Free Republic

When I found Darshan Smaaladen earlier this month, she had joined several hundred of her neighbors at a “No Kings” demonstration in Orange County, California. Not that she was there to protest. “Rallies are great,” Smaaladen told me, “but they don’t get people out to vote.”A year ago, Smaaladen had helped lead a successful campaign to recall two ultraconservative members of Orange County’s school board. Now the 52-year-old mother of three was using the “No Kings” protest as a campaigning ground for Proposition 50, the ballot measure orchestrated by Governor Gavin Newsom that would redraw California’s district map to add...

The film dispels the comforting illusion that technology can shield us from a nuclear attack.Director Kathryn Bigelow’s new thriller, “A House of Dynamite,” is not simply a gripping film — it is a wake-up call. The movie dramatizes, in real time, the terrifying 30-minute window between the launch of a nuclear missile bound for the U.S. and its impact. In doing so, the film exposes a brutal truth that too many decision-makers and policy experts in Washington refuse to admit: Long-range missile defense will not protect us. Our only real path to escape nuclear catastrophe lies in reducing global arsenals.From...

Dan Niles, founder and portfolio manager at Niles Investment Management, joins CNBC's 'Money Movers' to discuss his outlook on this week's Big Tech earnings, the rise in Qualcomm stock, and more. You will see a 30 to 50% correction in many AI-related names next year, says Dan Niles | 6:01 CNBC Television | 3.26M subscribers | 41,414 views | October 27, 2025

It looks like CNBC Squawk Box co-anchor Becky Quick is fed up with the Democrats’ hypocritical nonsense over the ongoing government shutdown. Quick skewered House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) during the October 24 edition of Squawk Box. Quick scolded him over Obamacare subsidies: “What you’re asking the Republicans to do right now when they control the White House, the Senate and the House is effectively what the Democrats could not do when they controlled all three heads of government themselves,” The CNBC personality continued, with Jeffries just staring stone-faced: “The three-year set up for the expiration of these credits...

Furloughed federal workers in Maryland stood in a food bank line Tuesday as the government shutdown continues and families try to figure out how to put food on the table. The Capital Area Food Bank began free food distributions for federal workers and contractors this week in Hyattsville. With an hour to go before food was handed out, a long line of people waited for help.

The Investment Committee debate how to trade Apple as it touches record highs. Apple hits new record high: Here's what you need to know | 9:15 CNBC Television | 3.26M subscribers | 13,807 views | October 20, 2025

"You talkin'" to the Taxi Driver? Prepare for the potty mouth. At age 82, and with an estimated half-billion in the bank, Robert De Niro clearly feels no need to clean up his act for national television. On Sunday's edition of MSNBC's The Weekend, Trump Hater De Niro, in a discussion of the No Kings protests, unleashed a string of vulgarities that included:Two f-bombs: one bleeped, the other live over the air. Telling people to "strap on their balls." Saying Rubio would walk out of the room with Trump "if he had balls." Claiming that Trump supporters "kiss his a--."...

Before you add John Bolton’s indictment to the growing pile of specious prosecutions of Donald Trump’s enemies, stop and read the Justice Department’s allegations that the former national security adviser systematically shared classified information with people who weren’t authorized to read it, all in the service of writing a tell-all book. The 18-count criminal indictment, filed yesterday, was compiled by experienced prosecutors, not political lackeys. It is detailed and precise, and relies on Bolton’s own words to implicate him. You should question whether these charges would be brought if Trump weren’t president. Officials in Joe Biden’s administration passed on the...

Regional bank stocks tumbled on Thursday after Zions Bancorp said it would write off fraudulent loans made to two borrowers, adding to investors’ fears about lending standards and stress in credit markets. Zions Bancorp (ZION) on Thursday said it had recently identified “what it believes to be apparent misrepresentations and contractual defaults” by two borrowers. As a result, it plans to write off $50 million of the $60 million outstanding on the affected loans. Shares of Zions dropped 13% on Thursday, leading regional banks lower. The KBW Regional Banking Index fell 6%. The recent bankruptcies of two companies in the...

Cyndi Greening has a distinct memory of when Donald Trump won the presidency last November. It’s from her living room floor. The former college professor from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, said she cried there for days until her 37-year-old son interjected: “Get up and do something. What’s the matter with you?” That’s when the Chippewa Valley Indivisible group was created. At the first meeting in January, 28 people showed up. At the next, it was 68. It then grew to 124. Today, membership is nearing 1,900. On Saturday, they’ll be among the millions of people marching in nationwide “No Kings” protests,...

