Free Republic

Western automotive and green energy executives who visit China are returning humbled — and even terrified.As The Telegraph reports, the executives are warning that the country’s heavily automated manufacturing industry could quickly leave Western nations behind, especially when it comes to electric vehicles.“We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs,” Ford CEO Jim Farley told The Verge last month. “And if we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”“You get this sense of a change, where China’s competitiveness has gone from being about government subsidies and low wages to a tremendous number...

Donald Trump has doubled down on his plan to bring in over 600,000 Chinese college students to the United States, in a polarizing move that has divided the MAGA base. However, the president has batted away criticism, declaring, “I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else.” His plan will see the annual number of visas offered to Chinese students increase to the new figure over the next two years, up from the current 300,000. (snip) Laura Ingraham grilled the president, telling Trump that “a lot of MAGA folks are not thrilled” about his plan. “Yeah, but you would have,...

Former Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., condemned President Donald Trump as a "vile creature" and the worst person on the planet in an interview with CNN published Monday. "He’s just a vile creature. The worst thing on the face of the earth," she said. "You think he’s the worst thing on the face of the earth?" interviewer Elex Michaelson asked. "I do, yeah. I do," Pelosi affirmed. Voting is underway for California’s Proposition 50, in a special election that will have a significant effect on next year's battle for the U.S. House majority. California voters are deciding whether to pass the proposition...

Federal officials have charged a Chicago woman with laundering large volumes of suspected narcotics proceeds after a months-long investigation linked her to cash exchanges tied to Mexican drug cartels and Chinese cryptocurrency networks, according to a recently unsealed federal complaint. Homeland Security Investigations arrested Xiao Mei of Canaryville on allegations that she coordinated a series of large cash exchanges in Chinatown and River North between February and July 2024. Prosecutors said Mei, described as a Chicago-based broker for a Chinese money-laundering network, regularly used WeChat to arrange pickups of bulk U.S. currency from associates of drug traffickers and transferred equivalent...

Facts contradict Vatican secretary’s claim that persecution in Nigeria ‘not a religious conflict’The Holy See’s Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin this week suggested that the violence against Christians in Nigeria is not a matter of Islamists targeting Christians but merely a series of conflicts stemming from non-religious disputes. But according to facts gathered by the Observatory of Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA), however, the claim that Christians are not targeted for persecution is a “myth.”Speaking to journalists at the Pontifical Augustinian Institute in Rome as the advocacy organization Aid to the Church in Need launched its latest Religious Freedom...

Former Vice President Harris said on Thursday that any checks and balances to hold back President Trump have not worked. On tour to promote her new book about her campaign, “107 Days,” Harris spoke with journalist and podcaster Kara Swisher at the Warner Theatre to a sold-out audience. “The point is that the guardrails have failed, for the most part,” Harris said. “Except one, which is the people and the power of God.” “So right now, in this moment, if the Supreme Court isn’t a guardrail … what is, from a legal point of view, the guardrail that you see?”...

BREAKING: Congressman Eric Swalwell announces he will TARGET and INVESTIGATE private citizens who work with President Trump "when" Democrats win in 2026. "Accountability is COMING. It's all coming out. I hope this deters people from doing more of these deals for the president!" "We will subpoena the DOJ, but also private actors who've done these drug deals with the administration!" So they are just announcing their plans to weaponize government now.

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Chow denies persecution in Hong Kong, breaking with ZenCardinal Stephen Chow of Hong Kong has said there is no religious persecution in the territory, putting himself at odds with his predecessor Cardinal Joseph Zen, who has long warned that the Chinese Communist Party is steadily tightening its grip on the Church.Speaking in Parramatta on 15 September during a public dialogue in the “Bishop Vincent Presents” series, The Catholic Weekly reported that Cardinal Chow declared Beijing wanted to keep Hong Kong’s religious freedom “intact” and insisted: “I want to invite any one of you, everyone, to come to...

The Australian Government’s 2035 emissions target is ambitious, and the vehicles we buy are included in the pathway. Earlier this week the Federal Government announced it had set a national target to reduce overall emissions by 62 to 70 per cent (compared to 2005 levels) by 2035, something it called “ambitious, achievable, and in Australia’s national interests”. Spearheaded by the Climate Change Authority, the 2035 Targets Advice is the most aggressive planned reduction in emissions ever seen in Australia, and of course vehicles have their role to play. According to the CCA, to help meet this target approximately 85 per...

Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., donned a "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" hat during an interview with CNN on Thursday, after the late-night host's show was pulled. "Congressman, I see you are wearing a hat. What does that hat say?" CNN host John Berman asked the lawmaker, who responded with, "You're damn right I am, John." Disney said Wednesday it was pulling late-night host Jimmy Kimmel's program after the liberal comedian's remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk. "It should shake every American that the president of the United States is out there firing comedians who make fun of him. That is not...

