Free Republic

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — When the gunman advanced toward the mosque, killing those in his path, Abdul Aziz didn’t hide. Instead, he picked up the first thing he could find, a credit card machine, and ran outside screaming “Come here!” Aziz, 48, is being hailed as a hero for preventing more deaths during Friday prayers at the Linwood mosque in Christchurch after leading the gunman in a cat-and-mouse chase before scaring him into speeding away in his car. But Aziz, whose four sons and dozens of others remained in the mosque while he faced off with the gunman, said he...

Ex-president says institution prizes the clerical male above women, truth, and abused childrenThe “game is almost up” for the all-male Catholic Church, former president Mary McAleese has said. She said the church’s “clericalised citadel is increasingly of zero interest to many Christian women who grow up in the Catholic tradition”. “The church prizes the clerical male above all others in the church. Above women, above truth and disgracefully above clerically abused children. The game is almost up,” she said. Mrs McAleese was speaking after an announcement by theologian Mary T Malone (80) that she is leaving the “men’s church” to...

Australian Senator Fraser Anning responded to having an egg cracked against the back of his head by turning around and slapping the perpetrator during a live television interview. The Queensland senator, who previously called for a ban on Muslim immigration and is currently under fire for blaming New Zealand’s lax immigration policies for recent mosque shootings, was in Melbourne giving an interview to reporters on Friday when a young man started recording, then smashed an egg into the back of his head. Anning quickly turned around and slapped the individual, who reportedly turned out to be a 17-year-old. Then he...

In Foothill Church v. Rouillard, (ED CA, March 7, 2019). a California federal district court dismissed a suit brought by three churches challenging a ruling by the California Department of Managed Health Care that requires health insurance companies to include coverage for abortion services in all health insurance policies. Rejecting the churches' Free Exercise claim, the court held that the churches have not alleged sufficient facts to call into question the defense that the ruling is a neutral law of general applicability.

ABC’s The View co-host Meghan McCain said Saturday evening that no one will ever love President Donald Trump in the same way her late father Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was loved.

The Catholic church pushed back against state investigators this month, asking a judge to toss the 400 subpoenas the Nebraska attorney general served on churches and schools this week seeking evidence of clergy sex abuse of minors. Short of that, church officials asked a judge to give them more time to comply, and to force Attorney General Doug Peterson to narrow his requests. “The attorney general has improperly attempted to use these subpoenas like warrants without a showing of probable cause, by demanding immediate responses, threatening sanctions for failing to comply, and using the element of surprise,” lawyers for the...

A Prairie Village Roman Catholic grade school this year denied enrollment to a kindergartner who is the child of a same-sex couple. Now almost 1,000 people have signed a petition asking church leaders to reconsider. The petition over St. Ann Catholic School on Mission Road is addressed to Archbishop Joseph Naumann and school Superintendent Kathy O’Hara. About half of the people who signed it are members of St. Ann. “Respectfully, we believe that the decision to deny a child of God access to such a wonderful community and education, based on the notion that his or her parent’s union is...

Leftists have long alleged that Donald Trump has conducted crimes with the mafia, as well as with Russian oligarchs. What they can never explain is why Trump has never been indicted. As REX explains, there may be a reason for that. And in 2019, it’s all connected to POTUS Trump’s masterful takedown of The Swamp. Opponents of Donald Trump have an absolute - some might say fanatic - obsession with Trump’s alleged links with organized crime. For example, Trump’s critics have always referred to Trump’s ‘suspicious’ relationship with the Five Families in 1980’s New York. However, from 2015, they have...

Reuters reporter Joseph Menn exclusively revealed on Friday that Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke belonged to one of the best-known groups of computer hackers as a teenager. Within minutes, his special report was the most popular story on Reuters.com here and was picked up by other news outlets. But the origin of the story goes back more than two years. Members of the group, which calls itself Cult of the Dead Cow, protected O’Rourke’s secret for decades, reluctant to compromise the former Texas Congressman’s political career. After more than a year of reporting, Menn persuaded O’Rourke to talk on the...

President Trump attacked the late Sen. John McCain Saturday over recently revealed evidence that the Arizona lawmaker helped push Russia-collusion rumors in the weeks after Trump’s election. “Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier ‘is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain,’” Trump tweeted, quoting former independent counsel Ken Starr. Trump continued that McCain “had far worse ‘stains’ than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace [Obamacare] after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!”

