Free Republic

Fans who watched Ronda Rousey defeat Gina Carano in just 17 seconds in the main event of Netflix's first-ever MMA card on Saturday night couldn't help but wonder whether the fight was rigged, but one of Rousey's longtime friends came to her defense. Former WWE Superstar and MMA veteran Shayna Baszler, who has been Rousey's close friend and training partner for years, took to social media to point out that Rousey has a history of speedy finishes, as 17 seconds isn't even her fastest victory: Rousey, who was fighting for the first time since 2016, took Carano down just seconds...

A woman who was caught on O’Keefe Media Group’s undercover camera illegally paying people to register to vote on Skid Row in Los Angeles, California, has been federally charged. The Justice Department on Monday announced that Brenda Lee Brown Armstrong was charged with one felony count of paying another person to register to vote. She is facing a max of five years in federal prison. “This Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all U.S. elections are fair and free from illegal meddling – so that all Americans can accept the results with confidence,” she said. “False registrations undermine Americans’...

For my Georgia citizens....who ya got for Sec of State?

[snip] When asked what is at stake for black Americans and other racial minorities in the current redistricting wars, he warned: SHARPTON: What happens is everything that they fear that she talks about, it gets cemented and gets worse. And what I say to a lot of people, old and young, is that you are not taking for granted things that we naturally got as a result of these laws. Because we could vote, you've got things like Medicaid and Medicare and Obamacare. And this is your life. You got things like public education funding and, and public health funding....

U.S. Senate: Incumbent John Cornyn is seeking to fight off a GOP primary challenge from Attorney General Ken Paxton. Cornyn has spent millions on ads emphasizing the attorney general’s history of scandals, while Paxton is blasting the incumbent senator as out-of-touch with the party’s MAGA base. Attorney General: The race to replace Paxton as Texas’ top lawyer is also hotly contested. State Sen. Mayes Middleton of Galveston took first place in March and is backed by Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy of Austin, meanwhile, is backed by U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and many...

Democrat James Talarico is in striking distance of flipping Texas, according to a new poll of the Lone Star State’s 2026 Senate race released ahead of the Republican runoff between Senator John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton. Democrats believe a favorable national environment, a weakened GOP nominee and reversion among Hispanic and Latino voters that shifted rightward in 2024 could create a perfect storm for them to flip Texas in the midterm elections. Texas has been a site of Democratic ambitions for several election cycles, but Republicans have held onto their iron grip of the state. However, the new...

Spencer Pratt hits it out of the park.

Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh 🚨 NOW: Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats are RAGING and pulling out the RACE CARD after realizing Rep. Jim Clyburn (D) is about to LOSE his South Carolina racially drawn seat, which he held for 33 YEARS After decades of cheating, the South is WIPING OUT Temu Obama's plans to win the redistricting wars! AOC WHINES: "MAGA is the last dying breath of a Confederacy and it could not be more true!" 🤡 Another Dem cries: "There are people in this hostile anti-Black administration that would rather Black Americans pick cotton than pick the president, then pick...

After less than two hours of deliberations, a jury rejected Elon Musk’s claims against OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ending a dramatic chapter in the bitter rivalry between the two tech billionaires, who were once close friends. The court, led by U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, agreed with the advisory jury’s determination that Altman and OpenAI were not liable, and that “claims of breach of charitable trust and unjust enrichment are dismissed as untimely.” Addressing the judge, Musk’s lead counsel, Steven Molo, reserved his client’s right to appeal, though Gonzales Rogers said she’s prepared to dismiss an appeal “on the...

Texas state Rep. James Talarico drew republican backlash after a photo surfaced showing him eating meat, reigniting scrutiny of his past “nonmeat” campaign tied to climate-change activism. The article notes a 2022 video in which Talarico explained his vegan stance and that his campaign had become nonmeat, with his spokesman countering the narrative in a tongue-in-cheek response. Despite the controversy, Talarico advanced to the general election in the Texas Senate race, set to face John Cornyn or Ken Paxton after defeating Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary. GOP figures including Cornyn, Cruz, Roy, and Gill mocked his meat-free past, and...

On Monday, the New York Times allowed a top columnist to stain its pages with obviously fake stories of Israelis using dog rape to abuse Palestinian prisoners. That same day, masked Islamists marched through Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn, assaulting Jewish kids. Jewish liberals, ask yourselves: Where are your friends? For decades, most American Jews have been committed readers of the Times and reliable Democratic voters. In the late 19th century, Jews were part of Tammany Hall’s immigrant coalition. Jewish labor groups lined up behind Franklin D. Roosevelt for the New Deal, and marched in every civil rights movement since. They...

