Free Republic

A 17-year-old handed just $100 to ChatGPT and let the AI run a stock portfolio for one month. The results stunned finance watchers, with gains far beyond major Wall Street benchmarks. =============================================================== In late June 2025, 17-year-old Nathan Smith from rural Oklahoma gave ChatGPT control over a $100 stock portfolio. Four weeks later, the results shocked many: a 23.8% gain—far above the Russell 2000 (+3.9%) and biotech ETF XBI (+3.5%) during the same period. Smith shared his experiment on Reddit, and it quickly spread across tech and finance communities, with coverage from Decrypt, Futurism, and others. Smith is quick to...

A Wisconsin judge facing federal charges for allegedly helping an illegal alien criminal avoid arrest by ICE agents, caught on video, now has been paid nearly $50,000 for the time she’s been on suspension because of the criminal case. A report at the Federalist said Hannah Dugan “has ‘earned’ $48,997 since being suspended in late April.” That suspension is while “she faces charges for allegedly helping a violent illegal immigrant elude federal law enforcement officials.” She’s continued to collect full pay and benefits while accused of criminal actions. She was suspended by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, but has continued to...

More older student loan borrowers are struggling to pay their monthly bill, as the Trump administration ramps up its collection efforts. Nearly 1 in 5 — or roughly 18% — of student loan borrowers who are 50 and older became “seriously delinquent,” or 90 days or more late on their payments, in the second quarter of 2025, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The rate for that age group was closer to 10% in 2019. For comparison, closer to 8% of student loan borrowers between the ages of 18 and 29 became seriously delinquent during that time...

Brian Harris, whose decades as leader and lobbyist for the anti-abortion group Tennessee Right to Life were instrumental in ushering in the state’s 2022 near-total abortion ban, died Saturday at his home in South Carolina after an extended illness. He was 57. Harris served as president of Tennessee Right to Life for 23 years after leaving behind the aspiring musician career that first brought him from Indiana to Tennessee and taking over a dormant Nashville chapter of the organization in 1992. Harris went on to transform Tennessee Right to Life into a powerful statewide political force whose candidate endorsements and...

Trump-allied Nawrocki wants to curb Kiev’s nefarious Neo-Nazi ideology in Poland.Beneath all current tensions between Ukraine and its major sponsor Poland, lies the deep, unhealed historical wound of the WW2 Volyn massacre.The Volyn massacre was a series of war crimes perpetrated by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators, under national hero Stepan Bandera, that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish population. To this day, Warsaw considers the Volyn tragedy to be genocide of Poles.Back in September 2024, when Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky aggressively refused to discuss the issue, Poland started pressuring Ukraine to exhume the victims of the massacre, giving them...

Wild video shows a US tourist yanking a suspected pickpocket by the ponytail after the teenager allegedly stole her purse and passport while on vacation in Venice. Footage of the dramatic incident, which took place last Thursday, shows the furious woman gripping the teen girl by the hair in front of a crowd of onlookers in the world-famous Italian city. The mom of eight was able to track down her stolen purse by using the “Find My Friends” feature on her AirPods, which were inside it, according to her daughter, Karis McElroy, who shared the original video of the confrontation...

A federal judge on Tuesday tossed out a lawsuit President Trump filed against the entire Maryland federal bench over their unlawful practice of issuing “automatic injunctions” to stop deportations of criminal aliens. US District Judge Thomas Cullen, a Trump appointee, tossed out President Trump’s lawsuit after appearing skeptical during a hearing earlier this month. “Much as the Executive fights the characterization, a lawsuit by the executive branch of government against the judicial branch for the exercise of judicial power is not ordinary. The Executive’s lawsuit will be dismissed, and its motion for preliminary injunction denied as moot. Whatever the merits...

A federal judge in Maine declined on Monday to block the government from stripping Medicaid funding from one of Maine’s largest abortion providers, finding that to do so would override “the will of the people as expressed by Congress.” At issue is a provision of the tax and spending bill Congress passed in July that would deny abortion providers Medicaid funding even for health services other than performing abortions. In a blunt, 19-page opinion, Judge Lance E. Walker of the Federal District Court in Maine wrote that particularly after the Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade,...

It is not hard to predict where progressives will progress to next after abortion. As it perishes of liberalism, Canada is once again at the vanguard: As assisted deaths have become a major part of Canada’s health care system, the Quebec College of Physicians suggested legalizing euthanasia for infants born severely ill. If you kill babies before they are born, why not kill them afterward? The distinction is arbitrary. As The Atlantic noted, the practice is legal in the Netherlands – the first country to adopt it since Nazi Germany did it in 1939. Nazism was highly progressive in its...

A patriotic grassroots movement called Operation Raise the Colours is fighting back against the idea that it is racist or hateful to fly your country’s own flag. Until a few weeks ago, you were more likely to see a Palestinian, Ukrainian, or LGBT pride flag flying in London than to see any of the UK’s own colours. Now, thanks to a grassroots movement called Operation Raise the Colours, that could be changing. Union Jacks and St. George’s flags have been cropping up across the country over the last few weeks, being hung on lampposts by groups of patriots. The movement...

