Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] The Fight Against Clericalism Takes a Dangerous Turn “Clericalism” has been a favorite buzzword of Pope Francis almost since the inception of his pontificate. He wields it like a Swiss army knife, applying it to every problem he doesn’t have a sufficient alternative explanation for. (There’s also not a little irony in his use of the term, but that’s par for the course.) Most recently, he leveled the vaguely-defined charge of clericalism at the sexual abuse crisis. In his “Letter to the People of God” in August of 2018, Francis said that “Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by lay persons,...

Police officers can only drive faster than the speed limit when they are responding to an emergency situation where they believe there is an immediate and serious risk to life. Not only do we have to adhere to the speed limit like every other driver - unless we are responding to a situation where a person is in danger - but there is also technology in our vehicles that monitors the speed at which we are travelling. If we go over that limit it triggers an alert and we have to justify to our bosses why we breached that limit.

oundary-breaking Muslim supermodel Halima Aden has made history once again by becoming the first model to wear a hijab and burkini in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. In 2016, Aden became the first contestant in Miss Minnesota USA to wear a hijab and burkini, ultimately reaching the pageant's semi-finals. "There are so many Muslim women that feel like they don't fit society's standard of beauty," she told CNN at the time. "I just wanted to tell them it's OK to be different, being different is beautiful, too."

The Department of Justice announced Monday the arrest of a former U.S. Army infantryman who is accused of plotting a "mass casualty" terrorist attack at a white nationalist rally in Long Beach, California over the weekend. Agents arrested the suspect, Mark Steven Domingo of Reseda, California, on Friday evening after an undercover source for the FBI sent the suspect what he believed was a live bomb that he could use to carry out his attack. "This investigation successfully disrupted a very real threat posed by a trained combat soldier who repeatedly stated he wanted to cause the maximum number of...

PITTSBURGH — In his first official event as a 2020 presidential candidate, Joe Biden skipped past the primary on Monday and went right to the general election. From the atmospherics of his first campaign rally to the substance of his speech, the former vice president delivered a carefully calibrated message: While his rivals are chasing the Democratic nomination, Biden plans to pursue a mission focused on Donald Trump. “If I’m going to be able to beat Donald Trump in 2020, it’s going to happen here,” Biden told a packed crowd at the Teamsters Local 249 banquet hall. Biden offered an...

Data geek Mayor Pete is a leader. He is data-driven. Really smart. He’s brash. And dynamic. Bold. Has the best education in the world. He has fancy degrees, but the confidence to govern with heart, and the brain to govern with data. It may seem like that is an exaggerated description, but all of that is taken from this single NBC News article about 2020 Democratic hopeful Pete Buttigieg. And those are just the words in isolation, they can’t really convey the depth of the hagiography posted as news by NBC on this candidate. It would be passé, even quaint,...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis to raise ‘evangelization’ above Catholic doctrine in curial reform: report April 29, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis is expected to sign a new reform measure that will reorganize the various agencies of the Vatican, creating a new and powerful dicastery of “evangelization” that will take precedence over the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which protects the integrity of Catholic doctrine concerning faith and morals, according to the Spanish news service Vida Nueva Digital. The existence of the measure, which is a proposed apostolic constitution called “Praedicate Evangelium” (“Preach the Gospel”) was announced by Vida...

Brands, may we remind you for the umpteenth time, that if you're trying to get #relatable on Twitter, you're opening yourself up to being completely and utterly owned. People have a lot of strong feelings about when and where brands can interject their own witty repartee in online discourse. No matter how seemingly wholesome (woke soap, anyone?) or unbelievably tone deaf (Sunny D's faked mental health crisis), the response is usually a resounding SILENCE BRAND. JPMorgan Chase was the latest brand to get shut down over a failed attempt at reaching the masses with a tweet that has since...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A U.S. veteran of the war in Afghanistan who prosecutors say plotted to detonate a nail bomb at a Los Angeles-area white nationalist rally, hoping to cause mass casualties, was arrested in an FBI online sting operation, federal prosecutors said on Monday. Mark Steven Domingo, 26, a U.S. Army infantryman who fought in Afghanistan and recently converted to Islam, was taken into custody on Friday after being given what he thought was a live bomb to use in the attack by an FBI informant, law enforcement officials said. “Often we are asked what keeps us up...