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory unit of NASA said Monday that it will lay off about 550 employees — 11% of JPL’s workforce — as part of a restructuring. The job cuts “are not related to the current government shutdown,” JPL Director Dave Gallagher said in a message to the unit that was posted on the lab’s website. JPL is a research and development lab funded by NASA — the federal space agency — and managed by the California Institute of Technology. “While not easy, I believe that taking these actions now will help the Lab transform at the scale and...

NBC News veteran Andrea Mitchell was scorched online after she appeared to credit the Biden administration for the Gaza peace deal brokered by President Donald Trump. The 78-year-old host thanked former Secretary of State Antony Blinken for his work “creating the basis for the agreement once the two sides were finally prepared to compromise – we hope!” — a message that many read as giving the Biden team credit for Trump’s breakthrough. “Thank you for spending two years working toward this moment,” Mitchell wrote Monday on X in a reply to a post by Blinken. Trump announced the cease-fire last...

The New York state attorney general was indicted on charges related to alleged mortgage fraud — but the case looks like an unconstitutional selective prosecution.In the same jurisdiction in which the Trump Justice Department indicted former FBI Director James Comey more than a week ago, the same prosecutor who brought that case has now gone after another Trump enemy: New York Attorney General Letitia “Tish” James. (Disclosure: I worked as a volunteer member of James' transition team after her election in 2018.)The reason for the indictment? James is accused of having falsified a mortgage application on a property purchased in...

NBCSN is officially back. NBCUniversal is officially launching a new version of NBC Sports Network — better known as NBCSN — at some point this fall. The news was disclosed as part of an announcement of a new carriage deal between NBCU and Google-owned YouTube TV. News of a potential relaunch of NBCSN was first broken in July by Joe Flint of The Wall Street Journal, who reported that the new NBCSN would air events that are exclusively streamed on Peacock. Per the July report, the plan is for NBCSN to be available on specialty tiers, allowing it to complement...

Hertz's partnership with Amazon is another step in the e-commerce giant's slow march into auto sales. The deal could be a boon for the rental car giant, which is trying to sell more of its cars directly to consumers. Some experts say the shift toward direct online sales, especially involving e-commerce giants like Amazon, could spell trouble for dealerships, possibly even large publicly traded companies such as AutoNation, Group1, Sonic Automotive, Penske, and Asbury. Wholesale auction companies such as Manheim and AVC are also liable to be watching the shift, as direct to consumer sales could threaten their inventories. Why...

Every living former chair of the Federal Reserve, as well as a slew of ex-Treasury secretaries and former White House economic advisors, urged the Supreme Court not to allow President Donald Trump to fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook as her lawsuit challenging her removal is pending. Signers included ex-Fed chairs Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen; ex-Treasury secretaries Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, Hank Paulson, Jack Lew, and Timothy Geithner; and ex-CEA chairs Glenn Hubbard, Greg Mankiw, Christina Romer, Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein, and Jason Furman.

In a recently released excerpt from her forthcoming book, 107 Days, Kamala Harris revealed that Pete Buttigieg would have been her ideal running mate if she had been a straight white man. But she ultimately decided not to choose Buttigieg, who is gay, because "it was too big of a risk.” You might have thought that Eugene Daniels, who is married to a man, would have criticized Harris for her rejection of Buttigieg. But for Daniels, Democrat solidarity apparently trumps gay solidarity. He went on to make the case for rejecting Buttigieg: "Kamala Harris, as a black woman, ran with...

America is currently sick. The young conservative organizer and media personality Charlie Kirk was just murdered in a political assassination by a 22-year-old ‘anti-fascist’ and trans advocate, Tyler Robinson. As planned, he eliminated the most astute and successful political activist in a generation. Indeed, Kirk may well have ensured that Donald Trump won the 2024 election by not just increasing his youth vote by 6 percent since 2020 but, more importantly, by margins in the swing states of 15-24 percent, ensuring Trump’s victory. No sooner was he killed than thousands on left-wing social media erupted in celebration—among them scores of...

MSNBC has parted ways with political analyst Matthew Dowd following his comments while covering the fatal shooting of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at a college event in Utah. Initially, the network had offered a lengthy apology for his words after the killing but later Wednesday, Variety reported Dowd had been let go. The Daily Mail has reached out to MSNBC for comment. 'During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable. We apologize for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political...

Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah yesterday at just 31 years old. The conservative firebrand was gunned down during the kickoff of his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University, struck in the neck by a sniper’s bullet while engaging young Americans in his signature Q&A sessions. As we’ve reported previously, the liberal media’s reaction to the shooting was deplorable, with commentators taking to the airwaves with disgusting observations, such as comments from MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd, who effectively blamed Kirk for being shot. It was, of course, predictable that the mainstream media would trash him. Sadly, the print media...