Free Republic

What is a good way of reducing plane crashes? Obviously do not fire air safety experts and instil paranoia in those who remain. Yet that is what Elon Musk is doing to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), three weeks after America’s deadliest air collision in years. His team is moving fast to break things, as though Washington were an app. Other than China’s cultural revolution, history offers few parallels to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) assault on the state. Musk’s declared aim is to slash US deficits by rooting out waste, fraud and abuse. His model is the...

The only efficiency Elon Musk cares about is how efficiently he can take your money to line his own pockets. Musk is coming after your earned Social Security benefits. President Dwight Eisenhower, Republican and war hero, could have been talking about Musk when he warned in 1954 of a handful of “Texas oil millionaires” attempting to abolish Social Security. “Their number is negligible and they are stupid,” Musk has made no secret of his disdain for our Social Security system. In just the last few weeks, he has used his gigantic platform to spread outrageous lies about Social Security. Unlike...

House Speaker Mike Johnson has thwarted the installation of a plaque, approved by Congress, honoring officers who protected the Capitol. It is vital that partisans aren’t allowed to whitewash history simply because it makes some people uncomfortable. On Monday, Donald Trump will visit the scene of a crime, laying his hand on a Bible and vowing to preserve and protect the Constitution as he swears a formal oath to become the nation’s 47th president.The bloodstains of the Jan. 6 insurrection have long ago washed away. The shattered windows of the Capitol are mended, the broken doors replaced. You’d never know...

77% of companies surveyed expressed an intention to experiment with so-called 'dream advertising' - a form of advertising designed to influence what you dream about after being exposed to the ad. The same survey indicated that at least 33% of consumers made a purchase based on something they'd dreamt about. Many of those who did experience advertising in their dreams noted that it was mostly centered around major brands such as Coca-Cola, Apple and McDonald's. Some experts believe that this is because frequent exposure to such brands during our daily lives - from TV and radio to billboards and Internet...

***[Elton] John, who had a notorious drug addiction during the 1970s and 1980s but has been clean and sober for decades, made [the following] statement in [an] interview: John now divides his life into pre- and post-sober periods. … Those struggles have made him doubt the wisdom of legal weed. “I maintain that it’s addictive. It leads to other drugs. And when you’re stoned—and I’ve been stoned—you don’t think normally,” he says. “Legalizing marijuana in America and Canada is one of the greatest mistakes of all time.”John couldn’t be more right.***We’ve long known that marijuana use damages the brain, especially...

An essay published by The New Yorker on Monday claims that Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, “was forced to step down” as president of the advocacy group Concerned Veterans for America amid “serious allegations” of misconduct. We’re talking manhandling strippers, public drunkenness, lewd and obnoxious behavior—the kind of thing that would raise questions about someone slated to lead the Pentagon. Except: In interviews with me, two former senior leaders of CVA have denied the “whistleblower” allegations against Hegseth. They insisted that he left the organization voluntarily, without any pressure bearing down on him from its...

As part of his new administration, President-elect Donald Trump has said he wants to revive Schedule F — an ultimately unsuccessful effort from the end of his first term that sought to remove civil service job protections for potentially tens of thousands of career federal employees. But based on survey data, one famous GOP pollster argued that the public would not support such a policy. Frank Luntz told attendees at a National Academy of Public Administration conference on Nov. 14 that 61% of respondents — including majorities of Democrats, Independents and Republicans — would prefer a “non-partisan, nonpoliticized civil service...

A former adviser to George W Bush and John McCain believes Vice President Kamala Harris will nab the presidential election “maybe easily.” Writing in a Vanity Fair op-ed released on Friday, Mark McKinnon, a former chief media adviser to George W Bush and John McCain, said: “I’m going to make a bold prediction here because I just don’t give a s*** if I’m wrong, even if this lives on the internet forever. “Kamala Harris is going to win.” He attributed his theory to the level of enthusiasm among Harris’s supporters. Harris’s campaign got an eight-point lead in August when it...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump “resorted to crimes” in a failed bid to cling to power after losing the 2020 election, federal prosecutors said in a newly unsealed court filing that argues that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution. The filing was unsealed Wednesday. It was submitted by special counsel Jack Smith’s team following a Supreme Court opinion that conferred broad immunity on former presidents and narrowed the scope of the prosecution. This is a developing story. Please check back for more updates.

A majority of Black voters in battleground states support Vice President Harris over former President Trump, according to new polling. A new Howard Initiative on Public Opinion survey found that 78 percent of registered Black voters across Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said they would vote for Harris over Trump if the election were held today. That number increased to 82 percent among likely voters. Only 12 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Trump in November. An overwhelming 96 percent of likely voters said there was a slight to no chance they would...

