Free Republic

It was a classic Morning Joe setup on Thursday: tee up far-left Democrat Ro Khanna to blast China’s unfair trade practices--then watch him pivot straight into a sweeping central-planning agenda for America. His plan: • Create an “industrial investment bank” to fund government-selected factories in “the industries of the future” — batteries, new steel, new cars, new ships — specifically targeted at “places that were deindustrialized,” paired with investment and production tax credits. • Open a thousand new trade schools. • Open new tech institutes to prepare workers for AI and future technology jobs — again directing investment to “places...

Sleep is critical to being in good health, regulating how people think and informing everything from mood to physical health. But the country’s lack of sleep is a problem for everyone, even for those lucky Americans who are able to get enough shut-eye. In addition to individual health, insufficient sleep creates a drag on medical spending, workplace productivity, and long-term health outcomes. America’s chronic inability to get enough sleep comes with a real cost attached, one that researchers have put in the hundreds of billions of dollars in annual economic losses. The other culprit is the thing that makes the...

The launch of ChatGPT in 2022 ignited the artificial-intelligence boom—and elicited a chorus of warnings from AI bosses of an impending jobs apocalypse. Never mind that they have reason to talk up the disruptiveness of their products, or that rich-world employment is near all-time highs—the dark message has landed. Seven in ten Americans think AI will make it harder for people to find work; nearly a third fear for their own jobs. A dearth of openings for college graduates—especially computer programmers—amplifies the dread. The past offers some solace for the anxious. Labour markets constantly change. Today’s offices would be unrecognisable...

Nigel Farage has attacked the scheme as “a means of controlling the population.” [Photo:]A demonstrator holds a placard during a march against the implementation of digital ID cards, in central London on October 18, 2025. CHRIS J RATCLIFFE / AFP. Campaigners feared that the government’s scrapping of its plans for digital identity cards in January was not the end of the story. And they were right to do so. Despite immense backlash, Wednesday’s King’s Speech—a ceremonial address in which the monarch reads a speech written by the government, setting out its main objectives over the next parliamentary term—confirmed that ministers...

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn is introducing new legislation that would designate a major U.S. highway as “Interstate 47,” or “Trump Interstate." Cornyn announced Monday that he introduced the I-47 Future Interstate Act, which would designate U.S. Highway 287 as a future interstate stretching from Port Arthur, Texas, to Choteau, Montana. According to Cornyn’s office, the route would also be known as “Trump Interstate.” “Texas is Trump Country, and this bill cements that legacy by designating nearly 1,800 miles of open road from Texas’ Gulf Coast to the edge of the U.S.-Canadian border as I-47 to forever be remembered as Trump...

Labour MP Josh Simons has just issued a statement: "Today, I am putting the people I represent and the country I love first and will be resigning as MP for Makerfield. "I am standing aside so that Andy Burnham can return to his home." We'll have more on this shortly.

...Exhaustion helps explain why ideas once treated as radioactive — socialism, in particular — are now discussed less as utopian fantasies and more as possible exits from a stalled national project. For younger Americans, the appeal is less ideological romance than hunger... They face unaffordable rents, unstable work, medical debt and student loans that metastasize faster than they can be paid down... When people can’t eat, can’t save and can’t think clearly, the abstractions of “free markets” lose their magic. Systems are judged not by theory but by outcomes. Right now, the outcomes for average Americans are brutal. This is...

During a two-hour summit in Beijing on May 14, U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping agreed that Iran must not develop nuclear weapons and that the Strait of Hormuz should remain open to global shipping. Trump and Xi discussed a wide range of issues during their meeting, including economic cooperation, fentanyl, and Iran, according to a brief White House readout. The readout did not include several other topics, such as Taiwan and China’s political prisoners, issues Trump had previously said he would raise before traveling to China.

A California woman has won a lawsuit against cruise giant Carnival Corp., in which the Doral-based company was found negligent for serving her at least 14 shots of tequila in an 8 1/2-hour period and liable for subsequent injuries she suffered while inebriated onboard. A Miami federal jury ruled in the passenger’s favor on April 10 and awarded her $300,000 in damages, according to a court document that entered the docket on April 13. (snip) A six-person jury agreed with the plaintiff’s argument that Carnival’s crew members had a duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of its passengers,...

