Free Republic

U.S. — With Jose Ibarra now convicted of Laken Riley's murder, police warned that the three others responsible for her death still remained at large. The three other individuals, who conspired to fly the murderer across the United States border in direct violation of multiple federal laws, have been identified as Joseph Biden Jr., Kamala D. Harris, and Alejandro Mayorkas. "Ibarra's three accomplices are still on the loose," cautioned Georgia police officer Daniel Carston. "We have reason to believe that these individuals are responsible for helping several other murderers fly across the border, hidden on commercial airlines. They fully funded...

San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich has once again unloaded on former President Donald Trump, this time calling the Republican presidential nominee a "pathetic," "damaged" and a "whiner." Responding to a French reporter's question Saturday about the impact of the upcoming presidential election on U.S. democracy, Popovich unleashed a 13-minute triage against the former reality-show businessman. "He's a pathetic individual," said Popovich, the winningest coach in NBA history. "He's a small man who has to make everybody around him smaller so he thinks he's gonna be bigger — and isn't that the same thing we tell all of our kids...

The United States has formally recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as the country’s president-elect following the disputed July 28 presidential election, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Tuesday on X. “The Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made Edmundo Gonzalez the president-elect. Democracy demands respect for the will of the voters,” the top US diplomat posted while participating in the G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro. The announcement marks a significant change in US policy towards Venezuela: up until now, the US and other countries said Gonzalez had won more votes than incumbent leader Nicolas Maduro in...

"One thing that I love about Milhouse is he’s always getting knocked down, but he keeps getting up. I love the little guy"The Simpsons voice actor Pamela Hayden, who has voiced Milhouse and several other characters on the show for over 35 years, has announced that she is retiring. Hayden has voiced Milhouse Van Houten – the blue-haired best friend of Bart Simpson – for almost 700 episodes since the show first began in 1989. Her final episode will be Treehouse Of Horror Presents: Simpsons Wicked This Way Comes, which airs on November 24. As well as Milhouse, Hayden also...

Californians, who have historically supported efforts to raise the minimum wage, were not swayed this time around.After two weeks of postelection uncertainty, Proposition 32, the initiative to increase the state’s minimum wage to $18 an hour, was defeated by a narrow margin.The rejection was “a pretty poignant sign of the times in a state like California,” said John Kabateck, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business, which had urged voters to vote no. “It is certainly sending a message that Californians across the political spectrum are fed up with higher costs and greater uncertainty on Main Street.” Proposition...

20 November 2024 Wednesday of week 33 in Ordinary Time St Edmund, King and Martyr Church, LondonReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II).First readingApocalypse 4:1-11He was, he is, and he is to comeIn my vision, I, John, saw a door open in heaven and heard the same voice speaking to me, the voice like a trumpet, saying, ‘Come up here: I will show you what is to come in the future.’ With that, the Spirit possessed me and I saw a throne standing in heaven, and the One who was sitting on the throne, and the Person sitting there...

Despite the rightward shift at the ballot box, the New Dems, known for being pragmatic dealmakers, are on track to increase their numbers next Congress with at least 23 new members, a net gain of at least eight compared with their current 100-person roster. Some in the coalition see proof that their message can win in tough races and possibly light the way forward for the rest of the party. “New Dems are the role model. New Dems did extraordinarily well in a bad year,” said caucus member Mike Quigley of Illinois. “They’re the guiding light of how you win...

Ukraine's population has declined by 10 million, or around a quarter, since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion as a result of refugees leaving, collapsing fertility and war deaths, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Speaking at a Geneva news conference, Florence Bauer, Eastern Europe head at the U.N. Population Fund, said the invasion in February 2022 had turned an already difficult demographic situation into something more severe. "The birth rate plummeted and is currently at around one child per woman, which is one of the lowest in the world," she said. It takes a fertility rate of 2.1 children...

