Free Republic

New research suggests that chatbots have a greater sway on policy issues than video ads, and that spouting the most information—even if wrong—is the most persuasive strategyArtificial intelligence chatbots are changing the world, affecting everything from our brains to our mental health to how we do our work. Now, two new studies offer fresh insights into how they might also be shifting our political beliefs. In a new paper published December 4 in Nature, scientists describe how having a brief back-and-forth exchange with an A.I. chatbot shifted voters’ preferences on political candidates and policy issues. Another paper, published December 4...

The U.S. has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, three officials told Reuters on Wednesday, a move that raised oil prices and is likely to further inflame tensions between Washington and Caracas. President Donald Trump has ordered a massive U.S. military build-up in the region, including an aircraft carrier, fighter jets and tens of thousands of troops. The officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the operation was led by the U.S. Coast Guard. They did not name the tanker, which country's flag it was flying or exactly where the interdiction took place. Oil futures rose...

"Mic-drop" truth bomb. Israeli Ambassador Claps back at NBC Host: "Quoting Gaza Health Ministry is Like Quoting MS-13's Welfare Stats" | WATCH. An on-air clash goes viral as Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter slams NBC’s Kristen Welker for citing Gaza casualty figures, igniting a fierce debate over media bias, wartime propaganda, and the battle to control the narrative. Welker referenced the ministry's reported death toll while grilling Leiter on civilian casualties during Israel's operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Leiter fired back: "Kristen, you just quoted the Gaza Health Ministry. That’s like quoting MS-13 Social Welfare Ministry." The analogy, equating the ministry...

Revealed: RCMP Insider Behind Push To Advance Palestinian Messaging In Federal Workforce. Internal federal records show that an RCMP strategic policy analyst helped found a Palestinian-aligned advocacy group inside the national police force, prompting questions about political messaging and internal influence. Ron East December 10, 2025 RCMP civilian employees. Internal RCMP documents identify a civilian employee as founder of the Muslim Federal Employees Network, which circulated pro-Palestinian materials within federal departments, according to Access To Information records. (Image: Illustration.) OTTAWA – Newly disclosed federal records show that a strategic policy analyst within the RCMP helped found an internal advocacy network...

To order the killing of people shipwrecked is clearly illegal according to military justice, according to our own military laws. If our pilots have to eject from a plane, we show that we don’t shoot people. We don’t shoot pilots that are descending by parachute. If we blow up a boat and there are survivors we don’t shoot those people. We don’t sidle up in a boat and take a nine millimeter pistol out, put it to their head and shoot them. Nobody would do that.” “But just because the missiles come from a long distance doesn’t make it any...

Charlie Kirk’s new book has become such a popular title that on its publication day, hardcover editions had sold out after the book rocketed to the top spot on Amazon’s list of bestsellers. “Stop, in the Name of God: Why Honoring the Sabbath Will Transform Your Life” appeared Tuesday and hit the top of the Amazon Top 100 bestseller list before being listed as temporarily out of stock, according to The Wall Street Journal. The book was still available through other sellers. Winning Team Publishing printed 200,000 copies and will be printing more, a representative of the company said, indicating...

Three months after her husband, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated, Erika Kirk will open up about life, loss, the state of political discourse and more in a one-hour town hall event moderated by Bari Weiss, CBS News' editor-in-chief. The special will be broadcast on Saturday, Dec. 13, at 8 p.m. ET/PT on the CBS television network and will stream later on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7. The event, filmed before a studio audience, will feature Kirk fielding questions from young evangelicals, prominent religious leaders, and figures across the political spectrum. The conversation will also focus on our country's political divide —...

Sharing a meme against President Trump in response to a memorial for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk cost a Tennessee man his liberty for 37 days, which in turn got him fired. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is representing Larry Bushart, told Just the News on Tuesday it's still prepping a lawsuit on his behalf. The Alliance Defending Freedom beat FIRE to court in response to another alleged criminal investigation of speech related to Kirk in neighboring North Carolina, alleging a school district known for a Supreme Court precedent on school busing sanctioned an unidentified high school...

CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss hired ABC News reporter Matt Gutman, who called Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin’s text messages with his transgender boyfriend “touching,” to become a chief correspondent. Gutman apologized for making the remarks about the text messages, in which he described during a Sept. 16 segment that Tyler Robinson, who is alleged to have killed Kirk, expressed his love to his trans-identifying lover, Lance Twiggs. He will now leave ABC News to report for “CBS Mornings,” “CBS Evening News,” serve as a lead correspondent for “48 Hours” and contribute to “60 Minutes,” according to...

