Free Republic

Social network Bluesky, an alternative to X built on open source technologies, has scored a big win in terms of attracting notable users to its platform. The company on Sunday confirmed that former president Barack Obama has joined its service. Bluesky OOO Rose Wang replied to a post where someone wondered if the account posting as Obama was legitimately him by writing “Confirmed!” In his first few posts on the platform, Obama celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), calling it “a reminder that change is possible when we fight for progress.” The former president maintains a...

STANSTEAD, Quebec (AP) — For more than 100 years, people in Stanstead, Quebec have been able to walk into Derby Line, Vermont to enter the border-straddling Haskell Free Library and Opera House – no passport required. But municipal and library officials said on Friday that U.S. authorities have unilaterally decided to end the century-old unwritten agreement. Coming at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, the decision is prompting an outpouring of emotion in communities on both sides of the border, which in places has been marked simply by flower pots. Inside the library celebrated as a symbol...

In spite of wailing from professional Washington, DOGE is not doing nearly enough to make a real dent in out-of-control government spendingI come from the Ron Swanson school of government spending. If an official says, “We need to cut expenditures by 32%,” I’ll reply, “Let’s make it an even 40,” before starting a chant of “Slash it! Slash it!”So, imagine my surprise to learn that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is destroying America as we know it. At least that’s what I’ve gathered from the headlines.“Elon Musk's DOGE unit is causing confusion — and raising security and legal concerns.”...

The world’s richest man has lost focus. His competitors are taking advantage UNTIL RECENTLY Elon Musk had little need to look over his shoulder. He once described competition for Tesla, his electric-vehicle (EV) company, as “the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day”, rather than the “small trickle” of other EV-makers. SpaceX, his rocket firm, had so undercut and outwitted the bloated aerospace incumbents that it had developed an almost invincible aura

The nascent European project of forming a “coalition of the willing” to support Ukraine could be a precursor to a larger joint undertaking. According to the Financial Times, Europe’s biggest military powers and the Nordic states are discussing a plan to “replace the US in Nato”, with a view to guaranteeing the continent’s security. At the heart of the proposal is massively increased defence spending and arms procurement over the coming five to 10 years. This overcorrection to Vice President JD Vance’s recent critique of decades of European dependency on US military protection is intended to stop the Trump administration...

Life under the segregationist Trump regime is horrible enough. But it threatens to get even worse! Soon, large swaths of the population will be incapable of reading about just how horrible things are . . . because they will be incapable of reading at all! That is, if you buy into MSNBC's doomsaying. NAACP president Derrick Johnson was a guest on Sunday's edition of MSNBC's The Weekend, and much of the hand-wringing focused on the Trump administration's efforts to say sayonara to the Department of Education. Attempting to broaden his scaremongering beyond African-Americans and Latinos, and induce whites to also...

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul isn’t fully endorsing President Donald Trump’s recent use of the rarely used Alien Enemies Act to deport a group of Venezuelan nationals accused of gang ties, warning that the move raises “big legal questions.” “The Bill of Rights applies to everyone,” Paul said during an interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation” with moderator Margaret Brennan on Sunday. “The Bill of Rights doesn’t specifically designate citizens … On the other end, the Alien Enemies Act says you don’t get much process … The president can declare that you are somehow a problem for foreign policy …...

A report from CNN indicates FBI director Kash Patel — who is also ATF acting director — plans to cut “as many as 1,000 ATF agents” and move them to the FBI. This will represent a cut of roughly one third of the ATF’s current agents. According to CNN: The move represents a major cutback of the ATF, an agency that long has been in the crosshairs of gun rights groups that believe its work infringes on Second Amendment rights. The ATF has about 2,600 agents and more than 5,000 employees, a number that has remained largely unchanged for years....

TAMPA — Brett Gardner’s youngest son, Miller, died on Friday at the age of 14, the family announced through the Yankees on Sunday. In a statement from the former Yankees outfielder and his wife Jessica, the Gardners said Miller fell ill “along with several other family members while on vacation.” “We have so many questions and so few answers at this point, but we do know that he passed away peacefully in his sleep on the morning of Friday, March 21st,” the Gardners said in the statement.

Volodymyr Zelensky rejected Emmanuel Macron's proposal to station a United Nations mission in Ukraine. "The UN will not protect us from occupation or Putin's desire to re-enter," stated the President of Ukraine. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed skepticism about Emmanuel Macron's proposal for a UN mission, emphasizing that it would not replace the European military contingent. Zelensky noted that the UN cannot protect Ukraine from Russian aggression, which he emphasized during a press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel.emphasized during a press conference with Czech President Petr Pavel Czech President Petr Pavel declared his country's readiness to participate in a...

