Free Republic

Rosie O’Donnell is looking back at life now, and then. The comedian, 63, recently detailed having a friendship with Lyle Menendez, 57, who along with his brother Erik Menendez, 54, was convicted of the 1989 murders of their parents Kitty and Jose Menendez. “He started calling me on a regular basis from the tablet phone thing they have,” O’Donnell told The New York Times on Saturday. “He would tell me about his life, what he’s been doing in prison and, for the first time in my life, I felt safe enough to trust and be vulnerable and love a straight...

Pope Francis marks 12 remarkable years leading the Catholic Church from his hospital roomToday, March 13, marks the 12th anniversary of the election of Pope Francis as the 265th successor of St. Peter. As he enters the 13th year of his ministry as bishop of Rome, Francis is not in the Vatican; he is instead a patient in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been treated for double pneumonia for the past 28 days and is now out of imminent danger and recovering.Gemelli Hospital has become a second Vatican, a Vatican 2, one might say, because Francis continues to govern...

ATLANTA (WANF/Gray News) - For the first time, an openly transgender woman has announced her intention to compete for the Miss Georgia USA title. The decision is sparking controversy, but Bella Bautista says she is optimistic about competing in the competition. The Cartersville native is currently Miss Buckhead USA and is dreaming even bigger. “I was like, this could honestly be a true reality for me. This dream could one day come true. And just because there hasn’t been a first in Georgia, I could be that first,” she said. In 2021, Kataluna Enriquez from Nevada made history when she...

SNIPOn Thursday’s edition of The Dean Obeidallah Show, Obeidallah asked Rep. Goldman “Are you concerned he’s actually make our nation less safe?” — and got an emphatic response:DEAN OBEIDALLAH: Are you concerned he’s actually make our nation less safe?REP. DAN GOLDMAN: I’m not concerned–. I know he is making our nation less safe.And it takes too long. It takes a long time to explain how. But I alluded to it.These CIA agents, these FBI agents are well-trained. Many have learned of different languages. Many are expert at developing sources.Now, sources are double agents from other governments who are giving us...

When Elon Musk debuted the Department of Government Efficiency recently at the Capitol, House Speaker Mike Johnson enthusiastically predicted the coming Trump administration would bring “a lot of change around here.” Three weeks in, the change the Trump administration has brought is a disruption of the federal government on an unprecedented scale, dismantling longstanding programs, sparking widespread public outcry and challenging the very role of Congress to create the nation’s laws and pay its bills. Government workers are being pushed to resign. Entire agencies are being shuttered. Federal funding to states and nonprofits was temporarily frozen. And the most sensitive...

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Fox News, Republican lawmakers, and countless prominent right-wing commentators across social media are pushing a ridiculous lie about the Biden administration funding the media. It started on Tuesday when staff at Politico reportedly didn’t receive their paychecks on time because of technical glitch. The right began speculating that the delay was related to Musk taking a blowtorch to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with many pointing out that the government had ferried $8.2 million to Politico over the past year.

Nvidia called DeepSeek’s R1 model “an excellent AI advancement,” despite the Chinese startup’s emergence causing the chip maker’s stock price to plunge 17% on Monday. “DeepSeek is an excellent AI advancement and a perfect example of Test Time Scaling,” an Nvidia spokesperson told CNBC on Monday. “DeepSeek’s work illustrates how new models can be created using that technique, leveraging widely-available models and compute that is fully export control compliant.” The comments come after DeepSeek last week released R1, which is an open-source reasoning model that reportedly outperformed the best models from U.S. companies such as OpenAI. R1′s self-reported training cost...

In a nutshell * Scientists have developed a plant-based cheese using a specific pea protein and oil blend (25% coconut oil, 75% sunflower oil) that matches the texture and melting properties of dairy cheese while containing less saturated fat. * The breakthrough challenges the common belief that high saturated fat content is necessary for proper cheese texture, as the new formulation achieved similar firmness (80 Newtons) to versions made with 100% coconut oil. * The research demonstrates that carefully selected plant proteins can create healthier cheese alternatives without sacrificing the stretchy, melty qualities consumers expect, potentially revolutionizing the plant-based dairy...

House Speaker Mike Johnson has thwarted the installation of a plaque, approved by Congress, honoring officers who protected the Capitol. It is vital that partisans aren’t allowed to whitewash history simply because it makes some people uncomfortable. On Monday, Donald Trump will visit the scene of a crime, laying his hand on a Bible and vowing to preserve and protect the Constitution as he swears a formal oath to become the nation’s 47th president.The bloodstains of the Jan. 6 insurrection have long ago washed away. The shattered windows of the Capitol are mended, the broken doors replaced. You’d never know...

