Free Republic

Divorce is a misery, and so too is The Roses. This second cinematic version of Warren Adler’s 1981 novel The War of the Roses, like its 1989 predecessor starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, fails to find anything funny about a couple whose union devolves into all-out war. This time around, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman as the husband and wife who increasingly want to wring each other’s necks (among other violent fantasies). While both are game for this comedy of hostility, director Jay Roach and screenwriter Tony McNamara strand them in a battle marked by mirthless one-liners and...

Bill Maher has lashed out at Democrats for declining to come on his show. “People ask me all the time, ‘Why haven’t you ever had Hillary or Bill Clinton on? Why didn’t you have Kamala on during the last campaign?’” Maher said on Real Time with Bill Maher Friday. “You think we don’t ask?” Noting that it took him “eight years and a petition to get Obama on,” Maher lamented that he could not even attract Democratic politicians for whom he has voted. “We ask these people every week. They say, ‘No,’” he added. “And these are people, all people...

A rebel Republican congressman has invited multiple victims of Jeffrey Epstein to a press conference at the U.S. Capitol as part of a bipartisan push to force the release of legal files linked to the late pedophile. Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, a thorn in Donald Trump’s side for his frequent objections to the president’s spending bills and foreign policies, said that he and Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna will be co-hosting the Sept. 3 conference. The event will feature survivors of abuse by Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell, several of whom “will be speaking out for the first time,”...

Former DOGE staffer Edward “Big Balls” Coristine has been identified as the “young man” who Donald Trump claimed was “beaten mercilessly” after an alleged carjacking assault in Washington, D.C. The 19-year-old, who rose to prominence after tearing up the federal government on behalf of his billionaire boss, was assaulted around 3 a.m. Sunday, according to a police report obtained by Politico and Wired. ......

King Charles is allegedly "very concerned" that US President Donald Trump could launch into a massive rant about immigration during his second state visit to the UK in September, a source has claimed. It comes shortly after the US president sent Prime Minister Keir Starmer "advice" about the ongoing small boat crisis. While on a private visit to Scotland, Mr Trump warned the Prime Minister that those coming across on dinghies are "bad people", but praised efforts to end crossings. Meanwhile, after arriving in Scotland on Friday, the US politician made headlines after he declared that illegal migration is a...

<p>I’m a conservative now, I guess? It’s a surprising turn of events for me, a man once referred to, repeatedly and affectionately, by the late Sen. John McCain as a communist. He wasn’t too far off—for as long as I’ve been old enough to wear Birkenstocks, I’ve been a supporter of liberal causes and candidates. As a kid, my favorite record was the feminist children’s album, Free To Be You and Me. I’m a vegetarian, for God’s sake! Everything in me rebels against institutional power.</p>

Donald Trump’s rambling speeches and stream-of-consciousness press briefings could be symptoms of his “cognitive decline,” according to one of America’s top rhetoric experts. The warning comes as Trump and his aides are seeking a congressional probe into Joe Biden’s mental state during his one-term presidency. The extent to which Biden, now 82, hid his capability has led to major questions over whether he was fit to lead the country.

Two teenage girls from Germany were detained, arrested, and deported at an airport in Hawaii after immigration officials said it was suspicious they had not booked a hotel room. Backpackers Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Honolulu from Auckland while undergoing a round-the-world trip. The duo planned to spend five weeks in Hawaii before moving onto California and Costa Rica for the next legs of their journey. But despite having ESTA travel authorization, immigration officials accused them of attempting to enter the U.S. to work illegally, and they were placed in handcuffs and taken to a nearby...

A veteran FBI agent who blew the whistle on what he saw as political meddling in the bureau’s work was arrested this week by federal authorities while attempting to board an international flight at New York City’s JFK Airport. Jonathan Buma, who had worked for the bureau for 15 years, stands accused of illegally disclosing classified records in his upcoming tell-all book about his career. He drew scrutiny during Trump’s first term for reportedly saying during a presentation that he believed Rudy Giuliani may have been compromised by a Russian counter-influence operation—concerns that were immediately shut down by his superiors....

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have refashioned the United States into “Vladimir Putin’s useful idiots,” the VP’s cousin alleged in the wake of the Trump administration’s recent abandonment of military and intelligence support for Ukraine. Nate Vance, a Texan who said he volunteered for three years fighting on the front lines against Russia’s Putin-ordered invasion of its neighbor, told Le Figaro in an interview published Sunday that he is “disappointed” in his “good” and “intelligent” cousin over the administration’s sudden and abrasive turn away from supporting America’s war-torn ally. JD Vance was widely seen as the instigator...