It has already started. A local news station ran a story about an illegal alien victim of a crime. He is from Jamaica and is here illegally to make money to send to his wife and children back in Jamaica. But he was hesitant to come forward for fear of being deported. We will be bombarded about the hardships deportation will be on employers, who will claim that they can't get people to work but neglect to tell them they were paying the illegals less than they would have to pay Americans. They will warn of shortages and inflation because...

What a genius. I didn't know it at the time.Stupid me.

Donald Trump’s one-time fixer turned fierce critic Michael Cohen is calling for the hush money case against the president-elect to be thrown out following the November election. Cohen served as a star witness for the prosecution in the trial against Trump earlier this year in the Manhattan criminal court.

Who will they pick instead of Trump?

There’s a certain allure to the notion that some of the world’s brightest stars burn out at the age of 27. The so-called 27 Club has captivated the public imagination for half a century. Its members include legendary musicians Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. The idea is as seductive as it is tragic: a convergence of talent, fame and untimely death at a singular age. But is there any truth to this phenomenon, or is it merely a story we tell ourselves and each other about fame and youth?

Final Observations on the Sally Hemings Controversy (from Potomac Tea Party’s Guardians of History team) - The Left Spins Another Yarn to Trash the Founders

Someone should show Peter Thiel his bank account — and the results of the 2024 election.The PayPal billionaire and longtime California resident is back in the news this week, joining media provocateur Bari Weiss’s “Honestly” podcast for its Nov. 14 episode. About 10 minutes into the two-hour conversation, Thiel, an early supporter of Donald Trump, let fly a truly bizarre metaphor. He’d been talking about the “intellectual straightjacket” that he sees the Democratic Party forcing people into. He said there’s no room for “individual thought” on the left — not mentioning Trump’s sidelining of the critics within his party —...

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson think they’re talking tough when it comes to the once-and-future President Donald Trump. But they’re really talking fear. They know it, as all those who play politics for a living know it. The key to political survival in corrupt and broken Illinois is the ability to pick out the fearful weaklings in the herd, and stay away from them. Or, if you’re a wolf, then take them down and enjoy a good meal. If you truly understand politics, you’d know that Pritzker and Johnson just ooze fear. They’re cowards and really...

The Kentucky Senator, who is known for advocating libertarian positions, said in an interview on Newsmax that it would be a “huge mistake” for Trump to use the military to help deport the tens of millions of illegal aliens currently residing in America. Trump has long insisted that he will use the military to help speed up the deportations, which will inevitably require a huge amount of manpower in order to send these individuals back to where they came from. Paul, meanwhile, does not agree. He explained:

If all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players, where does that leave non-human figures, like artificial intelligence chatbots? As it turns out, A.I. can hold its own against humans—even the Bard himself—when it comes to writing poetry. A.I. chatbots can imitate famous poets like William Shakespeare well enough to fool many human readers, according to a new paper published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports. In addition, many study participants actually preferred the chatbot’s poetry over the works of renowned writers. Researchers asked OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3.5 to generate poems in the style of well-known authors,...

Could the $50 purchase of an ancient coin by a Rutgers astronomer have unlocked the mystery of the Christmas Star? For years, scientists have looked, with little success, to astronomical records for an explanation of the magical star that guided the Magi to Christ's manger. Intrigued by the image he found on the latest addition to his coin collection, Michael Molnar thought there might be more to learn by looking, instead, at the teachings of ancient astrologers.Molnar argues in his book that the Star of Bethlehem was not a star at all, but rather a regal portent centering around the...

The Japanese company that owns tire maker Dunlop shuttered a century-old New York factory — and fired 1,500 workers — as it moved manufacturing overseas. Sumitomo Corp, the Tokyo-based conglomerate that boasts a market capitalization of more than $25 billion, closed down the Dunlop plant located in Tonawanda, near Buffalo, on Nov. 7. The closure is the latest blow to the Western New York area, which like much of the Rust Belt has seen its manufacturing sector decimated by companies shifting production overseas in recent decades. The company said that cost controls and investments in the aging facility were not...