Free Republic

Imminent changes to the U.S. credit scoring system could see millions of Americans face lower credit scores as FICO prepares to incorporate “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) loan data into its calculations this fall. Knewz.com has learned that the move reflects the growing prevalence of BNPL services, which allow consumers to spread out payments with little or no interest, but experts warn that the change may negatively affect users who struggle to make timely payments. BNPL services have surged in popularity, with an estimated 81.5 million Americans using them in 2024 and projections reaching 91.5 million in 2025, according to...

Watch Comey tell lie after lie in this tough cross examination by Ted Cruz, including the lies that have just gotten him indicted. Good news is, Comey gave his evidence from Virginia, so he's being tried in Virginia instead of in swamp infested DC. Virginia is not great buts not as bad as DC.

Greta left ship in Tunisia because "focus not on Gaza" and got on a different ship/took a plane (confusion). waaah. Transcript linked below video.

ThePersistence @ScottPresler BREAKING The New Jersey gubernatorial election is TIED! 🟥 Jack Ciattarelli: 43% 🟦 Mikie Sherrill: 43% I’m asking everyone across the country to focus your time, talent, & energy on New Jersey.

Well, I feel obliged to post this here because I have now been the victim of fraud three (possibly four) times in the last month. The first and second incidents took place in Dallas at the end of August. I did not know until I looked at my bank statement that my debit card had been used at a Dallas area restaurant. My husband's debit card had been used at a different Dallas area restaurant. We live in San Antonio, so it's not like we were in the Dallas area and forgot that we stopped for bites to eat. My...

In 1964, U.S. minimum wage was $1.25 an hour. That’s 5 quarters, which at the time were made of 90% silver. There was 0.18 oz of silver in each coin. With silver priced at $44/oz today, the melt value of those 5 silver quarters is now $39. So minimum wage in 1964 was equivalent to $39 an hour today, as priced in silver. 1964 would be the last year that U.S. quarters and dimes contained silver. The half-dollar was reduced from 90% silver to 40% from 1964-1970, but even that became untenable eventually. One catalyst that led the government to...

Elon Musk's AI appears to be more ideological than competitorsDespite protest letters, concerns that it's biased and untrustworthy, model tweaks to appease its billionaire boss, and even a past incident where it called itself "MechaHitler," xAI's Grok is still being made available to government agencies for mere pennies. The GSA announced that it has awarded yet another OneGov discount contract on Thursday, this time to Elon Musk's xAI outfit. The agreement will see xAI offer Grok to federal agencies for just $0.42 per agency for a period of 18 months - six months longer than companies like OpenAI, Google,...

Dennis Prager on Charlie Kirk. Please watch.

DUNNELLON, Fla. - Authorities have issued a Florida Amber Alert for a missing 17-year-old Marion County boy who is believed to have been a victim in a shooting. What we know: The Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) has issued an Amber Alert for 17-year-old Caden Speight of Marion County. Authorities said Speight was last seen in the 12800 block of Southwest Highway 484 in Dunnellon. The Marion County Sheriff's Office has confirmed to FOX 35 that deputies were investigating a shooting in the same area and believe Speight may be a victim.

Israel should recognise the Falkland Islands as Argentinian after Sir Keir Starmer decided to recognise Palestine, Benjamin Netanyahu’s son has claimed. Yair Netanyahu made the claim on social media just days after the British Prime Minister's announcement sparked fury from Israeli officials. He wrote on social media: "I recognise the Malvinas Islands as part of Argentina!" The statement was met with much praise from supporters of Argentinian President Javier Milei. Agustín Romo, head of President Milei's party bloc in Buenos Aires, thanked Yair, saying : "The son of the Prime Minister of Israel announces he recognizes the Malvinas as Argentine....

