Free Republic

Pope Francis emphasized the right to food as fundamental in a video address Saturday to 500 experts starting work on a wide-ranging document aimed at raising awareness and proposing solutions to issues including hunger, obesity and food waste. Francis said the paradox of abundance described by Pope John Paul II—whereby there is food for everyone yet not everyone can eat—continues to be an issue “despite the multiplication of organizations and responses by the international community on nutrition.” […] He also urged them (the experts) to show courage in protecting the planet “the mother of everything that asks respect and not...

Why is the head of the U.S. Bishops meeting with the White House and the Director of the liberal Center for American Progress? What goals could they possibly share? Is there anything Catholic about that pro-gay, pro-death power group? As the Obama administration tries to position itself as a world leader on climate change ahead of United Nations talks, it's engaging a powerful ally: the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has been moving the Church into a more aggressive posture on climate change, citing the moral need to protect the planet and its citizens. With countries preparing their own climate plans...

The Dark Side of Winston Churchill’s Legacy No One Should Forget By Ishaan Tharoor February 3 There's no Western statesmen — at least in the English-speaking world — more routinely lionized than Winston Churchill. Last Friday marked a half century since his funeral, an occasion that itself led to numerous commemorations and paeans to the British Bulldog, whose moral courage and patriotism helped steer his nation through World War II. Churchill, after all, has been posthumously voted by his countrymen as the greatest Briton. The presence (and absence) of his bust in the White House was enough to create political...

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy met with Vatican officials that helped draft Pope Francis’ climate-related encyclical on Friday, The Associated Press reports.An encyclical, a letter from the pope addressed to faithfuls worldwide when he feels he needs to reach them, is set to be published in June and might make environmentalism a Catholic doctrine like Pope Pius IX’s encyclical about infallibility. It might also be a simple condemnation of human destruction of the environment like Pope Pius XI’s encyclical against Italian Fascists. The visit was aimed at showing the Holy See that the Obama administration share similar thoughts on...

NBC cited defence officials and said the charges could come against the soldier within a week. But Lt Col Alayne Conway, spokeswoman for Army public affairs, said no decision had been made yet in the Bergdahl case. She said: "We are aware of the inaccurate media reporting. To be clear there have been no actions or decisions on the Sgt Bergdahl investigation.  "The investigation is still with General Mark Milley, commanding general of Forces Command, who is reviewing now the Army's facts and findings to determine, impartially, any appropriate next steps and possible actions - which ranges from no further action to convening...

The plan asks for governments, companies and universities to step in and work together to "bring an end to the persisting inequalities faced by women and girls globally." Watson outlined the gender equality initiative in her speech, talking about the overwhelming response she received when she first launched HeForShe with a powerful speech in New York City last September. Although some people proved just how necessary this conversation is by threatening her for defending women, she was largely celebrated for her passionate words.

....On Friday’s episode of his HBO series Real Time with Bill Maher, the outspoken satirist pondered whether Kyle was a “hero or not,” and revealed he’s decidedly anti-American Sniper. “Hurt Locker made $17 million because it was a little ambiguous, and thoughtful,” Maher said. “And this one was just, ‘American hero! He’s a psychopath patriot, and we love him.’”

Retired attorney Kurt Richard Haskell conjectured on the Paris attacks on Sunday during an interview from Costa Rica with 1776 Channel, which can neither confirm nor readily dismiss his theories. “The Muslims being used in these plots are being trained overseas by undercover CIA pretending to be Al Qaeda/ ISIS. I think all of them were trained that way. They think they are in terrorist training camps when they are instead being trained to be patsies.” -Kurt Haskell during interview with 1776 Channel Haskell ran for U.S. Congress in 2012 as a Democrat in Michigan’s 7th District where he received...

Ask anyone under 40 to identify Paul McCartney or "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and the odds are you'll get a blank look in return. Ask someone under 30 to describe the Soviet menace and you may well get the same response. The first one is harmless ignorance, and some might argue the second one is as well. After all, it's over and we won, right? What's not harmless is a never-ending effort to glorify communist conspirators in Hollywood, like the forthcoming movie "Trumbo," starring "Breaking Bad" star Bryan Cranston as blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Entertainment Weekly magazine spewed...