<p>Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration considered making a deal that would have lined Melania Trump’s pockets in order to curry favor with the new president, according to a report.</p><p>As part of a desperate scramble to make inroads with Donald Trump, the Ukrainian president’s aides floated brokering the purchase of the Ukrainian language rights to the first lady’s memoir, unnamed Ukrainian officials told The New York Times.</p>

CNN journalists avoided mentioning the most sordid elements of President Donald Trump’s past—including his felony conviction and two impeachments—during inauguration day broadcasts after the network’s top boss told them to show some deference to the most powerful person on earth.That’s according to a report in media news publication Status, authored by the well-sourced erstwhile CNN media reporter Oliver Darcy.During a routine editorial meeting on Sunday, meant to plan the extensive logistics of an inauguration, CNN CEO Mark Thompson told journalists to avoid “pre-judging Trump,” Status reported.In addition to instructing them to keep an open mind about Trump’s second term—three days...

Following in the footsteps of his Canada- and Greenland-coveting pal Donald Trump, MAGA billionaire Elon Musk is asking whether the United States should “liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government."The Tesla CEO posed the question in an early Monday morning tweet, the latest in a multi-day social media bender aimed at the U.K. that has seen him advocate for a jailed right-wing activist, call for the head of a right-wing party leader, and demand that a junior minister of the new Labour government be thrown in prison.Musk has, in recent days, lambasted the British government over its handling...

President-elect Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Friday, vowing to bring justice to his name after years of attacks from the mainstream media. The incoming 47th president announced he is suing several media outlets, including the New York Times, CBS News, Penguin Random House, and the Daily Beast, alleging widespread bias and defamation. Trump’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, demands $10 billion in damages for publishing defamatory material. In the lawsuit, Trump accused the mainstream media of “defaming and disparaging” him during coverage of the election and making “false and defamatory statements.” The NYT was at the center of the lawsuit....

Since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election, a vocal subset of his supporters have been shouting online about the specter of voter fraud. On Tuesday night, however, as Trump’s 2024 victory came into focus, the noise died down. According to reports by The New York Times and Washington Post, social media accounts associated with election denial decided that, actually, everything was in working order. Thanks to their efforts, of course. “Shoutout to you all for keeping this election from being stolen this year, you are all heroes!“ one member of X’s “Election Integrity Committee” wrote. Speaking to the Times, Cleta...

George Clooney is facing a backlash from demoralized Democrats for demanding that Joe Biden step down from the White House race. The Ocean’s Eleven star urged Biden to quit in July, writing in the New York Times: “We are not going to win in November with this president.” Now embittered Democrats have blasted the 63-year-old actor for interfering in the botched 2024 presidential election campaign as the shattered party seeks explanations for how it all went so wrong. “Thank you George Clooney,” wrote journalist Joshua Hartley on X, with a pinned link to the Times op-ed titled, “George Clooney: I...

Welp. I thought we were past this. I really did. I was wrong. For the last years, my Twitter feed has been filled with MAGA trolls telling me that people like me “are the problem.” I never believed them. At least I didn’t until last night, when my nation confirmed it. Turns out, people like me really are the problem, and I must admit, as Donald Trump begins the process of assuming his second presidency, that I don’t know what to do about it. The thing is, people like me don’t want to believe that half of my countrymen support...

America has voted for a lunatic, boundary-breaking authoritarian–nastier, more ruthless and better organized than before.

The editorial board of The New York Times just eviscerated Donald Trump in a single paragraph. The piece, published on Saturday, was only the Times’ latest attack on the former president during the run-up to the election, but the searing indictment was all the more brutal for its brevity. Rhetorically matter-of-fact, the piece succinctly lays out many of the reasons Trump’s critics think his second term would be disastrous for the country—the implicit point being that nobody really needs a lengthy review of all Trump’s actions; everyone already knows what he’s about. Here it is in full, with its original...

Two of former president Donald Trump’s most prominent backers in the right wing influencer sphere fretted Wednesday after early voting numbers showed massive early turnout among women that could imperil their candidate’s path to victory. “Male turnout in Pennsylvania for Trump has been a disaster,” tweeted Mike Cernovich on Wednesday. “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” Cernovich is a longtime far right gadfly and commentator with a massive online following. He’s been around long enough to have played a role in the anti-feminist Gamergate harassment campaign and to have helped spread the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, though...