President Donald Trump announced the United States is prepared to accept up to 600,000 Chinese students as part of a trade deal his administration is trying to strike with China. “We’re going to allow, it’s very important, 600,000 students,” Trump told reporters Monday at the White House. “We’re going to get along with China. But it’s a different relationship that we have now with China.” Trump made the announcement ahead of a bilateral meeting with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung after he was asked when he would sit down with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Friday on MSNBC’s “The Weeknight,” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said that President Donald Trump was a “Kremlin kiss ass” during his Anchorage, Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Swalwell said, “If you’re a Republican in Congress, you just saw a Kremlin kiss ass in the president of the United States. Somebody who squandered an opportunity to confront a ruthless dictator who is killing innocent children and kidnapping innocent children every single day. I don’t know what this meeting accomplished other than taking the Epstein files and inflation out of the news, but you have meetings like this to achieve...

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) claimed that President Donald Trump was “America’s Hitler” during a “No Kings Protest” outside of Union Station in Washington, D.C. “Donald Trump is America’s Hitler,” Swalwell is heard saying, according to a video posted to X. During the “No Kings Protest,” Swalwell also spoke about how the United States needed “more independent- minded journalists” who would not “cave or fold” to Trump. “We need more independent-minded journalists who are not going to cave or fold to Donald Trump,” Swalwell said, according to a video posted to X by Marisela Ramirez, a White House producer for Newsmax....

Tim Walz, failed Democrat vice presidential candidate and leftist governor of Minnesota, recently speculated that communist China might hold “moral authority” when it comes to the conflict between Israel and Iran that erupted on Friday. Walz, who was former Vice President Kamala Harris’s (D) choice for running mate in 2024, was speaking during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress when he made the comments, Fox News reported on Friday. Asked about the strikes, he replied, “Iran has to retaliate, in their mind,” adding that the “Middle East is back on fire in a way that has now...

A former Democratic candidate for New York state Assembly allegedly stole $160,000 in taxpayer cash by defrauding the state’s new campaign matching-funds program, federal prosecutors said Friday. Dao Yin, who lost his long-shot bid for the Assembly’s 40th District in Queens last year, was slapped with a wire fraud charge and arraigned in Brooklyn federal court Friday. Yin, 62, is accused of submitting bogus signatures to inflate the number of campaign contributions he received in order to boost the amount of public matching-funds he was entitled to receive, according to the feds. “Through lies and deceit, the defendant allegedly stole...

Rodriguez's trip to People’s Congress of Resistance at Howard University sheds light on path to radicalism. A radical left-wing group described as a "conduit" between the Chinese Communist Party and domestic anti-Israel groups raised money for Elias Rodriguez, the 30-year-old Chicago native who allegedly murdered two Israeli diplomats in Washington, D.C., to attend a "resistance" conference in September 2017. There, Rodriguez rubbed shoulders with "comrades" from pro-Hamas groups and other radical organizations, coming away impressed with their "commitment to actually getting things done," according to a video and an online fundraiser unearthed by the Washington Free Beacon. Rodriguez’s attendance at...

This follows Senator Chris Van Hollen’s (D-MD) visit to El Salvador last month, where he sipped margaritas with Abrego Garcia. These lawmakers have shown more care for a deported illegal alien criminal from El Salvador than they ever did for Maryland citizen and mother of five Rachel Morin, who was viciously raped and murdered in 2023 by another Salvadoran illegal. Democrats and their mainstream media friends glorified Abrego Garcia as a “Maryland father” and an “innocent” man who was “kidnapped” by the Trump Administration and El Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele. However, they refuse to mention that he is actually an...

Rogue communication devices found in Chinese solar inverters Undocumented cellular radios also found in Chinese batteries U.S. says continually assesses risk with emerging technology U.S. working to integrate 'trusted equipment' into the grid LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) - U.S. energy officials are reassessing the risk posed by Chinese-made devices that play a critical role in renewable energy infrastructure after unexplained communication equipment was found inside some of them, two people familiar with the matter said. Power inverters, which are predominantly produced in China, are used throughout the world to connect solar panels and wind turbines to electricity grids. They are...

For years, President Donald Trump blamed “communists” for his legal and political troubles. Now, the second Trump administration is deploying that same historically loaded label to cast his opponents — from judges to educators — as threats to American identity, culture and values.Why? Trump himself explained the strategy last year when he described how he planned to defeat his Democratic opponent, then-Vice President Kamala Harris, in the White House election.“All we have to do is define our opponent as being a communist or a socialist or somebody who is going to destroy our country,” he told reporters at his New...

The Pope's loss of confidence, the financial issue, or a lack of pastoral experience are obstacles Is Parolin's candidacy fading? "Although Francis appointed him as Secretary of State, over time he realized he no longer trusted him," La Nación reports, quoting a bishop of the Curia, who maintains that, if elected, Parolin will hinder the "flourishing of the Church" brought about by Bergoglio. He has traveled all over the world, and he is the only one whom the most heterogeneous conclave in history knows and values. Furthermore, at the second of the novendiales, held this Sunday, he launched his candidacy...