s almost – that...

To the shock of the state of North Carolina, where my wife Nancy and I have lived since 2003, Hurricane Helene wreaked massive devastation, taking at least 118 lives with at least 92 still missing. No one saw this coming, and it has brought unimaginable suffering to whole communities living in the mountains of our state, where horrific, unprecedented flooding wiped out little towns and destroyed countless homes, businesses, and roads. To this moment, many residents remain without power, and it is almost impossible to access some of the hardest hit areas.

Lightmatter, a company building computer chips that process information with light, has raised a $400 million Series D at a $4.4 billion valuation, highlighting investors’ appetite for novel solutions to AI’s computational demands. T. Rowe Price Associates led the round with additional backing from previous investors GV and Fidelity. The raise continues Boston-based Lightmatter’s remarkable growth. Founded in 2017, the company has raised $709 million in the past 18 months. With its Series D, Lightmatter has nearly quadrupled its previous valuation of $1.2 billion in a $155 million Series C-2 that closed in December 2023. In May 2023, it raised...

The strikes targeted facilities in parts of Yemen controlled by the Iran-backed group. U.S. B-2 bombers and other aircraft struck five underground Houthi weapons storage locations in parts of Yemen that the Iranian-backed rebel group controls, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday. The facilities, which officials said were hardened, housed "various weapons components of types that the Houthis have used to target civilian and military vessels throughout the region," Austin said. Houthi rebels have attacked civilian vessels in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The group was suspected in an attack in August. The strikes were the first...

Surely football coaches love advice from the opposing team, too! This Democrat campaign worker at MSNBC is saying Trump is destroying his election chances by campaigning in big blue states. He says he is wasting his time. Trump’s new campaign strategy is as incoherent as his rally speechesWhy has Trump gone the baffling route of touring blue states in the home stretch of the election season?With less than a month until the election, every hour of every day matters for a presidential candidate. Presidential campaigns are forced to make excruciating decisions about which battleground states to put most of their...

The so-called Dolton “Dictator” wants to stay in power. Tiffany Henyard, the self-proclaimed “super mayor” of Dolton, Illinois announced her reelection bid Tuesday — despite facing countless controversies during her first term that have landed her under federal scrutiny. “Attention, Attention, Attention, Attention,” she said on Facebook. “I am running for Reelection for Mayor of Dolton.” But Henyard, who clinched her first term in office in 2021, hasn’t done much fundraising leading up to Tuesday’s announcement. Her campaign, Friends of Tiffany Henyard, didn’t record any contributions or expenses between July and September, according to the most recent campaign disclosure report.

Kamala Harris runs commercials that identify her plans for the economy. The United States has experienced high inflation caused by the government printing press during the Biden-Harris years. Her solutions include a mix of scapegoating and even more federal spending. (1) These plans include “going after price-gougers.” Harris and her handlers do not acknowledge the government printing press as the cause of inflation. They scapegoat unnamed “price-gougers” the same way that the Soviet Union used to scapegoat “black marketeers.” One of Ayn Rand’s fictional enforcers in We the Living (depicting life in 1920s Soviet Russia) finally raised the obvious question...

The most shocking news story of the year won’t be identified as such on any major news network. It wasn’t the blockbuster announcement of drug and pedophilia allegations around music mogul Sean “P. Diddy” Combs; you expect such things from the rap crowd. It wasn’t the announcement that the powerful longshoremen’s union, run by Harold “I Will Cripple You!” Daggett decided to postpone their multi-coastal port strike -- after just three days -- until after the election; you expect union bosses and Democrat politicians to do favors for each other, they’ve been partners in crime for a century. No. The...

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox struck down seven new election rules on Wednesday, The Superior Court of Fulton County has effectively nullified crucial voting rules established by Georgia’s State Election Board (SEB) with its recent ruling. The SEB had previously implemented rules that required enhanced verification measures, such as signature matching and video surveillance of ballot drop boxes, all in an effort to curb election fraud and provide confidence in election results. But Judge Cox’s ruling, which declares these rules unconstitutional and void, opens the floodgates to potential chaos and voter fraud just weeks before the critical 2024...