Free Republic

The average American adult will spend around three years of their life driving. If robots could take the wheel instead, well, think of all the Netflix shows we could stream instead. Don't forget work via wifi. But the true benefit of a self-driving revolution will be in lives saved. And new data from the autonomous vehicle company Waymo suggests that those savings could be very great indeed.

Employees at the Department of Housing and Urban Development cafeteria this morning were surprised by a strange video of President Donald Trump on the television screens. The video featured the words 'Long Live the Real King' in front of artificially generated footage of President Trump kissing billionaire Elon Musk's feet. Footage of the video playing on the cafeteria screens was shared by a HUD source with Vox reporter Rachel Cohen who posted it on social media.

At a gathering in Madrid, members of Europe’s far-right parties set aside any trepidation they might have about President Trump’s threats, and instead focused on a common enemy — the European Union. ...There was Marine Le Pen of France’s far-right National Rally; the Netherland’s populist, Geert Wilders; the leader of Italy’s League party, Matteo Salvini. All made clear that they shared Mr. Trump’s charge against what they see as “wokeism,” “gender theory,” and overweening environmentalism. For them, the American president had blown through the last barriers that had confined their parties to the political margins. The taboos had been toppled....

Europe's far-right political leaders have praised Donald Trump and said they wanted to "Make Europe Great Again" as they met in Madrid. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Italy's deputy premier Matteo Salvini, French National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and Netherlands' PVV party founder Geert Wilders were among those at the gathering organised by Spanish far-right party, Vox. Referring to what he called "the Trump tornado", Mr Orban said the Republican candidate's victory in November's US presidential election and subsequent return to the White House had "changed the world in just a few weeks... yesterday we were heretics, today...

Vox Media is ending its deal to distribute former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz’s podcast and YouTube show after the journalist made a slew of explosive comments about the death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a source close to the situation confirmed. Semafor scribe Max Tani, who first reported the news, revealed late Sunday that the controversial tech columnist had a short-term partnership that is set to expire at the beginning of the year. Lorenz took to social media on Monday ripping the report as “100% false,” claiming media reporters “lie” about her as she vowed to discuss the situation...

… This (Jenga), I’d argue, is basically how we should be thinking about the stakes of the 2024 election for American democracy: an already-rickety tower of state would be at risk of falling in on itself entirely, with catastrophic results for those who live under its shelter. We live in an era where democracies once considered “consolidated” — meaning so secure that that they couldn’t collapse into authoritarianism — have started to buckle and even collapse. As recently as 2010, Hungary was considered one of the post-Communist world’s great democratic success stories; today, it is now understood to be the...

Democrats are currently focused on the fight against Donald Trump. But quietly, factions within the party are preparing contingency plans for a different battle: the one over how to interpret a Kamala Harris loss. Polls of the 2024 election show the closest presidential race in modern memory. For Harris, defeat is roughly as likely as victory. The former outcome is sure to trigger a fierce, intra-Democratic debate over what the party should learn from losing the White House (twice) to an unpopular demagogue If Harris loses, expect Democrats to move right With 15 days left, we need your help The...

Blogger Taylor Lorenz has left the Washington Post several weeks after she posted an Instagram story that showed her attending a Joe Biden speech at the White House with the caption “war criminal :(.”Lorenz’s departure is being billed as her opportunity to become an internet “content creator” more than a traditional news reporter. She is starting a Substack called “User Magazine,” where she says she will discuss social media from a user perspective. Lorenz is a 40+-year-old New Yorker who often attempts to ingratiate herself within the culture of much younger, often sub-20-year-olds online. She gained notoriety by doxxing the...

Coverage of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza is mostly dominated by talk of weapons. Reporters and analysts focus on suicide drones, on shell deficits, on targeting algorithms. But for all the attention devoted to modern weapons and munitions, both conflicts are proving that modern war still comes down to people.... ... Before Covid, fewer than 3 in 10 Americans in the prime recruiting demographic — ages 17 to 24 — were eligible to serve in uniform. Those numbers have shrunk further since the pandemic began. Only 23 percent of young Americans are qualified to enlist without a waiver.... In...

