Free Republic

VIDEONo, that's not a typo in the title. When someone desperately fears debating by shutting up and just smirking while someone else representing the opposing viewpoint is speaking aka shush smirking you get SHMIRKING. This is what happened to CNN panelist Deja Foxx a former model with nothing at all to say in response to Scott Jennings other than stick to a rehearsed script with NO deviation no matter what Jennings might say. As a result, we saw a lot of shmirking this past week on CNN'S NewsNight. Remember that liberals. Take your cue from former fashion model Deja Foxx....

🚨 BREAKING: Sen. John Fetterman just DEMANDED VOTER ID — infuriating Democrats “And now me, as a Democrat, I do not believe that it’s unreasonable to show I.D. just to vote!” 💯 Common sense. PASS THE SAVE AMERICA ACT! 🇺🇸

From a tender moment between a crane and her chick to a heartbreaking image of a polar bear cub’s final moments, the finalists for the Nuveen People’s Choice Award of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year contest stun. Photographers from 113 countries and territories submitted more than 60,000 images for consideration. A judging panel of photography, wildlife, conservation and science experts whittled the finalists list down to 24 photographs that are now competing for votes from the public. “No matter where you are in the world, it’s time to join the jury and vote in the Nuveen People’s Choice Award...

Muslim Brotherhood TV host explains under what circumstances Christian girls can be raped. “Allah allows Muslim men to rape non-Muslim women to humiliate them.” The Qur’an permits men to have sexual access to “what their right hands possess,” meaning female captives or slaves (Q. 23.5-6; 70.29-30).

California election officials are preparing for scenarios where Trump administration officials demand ballots or place agents at voting sites. State Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta vows to seek restraining orders within hours if the administration interferes. In recent weeks, Marin County Registrar Natalie Adona has been largely focused on the many mundane tasks of local elections administrators in the months before a midterm: finalizing voting locations, ordering supplies, facilitating candidate filings. But in the wake of unprecedented efforts by the Trump administration to intervene in state-run elections, Adona said she has also been preparing her staff for far less ordinary scenarios...

More than 900 Google workers have signed an open letter condemning recent actions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), urging the tech giant to disclose its dealings with the agencies and divest from them. The letter, citing recent ICE killings of Keith Porter, Renee Good, and Alex Pretti, said that the employees are “appalled by the violence” and “horrified” by Google’s part in it. “Google is powering this campaign of surveillance, violence, and repression,” the letter reads. It goes on to cite that Google Cloud is aiding CBP surveillance and powering Palantir’s ImmigrationOS...

Explanation: An unusually active sunspot region is now crossing the Sun. The region, labelled AR 4366, is much larger than the Earth and has produced several powerful solar flares over the past ten days. In the featured image, the region is marked by large and dark sunspots toward the upper right of the Sun's disk. The image captured the Sun over a hill in Zacatecas, Mexico, 5 days ago. AR 4366 has become a candidate for the most active solar region in this entire 11-year solar cycle. Active solar regions are frequently associated with increased auroral activity on the Earth....

Legendary Team USA alpine skier Lindsey Vonn had to be airlifted from the course and underwent surgery on her left leg after crashing in her women's downhill run. It was the 41-year-old's first Olympic event since 2018 and comes just over a week after she suffered a torn ACL...

There are many simple “fixes” to things in life that will improve basics or just relieve stress. Some are obvious: avoid girls with septum piercings and unnaturally colored hair, as they have daddy issues and will always lead to something involving bail money. Others are less obvious: if you love the food at a small, local Chinese restaurant, avoid looking into the kitchen. Still, there are some things you’ve likely never thought about before, so I wanted to talk about a couple of them here. First, avoid anyone with no inner monologue. I don't mean that you should ditch friends...

Bath House berry and Bill the cigar's deportations, the circus parade clown collection.