...These are rumblings of a broader ideological shift taking shape on the right throughout the globe. And nobody embodies this evolution better than Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the leader of the French far-right National Front. As she took the stage at CPAC last year, Le Pen confronted conservatism’s old guard... Without “the limits of the common good, natural law and collective morality disappear, as the reign of egoism continues,” said Le Pen... Rarely do American Republicans invoke “natural law”—that is not their style...But Le Pen’s challenge to American conservatism was more than semantic. In terms more familiar to the absolutist philosopher...

Last week, after an especially long day and an “epic” tantrum from her 3-year-old, Sarah Buckley Friedberg, a Massachusetts mother of three, posted on Facebook a mock ‘to-do list‘ that society expects of mothers today. The ending was inspired: “I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to lean OUT. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.” Friedberg’s post went viral. But in just a few weeks most people will have forgotten about the article. Don’t be one of those people. Instead, do as Friedberg suggests. Lean out Reading Friedberg’s post took me back in time to the very first...

The last time President Trump met face-to-face with Chuck and Nancy, as he calls the Democratic leaders of the Senate and House, it didn’t go swimmingly. The president asked for a border wall; they refused. He said Nancy was reluctant to negotiate on camera; she bristled on camera. He said he would proudly shut down the government over the wall, and he did. Nancy — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — later said the December meeting with the president was like “a tinkle contest with a skunk.” Mrs. Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer will return to the White...

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein Resigns

UC Davis Professor Bruce Hammock has spent a 50-year career studying insects. He probably wouldn’t be the Ph.D. considered most likely to shake up the multibillion-dollar prescription painkiller market. Nonetheless, he has developed a medication for chronic pain that he said has proved both effective and non-addictive in animal trials. Could his discovery put an end to the devastating death toll caused by opioids such as fentanyl, oxycodone and hydrocodone, drugs that racked up $24.5 billion in sales in 2018? Veteran pharmaceutical researcher William Schmidt told The Bee that he thinks so. He said he found Hammock’s novel drug candidate...

Albert Einstein once wrote that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Were he alive today, he would be repeating the line to anyone who would listen, especially the reporters on cable news channels such as CNBC. He might add that the world’s policymakers always approach oil market disruptions in the same way: predicting there will be no impact on prices. Einstein would then point out that the policymakers are consistently wrong. A hefty price boost has followed every disruption. The world has experienced nineteen oil market disruptions over the...

Child exploitation should not be controversial, yet to the modern LGBT left it seems to be a subjective matter depending on what political or social narrative they want to pursue. Child drag queens appear to be a growing trend after the success of Desmond Napoles, who has been in the public eye since he was nine years old. While many oppose the idea of minors performing drag at all, it shouldn’t be considered a “conservative” position to oppose them performing drag in adult bars. Drag is inherently sexual in nature. The origin and purpose of drag is to indulge adult...

An Oxford University professor Dr. Young-hae Chi has claimed aliens are already breeding with humans to create a new hybrid species that will save the planet. Poor Dr. Chi, he has stumbled across the story of the century, but hasn’t the foggiest idea why his ‘crazy theory’ is actually largely correct. And the funny part is, all it would take to clear things up for the good doctor is a King James bible from his local Five and Dime shop. Aliens interbreeding with humans, eh? Yep, that happened in Genesis 6 3,500 years ago, and Matthew 24 says that in...

For decades belt-it-out popular singer Kate Smith (shown on right) was considered the embodiment of the uniquely American cultural phenomenon that combines wholesome entertainment with patriotism and love of country. Smith’s rendition of Irving Berlin’s classic “God Bless America,” which she first recorded in 1939, turned the song into a patriotic anthem that has inspired generations of Americans. But Smith, who enjoyed a 50-year career and the esteem of fans all over the world before her death in 1986, has become the latest target of PC gumshoes ever on the lookout for evidence that individuals either past and present have...

Woo hoo!! And we now have less than $400 to reach 34%!! Would be great if we can do this today. And tomorrow should be a great day. We should have the last batch of monthlies and the last batch of mail-ins for the month. Could be 3 or 4% coming in tomorrow. Go, FReepers, GO!!

Shortened title. Full title: Durbin: ‘People Feel They Have License’ to Engage in Attacks Because of Rhetoric From the White House On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “New Day,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) stated that the Poway, CA synagogue shooting is domestic terrorism, and people feeling they have license to engage in such attacks “has really been fomented because of the rhetoric that we’re hearing from the White House.” Durbin said, “This is domestic terrorism. Let’s call it for what it is. Had there been someone from the Middle East involved in this, someone with a green card involved...