Free Republic

Good Morning America host Robin Roberts publicly acknowledged that she is gay on Sunday for the first time. The 53-year-old cancer survivor thanked her girlfriend of ten years as part of a heartfelt end-of-year thank you addressed to fans and loved ones posted to her Facebook. 'I am grateful for my entire family, my long time girlfriend, Amber, and friends as we prepare to celebrate a glorious new year together,' Roberts wrote. Amber, reports Media Bistro, is Amber Laign, a message therapists who helps patients recuperate from injuries. Roberts' sexuality has been known to her family, friends and co-workers for...

On his way out to commercial break at 3:24 p.m. Eastern, Studio B host Shep Smith noted that August 1 is "National Badminton Day," and quipped "Forget National Day of Intolerance, let's just stay with badminton."

Chris Bram is the author of the novel Gods and Monsters. Gore Vidal was famous for his hates: academia, presidents, whole portions of the American public and, most notably, Truman Capote. Yet he could be incredibly generous to other writer friends. He wrote beautiful, appreciative essays about Tennessee Williams and Dawn Powell. He was a man of many facets and endless contradictions. He achieved his first notoriety in 1948 when he was only 22, for his novel, The City and the Pillar. It was the fullest, most frank portrait of gay American life at that time. The book wasn't autobiographical...

On his way out to commercial break at 3:24 p.m. Eastern, Studio B host Shep Smith noted that August 1 is "National Badminton Day," and quipped "Forget National Day of Intolerance, let's just stay with badminton."

I cannot believe Shep Smith is presenting himself as competent to assess the IDF campaign in Lebanon. I remember this dilettante babbling about "just carpet bombing" in Afghanistan right before the Taliban was routed. Why is it that every TV newsman with a mike in his hands thinks he can pontificate on any subject regardless of his knowledge of it? What silly philistines these newsmen are.