Results mean coalition of recently installed PM has supermajority in lower house of parliament Japan’s conservative governing coalition has dramatically strengthened its grip on power after a landslide victory in Sunday’s elections in what will be seen as an early public endorsement of the new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi.Her Liberal Democratic party (LDP) was projected to win as many as 328 of the 465 seats in parliament’s lower house, well above the 233 it needed to regain the majority it lost in 2024. With her coalition partner, the Japan Innovation party, she now has a supermajority of two-thirds of seats,...

Trump 2.0 isn’t just governing—it’s assembling an all-star Cabinet whose wit, discipline, and seriousness rival any administration since the founding.Has Donald Trump 2.0 assembled the best circle of advisors in the history of the American republic? George Washington had Thomas Jefferson as Secretary of State and Alexander Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. Impressive. But is it any more impressive than having Marco Rubio as Secretary of State or Scott Bessent as Secretary of the Treasury? Jefferson and Hamilton are at the tippy-top, but largely for the same reason that Samuel Johnson said that Homer was the greatest poet: because...

Republicans and Democrats alike decry the lack of oversight for America’s famous antipoverty experiment. ‘Fraud by design.’ When the Trump administration targeted billions of dollars in federal welfare funds recently over fraud concerns, it singled out five Democratic-run states.An examination by The Wall Street Journal found that the main federal aid program the administration is seeking to block, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, has long been plagued by poor financial oversight and questionable spending in states led by both Republicans and Democrats.Auditors in numerous states, including Connecticut, Louisiana and Florida, have uncovered problems with TANF—once America’s primary welfare...

Three weeks ago, my beloved San Francisco 49ers were unceremoniously dispatched from the NFL playoffs by the Seattle Seahawks, who are vying for their second Super Bowl championship today. The result didn’t surprise many; the Niners were hobbled by injuries to many of their best players and, frankly, enjoyed more than a bit of luck in getting as far as they did this past season. But every year, the Grim Reaper comes for all but one team, and my guys could not evade his grip. More alarmingly, in his new book, the writer Chuck Klosterman predicts the Reaper will soon...

Authorities in Arizona were seen Saturday night leaving the home of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s sister as the search for their missing 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie, continues. According to KGUN, the Scripps News Group station in Tucson, authorities spent “several hours” inside Annie Guthrie’s home before leaving with what appeared to be a brown paper sack and another larger item. However, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department (PCSD) did not say why they were at the home.

Pima County Sheriff’s Department detectives are searching a septic tank behind Nancy Guthrie’s house, with drone footage showing them opening a manhole cover in the backyard.

Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick was top of mind for The Washington Post ahead of Super Bowl LX on Sunday. Kaepernick was described in the story as Super Bowl LX’s "most relevant" figure despite the 49ers not making it and the subject of the story being out of football for nearly 10 years. "The game will be played in his former home stadium, in the place where his protest made him a national lightning rod and a global symbol," Adam Kilgore wrote of Kaepernick. "The social issues swirling around America’s largest sporting spectacle carry distinct echoes of what...

So stop asking

In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu (D) declared that "every single human being has the legal right to come to the United States and seek shelter. We are the richest and most prosperous nation in the world. It shouldn't be hard for us to understand why people would want to live here. We have the billionaires who can be taxed to give immigrants a lifestyle unattainable anywhere else in the world. As a matter of equity, we owe it to immigrants, many of whom are too ignorant, too ill, or too unmotivated to support themselves, a decent standard of living that...

U.S. Vice President JD Vance sat with influencer and boxer Jake Paul as they watched the U.S. women’s hockey team ease to a 5-0 win over Finland at the Winter Olympics on Saturday. Vance and his family entered during the intermission at the end of the first period, with the U.S. leading 1-0. Paul joined them shortly after. Paul’s fiancee Jutta Leerdam is a speedskater for the Netherlands at the Milan Cortina Games. Vance sat with his youngest child, daughter Mirabel, on his lap. Usha Vance, wearing a sweatshirt with “USA” in big letters, clapped along to Queen’s “We Will...