UNITED NATIONS — Europe alone is not responsible for helping Ukraine bring an end to its war with Russia, EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas warned Thursday. That is particularly true when considering President Donald Trump’s pledge to halt the fighting, she said in an interview on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. “He was the one who promised to stop the killing,” Kallas said. “So it can’t be on us.” Her comments come as Ukraine and its allies try to divine the meaning of Trump’s sudden about-face on the war between Kyiv and Moscow. In a Truth Social post...

President Trump will not allow Israel to impose sovereignty over the biblical heartland of Israel. It’s not the West Bank - it’s Judea and Samaria. It’s where Abraham Isaac and Jacob and the stories of most of the Old Testament took place. I am not surprised! The pressure from Saudi Arabia Turkey Qatar Egypt France UK and Canada was too much for him.

Desiree @DesireeAmerica4 🚨UPDATE: Brandon Keith Mitchell, a registered Tier 1 sex offender in Pennsylvania faced massive public backlash after a viral surrogacy video showed him raising a baby through crowdfunding, protected by silence and loopholes. Now: ▪️ GoFundMe pulled the fundraiser after outrage erupted ▪️ Lawmakers are demanding new legislation to block sex offenders from using surrogacy to obtain children ▪️ Prosecutors admit no law currently exists to stop it, calling it a “devastating loophole” The people spoke. Now the system scrambles. We will not stop until every loophole is closed. and a broken system.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump

Months before a gunman opened fire on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas, Texas, this week, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) called the agency “a terrorist force” and accused agents of being involved in kidnapping. On Wednesday morning, a gunman killed one ICE detainee and injured several others after opening fire on ICE’s Dallas facility. The gunman, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had an anti-ICE “ideological motive” and had even written “ANTI ICE” on one of his shell casings. In July, Jayapal, an influential member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called ICE “a terrorist force,” to...

A watchdog group says the U.S. Department of Education ignored a federal court order on the Biden administration's expansion of Title IX protections and is dragging its feet on a report about it. Empower Oversight said a whistleblower came forward showing the Department's Office for Civil Rights continued to process complaints involving gender identity and sexual orientation despite a federal judge in Tennessee blocking the Biden administration from enforcing that guidance in July 2022. "Court orders are not suggestions. Federal officials cannot ignore injunctions simply because they disagree with them," Tristan Leavitt, president of Empower Oversight, said in a news...

The 2023 Supreme Court decision Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard was an earthquake for college admissions. After nearly 50 years, the affirmative-action regime that governed most universities’ admissions processes was declared unconstitutional. Racial preferences in college admissions have never been popular among Americans. A 2023 Pew Research Center poll taken a few months before the Students for Fair Admissions decision was released found that only 33 percent of adults approved of affirmative action in college admissions. In California, affirmative action in education has lost at the ballot box twice, most recently in 2020. Even when the cultural and political...

Buy Now, Pay Later programs like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm promise interest-free payments and instant approval—but behind the scenes, they’re fueling a dangerous new debt trap. In this video, we break down how BNPL really works, why it's exploding in popularity, and how it's psychologically designed to make you spend more than you can afford. From hidden fees to data selling, here’s what they’re not telling you.

A radical magistrate judge denied the Justice Department’s request to detain a man who tried to take down Marine One with a red laser pointer. The Justice Department on Monday charged a man for trying to take down Marine One with a red pointer laser on Saturday. According to a legal complaint filed on Monday, the suspect, Jacob Samuel Winkler, pointed a red laser at Marine One while President Trump was onboard. “The red laser beam hit Officer Santiago’s eyes and briefly disoriented him. At this time, Marine One flew at a relatively low height and directly above Officer Santiago...

On CNN This Morning, former Obama DHS official and CNN analyst Juliette Kayyem tried to claim that Dallas ICE shooter Joshua Jahn couldn't have had any leftist political connections. Her evidence: that he got the message on a bullet wrong: "In this case, you see someone who didn't seem at all involved with ICE or anti-ICE testament [sentiment?]. In fact, on his casing, he says 'Anti-ICE', which isn't even the language of the politics of our time, which tends to be 'Abolish ICE'." Get the rest of the story and view the video here.