Hollywood relishes making anti-American movies, but, maybe even more, loves to lavish fulsome tributes on full-blown Communists, you know, those fellows who swooned at Joe Stalin’s feet, teamed up with Hitler as he bombed the hell out of London in World War II and worked overtime to inflict deadly harm on America. Tinseltown is at it again, celebrating Dalton Trumbo, a major Hollywood Ten figure and longtime Communist enthusiast, in a brand new picture directed by Jay Roach and featuring Bryan Cranston, the star of the hit television series, Breaking Bad. The publicity for Trumbo says that Dalton bravely took...

Elise Stefanik, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress, has never held elected office, but her résumé looks more like that of a Beltway insider than a political newcomer. By the time she won her seat representing a swath of upstate New York in the November election, she had served as a domestic policy aide for former President George W. Bush , a policy director for former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty ’s 2012 presidential campaign and head of debate preparation for vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan . Yet while her rise in the Republican Party has been swift, Ms. Stefanik,...

He was born in a barn to penniless parents who were part of a people under occupation. Get it? So why do so many of us not get it? I’m against the War on Christmas. No not that one! Wishing someone “Happy Holidays” doesn’t rob Christmas of its meaning—after all, being sensitive to others’ religious beliefs ought to be the attitude of every Christian. And not the one that says we have over-commercialized Christmas—after all, there’s nothing wrong with a time of year when we purchase thoughtful gifts for those we love.

In October, Jeffrey Tayler wrote in Salon that the Qur’an “backs up jihad, suicide attacks (“martyrdom”), beheadings, even taking captive women as sex slaves.” This was singular for Salon, which usually whitewashes the truth about Islam and jihad and excoriates those who expose it as “racists” and “bigots,” but now it is clear why Tayler was able to get away with it: he is supremely hostile to Christianity. Here, he gives a characteristic Salon Christmas greeting: Jesus likely never existed, but Muhammad’s existence is well established. “Let’s make Bill O’Reilly’s head explode: We desperately need a war on Christmas lies,”...

Even Jane Fonda needs a reminder of her fabulousness. At 77, the actress is building a “shrine” to herself that she hopes will boost her recently faltering confidence. “I’ve found myself backsliding a bit of late in terms of where my thoughts have tended to reside (not always with the generosity of vision I wish for) and my confidence has been iffy for the past four months,” the stunning star wrote in a blog post Sunday, her 77th birthday. “So, while meditating today an idea came to me: I’m going to create a shrine to myself – or, at least,...

The Brandeis University student leader who publicly stated that she had "no sympathy" for the executed New York Police Department officers resigned her position on Sunday after TruthRevolt and other outlets drew attention to her statements. Khadijah Lynch, who was an Undergraduate Department Representative for the African and Afro-American Studies Department, tweeted, "i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today" and "lmao, all i just really dont have sympathy for the cops who were shot. i hate this racist f---ing country" among other insensitive remarks shortly after the officers were shot execution-style by a Baltimore-based gangster....

<p>Following the execution of two New York Police Department officers, a Brandeis University student leader wasted no time in making it clear that she did not care that they were murdered.</p> <p>“i have no sympathy for the nypd officers who were murdered today,” Khadijah Lynch, a junior and an Undergraduate Department Representative in the African and Afro-American Studies Department, wrote on Twitter.</p>

Controversial comedian Russell Brand has landed in the middle of his latest controversy accusing the United States of terrorism just hours after 132 Pakistani children were murdered by the Taliban. Brand was interviewing Moazzam Begg, a Briton who was detained at Guantanamo Bay when he wrote: 'The people who do "terror" best are the people who decide what "terror" is.' The nine minute interview was posted on YouTube and said it would 'lift the lid' on Guantanamo Bay torture.

We need law and policing reform, but first we have to want to end state-sanctioned violence against African-Americans. As the countless protests, tear gas, National Guard deployments and looting proved, police brutality provokes more anger than other outrages because it’s the supreme violation of our individual rights in a democracy. It is the state actor, as another person, violently snatching our breath away “under color of law.” That the state’s victims throughout our history have been overwhelmingly African-American stamps it as an indelible “badge of slavery,” which means that nothing makes you feel more black in America than experiencing police...

Noam Chomsky, author and political theorist, called the United States a “very racist society” and then slammed one of its most beloved presidents, Ronald Reagan, as a prime example of a very racist man during an interview on GRITtv about Ferguson-related issues and race relations. “This is a very racist society,” he said, Raw Story reported. “It’s pretty shocking. What’s happened to African-Americans in the last 30 years is similar to … happen[ed] in the late 19th century,” as described by Douglas Blackmon in “Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War...