Anchor Tony Dokoupil quickly halted Wednesday’s live broadcast of “CBS Evening News” after a cameraman suffered a medical emergency on set. Dokoupil was in the middle of reporting on President Donald Trump’s upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping from Taiwan when he noticed the cameraman was in need of assistance. Trump’s summit with the Chinese leader comes amid ongoing tensions over trade and Taiwan as well as the U.S. war with Iran. “And finally tonight from Taiwan as President Trump and [Chinese President Xi Jinping] prepare to meet, you will hear a lot about American decline and the rise...

The US is heading toward a federal debt load that could reach 175% of gross domestic product over the next three decades unless Congress takes corrective action, according to a new special report from the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. But the firm's Global Fixed Income Strategy Team stopped well short of sounding an alarm for investors, arguing instead that the trajectory, while troubling, remains manageable. The report draws on Congressional Budget Office projections and Treasury Department data to paint a detailed picture of the country's fiscal position. The debt-to-GDP ratio is already expected to hit 101% in 2026, matching its...

International fraud networks have targeted Medicaid programs all across the country, bilking US taxpayers of billions of dollars, according to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. As the Trump administration continues its crackdown on fraud, waste and abuse, Dr. Oz has zeroed in on five states: California, New York, Florida, Minnesota, and Maine. In recent media interviews, Dr. Oz has alleged that the Russian government is involved in healthcare fraud in California, the Chinese government in New York fraud, and the Cuban government in fraud schemes in Florida. “We’ve got Russian government involvement, we believe,...

Lupita Nyong'o, has been confirmed to play Helen of Troy — as well as her twin sister, Clytemnestra.

The chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee is urging the Justice Department to ask federal courts to dismiss with prejudice all prior criminal prosecutions against President Donald Trump, putting a permanent end to a 10-year legal assault by the Obama-Biden era FBI against the man twice elected president by the American people. "It's probably time that this all just ended," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said Wednesday night after Just the News reported new documents it obtained revealed the FBI at the end of the Biden presidency secretly took the rare step of preserving evidence from a dismissed January 6...

"Anti-Spencer Pratt" ad;-D, and that's just the beginning. Karen Bass complains about "violent" Pratt ads. Death threat Tiktok chick gets 13 months.

In 2024, President Biden said he wanted 56% of all new cars sold in the United States to be electric vehicles by 2032. California Governor Gavin Newsom similarly mandated that 35% of new 2026 model cars sold in the state be zero-emissions vehicles, rising to 68% in 2030 and 100% in 2035. The European Union announced in 2023 that, from 2035 onward, all new cars coming onto the market could not emit any CO2. The United Kingdom similarly announced a 2030 ban on the sale of new diesel and petrol cars. The reaction from the U.S. auto industry was blunt....

It's been a good few weeks to be Carson Hocevar, driver of the No. 77 Chevrolet for Spire Motorsports. Last month, Hocevar won his first career NASCAR Cup Series race when he took the checkered flag in the Jack Link's 500 at Talladega Superspeedway, then dropped a celebration for the ages. Then just days later, he became the first NASCAR driver to hit the Met Gala since Jeff Gordon went in 2010.

California Democratic gubernatorial front-runner Xavier Becerra went viral yesterday for saying to a local Los Angeles television (KTLA) reporter, after she asked a hard question, “By the way, this is a profile piece, this is not a gotcha piece, right?” Reporter Annie Rose Ramos responded, appropriately, “These questions are fair. It’s in order to learn about you as a candidate.” Progressives responded by criticizing Becerra’s messaging. A progressive Pod Save America co-host and former Obama spokesman, posted on X, “Politicians and candidates…let your staff have these whiny conversations! Or at least don’t do it on camera!” Former Obama strategist David...

A former Black Lives Matter activist-turned conservative influencer blasted the social justice organization as a “scam” — and insisted that Democrats are the party of “racism and violence.” Xaviaer DuRousseau, 29, revealed that did a complete 180 from his liberal upbringing during the 2020 George Floyd riots as he realized that the movement was a money-grab and that he was indoctrinated. “Once I started looking at the conservative side of the argument, I started realizing, oh, wait, socialism has literally never worked. BLM has always been a scam, and the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism and...

Sen. Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) so reportedly slung antisemitic attacks at Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) at a bar in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Capitol Hill. The New York Republican said that William Paul claimed that if Massie lost, it would be “because of my people.”Well, who is ‘my people’?” Lawler recounted asking in response. “And he yelled out, ‘Jews.’” He claimed that Paul also expressed hatred toward gay people, calling the comments “f—ing disgusting.”