Free Republic

Elon Musk is moving closer to competing for the monthly cellphone bill that millions of Americans pay to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. SpaceX has agreed to acquire a nationwide wireless spectrum portfolio that would help its Starlink Mobile business expand service from both satellites and equipment on the ground. The announcement came Thursday, October 8, and the stock-market reaction continued Friday morning. MarketWatch reported Verizon shares down approximately 6%, with AT&T and T-Mobile each down about 9% in morning trading. Those figures are an intraday snapshot, rather than closing prices. For consumers, the potential payoff is more competition and better...

Millions of Americans could face an unwelcome surprise when Medicare open enrollment begins October 15. Major insurance companies are eliminating plans, reducing benefits and pulling out of markets, leaving older Americans with fewer choices and potentially higher healthcare costs in 2027. For retirees already struggling with rising living expenses, the changes could make healthcare an even bigger financial concern.According to healthcare research organization KFF, the average Medicare beneficiary will have access to approximately 35 Medicare Advantage plans in 2027, down from 39 in 2026. Meanwhile, at least 3.8 million enrollees are expected to need new coverage as insurers discontinue plans...

The facts hadn’t even come in before the Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor began trashing ICE Thursday and calling them “rotten to the core.”What was known: a suspected illegal alien criminal, 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, was shot (but survived) during a confrontation with officers. What we didn’t know was if the shooting was an accident, a self-defense move, or something else.The NYPD released surveillance video and bodycam footage Friday, but neither catches the gunshot. You can see, however, at the beginning of this clip, Belgal allegedly refusing to stop for agents as they pound on his car and smash a...

South African jurist Navi Pillay, who accused Israel of genocide in Gaza, wins the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize; The Nobel Committee declines to comment on the Gaza allegations, while Israel's Foreign Ministry denounces the award.The Nobel Peace Prize will be awarded to Navi Pillay, a South African jurist who served as the fifth United Nations high commissioner for human rights, the selection committee announced Friday in Oslo. Pillay also served as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and as a judge on the International Criminal Court. She is known for her harsh criticism of Israel, which she has...

Seven ancient coffins containing human remains — including a toddler’s — were mysteriously discovered near the North Dakota’s governor’s residence by archaeologists, state officials confirmed. The caskets and an empty wooden box were found while contractors were performing security upgrades at the Bismarck property and resulted in a months-long excavation process, according to the state Office of Management and Budget. The remains appear to be that of two women, two men, two teenage boys and one toddler, People magazine reported. The shocking discovery was made in the area of what was Bismarck’s first cemetery from 1873 to 1877, but many...

Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor, set off a firestorm of criticism Wednesday morning with a social media post ostensibly intended to commemorate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre of Israelis. It devoted a brief paragraph to condemning Hamas and commiserating with its victims. The rest was a much longer denunciation of Israel’s “ongoing genocide in Gaza,” a “world in which occupation and apartheid continue” and a situation in which “our federal government continues its complicity with every arms shipment.” In response, Ammiel Hirsch, the president of the New York Board of Rabbis, said the statement was “so offensive to so...

The Bamiyan Buddhas: Giants of the Silk Road, Gone But Not Forgotten For nearly 1,500 years, the Bamiyan Buddhas stood watch over the Silk Road. Carved into the sandstone cliffs of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan Valley in the 6th century, these monumental statues — one rising about 55 meters tall, the other 38 — were among the largest standing Buddhas in the world. They gazed out across a crossroads of civilizations, where merchants, monks, pilgrims, and conquerors once passed between East and West.

President Donald Trump announced billions of dollars in Medicare fraud discovered, with payments to millions of seniors going out starting tomorrow, during a rally in San Antonio on Oct. 7. “My administration has located billions and billions of dollars that were supposed to be spent on improving Medicare ... but it never got spent, so they tried to hide it, and by hiding it, they tried to make their numbers look better, which was impossible because their numbers are so bad,” Trump told thousands of supporters in the Freeman Coliseum on Oct. 7 during an event to boost support for...

The Iron Curtain is cracking. A civil war is brewing inside the DSA over its support of Mayor Zohran Mamdani — with his socialist comrades up in arms over his attendance at an Oct. 7 vigil and his support of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch. Youth chapters within the New York City Democratic Socialists of America endorsed a protest outside City Hall Wednesday — on the anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel — condemning the mayor’s “failures to uphold his commitment to the Palestinian Liberation Movement.” Sources said that the heads of the local chapter moved swiftly to...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he has struck a deal to obtain diesel from Russia, a stunning reversal of years of U.S. pressure on Moscow over its war with Ukraine and an attempt to address high fuel prices ahead of the U.S. midterm elections. Trump said on social media on Friday that he struck the deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a phone call in which he was expected to discuss a suspected case of plague in Russia. Instead, Trump announced that Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by an additional 500,000...