Beyonce half time show at Ravens/Texans game.

I've lost count on how many Rosie O'Donnell meltdowns we've had just one month post-Trump victory, but this one is immediately the leader in the clubhouse. Frankly, I'm not sure how Rosie's gonna top it. She's so unhinged, and so insane, that I almost don't want to give her any free airtime. BUT, when she hops on the internet with what she describes as a possible case of the herpes, and proceeds to blast MAGA voters, I simply have to write about it. Sorry, it's in the handbook. You can't give the Libs an inch. If you do, they'll walk...

Donald Trump's 2024 election victory is fueling claims of fraud on both sides of the political divide. His right-wing supporters claim the outcome vindicates their debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. To a smaller degree, those on the left are circulating their own baseless claims casting doubt on this year's results. The election denial movement Trump inspired has spent the past four years building an infrastructure and community around false claims that 2020 was rigged. This year, it invested heavily in raising similar alarms that voting would again be compromised — only for those claims to...

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) said Monday on ABC’s “The View” that she was proud to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris. Cheney said, “Look, I think, first of all, there is only one serious responsible adult in this race. There’s just one. It’s not a race where we have the luxury of being able, you know, sometimes conservatives will say, ‘Well, I’m going to write in an alternative. I’m not going to vote for Trump, but I’m going to write somebody in.’ I want to make sure people all across the country understand you don’t have...

We’re only one month away from the U.S. presidential election, and anticipation is at an all-time high (and so is misinformation). Several politicians are trying to mitigate misinformation in the light of AI-generated and AI-manipulated content, and one of them is California Governor Gavin Newsom. He brought a law that would combat AI deepfakes, but a California judge blocked it.Newsom was in the news recently for shooting down SB 1047, the bill that would have brought some major regulation to major AI companies. He didn’t pass the bill for a handful of reasons including a lack of specificity regarding the...

On Tuesday, I was part of a City University of New York event about economic perceptions, which was briefly disrupted by a protester yelling out that President Biden isn’t helping some of the areas afflicted by Hurricane Helene. The guy’s politics were unclear — he was also yelling something about Israel — but it was an indication that Donald Trump’s latest lie has gone viral.In case you missed it, Trump has been trying to exploit the natural disaster for political gain, claiming he heard that the federal government — Biden — and North Carolina’s Democratic governor are “going out of...

In Evans’ case, that’s where the Seattle Times comes in. For anyone who wants to know the measure of the man, the Times did an excellent job recently of summing up a storied life and career in the service of his fellow citizens that now appears more like a memory from yesteryear rather than a reflection of Republicans in politics today. Of course, there are some good ones out there at every level of government, but over the course of my lifetime I have seen the overall quality of Republicans elected to state and national office decline. And just to...

It is absolutely, completely, totally ridiculous that this election is even close. But here we are.The choice between Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump should not be a tough call. Harris is a former prosecutor; Trump, a felon. Harris gives campaign speeches about her civic values; Trump rants endlessly about his personal grievances, interrupting himself with asides about sharks and Hannibal Lecter. Harris has outlined a detailed set of policy proposals for the economy; Trump nonsensically offers tariffs as a panacea, describing this fantasy in terms that make it clear he doesn’t understand how tariffs work.Also, Harris...

The mystery of 2024: How is it possible that Donald Trump has a reasonable chance of winning the presidency despite all that voters now know about him? Why hasn’t a decisive majority risen up to deny a second term to a man in line to be judged the worst president in American history?The litany of Trump’s liabilities is well known to the American electorate. His mendacity, duplicity, depravity, hypocrisy and venality are irrevocably imprinted on the psyches of American voters.Trump has made it clear that in a second term he will undermine the administration of justice, empower America’s adversaries, endanger...

After Chris Hicks was convicted of conspiracy to commit two murders at age 19, he was sentenced to life without parole. Now 18 years later, his lawyer is trying to overturn the sentence to give him a second chance. =================================================================== As a youth peer specialist in the Wyoming maximum security prison, Chris Hicks spends his days helping younger inmates try to turn their lives around. This means learning to take accountability for their actions as well as reprogramming their criminal minds. He knows a thing or two about criminal minds and derailing one’s life at an early age. At 38,...

Gail Collins: Bret, I can’t wait to hear your impression of Kamala Harris’s big Chicago speech. Tell, tell.Bret Stephens: As rhetoric? I thought it was strong. She told Americans who she was, where she came from, what her values and dreams are made of, why she loves America, who and what she’ll fight for. There was hardly a wasted sentence. It was fairly light on policy, but she came across as a plausible commander in chief. The contrast with Donald Trump’s Fidel Castro-like performance at the Republican National Convention last month was stark.Do you think she’ll win?Gail: One more question...