Free Republic

Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth said Wednesday morning — amid rumors that President-elect Donald Trump would replace him with Governor Ron DeSantis — that he spoke directly to Trump and has his support. “I spoke to the President-elect this morning. He said, ‘Keep going. keep fighting. I’m behind you all the way,'” Hegseth said. Asked by CBS News if he was in this “all the way,” he responded, “Why would I back down? I’ve always been a fighter. I’m here for the fighters. This is personal & passionate.”

New York CNN — The CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot and killed in midtown Manhattan Wednesday morning in an apparent targeted attack as he was about to attend the company’s annual investor conference, a law enforcement official tells CNN. The gunman remains on the loose. Brian Thompson was walking toward the New York Hilton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, dressed in a suit and tie, to attend UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference being held in the ballroom. A gunman, who investigators tell CNN was masked in the freezing temperatures, waited for about 10 minutes before Thompson’s arrival, before opening fire from 20...

Trump selects Peter Navarro as Senior Counselor for Trade and Manufacturing.Trump says Navarro was "treated horribly by the Deep State" and that Navarro will advance Trump's "manufacturing, tariff and trade agenda."

Syria claimed that its counteroffensive successfully pushed back insurgents attempting to advance toward the strategic city of Hama, while opposition forces reported capturing additional Syrian soldiers and Iran-backed militants in intense clashes. This latest flare-up in Syria's civil war follows recent gains by insurgents, including the capture of large areas in the northern city of Aleppo and towns in the southern part of Idlib province. The conflict between President Bashar Assad's government and armed opposition forces, which seek to overthrow him, has claimed an estimated half-a-million lives over the past 13 years. According to Syrian state media SANA, government forces,...

This isn't satire. Trump actually posted this to Truth Social. I'm not sure what he meant by this, but I do know he just joked about annexing Canada right to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau's face!

The Chicago Teachers’ Union, like Nazis, Islamic terrorists, and diseased ferret owners, are always angry.After demanding $145,000 salaries, free Ozempic, and turning every school into an illegal alien shelter/Green New Deal lab, they still haven’t gotten everything they wanted. Like free sex changes and “more queer competent” employees. Also secretly transitioning students.Now CTU is shrieking that a “contract that protects queer & trans students and ensures affirming, inclusive curriculum is what our students deserve” and tweeted a video of a transgender man at a CTU rally demanding “fully funded bilingual education”, and claiming that “if our schools aren’t safe for...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Advisers to Donald Trump publicly and privately are floating proposals to end the Ukraine war that would cede large parts of the country to Russia for the foreseeable future, according to a Reuters analysis of their statements and interviews with several people close to the U.S. president-elect.The proposals by three key advisers, including Trump's incoming Russia-Ukraine envoy, retired Army Lieutenant-General Keith Kellogg, share some elements, including taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table.Trump's advisers would try forcing Moscow and Kyiv into negotiations with carrots and sticks, including halting military aid to Kyiv unless it agrees to...

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is linked throughout the Biden-Ukraine entanglements, from Trump’s first impeachment to Hunter Biden’s business dealings.Back in 2019, the then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella anonymously accused Trump of demanding an investigation into Biden’s alleged corruption in Ukraine in exchange for military aid, according to Real Clear Investigations.Ciaramella was an adviser to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office when Biden threatened to stop aid to Ukraine unless it fired Viktor Shokin, Real Clear stated. Shokin was the prosecutor investigating the Ukrainian gas company, Burisma Holdings. Hunter joined the board of Burisma in 2014 where he was making...

At the beginning of Monday’s Chicago City Council meeting, residents addressed Mayor Brandon Johnson about the city’s spending on non-citizen migrants, tax increase proposals and more.