If you don’t know how to get to Sesame Street you will soon at least be able to have its characters featured on your mail. The U.S. Postal Service announced this week that they have created a line of stamps honoring the show’s 50th anniversary. The federal agency called Sesame Street, “one of the most influential and beloved children’s television shows,” according to a statement. “For the last 50 years, it has provided educational programming and entertainment for generations of children throughout the country and around the world,” the statement said.

French yellow vest protesters set life-threatening fires, smashed up luxury stores in Paris and clashed with police Saturday in the 18th straight weekend of demonstrations against President Emmanuel Macron. Large plumes of smoke rose above the rioting on Paris’ landmark Champs-Élysées avenue, and a mother and her child were just barely saved from a building blaze. Cobblestones flew in the air and smoke from fires set by protesters mingled with clouds of tear gas sprayed by police, as tensions continued for hours along the Champs-Élysées. By dusk, as the demonstrators had dispersed, the famed avenue was a blackened expanse. […]...

In their letter, the Gang of 58 then used Hurricane Florence from last Major tornadoes in the U.S. have been on a downward trend since monitoring began in the 1950s, with record-low activity in 2018. Agricultural productivity and yields per acre have been rising around the world, despite modestly rising temperatures. Yes, there are indisputable facts that don’t agree with what the public is being told about climate change. The letter implies Mr. Trump has political rather than scientific motives. But science does not determine policy, it merely informs the policymakers. The policymakers need an unbiased review of the science....

Victor Davis Hanson, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and professor of Classics Emeritus at California State University, characterized Democrats’ ongoing leftward movement as “Maoist” in its efforts to “destroy the middle class and the traditions of America.” Hanson joined Tuesday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight to discuss his latest book The Case for Trump, setting the stage for 2020’s presidential election in an interview with hosts Rebecca Mansour and Joel Pollak...

Masked gunmen barged onto a bus in northern Mexico, carrying a list of names. They left without firing a single shot, taking at least 19 passengers with them as they sped away from the scene. And so far, they seem to have vanished without a trace. Gunmen intercepted the bus March 7 along the highway that connects San Fernando, a town in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, with the city of Reynosa, which sits across the US border from McAllen, Texas. Officials at first tried to downplay the possibility the migrants were kidnapped... Rafael Alonso Hernandez Lopez, who directs...

Getting a paycheck for doing nothing could be in the future for residents of New Jersey’s largest city. Newark Mayor Ras Baraka says the city is going to study a pilot program to provide a universal basic income, or basically guaranteeing income for all residents whether they have a job. […] The city has launched a taskforce to see if the program is feasible with help from the Economic Security Project and the Jain Institute. […] There has not been a successful long-term Universal Basic Income program. A small basic-income program that was tested in Finland was ended after one...

Hi kids, Many of you will be marching today, demonstrating for an issue you believe to be very important. Many years ago, I was young, well informed, and absolutely convinced I knew enough to make good decisions for the future of the world, and couldn’t understand just how obtuse all the oldies were, how they just didn’t know the stuff I had just learned. Malthusian economics drove most of us, the Club of Rome had reported, and to my subsequent shame, I confess that in 1975 I voted for the Values Party…. I wanted a better world, I knew resources...

I’m tired of using the one picture of Christopher Steele in existence, so enjoy this clown picture instead. It’s still relevant, as you’ll see. It’s been a busy few days for Fusion GPS and by virtue Steele, the former British spy contracted to compile the Trump dossier. Hillary Clinton was, of course, the person funding all this. She’s escaped essentially all accountability due to our ever willing media. Earlier today, I covered some of the fall out from documents released by a judge in a now dismissed defamation suit against Fusion GPS. There’s more though, as deposition transcripts of Steele’s...

With his back to the wall in an alleged pump-and-dump scheme, LA financier Morrie Tobin offered a tip that would turn into the biggest college-admissions fraud ever prosecuted, then wore a wire to help bring down the cheats. In a bid for mercy, the Yale grad told investigators that Rudolph “Rudy” Meredith, the head women’s soccer coach at the Ivy League school, solicited $450,000 from him in exchange for recommending Tobin’s daughter for admission as an athletic recruit, a source told the Journal. Tobin agreed to wear a wire during a meeting in a Boston hotel room with Meredith —...

        GOD'S PERFECTION In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning disabled children. Some children remain in Chush for their entire school career, while others can be main-streamed into conventional schools. At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child...