Free Republic

The workforce at Samsung Electronics' Austin campus, the company's US foundry hub, has fallen by more than 30 percent as losses in its non-memory business continued to weigh on the existing production site. In contrast, headcount at the Taylor campus -- where Samsung is preparing to produce chips on a 2-nanometer advanced process -- edged up slightly. The company is working toward launching the Taylor factory by the end of this year... The report shows the Austin campus employed 3,342 workers last year, down 32 percent from 4,907 in 2024. The payroll shrank accordingly: total compensation at the Austin campus...

Major banks closed accounts and refused credit to MAGA merchants, pro-life causes, religious groups, conservative organizations and sectors disfavored by the Biden administration, such as firearms, oil and gas, and private prisons... The Debanking Review by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) investigated 100,000 complaints and scrutinized 50,000 internal bank records to reveal how customers were “debanked” based purely on their political, social, or religious beliefs. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank were found to have discriminated against American consumers, citing “reputation risk” as a...

I love this. I hate that. Really? Is it necessary to exaggerate? If everything is huge or outrageous or unprecedented, then how will we express things that are truly out of the ordinary? Florid language is the enemy of clear, concise speech. Like putting exclamation points and emojis after every sentence, it pervades modern media and makes everyone sound like adolescent twits. I don't dislike the following expressions, nor do I hate them. I detest them with a burning rage that disrupts the very fabric of space and time. - Amazing/Amazed: People say this when they really like something, but...

House Democrats are preparing an ambitious 100-days agenda focused on delivering their campaign promises — making life more affordable and conducting vast oversight of the Trump administration — if the party seizes majority control in next month’s elections. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is in line to become House speaker if the party wins power, said the Democrats will be united “right out of the gate” on reinstating Affordable Care Act tax breaks, reversing Republican Medicaid cuts, holding votes against the Iran war and undoing President Donald Trump’s tariff regime. They expect to launch the agenda in the first 100...

🚨 JUST IN: Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey (D)'s former aide LaMar Cook, already facing cocaine trafficking and gun charges, has been ARRESTED by federal prosecutors for SNAP FRAUD PARTY OF FRAUD. He's also accused of wrongly taking $30K in VACATION time, and must pay it back! Earlier this year, he was caught using his taxpayer-funded EBT card at supermarkets right outside Walt Disney World. Prosecutors say he claimed ZERO income and less than $100 in the bank to collect $500 a month in food stamps. Records reportedly showed he actually had thousands in the bank, plus about $12,000 in lottery...

Bettors have reportedly wagered over $220 million on the outcomes of the November midterms on prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket. That’s more than twice the $92 million in trading volume recorded during the entire 2024 congressional election cycle, Reuters reported Thursday, citing data from the Anti-Corruption Data Collective. The analysis covered more than 21,000 congressional election markets this cycle, compared with just 463 involving congressional races two years ago. Despite the explosion of bets most of the trading volume is concentrated in a few races — particularly the Texas Senate contest between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico. Senate...

Funny how accountability only works one way. It’s always Trump’s fault when Islamic Republic of Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, but never genocidal-Hamas Gaza leaders’ fault when their October 7 attacks trigger a war in Gaza. Funny how accountability only works one way.

The Russian Revolution — commonly conceived of as the communist overthrow of the Romanovs — actually took place over the course of two steps. First, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in March 1917. Then, that fall, Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks decapitated the left-wing government led by the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries in what came to be known as the October Revolution. That’s the one that was celebrated as a holiday in the Soviet Union, and is now by socialists everywhere. Not the left’s triumph over the right, but the bloodthirsty left’s defeat of the far-left. History is repeating itself in the...

Authorities have subpoenaed members of the Democratic congresswoman’s family as part of a broader look at their immigration paperwork WASHINGTON—The Trump administration’s investigation into Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) is aimed at building a case to strip her of her U.S. citizenship and ultimately deport her, according to U.S. officials and other people familiar with the probe. The multipronged effort is focused at least in part on how Omar obtained her citizenship after she arrived in the U.S. from Somalia decades ago. Investigators are focused both on the congresswoman and actions of her deceased father, some of the people familiar...

Luna, the 10-year-old Jack Russell terrier from California who was lost in Yellowstone National Park since early September, has been reunited with her owner and is going home. Rescuers caught the dog Wednesday after she managed to survive the cold, feed herself and avoid coyotes in the wilderness for more than a month. “The dog that was loose in the Canyon Village area has been captured and is alive and well,” Yellowstone National Park spokesperson Linda Veress confirmed to SFGATE. At a veterinarian’s office Wednesday with Luna and the dog’s owner, rescuer Katie Boucher gave SFGATE an update on Luna’s...