Pastor Frederick D. Haynes III, who leads the 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church in Dallas and is running for Congress, was accused in a 2009 lawsuit of sending $2,000 to a woman who allegedly mailed him a topless photo. Haynes is the pastor of Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and has her endorsement to succeed her in Texas' deep-blue 30th Congressional District. His former executive assistant, Elizabeth Payne, claimed he told her to wire the money to a female "mentee" named Lisa Harrod for travel expenses, The Washington Free Beacon reports. (snip) Payne claimed in the lawsuit that she was fired in...

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, the Canadian economy lost a net of 68,300 jobs in September. This follows a loss of 41,700 positions in August and wipes out all job gains for the entire year 2026.The alarming results come after Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has led all provincial premiers in a coordinated effort to confront U.S. President Donald Trump through an “elbow’s up” program of political antagonism and trade conflict.Based on economic scale, Canada losing 68,000 jobs in a month would be the U.S. equivalent of losing 500,000 jobs. The “elbow’s up” program may be politically...

A woman from Squamish, B.C., who married an ISIS fighter and moved to Syria over a decade ago has pleaded guilty to a terrorism charge. Kimberly Polman spent nearly four years in a Syrian detention camp before she was repatriated to Canada in 2022. In 2024, she was charged with “leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group” and “participation in the activity of a terrorist group.” On Thursday, she pleaded guilty to the first charge, one month before her trial was set to begin. The maximum sentence for such a terrorism offence is 10 years in...

The clinic is located on the campus of the National Institutes of Health in Maryland.. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials have opened a new clinic to treat patients with vaccine injuries and announced other new developments on Oct. 8 that they say will change how the government handles reports of health problems following vaccination. The new National Institutes of Health (NIH) clinic is located on the agency’s campus in Bethesda, Maryland. It was opened on Oct. 5, officials disclosed on Oct. 8. Reporters were not invited to the opening. The Make America Healthy Again Commission, led...

Democrats are fighting to defend U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff's Georgia seat as Republican challenger Mike Collins faces a difficult path, trailing amid unfavorable polling and a Democratic fundraising advantage. The two faced off in a debate Thursday evening, clashing over tariffs, taxes, immigration and more. Ossoff narrowly won his election in 2020, as the race went to a runoff versus David Perdue. Ossoff won by less than 55,000 votes in a spread of 50.61 percent to Perdue's 49.39 percent. President Donald Trump flipped the swing state during the 2024 presidential election versus then-Vice President Kamala Harris. He has also thrown...

***** Tunes For Our Troops ~ Leaves! ~ *****~ Support The Artists You Hear Throughout The Canteen ! ~ ***** Warning: Not all music may be appropriate for children! Please click with caution. Thank you! Tunes For Our Troops This music is provided for the entertainment of our Troops, Veterans, Allies & their families! Enjoy the variety of musical selections that the Canteen DJs provide throughout the thread. Please ping any DJ with your requests for the Troops! All music is removed on Monday.Thanks to all the DJs for their time & effort providing entertainment for the Troops! *Canteen...

Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico made a surprise appearance at the Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival on Friday, ending nearly two weeks of speculation about his whereabouts after a flu diagnosis kept him off the campaign trail and sparked ridicule from Republicans, including President Donald Trump and GOP rival Ken Paxton. The Texas Democrat, who is running against Paxton for U.S. Senate, returned after Republicans spent days mocking his absence from the campaign trail, with Trump declaring Talarico "MISSING IN ACTION" and demanding he debate the GOP nominee.

Donald Trump Jr.’s ex-fiancée Kimberly Guilfoyle begged a major MAGA donor to pay her $100,000 credit card bill days before her confirmation hearing to be ambassador to Greece, stunning text messages show. “Honey please I need you to get this done for me today,” the 57-year-old ex-Fox News host implored former Kentucky congressional candidate Eric Deters in a July 3, 2025, Signal message reported by The Wall Street Journal. Guilfoyle followed that up with a praying hands emoji and a PDF with bill payment instructions from the credit card giant. “You could just send it here,” she told Deters. “It...

Seven fake journalists. Nearly 100 articles. At least 20 publications. How an Iranian influence operation turned fabricated writers into published, searchable voices in the American press... ...Seven Journalists Who Weren’t Journalists OpenAI identified seven fabricated identities: Ervin B. Hoskins, Noah Lamington, Sophia Gonzalez, Michael Harrison, Ericka Feusier, Jenny Williams, and Alice Johnson. Their biographies described Western freelance writers and analysts interested in foreign policy, international affairs, human rights, and the Middle East. Most supposedly lived in the United States, while Lamington was presented as a writer based in New Zealand.

A Cedar Rapids woman believes police targeted her and another protester last week. Annya Mari said she's been protesting ICE for the past 20 years and was slammed to the ground by the Cedar Rapids Police Department outside the building where ICE check-ins are held. She was charged with harassment of a public official and interference with official acts. (snip) Mari said she was just there to accompany migrants to their check-ins and document cars coming in and out of the building. Video of the interaction shows CRPD claiming the advocates were obstructing government vehicles. Those standing around deny that...