Free Republic

Like the paper he works for, Thomas Friedman is a longstanding institution. People read the New York Times so they can repeat his slick glib nonsense at parties to people just as clueless, but slightly too busy to read his verbose ramblings in the paper for themselves. But give Tom some credit, he was just a little too honest in this CNN interview.

Key points: >Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey. >The drop in sentiment coincided with a sharp spike in inflation expectations, with respondents seeing prices up 4.8% in a year from now, a full percentage point rise from the March reading. Consumer confidence plunged to a record low in April as fears mounted over rising energy prices and the broader impact of the Iran war, according to a University of Michigan survey Friday. The university’s headline...

President Donald Trump was non-committal on what could happen to the price of oil ahead of November’s midterm elections — even floating the prospect that they could go “a little bit higher.” In an interview on Sunday Morning Futures, Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo quizzed Trump on whether his newly-announced naval blockade on ships going in and out of the Strait of Hormuz. “Is this all going to be enough, the blockade in the strait, the opening up capacity in the United States, is this going to enough to lower the price of oil and gas, sir?” Bartiromo said. The...

A viral TikTok video is sparking widespread mockery after a user declared that maintaining a nice, manicured grass lawn is “racist” and “based in white supremacy.” The clip, posted earlier this week by TikTok user @softchaoschannel (who goes by JustJaim and uses she/they pronouns), opens with the bold claim, “I can’t stop thinking about how grass lawns are racist and like, based in white supremacy.” She continued, “If that doesn’t make sense, that’s okay, I guess. It seems really obvious to me. It’s really upsetting. Bring back weeds, bring back clover yards. Can anything just be okay in its natural...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has called for a disclosure by Congress members after observing that the Nasdaq call volume spiked minutes before President Donald Trump‘s announcement on a tariff pause. What Happened: Trump announced a pause in the tariffs in a Truth Social post around 1:18 p.m. ET on Wednesday. However, the data shared by Spencer Hakimian, the founder of Tolou Capital Management and Unusual Whales, a popular social media commentator and online suite for data feeds and tools on options flows, showed that call volumes for various contracts started spiking around 1:00 p.m. ET. AOC, in an X post, said...

A tangled political fight over whether Chicago’s public schools will hold classes on May Day is coming down to the wire, confusing tens of thousands of students and parents. The influential teachers union, an ally of Mayor Brandon Johnson, wants educators to participate in protests in the nation’s third-largest city on May 1, coinciding with workers’ rights rallies worldwide. But the newly named leader of Chicago Public Schools has rejected the pitch to cancel classes. The standoff has created uncertainty for the families of more than 315,000 students.

Two Navy guided-missile destroyers entered the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, the first American warships to transit the strait since the U.S.-Israel offensive in Iran began on Feb. 28. USS Frank E. Petersen (DDG-121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) operated in the Persian Gulf after transiting the strait as part of the U.S. plan to “ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines,” according to a Saturday U.S. Central Command news release. Frank E. Petersen is part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, while Michael Murphy is an independently-deployed destroyer, according to USNI News’ Fleet and Marine Tracker....

US President Donald Trump’s administration is likely to extend as soon as Friday (Apr 10) a waiver allowing countries to buy some sanctioned Russian oil and petroleum products, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. The US Treasury Department has allowed purchases of Russian oil and products at sea since mid-March with a 30-day waiver that expires on Apr 11, part of efforts to control global energy prices during the US-Israeli war with Iran. Russia’s presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev had said that the original waiver would free 100 million barrels of Russian crude, equal to almost a day’s worth...

As Blue Origin prepares for the next launch of its New Glenn rocket from Cape Canaveral, the company appears to have experienced unexpected damage at its rocket manufacturing facility in Merritt Island, Florida.Photos posted to social media show a damaged roof to what is know as the 2CAT facility, a vertical building used for tank cleaning and testing on the rocket's second stages. It's a smaller building more toward the rear of the campus than the towering, 224-foot-tall building used to test the first stages, that can be seen for miles around the site...It's one the many buildings at the...