Catholic parish to host female Lutheran ‘pastor’ for pro-LGBT talk Catholic leaders call on Archbishop Jeffrey Grob to 'cancel the event' led by a pro-LGBT 'heretic' Lutheran 'minister.'Three Catholic organizations are calling on the Archbishop of Milwaukee to stop a parish event featuring a female Lutheran pastor who will discuss ways the parish can be more supportive of homosexuality and transgender ideology.“How can other faith traditions help us more fully welcome LGBTQ+ people in our Catholic community,” a Facebook post from St. Sebastian parish in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee asks.The parish “welcome” group will host “Rev. Rachel Young Binter, a...

Marist Catholic High school announced that Zach Loboy has been removed as head football coach of the Spartans. The decision came after Friday's win over Cottage Grove where the coaches and officials decided to not play the second half after being down 63-0. The first half included at least two on-side kicks as the Spartans ran up the score. Marist Catholic Principal Bob Fraley wrote in his statement to the football parents and guardians, “We determined that a change in leadership was necessary to reflect our school’s mission and values. "Our priority is to support our players, maintain a positive...

British soldiers are training in the Falklands to recapture the islands amid mounting intimidation from Argentina. Around 150 British Paratroopers joined locally trained reservists to "war-game" an amphibious assault followed by close-quarters combat missions across the territory, according to The Times. The six-day training exercise sought to emulate the Operation Sutton landings that repelled the Argentine invasion in May 1982. Javier Milei, the president of Argentina, warned last month that his country could "act swiftly" to "recover" the South Atlantic archipelago, which he has long claimed is "under illegal foreign occupation". He threatened at the United Nations General Assembly in...

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered the remains of two colossal statues believed to depict Ramses II after a local landowner reported finding an inscribed stone block in the village of Behbeit El-Hagar. The discoveries were made by an archaeological mission from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA). According to Dr. Hisham El-Leithy, Secretary-General of the SCA, the first find was a stone head more than five-feet-high from a massive statue. It depicts a man wearing a double crown, a symbol of the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt worn by ancient Egyptian rulers. Nearby, archaeologists found part of the statue’s...

Today's guest is Mark Cuban, the billionaire entrepreneur and former Shark Tank star who is now on a mission to reform the American healthcare system. Through his companies, Cost Plus Drugs and Cost Plus Wellness, Cuban is trying to make healthcare more affordable by cutting out middlemen and making pricing more transparent. But he argues that fixing America's healthcare system will require breaking up massive conglomerates that wield enormous power over pricing and competition, often at the expense of patients. Nick Gillespie talks with Cuban about why he supports bipartisan legislation from Elizabeth Warren and Josh Hawley to break up...

Let's unpack the latest dystopian tech news—and German cops' dystopian response.We've reached the point in techno-dystopia where autonomous humanoid robots are out assaulting girls in the street—or so some coverage of a recent incident in Cologne, Germany, might have you believe. But dig into what really happened, and it's human actions that appear more worrying. For dystopian police-state flavor, we've got Cologne cops warning that simply commenting about this on Facebook in an unapproved way could be criminal. Without specifying exactly what kinds of comments are off limits or what law might be broken, the North Rhine-Westphalia Police of Cologne...

Former Vice President Kamala Harris called for institutional changes to the Supreme Court and the Electoral College during an interview Tuesday, calling for more justices on the highest court in the nation. "The work that we can do about winning back the House and the Senate is going to be on a number of things. For example, I believe that we need to expand the Supreme Court. We need more justices on the Supreme Court so that we can have a court that actually reinforces the spirit and principles behind the Constitution of the United States," Harris told podcast host...

Space Force electromagnetic warfare systems are playing a key role in U.S. military operations around the world. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday visited a base in Colorado to learn more. An array of U.S. Space Force electromagnetic-warfare systems is playing a key role in protecting American troops and degrading enemy satellites around the world. The Wall Street Journal was granted rare access to a Space Force base in Colorado to learn how those systems work, and to speak exclusively with Guardians who flew them overseas to support operations in both Venezuela and Iran. Hours after Tech. Sgt. Joshua Lomax jammed satellites to...

Iran's vice president for executive affairs, Mohammad Jafar Ghaempanah, said Wednesday that talks with the U.S. require approval from Iran's top security body and the Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei. "If the decision is to fire missiles, we will fire missiles on the orders of the commander-in-chief. If the leader deems negotiations appropriate, we will negotiate," Ghaempanah said, according to Iran International. Ghaempanah said all decisions must be guided by Iran's national interests, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). The news agency also reported that Tehran is prepared to launch missile strikes if ordered by Khamenei but is open...

Ex-special counsel Jack Smith obtained personal information on 639,000 Republican donors, voters and supporters — including some who contributed as little as $1 or bought “red MAGA hats” — according to subpoena returns obtained by a Senate Republican committee. In a Wednesday memo, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) disclosed the details of data Smith’s office received, denouncing the former prosecutor of President Trump for “abuse of authority.” More than 148,000 rows on spreadsheets containing the findings, including donors from 2005 to 2021. Dates of birth, home addresses, email addresses, Republican party registration, information about credit cards or employment...