Nvidia, the world’s undisputed leader in chipmaking, says it will invest hundreds of billions of dollars over the next four years on its U.S.-based manufacturing operations — part of the manufacturing renaissance under President Donald J. Trump as he solidifies the U.S. as the global leader in artificial intelligence.“Having the support of an administration who cares about the success of this industry and not allowing energy to be an obstacle is a phenomenal result for AI in the U.S.,” said Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang.Here’s what they’re saying:Axios: “It’s another win for President Trump’s push to increase U.S. manufacturing, with a...

Prince Harry will be offered the chance to make a documentary to mark the 30th anniversary of his mother Princess Diana’s death, a senior Hollywood source has revealed. The two or three-part series would air in 2027, three decades after Diana was killed in a horrific car crash in Paris in August 1997, as part of a new long-term Netflix deal for the Sussexes... “He is uniquely placed, not only to talk about the woman he knew as his mother, but also to examine her role as an enduring social and cultural icon still beloved by so many.” The production...

DataRepublican (small r)@DataRepublicanThis is the first time I've felt like breaking down. But that means letting them win.Look... I don't know who you are. Unless you're Bill Kristol, I don't know why you hate me so. I gave up a lucrative career to do this. It was never for money.Why am I doing this? I know numbers. I see that my children have no future unless we tame spending. And as we are finding out, taming spending, also means taming the corruption in the government.The numbers don't lie. Look at them, logically. Look at how much of our economy is...

President George Washington’s original cabinet contained just four departments and department heads: Department of State, which was led by inaugural Secretary Thomas Jefferson, Department of the Treasury, which was conceived and headed up by Alexander Hamilton, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and the Department of War, which was first led by distinguished Continental Army General Henry Knox. The War Department existed until 1947, when it was initially split into the Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, and the Department of the Navy. Congress had previously established a Department of the Navy in 1798, which was under the...

Pamela Geller is reporting an American police officer in Paterson, NJ, was wearing a Palestinian flag on his uniform instead of an American flag while on the job

Those freedom-loving Democrats are at it again. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is facing allegations that he has been coordinating with far-left activist groups to generate unrest and stage protests against Republicans. In an appearance on PBS, Schumer made what certainly sounded like threats against Republicans voting in favor of the Trump administration's attempts to cut wasteful federal funding. We are mobilizing in New York. We have people going to the Republican districts and going after these Republicans who are voting for this and forcing them to either change their vote or face the consequences. This is a long, relentless...

Marge Gunderson remains one of the Coen Brothers‘ most beloved characters, but she could’ve been a bit more polarizing had an original idea to have Marge attend a “right to life protest” been kept in the script... ...Frances McDormand joined Joel Coen and Steve Buscemi at the 2021 Tribeca Festival to celebrate the 25th anniversary of “Fargo,” which won the performer her first Academy Award for Best Actress. “Is it outing you to ask you to tell them the scene I read first?” McDormand asked Coen. “Her friend invited her to a right-to-life protest! Oh my God! Can you imagine?”...

Explanation: This was once a beach -- on ancient Mars. The featured 360-degree panorama, horizontally compressed, was taken in 2017 by the robotic Curiosity rover that explored the red planet. Named Ogunquit Beach after its terrestrial counterpart, evidence shows that at times long ago the area was underwater, while at other times it was at the edge of an ancient lake. The light peak in the central background is the top of Mount Sharp, the central feature in Gale Crater where Curiosity explored. Portions of the dark sands in the foreground were scooped up for analysis. The light colored bedrock...

A man in Memphis, Tennessee, was accidentally shot by his own dog earlier this month. The incident, which occurred in the early hours of the morning on March 10, came as a nasty shock when the man was sleeping, according to WHBQ-TV in Memphis. The man was identified as Jerald Kirkwood by WJW-TV in Cleveland. The one-year-old pit bull known as Oreo jumped up to join the man and his girlfriend as they were asleep. But the animal’s paw jammed in the trigger.

A Republican lawmaker from Colorado expressed shock at being told by Democratic colleagues that he had to remove a sticker supporting the Second Amendment from his laptop while in the state's House chamber. "I had to cover up this, they couldn't stand my sticker," Colorado Republican state Rep. Ken DeGraaf said during remarks on the state's House floor, pointing to paper covering up a sticker in support of the Second Amendment on a laptop he carried with him to the chamber. "It said ‘shall not be infringed’ and signed ‘2-A’ and that was considered offensive, which I understand would be...