Free Republic

How a single hack infected the world’s most important operating system. Video is 53 minutes. Yes it's long, but it goes into all the background of what happened, plus a post-mortem and analysis. This is about the xz compression hack several years ago. I remember hearing about it and being thankful we have unaffiliated people who can test things like this when they see an anomaly in the code/testing they are performing.

Trump’s strategy prizes preemptive deterrence over drift or isolation, exploiting leverage to sap rivals, steady allies, and avert the cascading conflicts that metastasized under Obama and Biden. Critics of Trump’s second-term foreign policy—the usual Left and some on the neo-isolationist Right—claim it is recklessly herky jerky and guided by no consistent grand strategy. Yet, in both the first Trump administration’s National Security Strategy paper and its second-term update, he clearly disdained ground wars abroad, nation-building, and isolationism. A better description of U.S. strategy across Trump’s two terms in office might be called Jacksonian or preemptive deterrence. That is, Trump’s foreign...

Apple's popular news app is facing increased scrutiny over alleged political bias, but the overwhelming left-wing tilt at the top of the company may be a factor. Of the 25 people listed on Apple's leadership page, 15 of them made substantial contributions to Democrats in various election cycles, according to a review of FEC filings. Just six Apple executives have any record of contributing to Republicans — though four of them gave far more amounts to Democrats. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, donated $236,100 to the Hillary Victory Fund in 2016 and $2,300 for President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, according to...

Democratic events protesting President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address prompted sharp pushback from conservatives on social media and from Arkansas' Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who said the events painted a sharp contrast between the two parties. Democrats held several counterprogramming events to Trump’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday, including an event called "State of the Swamp," where far-left activists, including the Portland Frog Brigade, took to the stage dressed in animal costumes. "The difference today isn’t between right vs left," Sanders posted on X in response to a video of activists dressed up in frog...

US News Metro Long Island Politics World News Metro California winery owner gives hottest take yet on why industry is dying By Ross O'Keefe Published Feb. 25, 2026, 6:43 p.m. ET 503 Today's Video Headlines 00:10 / 00:50 The owner of a Sonoma County winery believes the industry is dying because baby boomers are. Jon Phillips, the owner of Sonoma County winery Inspiration Vineyards and Winery, told The Post that the population decline of the industry’s top wine-consuming generation has led to a recent downturn in sales. “A lot of people have a misconception that the boomers are drinking less,”...

A former U.S. Air Force officer and instructor pilot has been arrested and charged with unlawfully providing “defense services” to Chinese military pilots, specifically combat aircraft training.

Sorry, Gav. Sorry, Gretch. Sorry, Pete. And nothing for you, Josh Shapiro. The DNC establishment selected newly elected Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger as the face of their party to make their official response to President Trump's State of the Union speech. And all anyone could conclude from it was 'what were they thinking?' [Rebuttal video at link] With her knobby nose and missing lips, she had the unfortunate appearance of a gnome, and not a cute one. She can't help that, but Breitbart notes that her gestures were off, too, which she could have practiced a little. Abigail Spanberger's response...

New York's attorney general sued Valve, a video game developer whose franchises include Counter-Strike, Team Fortress and Dota, accusing it of promoting illegal gambling and threatening to addict children through its use of "loot boxes." In a complaint filed on Wednesday in a state court in Manhattan, Attorney General Letitia James said Valve's loot boxes amounted to "quintessential gambling," violating the state's constitution and penal law, with valuable items often hard to win and many items worth pennies. Valve, based in Bellevue, Washington, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Loot boxes let players use real money to buy...

In its 250th year, is America, land of immigration, becoming a country of emigration? Last year the U.S. experienced something that hasn’t definitively occurred since the Great Depression: More people moved out than moved in. The Trump administration has hailed the exodus—negative net migration—as the fulfillment of its promise to ramp up deportations and restrict new visas. Beneath the stormy optics of that immigration crackdown, however, lies a less-noticed reversal: America’s own citizens are leaving in record numbers, replanting themselves and their families in lands they find more affordable and safe. Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. hasn’t collected comprehensive...

Oregon Rep. Maxine Dexter (D), a woke physician who downplayed the risks associated with COVID vaccines and has since championed so-called "gender-affirming care," recently raised eyebrows by characterizing an innocent Make America Healthy Again initiative as racist. After repeatedly calling for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be "dismantled" during a town hall on Saturday, Dexter launched into an unhinged attack on the Department of Health and Human Services and Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. "RFK Jr. is one of the biggest threats to our community and to the health of this country," said Dexter. "When you don't follow the...