Trump’s extremist policy agenda is flying under the radar — and that’s a problem. Donald Trump went on national TV last week and proposed bombing Mexico. Asked by Fox News’s Jesse Watters if he’d consider strikes against drug cartels operating in the country, Trump said yes — and framed his answer as a threat against the Mexican government. “Mexico’s gonna have to straighten it out really fast, or the answer is absolutely,” the former president said. This is not a one-off answer to a stray question. Trump suggested firing missiles at Mexico during his presidency, asked advisers for a “battle...

ot long after President Joe Biden announced he was stepping aside from the presidential race Sunday, pro-Trump social media influencers had settled on one line of attack: that Democrats had carried out a coup against their own president. [snip] From people who support Donald Trump, the man who tried to steal the 2020 election, this is obviously a ridiculous and absurd thing to say. Yet it echoes a self-interested argument made by Biden himself just two weeks ago, when he argued that him dropping out would be tantamount to ignoring democracy. “The voters — and the voters alone — decide...

Users of Zyn, a brand of nicotine pouch that’s become a touchstone among right-wing commentators, extol its ability to free the mind, increase productivity, and even enhance sexual performance. “I use it every second I’m awake,” said Tucker Carlson on an episode of the Full Send comedy podcast in 2023. “Seconds before I fall asleep, I take it out.” There’s no evidence to promote Zyn as a sexual aid; nicotine actually constricts blood vessels, which can increase the risk of erectile dysfunction. The addictive substance can also raise blood sugar and blood pressure and may harden the walls of arteries,...

Who really owns the paper? I’ve seen this before, but never at such a high-profile level. Journalists, including Bari Weiss, were squeezed out at the New York Times and targeted by campaigns coordinated by their colleagues with outside radical leftist outlets like Huffington Post, Vox, and The New Republic, but this time it went bigger than ever before. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos decided that his pet paper, The Washington Post, needed a change of management and brought in vets from the UK’s Telegraph. The Post’s wokes and some around the media decided that wouldn’t fly and began running hit pieces...

The six Republican justices handed down a decision on Friday that effectively legalizes civilian ownership of automatic weapons. All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented. The Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill involves bump stocks, devices that allow ordinary semiautomatic weapons that can legally be owned by civilians to automatically fire, much like a machine gun designed for that purpose. Bump stocks cause a semiautomatic gun’s trigger to buck against the shooter’s finger, repeatedly “bumping” the trigger and making the gun rapidly fire. A semiautomatic weapon refers to a gun that loads a bullet into the chamber or otherwise prepares...

Thursday’s argument in Trump v. United States was a disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith, and for anyone who believes that the president of the United States should be subject to prosecution if they commit a crime.

The notion that Biden is less mentally fit for the presidency than Trump is extremely dubious. The president has been involved in public policy for more than half a century and Biden has almost certainly forgotten more about geopolitics and the federal bureaucracy than Trump has ever learned. Age notwithstanding, Biden remains far more cognitively qualified for the presidency than his 77-year-old rival... The president’s mental competence is similarly well established. Last year, then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told allies that he “found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations,” as Politico put it. This comports with the assessment of...

Yet another Democratic Party thought leader has demanded that Joe Biden drop out of the 2024 presidential race. Ezra Klein, the co-founder of Vox and now a columnist and podcast host at The New York Times, said he understood that many liberals would be angry at him for calling on Biden to go but that it was necessary. "I want to say this clearly: I like Biden. I think he’s been a good president. I think he is a good president. I don’t like having this conversation. And I know a lot of liberals, a lot of Democrats are going...

Democrats perturbed about Donald Trump’s lead in 2024 polling have long had a comforting hope to fall back on: that Trump, who is facing four criminal prosecutions, will likely become a convicted felon before Election Day — or even be sent to prison. That’s still possible — but it’s not as sure a bet as it once seemed. Delays have piled up in federal court proceedings in the District of Columbia case about Trump’s attempt to steal the 2020 election and the Florida classified documents case against Trump, making it unclear whether either case will go to trial before November....

Violence has erupted between police and thousands of protesters during the fourth consecutive night of demonstrations outside the Spanish Socialist Party's headquarters in Madrid. On Thursday night, footage captured protesters throwing bottles, beer cans, and fireworks at a police cordon protecting the headquarters. Police used batons, tear gas, and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd as tensions rose. The protests were triggered by the Socialist Party's deal with a Catalan separatist party, granting amnesty for those involved in a failed secession bid. In exchange, the separatist party supports acting Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's bid to form a new government. Earlier...

Even before Tuesday’s elections, many progressives insisted the question of whether protecting abortion rights wins elections was already asked and answered. Democrats made abortion rights the centerpiece of their campaign advertising during the 2022 midterms, a cycle where Democrats outperformed expectations, kept control of the US Senate, and staved off a red wave. Polls last year also found abortion rights to be a significantly motivating issue for both independent and Democratic voters. Abortion rights ballot measures won in all six states where they appeared in 2022, including states like Montana, Kentucky, and Kansas that otherwise elected Republican candidates.