Free Republic

Musk also said that Optimus would change life for incarcerated people at the meeting. Instead of physically jailing prisoners, Optimus could "follow you around and stop you from doing crime," he said.

In a stunning rebuke of the rising anti-Semitism spreading across Europe and the West, the CEO of one of the most liberal media companies in the U.S. is coming out in defense of the Jewish State. Mathias Döpfner — CEO of Politico and Business Insider's parent company Axel Springer SE — penned an October 7 op-ed dissecting his discussions with Nova Music Festival co-founder Ofir Amir, a survivor of the wanton slaughter terrorist organization Hamas unleashed upon the Jewish people two years earlier. Döpfner speculated on how survivors like Amir are able to deal with European leaders and others grotesquely...

Wired and Business Insider have deleted articles that had been supposedly written by a freelance journalist named Margaux Blanchard – after allegations emerged that they were actually penned by an AI bot and were filled with apparent fabrications. Several other US and UK publications have published – and some have paid for – articles from Blanchard on everything from feature stories on couples getting married on video games to a personal essay on having her first child at 45. But the alleged ruse fell apart when Blanchard emailed a pitch to Dispatch editor Jacob Furedi about “Gravemont, a decommissioned mining...

There may be some changes coming to the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement. President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post on Thursday that both farmers and "people in the Hotel and Leisure business" have said that his approach to immigration enforcement "is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace." "In many cases the Criminals allowed into our Country by the VERY Stupid Biden Open Borders Policy are applying for those jobs," Trump added. "This is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT...

In the last two and a half years, eight sitting members of the House or Senate have died in office. Every time, it's been a Democrat. Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, died on Wednesday at 75, after a battle with esophageal cancer. He's the third House Democrat to die in the last three months. If Democrats had gained a narrow 1 or 2-seat majority in 2024, they would have lost it by now.

Talk about your all-time backfires. Instead of landing a major hit on the president’s son, a German-backed publication has drawn massive federal attention onto its foreign ownership structure and lobbying activities before the federal government. This broader “German Influence Operation” has grabbed the attention of the White House and senior administration officials and even entangles a key Washington lobbyist who has reportedly had an on-again-off-again lukewarm relationship with the president. It all comes, too, as worldwide pressure builds on German government officials over their censorship regime against political opponents and the efforts of a central European nation with a dark...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she's worth less than $500,000, prompting a mixture of disbelief, criticism, and begrudging respect from commenters on X. The New York congresswoman, often called AOC, discussed her personal wealth after an X user claimed she was worth tens of millions as a result of taking kickbacks. The Democratic lawmaker said that the user was "completely making things up" and that she didn't trade individual stocks or earn any income apart from her congressional salary. "I don't even own a house!" she said in a second response. Ocasio-Cortez worked as a bartender and server before winning a...

Near the close of the vice-presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio was on the verge of capping off a fantastic night for a Republican ticket that has been lost in a news cycle of its own making over false claims about Haitian migrants eating people's pets in Springfield, Ohio. And then January 6, 2021, and the 2020 election came up.

America has pledged over $100 billion in military aid since the War in Ukraine began. Most of that stays in the US to fund military operations and weapons contracts. But the US has also sent Ukraine its own shells, tanks, rockets, cannons, anti-tank weapons, drones, and missile defense systems worth $1 billion each. So which weapons have proven most critical on the battlefield? And will the latest round of aid really help Ukraine against Russian forces in a war many are calling a stalemate?

Four years after the pandemic-era housing boom, the real-estate market continues to face instability. With ongoing affordability challenges exacerbated by high interest rates and inflated home values, housing is a major concern for Americans across the political spectrum. In a Tuesday interview with Fox News, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance shared his perspective on the root causes of the nation's high home prices and rents. "When I talk to Americans, one of the biggest concerns I hear is, 'Why are housing costs so high?' I'll give you two reasons: First, there are 20 million illegal aliens who shouldn't be...

If Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House in November, NATO may fall apart, a recent wargame found. As a presidential candidate, Trump has threatened to quit NATO unless European allies contribute more, and should he carry it out Europe may decide to go it alone on defense, the game suggests. "A US policy of frustrating NATO has the potential to cause the alliance to collapse, with the EU as a candidate for eventually replacing NATO's ultimate function — defending Europe from Russia," wrote Finley Grimble, the British defense expert who designed and ran the game. The...