In a stark demonstration of the impact that mass migration and multiculturalism have had on the British political system and its accelerating sectarianisation, the far-left Green Party made one of its final pitches ahead of this week’s major by-election entirely in the South Asian language of Urdu. On Thursday, voters in the Greater Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton will head to the polls for a special election to replace Labour MP Andrew Gwynne, who resigned following leaked messages in which he pined for the death of his own constituents. With the scandal-ridden Labour Party collapsing in popularity across the...

As a result of a concerted effort by the second Trump administration to reduce the size of the civilian federal workforce, the total staff of 23 of the largest executive-branch agencies shrunk by roughly 3% in the first half of 2025, with 144,000 additional jobs cut by year’s end. The numbers come from a newly released report from the Government Accountability Office, which was tasked with tracking staffing changes across 24 federal agencies in the first half of last year. One agency did not provide the requested data, so data from 23 agencies is included in the report. The president...

As someone who regularly examines culture and politics, I often write about problems and, on occasion, offer solutions. Sometimes the solutions are relatively straightforward and obvious SNIP The reality is, while Islam is most certainly a religion, it is also something else. It is a theology of conquest and subjugation. From its very beginning, Islam was about conquering and conquest, through any means necessary, including deception. On a daily basis, we hear Muslim “scholars” and others speak in the streets, on college campuses, and online, among other places, telling us that Islam will basically take over. Even in high schools,...

26 February 2026 Thursday of the 1st week of Lent Basilica of Saint-Denis, where the relics of St. Isabelle of France were moved after the destruction of churches in the French Revolution.Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: A(II).First readingEsther 4:17I am alone, Lord, and have no-one but youQueen Esther took refuge with the Lord in the mortal peril which had overtaken her. She besought the Lord God of Israel in these words:‘My Lord, our King, the only one,come to my help, for I am aloneand have no helper but youand am about to take my life in my hands.‘I have...

The trans nonbinary suspect accused of shooting a US Border Patrol agent in New Hampshire on Sunday has been charged with attempted murder and assault of a federal officer. Blu Zeke Daly, 26, of Manchester, previously known as "Cullen Zeke Daly," reportedly pulled a vehicle up to a closed gate at the US-Canadian Pittsburgh Port of Entry and fired gunshots at a Border Patrol agent when approached.

“We have no right to distress any of God’s creatures without a very good reason; we call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”These are the words of Black Beauty, the eponymous horse from Anna Sewell’s novel, Black Beauty: His Grooms and Companions, the Autobiography of a Horse.The book, published by Norwich based Jarrold & Sons in 1877, was transformative. Sewell’s stated objective, “to induce kindness, sympathy, and an understanding treatment of horses”, is credited with the abolition of the checkrein...

Cuba’s economy is on the verge of collapsing. True, the standard of living has deteriorated under communism—most notably after the fall of the Soviet Union and the end of the subsidies it provided to the regime, which meant that Cuba’s GDP shrank by half during the 1990s. But this time, the crisis may be worse. It is hard to collect trustworthy data on the country, as Communist authorities routinely hide or manipulate statistics to conceal the true extent of the country’s crisis from the rest of the world. The regime says the economy declined by 5 percent last year, with...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(2/26/26)[Prayer]A New Study For A New Year: PersonalitiesGenesis 29:32-35 32 And Leah conceived, and bare a son, and she called his name Reuben: for she said, Surely the Lord hath looked upon my affliction; now therefore my husband will love me. 33 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Because the Lord hath heard I was hated, he hath therefore given me this son also: and she called his name Simeon. 34 And she conceived again, and bare a son; and said, Now this time will my husband be joined unto...

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Mitch Trzeciak, an umpire who worked Triple-A in 2025, took up position behind home plate for a Grapefruit League matchup between the Pirates and Red Sox, and let’s say it could have gone better. The troubles for Trzeciak began early. With one out in the first inning, Pittsburgh’s Carmen Mlodzinski threw what looked like a first-pitch strike to Boston’s Trevor Story. Trzeciak saw it differently and called it a ball. Pirates catcher Endy Rodriguez challenged the call. The ABS review showed the pitch was clearly a strike. That was also strike one against Trzeciak.