Popular food delivery service Instacart has been using a shady algorithm that charges different prices to different customers on the same grocery items in the same supermarkets without telling them, according to an explosive study. At a Target store in North Canton, Ohio, the wildly popular grocery app charged a customer $2.99 for Skippy Creamy Peanut Butter one day in September – while other Instacart users that day paid as much as $3.59 for the same jar picked up from the same location, according to the study. At a Safeway supermarket in Seattle, shoppers using Instacart paid five different prices...

Zelenskyy Compromises – He Is Ready to Hold Elections... But Under Certain Conditions🤝 MS2025.12.10

The Charlotte City Council is being slammed for approving $3.4 million to hire a PR company to clean up the reputation of their public transportation after a string of recent stabbings. The city’s latest action comes after two widely-publicized stabbings, including one that ended fatally on Charlotte’s train system and sparked a national conversation on rising crime and lax prosecution in urban areas of the country. On Tuesday, Republican North Carolina Rep. Mark Harris called out the “pro-crime Democrats in Charlotte” for spending the cash on “misleading ads” rather than choosing to “invest in REAL safety to prevent another tragedy...

The Treasury Department sent a letter last week to conservative influencer Erika Kirk with findings that contradict fraud allegations about the finances at Turning Point USA and could help her refute those claims, sources told CBS News. Questions were being raised on social media about the finances at Kirk's organization, Turning Point USA, and podcaster Candace Owens and others were urging donors to demand refunds. That led a few of its small-dollar donors to ask for their money back, one of the sources said. Erika Kirk runs the nationwide conservative college student organization co-founded by her late husband, Charlie Kirk....

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES — Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch dismantled a lawyer’s illogical arguments about a president’s executive power during a high-stakes Supreme Court hearing on Monday. The moment came during oral arguments for Trump v. Slaughter, a case centered around President Trump’s firing of Rebecca Slaughter, a Democrat member of the Federal Trade Commission. As The Federalist previously reported, the high court will weigh the constitutionality of statutory limitations on a president’s ability to remove members of so-called “independent agencies” and whether to overturn longstanding precedent established in its 1935 Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S. decision. During his...

Two teenage illegal migrants from Afghanistan have been sentenced to prison for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in a park in the English town of Leamington Spa in Warwickshire. Jan Jahanzeb and Israr Niazal, who both arrived illegally on small boats across the English Channel from France as unaccompanied minors, have been sentenced to ten years and eight months and nine years and ten months in prison respectively for the rape of a 15-year-old girl in May. Both Afghan nationals were being housed in taxpayer funded accommodation at the time of the brutal attack, The Times of London reported....

The Trump administration must stop deploying the California National Guard in Los Angeles and return control of the troops to the state, a federal judge ruled Wednesday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco granted a preliminary injunction sought by California officials who opposed President Donald Trump’s extraordinary move to use state Guard troops without the governor’s approval to further his immigration enforcement efforts. But he also put the decision on hold until Monday. California argued that conditions in Los Angeles had changed since Trump first took command of the troops and deployed them in June. The administration initially...

Eileen Higgins clinched victory in Miami’s mayoral runoff election, according to multiple reports, marking the first Democrat to win the office in almost 30 years and the first woman ever elected mayor in the city. A roaring chant of “Eileen” erupted at Higgins’ watch party at the Miami Women's Club after she was projected to win.

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An estimated $3.4 million in funding will go towards improving the public image of Charlotte’s public transportation system following recent violence on the CATS light rail. Monday night, the Charlotte City Council unanimously approved plans to enter into a one-year contract with Sherry Matthews Group for marketing and communication services. Officials started searching for a firm about a month after the death of Iryna Zarutska on the Blue Line. Now days after the most recent light rail stabbing, the city is continuing efforts to improve public perception and encourage people to use public transit. “It is outrageous that rather than...

DOHA, Qatar (AP) — With the remains of one hostage still in Gaza, the first phase of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas is nearly complete, after a two-month process plagued by delays and finger-pointing. Now, the key players — including Israel, the Palestinian militant Hamas group, the United States and a diverse list of international parties — are to move to a far more complicated second phase that could reshape the Middle East. U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan — which was approved by the U.N. Security Council — lays out an ambitious vision for...