It Appears That American Gangs Are Going to Target Venezuelan Gangs in Aurora, Colorado

More voters say they trust Vice President Harris to handle the economy than they do former President Trump, according to a poll released Monday by the Financial Times and the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Harris leads Trump 42 percent to 41 percent in the August poll when respondents were asked which candidate they trust to handle the economy, regardless of whom they plan on supporting in November. The finding marks the first time the Democratic candidate has inched ahead of the GOP candidate on the economy question since the monthly poll began tracking voter sentiment on the...

i believe texas has explicitly reserved the right to secede when it joined the USA. also the constitution does not prohibit other states and while the war between the states was fought over this, there was never a court case to determine this. looking at a 2020 map of blue and red counties, it seems apparent that most counties favor trump. this can reasonably be expected to continue through 2024. if the election fraud continues in 2024 as is widely anticipated, what would prohibit 1. texas state from peacefully seceding and forming an independent republic of texas 2. individual counties...

ussian spies have developed an artificial intelligence tool that Moscow is using to meddle in elections in Britain and the United States on a scale “exponentially greater” than ever before, Ukraine’s national security adviser has warned. In an interview with The Times, Oleksiy Danilov said that AI had enabled Russia to substantially ramp up its disinformation campaigns, designed to sow division and influence public opinion, and that Moscow now had specific units dedicated to every country holding an election in Europe. He said: “Artificial intelligence is a huge step forward for Russia and it makes the impact [of their meddling]...

Video Monday shows President Donald Trump’s attorneys arriving for a meeting at the Biden Department of Justice. Following the video release, Trump took to TruthSocial to write that he would soon be charged with crimes and arrested by the Biden DOJ. President Trump’s attorneys were summoned to the Department of Justice for a meeting on Monday. During his attorneys’ meetings, President Trump wrote on TruthSocial “HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT...

Former Vice President Al Gore and Google’s nonprofit arm are funding Climate TRACE, an environmentalist nonprofit coalition that uses a satellite database to track “individual emitters” of greenhouse gases around the world. Climate TRACE aims to track emissions from energy producers and other large sources of CO2 to fill “critical knowledge gaps” for governments and international bodies that rely on a “patchwork system” to monitor carbon emissions, according to its website. The nonprofit coalition uses satellite imaging remote sensing and artificial intelligence to track greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation, manufacturing and road traffic. “This is a way for climate...

Mi>The western narrative of a ‘losing Russia’ has just been decimated by Moscow’s blitzkrieg against Ukraine and its foreign-backed terror operations The terror attack on Krymskiy Most – the Crimea Bridge – was the proverbial straw that broke the Eurasian camel’s back. Russian President Vladimir Putin neatly summarized it: “This is a terrorist attack aimed at destroying the critical civilian infrastructure of the Russian Federation.”The head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, confirmed face-to-face with Putin that Terror on the Bridge was carried out by the SBU – Ukrainian special services.Bastrykin told Putin, “we have already established the route...

Before her third consecutive double shift at a pizzeria last year, Grace Velez pulled her hair, which fell past her waist, into pigtails. Ms. Velez says she was used to inappropriate comments from customers, but what she experienced that day shocked her. Regulars who usually never tipped put money in the pizzeria’s tip jar. A few older men winked at Ms. Velez, 21, as they dropped in cash. Another man, who Ms. Velez guessed was in his 30s, tried to flirt with her for 10 minutes before asking her whether she was a high school student. About halfway through her...

As Americans, we must continue to stand with Ukraine in their war against Russia. As time goes by this will become more difficult as the cost of that support literally goes up for us all. Regardless, practically and philosophically, it remains in our nation’s best interests to pay that price.As I conceded above, I am under no illusions that supporting Ukraine over the long haul will be easy. Doing so will come at a significant economic cost to the world, America included, as energy and food prices continue to go up in response to their protracted warThe costs of standing...

As more food processing plants burn down, the prophecy of pre-Messianic food shortages looms more imminent. Though labeled a conspiracy theory, the facts remain undeniable; prices are rising as supply chain problems persist and food becomes dear. BIDEN: PLANNING TO “DISSEMINATE FOOD SHORTAGES.”. The story comes in the wake of a presidential prediction that food shortages were about to become a reality due to the war in Ukraine. While addressing the subject, President Biden made a gaffe that made it seem that the food shortages were, in fact, planned. “We had a long discussion in the G7 with the, with...