A manhunt is underway in Manhattan after the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was shot Wednesday morning, according to multiple local news outlets. Brian Thompson, 50, was reportedly shot in the chest near the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue just before 7 a.m. Thompson was transported to Mount Sinai West in critical condition, but was later pronounced dead, the New York Times reported. It has not been confirmed that Thompson was staying in the New York Hilton, but he is visiting New York City from Minnesota for an investor conference, which was scheduled for today. The New York Police Department is...

While Biden announces $1 billion for African nations, Hurricane Helene victims in North Carolina are still struggling after the catastrophic storm. Biden received vicious criticism following his announcement. “We need humanitarian aid for Americans displaced from their homes in Western NC!!” X user Kelly McCarty said.

As President-elect Donald Trump fills out his Cabinet and chooses his closet advisers ahead of Inauguration Day, many African American leaders are asking why more Black people haven't been appointed to key positions. ABC News spoke to more than a half dozen longtime and new African American conservatives and Republicans within Trumpworld, in and outside of Washington. Last month, the president-elect appointed Scott Turner, who was executive director of the White House Opportunity and Revitalization Council during Trump's first term, to serve as secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. ...

Democrats flip final House seat of the 2024 elections, narrowing Republicans' majority Democrat Adam Gray has flipped California’s 13th District, handing Republicans a slimmer majority in the House.

San Francisco Mayor-elect Daniel Lurie will have to tackle the city’s nearly $1 billion budget deficit when he takes office on January 8, and he may be forced to cut staff and services to overcome a shortfall of the city’s own creation. San Francisco imposed draconian lockdown policies during the coronavirus pandemic, while also adopting lax policing policies that allowed crime and homelessness to skyrocket. Many of the city’s residents — including tech employees, now able to work from home — moved elsewhere. As a result, San Francisco has recovered from the pandemic more slowly than any other major city...

We're sure you'll learn to love the new Outlook for Windows app [not] Microsoft is preparing to kill off the old Windows Mail, Calendar, and People apps by the end of this month and shift users to the Outlook for Windows app.In November, Microsoft confirmed there would be no reprieve for the apps. It will be possible to export local emails, calendar events, and contacts that users have stored in Mail, Calendar, and People into the new Outlook up until December 31, 2024. After that, however, the ability to send or receive mail will be revoked."The new Outlook for Windows...

An NBC News hit piece accusing Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, of habitually coming to work at “Fox and Friends Weekend” hung over and smelling of alcohol has been refuted by over a dozen Fox News personalities and guests who have worked with him, including his two cohosts. The NBC story, which is based on ten anonymous sources, claims that Hegseth’s drinking “concerned” his colleagues at Fox News. “Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of ‘Fox & Friends Weekend,’ which began in 2017, they...

The arguments are expected to start at 10 p.m. EST. The U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments against a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors. The arguments are expected to start at 10 p.m. EST. You can watch live here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6qhn5MQWn0

Summary: This is, of course, a discussion of the email that Pete's mom sent to him during his divorce (2018) chastising.She says that the email was sent in haste when she was upset about Pete's divorce and shortly after sending it she apologized for the email and expressed her regret for sending it.She fully supports Pete and thanks President Trump for considering him for the SecDef post.

VIDEOThe pain! The pain! Oh, the unbearable PAIN!!! Yes, PAIN is what one of the extreme TDS hosts of Morning Joe, Jonathan Lemire, was experiencing right after asking a question to the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte which was obviously meant to elicit a critical Trump slamming answer. What Lemire got from Rutte instead caused him PAIN so severe that it is probably still reverberating inside his tortured TDS soul.

Coca-Cola is scaling back its packaging sustainability goals, igniting outrage from environmental activists. The beverage company, which has long been criticized for being one of the world’s top producer of plastic pollutants, changed its “voluntary environmental goals” this week. It now aims to use 35% to 40% recycled material in its packaging by 2035 — a drastic reduction from its previous goal of 50% by 2030. Coca-Cola explained in a press release that its “evolution is informed by learnings gathered through decades of work in sustainability, periodic assessment of progress and identified challenges.” Coke is also changing its recycling goal....