Free Republic

President-elect Donald Trump, keeping with his promise for a crypto-friendly administration, plans to nominate former SEC Commissioner Paul Atkins to head the agency, according to his Truth Social post. Currently the CEO at Patomak Global Partners, Atkins is a well-known veteran of the financial world and Republican political circles specifically. He had been widely expected to get the position as the nation’s top financial market regulator. If confirmed, Atkins would succeed Gary Gensler, a widely reviled figure in the digital currency community for his many efforts to clamp down on the $3.5 trillion crypto market. Trump has promised a easier...

Up to 50,000 Russian soldiers could be missing in action in Ukraine, a senior defence official who is related to President Putin has revealed in an apparent slip-up. Anna Tsivileva, a deputy defence minister, told a parliamentary roundtable that there had been tens of thousands of requests for DNA testing to identify the remains of servicemen. “We accept the DNA of relatives, as I have said, free of charge,” Tsivileva said. “[There are] 48,000 relatives who have applied to us.” However, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the parliamentary defence committee, stressed that the figures cited by Tsivileva were classified and...

The night was November 5th, 2024. Political prisoner Enrique Tarrio lay flat on the floor of a solitary jail cell in Mississippi with his ear pressed to the bottom of the door. The night turned into the early morning hours of November 6th. Tarrio waited breathlessly, listening to the noises of faint radio broadcasts. Around 1:00 AM, the news projected Donald Trump won Pennsylvania. Tarrio took a full breath of the air coming under the door of his tiny cell. Oxygen. Hope. In the rural Mississippi prison, surrounded by Trump-supporting guards and inmates, Tarrio heard chants of “TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!”...

[Catholic Caucus] The “Suicide of Altering the Faith” Took Place Before We Heard of FrancisThe Church had already reached the point of crisis before Jorge Bergoglio was even ordained to the priesthood (on December 13, 1969).Most of us understand that the Catholic Church is currently undergoing a profound crisis and that Francis seems to be doing everything in his power to make it worse. While Catholics justifiably consider how to best counteract the frequent outrages from Rome, it is worth considering the broader context of the crisis. To that end, the following milestones paint a picture that we may sometimes...

Nissan, once a titan of the automotive world, is now teetering on the brink of collapse, jeopardising the livelihoods of 7,000 UK workers. Amid the crisis, financial mismanagement, fierce competition, and an inability to adapt to market changes have left the Japanese automaker grappling with an uncertain future. Leadership Shake-Up Amid Financial Turmoil The situation worsened when Stephen Ma, Nissan's Chief Financial Officer, resigned during the company's battle against looming bankruptcy. The Financial Times reports that Nissan is at risk of amassing a record debt of £4.4 billion ($5.6 billion) by 2026, with global sales plummeting 3.8% to 1.59 million...

A three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal government has the authority to deport illegal immigrants even if local leaders try to impede the process. The case arose after King County Executive Dow Constantine issued an executive order in 2019 that instructed county officials to prohibit “fixed base operators” (FBO) on a county airfield from servicing flights chartered by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deport illegal immigrants who are lawfully removable. FBO’s “lease space from the airport and provide flights with essential services, such as fueling and landing stairs,” according to the ruling.The...

CNBC just reported the following:https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/04/amazon-sued-by-dc-ag-over-excluding-areas-from-prime-delivery.htmlAmazon sued by DC attorney general for allegedly excluding neighborhoods from Prime deliveryDecember 4, 2024Washington, D.C.’s attorney general sued Amazonon Wednesday, accusing the company of covertly depriving residents in certain ZIP codes in the nation’s capital from access to Prime’s high-speed delivery.The lawsuit from AG Brian Schwalb alleges that, since 2022, Amazon has “secretly excluded” two “historically underserved” D.C. ZIP codes from its expedited delivery service while charging Prime members living there the full subscription price. Amazon’s Prime membership program costs $139 a year and includes perks like two-day shipping and access to streaming content.“Amazon is...

UnitedHealthcare's disturbing track record of rejecting claims has come under the spotlight after the insurance giant's CEO was shot dead in what is believed to have been a targeted attack in the heart of Manhattan. Brian Thompson, 50, was gunned down around 6:45am on Wednesday outside a Hilton Hotel in Midtown. The masked attacker remains on the loose and has not yet been identified. Their motive for the shooting has not been disclosed. UnitedHealthcare was being probed by the Department of Justice for alleged antitrust violations, while its parent company, UnitedHealthcare Group (UHG), has come under fire from angry patients...

As American families struggled to pay the bills, the Biden-Harris administration squandered billions of taxpayer dollars on illegal migrants and woke “racism” research. Without spending a penny, we can easily identify not racism but extreme bias against law-abiding American citizens in every policy Democrats implement. This was the America Last administration, as shocking numbers released by Donald Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) illustrate. DOGE, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, released statistics culled from multiple think tanks and research entities illustrating how onerous the cost of illegal migration is on the U.S. taxpayer. “In 2023 alone, illegal...

