Free Republic

Long before the rest of us were talking about blue and red America, Tom Wolfe not only recognized the cultural divide; he bridged it. When he began his career in the 1960s, the liberal establishment was more dominant and even smugger than it is today. There were no pesky voices on cable television or the web to challenge the Eastern elites’ hold on the national media. Then along came Wolfe, a lone voice celebrating the hinterland’s culture, mercilessly skewering the pretensions and dogmas of New York’s intelligentsia—and somehow triumphing. How did he get away with it? The most entertaining analysis...

A vast trove of Jeffrey Epstein's private calendars and emails are being revealed today by DailyMail.com. The hundreds of pages in the files give an unprecedented insight into the late pedophile's extraordinary network of power and influence. Among the revelations is that Epstein appeared to know personal details about the marriage of Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda – while magician David Blaine had numerous dinners with the financier.

Woke Silicon Valley Bank donated over $73 million to Black Lives Matter-related social justice groups in the years before it collapsed, while failed Signature Bank gave $850,000, it has been revealed. A database by the conservative Claremont Institute shows that SVB donated around $73,450,000 to the movement and other social-justice related causes as it worked to increase its Environmental, Social and Governance rating. Meanwhile, New York-based Signature Bank donated a total of $850,000 over several years before it failed on Sunday. The money was used to fund Black Lives Matter demonstrations and contributed to the organization's political action committee focused...

While waiting on the February jobs report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), I noticed that the big 4 banks (Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo) are drowning in net realized losses as The Federal Reserve combats 1) too many years of loose monetary policy under former Fed Chair Janet Yellen and 2) too much spending under Pelosi, Schumer and … McConnell. At a micro level, we have Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) SVB Is racing to prevent a bank run as funds advise pulling cash. Panic is spreading across the financial world as concerns about...

Fears of a broad financial contagion spread on Friday after tech lender Silicon Valley Bank set off alarm bells over liquidity concerns — sparking share losses across the banking sector worth some $52 billion on Thursday. Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm Founders Firm advised clients to withdraw their deposits from Silicon Valley Bank — despite the fact the lender has been a mainstay for tech startups for decades, according to Bloomberg News. Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund manager, called on the US government to step in and bail out Silicon Valley Bank. Michael Burry, the eccentric investor featured in...

Will 2022 turn out be a hinge year, as a moment when long-standing trends in geopolitics suddenly shifted in a different direction? This week, two important writers, one a long-established and prolific historian, the other a provocative presence on the internet, have argued persuasively that the answer is yes. But there's one other interesting point in common: Neither sees the United States as having played a decisive role in the sudden shift. Over the years, Niall Ferguson has written admiringly about the 19th-century Rothschilds and the 20th century’s Henry Kissinger and has highlighted the positive achievements of Britain’s empire and...

Recently, the Arizona Mirror revealed that the Republican Party in Arizona is urging Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell to financially support U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters. Masters, who secured a coveted endorsement from President Trump, triumphed in the primaries based on that seal of approval.In the beginning, Masters was trailing his Democrat rival, incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly, by a significant margin of 12 points.But matters have recently swung in Masters's favor, and a recent Emerson College poll has Kelly leading Masters by just two percentage points. Since the margin of error is around two points, this could be regarded as...

Ohio conservatives! Ignore the lies being spread about my friend Josh Mandel, funded by billionaire Peter Thiel and spread by JD Vance! Vote for Josh Mandel, the only PROVEN conservative in the Ohio GOP Senate primary!https://t.co/m34oekMCNf— Mark R. Levin (@marklevinshow) May 1, 2022

Billionaire venture capitalist and Paypal founder Peter Thiel has decided to leave the board of Meta Platforms (the company formerly known as Facebook) after its annual shareholder meeting in May, according to an announcement from the company released just after markets closed on Monday afternoon.According to reports published by Bloomberg and the NYT, Thiel is leaving Meta’s board so he can focus on backing political candidates who support President Donald Trump’s agenda during November’s midterms, which Thiel sees as “crucial to changing the direction of the country.” Both reports cited anonymous sources familiar with Thiel’s thinking. He doesn’t want his...

This is the fourth in an ongoing series on the problematic rise of LGBT influence in conservative and GOP circles. The first three commentaries can be found here, here, and here.(LifeSiteNews) — All eyes are on Florida as it repeatedly proves to be the heart of conservative America, thanks to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stalwart leadership.There’s another good reason, however, to keep a watchful eye on Florida: It’s also ground zero for the rise of the “gay conservative” movement, comprised of LGBT conservatives and their allies, seeking to exercise increased power within the party.At first glance they appear to easily belong,...

Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney’s primary challenger landed former President Donald Trump’s endorsement before she even officially launched her campaign. Now, she’s cashing big checks from Trump’s biggest donors — including tech billionaire Peter Thiel. Thiel has contributed the maximum-allowed, $5,800 check to Harriet Hageman, the Trump-endorsed attorney running against Cheney in next year’s Republican primary. The former president has made Cheney, an outspoken critic who voted for his impeachment in January, his top target in the 2022 election, and now big-money benefactors like Thiel are piling into the race.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel liked Mark Zuckerberg for the same reasons most people couldn’t stand him. Though the Facebook CEO is often criticized for being robotic and unfeeling, Thiel saw the younger man’s indifference as “a sign of intelligence,” writes Max Chafkin in his book, “The Contrarian” (Penguin Press), out now. The two formed a mutual respect based on their iconoclastic ways. “Zuckerberg, like Thiel, had stuck it in the eye of his politically correct peers when he’d hacked Harvard’s online directory to create FaceMash.” At college in the ’80s, Thiel had launched a conservative monthly called The Stanford Review,...

New Zealand is becoming the ideal spot for high-net-worth people to ride out a societal collapse. Billionaire Google co-founder Larry Page has been hiding out in private islands in Fiji to avoid COVID-19 and was recently granted New Zealand residency under a category for wealthy investors. Long before Page, Peter Thiel, the tech billionaire who co-founded PayPal and Palantir, retained residency on the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and bought a $13.5 million estate in 2015. According to CNBC, Thiel has filed plans to build a mansion buried into the hillside on the shores of Lake Wanaka. Architecture...

An executive at Peter Thiel’s venture capital fund is running for a US Senate seat with $10 million in backing from his boss. Blake Masters, the 34-year-old chief operating officer at investment firm Thiel Capital and a former protege of the billionaire at Stanford, announced Monday that he is running as a Republican to unseat Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly in 2022. In his campaign launch, Masters pledged to “completely end illegal immigration” and fight “indoctrination” in the school system. Masters has never held public office and faces a crowded GOP primary field that includes state Attorney General Mark Brnovich...

Tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel just dropped a massive donation into a PAC supporting author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance for the open U.S. Senate seat in Ohio. Vance has not officially entered the race, but his name has been discussed as a possible candidate to replace incumbent Republican Sen. Rob Portman, who announced earlier this year that he will not seek another term. Thiel’s donation has raised some eyebrows in the state, where there’s every indication that the primary election will be a referendum on President Trump. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, which portrayed the struggles of Vance’s family in...

JD Vance may be running for the United States Senate in Ohio. The venture capitalist and author of the autobiographical bestseller Hillbilly Elegy, now has a very well-funded Super PAC backing his potential candidacy. According to Cinncinnati.com, “Thiel, a German-American billionaire and early investor in Facebook, gave $10 million to Protect Ohio Values, a super PAC formed last month to support Vance’s possible bid, said Bryan Lanza, a communications adviser to the super PAC.

This is a almost three hours podcast with Peter Thiel and Eric Weinstien. They speak together on a far ranging set of topics. I downloaeded it into my device to listen as this conservitive and leftist discuss topics in an honest and respectful manner. If you like this sort of thing, I recommend it highly. Thiel has a good brain, and an ethical heart. https://podcastnotes.org/2019/07/17/thiel/

The fight is over, but it is not entirely clear who won: Hulk Hogan has finally settled a sex-tape lawsuit that has been dragging on for years. The former pro wrestler, whose real name is Terry Bollea, had been seeking $110m (£94m) from talkshow hosts at Florida-based Cox Radio, who he accused of leaking a video showing him having sex and using racist language. The case was supposed to go to a jury trial next January but a confidential settlement reached on Thursday means that will now be avoided. I don’t want to think about Hogan naked any more than...

Politicos and pundits praise American universities for their entrepreneurialism. Founders of tech companies get honorary degrees and give commencement speeches. Student orientations include sessions bragging about the startup resources students have on campus. Schools even create “entrepreneurship” majors and entrepreneurship centers within their business schools. But how much of that startup acumen is rhetoric and how much is grounded in fact? University marketers and grant-writers rely on people not being able to question their claims here. So long as they can draw some connection between the university and student go-getting, the school will claim some kind of credit. Then, administrators...

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended a secret dinner at the White House last month with President Trump and tech investor Peter Thiel, the social media company confirmed on Wednesday night. The previously undisclosed meeting in October between the social media mogul and the president was first reported by NBC News, who cited a statement from the company.