Approximately 1,350 union workers at the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Missouri, are escalating their strike against Olin Winchester as they demand better wages and stronger contracts. Members of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Local 778 have been on strike since April 4 after overwhelmingly rejecting a contract offer from company management. ... The IAM Local 778 negotiating committee met with company representatives earlier in the week. The company indicated it would provide future dates to continue discussions. The Lake City Army Ammunition Plant is a critical facility in the U.S. defense industrial base. Workers...

Richard Schenk heads the Democracy Interference Observatory (DIO) at MCC Brussels, a project dedicated to tracking the ways in which European institutions, Brussels-funded networks and certain political actors intervene in national campaigns across the European Union. In recent months, the observatory has focused much of its work on Hungary. Two days before this weekend’s parliamentary elections, Schenk argues that Budapest has become the main laboratory for a new form of European political pressure: less visible than in previous years, more sophisticated and, above all, built on regulatory, financial, and media instruments. For him, Hungary is no longer simply a conflict...

Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger claimed she helped bring thousands of jobs to her state — even though the companies she listed all invested in Virginia when her Republican predecessor was still in office. The governor took a victory lap Monday for a package of four bipartisan bills she signed that day, with both an X post from her government account and a news release from her office claiming the legislation brought about 3,250 new jobs and $7.1 billion in investment to her state. Reporter Nick Minock of Washington-based ABC affiliate WJLA, however, noted in a Wednesday morning X post...

Trump’s “outrageous” rhetoric unnerved critics, but it masked a blunt strategy: overwhelm Iran militarily, force leverage at the table, and leave opponents scrambling to keep up.Pearl clutchers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your credibility. A week ago, on Easter Sunday—Easter Sunday, forsooth!—President Trump horrified delicate souls by issuing this minatory post on Truth Social:Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F–kin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah....

This is a youtube video. 8 minutes.

nti-liberty/gun cracktivists find themselves stuck on recycling old, failed narratives because there is really nothing new in the distortions and lies they tell in trying to obliterate the Second Amendment. Among those failed narratives is microstamping, a nonsensical measure about which I last wrote in Microstamping And Zombies, 2024 in June of 2024 at my home blog. Microstamping is laser engraving a unique, identifying code on the tips of firing pins which will “stamp” that code—letters, numbers, etc—on the primers of fired cases. Some microstamping schemes also demand a second stamp elsewhere on a fired case. California has always been...

And this is why beloved… The Iranian leadership’s suicidal and destructive apocalyptic ideology is not only demon-driven but is hell-bent on total destruction and death at any cost, in light of their demonic, full-blown defiance. When a fully controlled demonic mind is more than zealous and willing to make all expendable to outwork their demonic vision and beliefs, you will see there is absolutely no talking with them. Even after the near total obliteration of all of their leadership, national defense, and structure, they still are huge middle fingers to all and desire the destruction of all. One might ask,...

Vanity Fair -- where the TDS level is so high that they actually wrote an overanalytical piece trying to figure out if South Park is sufficiently anti-Trump -- has just sunk what little credibility it had even lower by AGAIN performing over-the-top hype about the former royal couple, Harry & Meghan, that very few normal people have expressed any interest in.The former royal couple lost their "Sussex" title due to an inability to perform one of the easiest jobs on the planet, which consisted primarily of politely greeting people and not acting like complete jerks. The latter part of the...

President Donald Trump announced a U.S. blockade on the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday. Trump made the announcement in a post on his Truth Social account, blaming the failure to reach a deal with Iran during talks in Pakistan this weekend. "So, there you have it, the meeting went well, most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, NUCLEAR, was not. Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz," Trump wrote. "At some point,...

Magazine Cover Story Snapshot X MARKS THE PEDWALKBY FRITZ LEIBER[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow April 1963 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]This is how it all began—the terrible civil strife that devastates our world!Based in material in Ch. 7--"First Clashes of the Wheeled and Footed Sects"--of Vol. 3 of Burger's monumental History of Traffic, published by the Foundation for Twenty-Second Century Studies.The raggedy little old lady with the big shopping bag was in the exact center of the crosswalk when she became aware of the...

The new film suggests that collectivism works well enough until capitalism gets its hands on it. Viewers reacting to the trailer on social media noticed this immediately, with one post summarizing the film’s apparent message with withering accuracy: “It’s 2025. And Animal Farm is a movie about communism working, and being ruined by capitalism.”