Trump raised the idea of providing US aid to Ukraine via loan so that it might get paid back. But Republicans on Capitol Hill are skeptical that will happen. "I just think a loan ends up being a grant," said one House Republican. There's a relatively new idea floating around the political world, and it's being pushed by former President Donald Trump: What if Ukraine aid came in the form of a loan?

Russian forces suffered an average of 983 casualties per day in Ukraine in February, the highest since the war began, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said in an intelligence update on Sunday. The UK department said the increase in casualties, which included both killed and wounded soldiers, was likely due to "Russia's commitment to mass and attritional warfare." In February, Russia finally captured the embattled Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, which sits just north of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. War analysts have noted that Russia's tactics to take Avdiivka often involved "human wave" assaults, attempting to overwhelm Ukrainian positions with...

Alexey Navalny, the dissident and political nemesis of Russian President Vladimir Putin, spent the last few years of his life behind bars but still managed to stay connected to the outside world. Letters from the final months of his life, obtained by The New York Times, showed Navalny, who had been imprisoned since January 2021, managed to stay on top of current events — including in the US. In a letter sent to a friend, photographer Evgeny Feldman, Navalny called former President Donald Trump's agenda for a second term "really scary," according to the Times. If President Joe Biden has...

As the second anniversary of Russia's unprovoked invasion approaches, the situation is beginning to look bleak for Ukraine.Last year's counteroffensive brought hopes that Ukraine could capitalize on its successes in 2022 and drive back Russian forces from occupied territories in southern and eastern Ukraine.But the offensive failed to achieve a breakthrough, and Ukraine is now seeing crucial support from its allies bleed away. Meanwhile, its troops are experiencing shortages of personnel and ammunition.There are problems at the top, too. Its senior command has been engulfed in chaos, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy replacing Valery Zaluzhny, a senior commander, amid reported...

The two Navy SEALs who went missing off the coast of Somalia last week were helping seize Iranian weapons bound for the Houthis, the US said in a statement on Tuesday. The Navy SEALs carried out a "complex boarding" of a dhow, operating out of the USS Lewis B. Puller and assisted by helicopters and unmanned aerial drones, CENTCOM said. (excerpt) Among what was seized were propulsion, guidance, and warheads for medium-range ballistic missiles and anti-ship cruise missiles, as well as air-defense-associated components, it said. (excerpt) The Associated Press earlier reported, citing unnamed US officials, that the pair were climbing...

There seems to be no end in sight for the media gaslighting on President Joe Biden’s abysmal economy. One economist has had it. Business Insider had the audacity to publish an asinine piece of economic propaganda Dec. 3 that reeked of a public relations stunt by Biden’s press team: “After 3 years of pain, America has finally achieved economic nirvana.” The author, Renaissance Macro Research Head of Economics Neil Dutta, celebrated how supposedly “[t]he signs of a well-balanced economy are everywhere.” He continued: “Current economic data is consistent with a soft landing for the economy — a situation in which...

Is this crazy thinking or America's political reality? As Democrats run four parallel prosecutions at Donald Trump, the former president has grown only stronger. He now leads in several polls and is up big in battleground states. These facts have provoked panic in the Democratic Party, and the Left is responding with words that shake the seismic needle. Shortly before Thanksgiving, Joe Scarborough, formerly a conservative congressman, and now a paid shill for the Left (at $8 million per), begins his anti-Trump rant in the clip to the left with an insane rant -- “He will do; he will get...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country's population crisis. Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm. "Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children," Putin said. "Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all of Russia's people. The family is...

A McDonald's meal from a viral TikTok has become the poster child for a key issue leading up to the 2024 presidential election. "I get there is a labor shortage," user @topheroliver, who is based in Idaho, said in the video originally posted in December 2022. "I get there's wage increases and a number of other things. But $16? Sixteen dollars for a burger, large fries, and a drink. It's just crazy." The video gained traction recently after McDonald's released its earnings report revealing that revenues were up 8.1% in the past year. McDonald's attributed part of the revenue increase...