WORLD — After receiving a compelling email, a confused senior citizen has reportedly pledged to give one billion dollars to an exiled Nigerian prince. According to sources, the exiled Prince has promised to repay the elderly man the billion dollar sum and then further shower him with untold riches as thanks. "This fella from Niger, Nigeria, he's had it bad, folks. Exiled! Betrayed! Beat down!" exclaimed the elderly man, named Joseph R. Biden. "I couldn't just stand by. Plus, he has an incredible sum of rupees hidden in a cave that he'll be able to access after I wire the...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal-elect Pablo David wants to rehabilitate Judas — and share the Eucharist with everyone, no matter whatAt the ordination of the new Bishop of Cubao, Cardinal-elect Pablo David—scheduled to receive the red hat in just a few days, on December 7—was the homilist. The homily implied that the Holy Eucharist should be given to anyone, even to grave sinners, and that Jesus gave the Eucharist to Judas as a sign of forgiveness. He posted this homily online, where it quickly attracted “likes” and shares. Here are the relevant excerpts:Episcopal Ordination and Canonical Possession of Bishop Elias L. Ayuban,...

Former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director and incoming Trump Border Czar Tom Homan has been in a verbal war with sanctuary city mayors for weeks, warning them to get out of the way when federal authorites come to their towns looking for criminal illegal aliens. During an interview with Fox News Tuesday night, Homan upped the ante and warned local authorities that harboring illegal aliens is a felony. "There will be consequences," Homan said. HOMAN: “You can sit there & watch! Get out of the way. We’re doing it…It is a felony to knowingly harbor & conceal an illegal alien...

I am so sick of Joe and Hunter Biden, but Lord, forgive me, I have to keep writing about them. At least today's story is as entertaining as those two are revolting. On Sunday, as you're well aware, Presidentish Biden issued one of the most sweeping pardons in presidential history for offenses his son "has committed or may have committed or taken part in" for an 11-year stretch going back to when the then-vice president and his offspring/bagman were playing footsie with Vladimir Putin's (since deposed) cronies in Kyiv. But federal judge Mark C. Scarsi is done with their excuses....

JACKSONVILLE, fla. — A tackle on a local college football field this weekend had nothing to do with the game. Daniel Kozlowski, 44, was arrested and charged with battery on law enforcement, disorderly conduct, grand theft, burglary and trespassing. He was arrested on the football field at Edward Waters University in the middle of this Saturday’s game, when he ran onto the field and was tackled by Duval County School Police and Jacksonville Sheriff’s officers and taken into custody. While Kozlowski was arrested on the field, police said the crimes started three hours prior on the Southside. Officers were called...

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson compares bans on sex changes for kids to bans on interracial marriage.

The wife of slain health insurance CEO Brian Thompson claimed Wednesday that her husband had been getting threats before he was gunned down in Midtown Manhattan. “There had been some threats,” Paulette Thompson told NBC News in her first comments since her husband was murdered early Wednesday. “Basically, I don’t know, a lack of coverage?” she said, referring to her 50-year-old husband’s role as CEO of UnitedHealthcare’s insurance division. “I don’t know details. I just know that he said there were some people that had been threatening him,” she told NBC News by phone. “I can’t really give a thoughtful...

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was accused of insider trading and fraud by tghe Department of Justice before he was assassinated on Wednesday in Manhattan. Thompson, 50, was shot dead in what NYPD officials believe was a targeted attack as he exited the Hilton hotel before an investor conference. His killer remains on the loose. Last year the DoJ launched a probe into whether the nation's biggest insurer, led by Thompson, was unfairly restricting competitors and running a monopoly. The DoJ then filed a lawsuit in October naming Thompson and other executives, accusing the CEO of failing to tell investors about...

NEW YORK -- The jury in the case against Daniel Penny continued to deliberate the case on Wednesday. A note from the jury asked for several pieces of video. The jury wanted to see police body camera footage, Penny's interrogation video, and a bystander's video. The Marine veteran is charged with using a fatal chokehold to subdue a New York subway rider whose behavior was alarming other passengers. The anonymous jury is weighing manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide charges in the death of Jordan Neely, a troubled street performer who was homeless. The veteran, Penny, has pleaded not guilty and...

Mayor Eric Adams defended Daniel Penny as a Manhattan jury on Tuesday started deliberating whether to convict him of choking a troubled homeless man to death on the subway — insisting the Marine veteran was doing “what we should have done as a city.” Hizzoner said he hoped jurors would “make the right decision” in the lightning-rod case as he blasted the “failure” of the Big Apple’s mental health system for not doing more to help Jordan Neely in the lead up to the fatal 2023 subway encounter. “The young man, in this case, was going within our system, throughout...

President Joe Biden issued a pardon for his son, Hunter Biden, claiming that he was unfairly prosecuted for political reasons. He issued the pardon on Sunday despite repeated claims by him and his White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that he would never do so. In a statement released Sunday, the president argued that his son was “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” due to his connection to the Democratic commander-in-chief. While Biden’s move drew criticism from both Democrats and Republicans, it’s only the latest in a long, bipartisan line of controversial presidential pardons. Here's a list of four other controversial presidential...