Key Points Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook will file a lawsuit challenging her removal by President Donald Trump, her attorney said. “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” the lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement. =============================================================== Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook will file a lawsuit challenging her removal by President Donald Trump, her attorney said Tuesday. “President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” the lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said in a statement, a day after Trump cited allegations of mortgage fraud by Cook in firing her. “His attempt...

Dozens of Jewish clergy from all over Los Angeles County converged on the Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles Monday, urging immediate food aid to Palestinians in Gaza, an end to the Israel-Hamas War, and the safe return home for Israeli hostages in Hamas captivity. The rally, called “A Jewish Prayer for Peace,” was organized by rabbis across denominations in the Jewish community. Organizers called the demonstration a “moral cry for an end to the starvation of Palestinians in Gaza.”... “There is nothing more pro Israel than calling for an end of the war in Gaza, the return of Israel’s hostages...

A brash but brilliant cop becomes head of a new police department, where he leads an unlikely team of misfits in solving Edinburgh's cold cases. Dept. Q is a British crime thriller television series created by Scott Frank and Chandni Lakhani, based on the book series by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen. It premiered on Netflix on 29 May 2025.[1] In August 2025, it was renewed for a second season.[2]

MSNBC’s James Woods-dubbed “media gnat” Ali Velshi continues to illustrate why socialist media talking heads know as much about sound economics as flat-earthers know about astrophysics. Velshi went on a rant against rich people and American capitalism during the August 23 edition of MSNBC’s Velshi, an irony since he has an estimated net worth of $5 million. He bellyached over a strawman notion that “America has been sold a myth” that the rich have been punished by a punitive tax system, when the “reality is economic policy hasn’t even remotely punished the elites in this country. It has simply rewarded...

TUSCARAWAS COUNTY, Ohio (WOIO) - New information was released Monday about the Amish family involved in two deadly drownings over the weekend. Tuscarawas County Sheriff Orvis Campbell described this as a “spiritual delusion” which left dead the father and 4-year-old son. The victims have been identified as Marcus J. Miller, 45, and Vincen Miller, 4. The mother, 40, has been hospitalized for mental health treatment. Campbell said she is expected to be formally charged Tuesday with aggravated murder. The situation happened over the course of Saturday and Sunday while the family camped at Atwood Lake. Campbell said around 1 a.m....

Over a single weekend in August, 1200 technology contractors found themselves locked out of their systems, their access badges deactivated, their projects suspended indefinitely. The mass termination wasn't the result of budget cuts or strategic pivots—it was the fallout from a corruption scheme that reached into the highest echelons of Walmart's Global Tech division. The retail giant's abrupt severance of ties with Caspex-sourced contractors followed the firing of a Global Tech vice president who had been orchestrating an elaborate kickback operation. Daily payments starting from $30,000 flowed from contracting agencies seeking preferential treatment in Walmart's vast technology ecosystem, sources familiar...

Someone in the cartel is in trouble. The U.S. Coast Guard, in partnership with the Department of Defense, seized over 75,000 pounds of illegal narcotics. The value of the rugs is estimated to be nearly $500 million. Most of the drugs were seized near the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Washington Examiner reported more in-depth details about the drug seizure: The Coast Guard seized more than 75,000 pounds of illegal narcotics, valued at $473 million, from late June to mid-August, the service announced on Monday. The 76,140-pound haul, which was obtained in 19 different interdictions in the Eastern...

A judge on Monday ordered the Republican-dominated Utah legislature to redraw its congressional map ahead of the 2026 midterms, after the body appeared to ignore safeguards voters put in place to ensure districts aren’t gerrymandered. The Congressional map, which was drawn in 2021, divided the Democratic Salt Lake County into the state's four districts, which diluted Democratic influence. The districts have since been won by Republican candidates, per the Associated Press. U.S. District Court Judge Dianna Gibson ruled that the maps need to be redone because state lawmakers ignored an independent commission that was established by voters to limit partisan...

Pakistan's repression of its overseas critics demonstrates how mass, unvetted Islamic migration affects free speech in the West. Pakistan is one of the world’s most repressive regimes, as it systematically targets dissidents—critics as well as members of ethnic and religious minorities. Such targeting occurs in various ways, including through abductions, arrests, torture, and murders. As a result, many critics flee the country and seek asylum elsewhere, hoping for a freer and safer life. Yet, even in exile, they are targeted and persecuted by Pakistan’s Intelligence Services (ISI). Host countries (the UK, Netherlands, France, Sweden, Germany, Canada, and the U.S., among...

Top officials at the Pentagon are “thinking about” whether the U.S. should acquire equity stakes in leading defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday. The Cabinet secretary, in an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” revealed the Defense Department’s interest in taking those stakes days after the U.S. government acquired 10% of Intel stock in a roughly $9 billion deal. Lutnick was asked if the Trump administration would repeat that move with other companies that do business with the government. “Oh there’s a monstrous discussion about defense,” Lutnick replied. Lockheed, which makes most of its revenue...