[Catholic Caucus] Fr. James Martin: The “Mastermind” Behind the Two Testimonies in the Vatican’s Synod Report on HomosexualityThe “plot” behind Study Group No. 9’s final report comes to light as the author of Testimony 1 is identified.ROME, 14 May 2026 — Jesuit Father James Martin was a key figure behind the inclusion of two testimonies in the Study Group No. 9 report on homosexuality, released earlier this month by the Vatican’s General Secretariat of the Synod.In an article published today in the Spanish-language online publication Página Católica (reproduced below in English), the author of Testimony 1 — a Portuguese layman...

The New York representative may have forgotten or never learned what makes the Fourth of July special.Ms. Ocasio-Cortez has little, if any, awareness of where money comes from—no knowledge of finance, of savings and investment, of creating a product or conceiving an invention that adds value to the economy. She operates in a stark and static universe without consequences and trade-offs, without growth or mobility. There are only victims and victimizers. And according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, she’s in fourth place in the 2028 Democratic primary.Socialists have been getting economics wrong since at least 1848. There are several reasons....

Ifirst saw Seattle when I was a child. It was during the height of the hippie era, and I remember being struck by how clean Seattle was compared to San Francisco. My two or three subsequent trips to Seattle, all before 2012, didn’t change my mind. Now, though, Seattle has become a crazed left-wing bastion—but it turns out that even crazed left-wing bastions have their limits. In Seattle’s case, the problem is the massive number of migrants flooding the city. But don’t be fooled into thinking that these are the same third-world illegal aliens destroying cities across America. These aren’t...

A Texas beachcomber dredged up more than five dozen piggybanks that washed ashore from the Gulf of America but no one’s quite sure where they came from. Jace Tunnell, a marine biologist with the Harte Research Institute, discovered 60 brightly-colored piggy banks on several beaches in South Texas this year — including 14 in just one day. Tunnell told 12NewsNow that all of the discarded banks he’s collected, plus dozens found by other scavengers on the Bolivar Peninsula and South Padre Island, originate from South American or Caribbean countries. “Once these piggy banks have been used, you’ll notice there’s a...

California’s two-term treasurer, Fiona Ma, has met with high-level Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials and intelligence personnel dozens of times in the last several decades, a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation discovered. During these many meetings in the U.S. and China, the Democratic frontrunner in California’s 2026 lieutenant governor race has introduced American lawmakers to Chinese intelligence officials and also repeatedly presented awards to CCP members and influence operatives, according to DCNF translations of Chinese government and state media reports. “We really should be more integrated,” Ma said during a 2023 interview with state-run media outlet CGTN. “The more that...

There are a number of questions regarding the whole Odyssey saga. One is how somebody as smart as Christopher Nolan got entangled with woke nonsense in the first place. (And yes, Nolan is smart – anybody who could take a storyline as convoluted as that of Memento and make it not only comprehensible but enthralling to the average audience is no slouch when it comes to intellect.) Another is why he felt compelled to pick up wokism just as it’s collapsing in the culture at large. It’s May 1945 in the Wachenbunker and everybody else is fleeing – but here...

A North Carolina high school was left heartbroken after a brutal judging decision cost their athletes a state championship. Mallard Creek won the boys' 4x400m relay to secure the title, only for Nyan Brown - who ran the anchor leg - to be disqualified for celebrating too early. During the meet in Greensboro, Brown cruised down the home straight well clear of his rivals. Just a few meters from the line, he held up five fingers. It signaled his team's fifth championship but that title was quickly ripped away from Brown and Mallard Creek after an official punished him for...

CNBC compiled a list of 23 S&P 500 firms across multiple sectors and industries to see how their stocks fared following layoffs linked to AI. As of May 15, 13 of those companies, or 56%, have traded in the red from the time of their layoff announcements. Of the companies whose shares fell after their AI-linked layoffs, the average decline was about 25%. Some of the companies that have seen their shares sink after slashing head count to embrace AI include Nike, Salesforce and Fiverr. Artificial intelligence has ushered in a bull run in stocks that has taken the broader...

ATLANTA (CN) — An 11th Circuit panel on Friday unanimously overturned an $8.2 million jury verdict in favor of former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore in his defamation lawsuit against a Democratic super PAC, ruling the Republican politician failed to show the group knew there were implied falsehoods in a TV ad recounting sexual misconduct accusations against the 2017 U.S. Senate candidate. Moore claimed an advertisement created by the Senate Majority PAC (SMP) implied he solicited sex from Wendy Miller, a then-14-year-old girl who was working as a Santa’s helper at a shopping mall. The ad, which the group helped...