Free Republic

Daily Readings from the USCCBThe scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink.” Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days.” Luke 5:33–35Though most of the scribes and Pharisees rejected the ministry of John the Baptist, here they attempt to use his discipline of fasting as a weapon...

"Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God" (Eph. 6:10-11). Spiritual victory is not passive; it involves the discipline of daily obedience to Christ and His Word. When I was a child, my father and I watched a boxing match on television. After going through the ritual of punching the air, kicking his feet, and putting rosin on his shoes, one of the fighters knelt in the corner and crossed himself. I asked my dad if that helped. He said, "It does if he can punch. If he can't...

Anyone that would like to donate by credit card (including monthly subscriptions), please FReepmail me your card info and I'll make the donation for you. We have our system operational again, but we want to keep access to it private for security reasons - at least for now. You can also email me at my dad's email address: jimrob@psnw.com Thank you all for your patience and continued support!

OpenAI’s next big model is here: GPT-6 Astra. The company calls it a “generational leap in capability” for areas like cybersecurity, professional work, software engineering, science, and computer use. As OpenAI announced earlier this week, it’s also the first model designated as meeting OpenAI’s “critical cybersecurity capability threshold” — but the company promises that won’t lead to a repeat of its models hacking a rival company’s internal systems. “If we fast-forward a couple of years, and we look back and say, ‘When was it, really, that AGI was created?’ I think it’s going to be about this time, and I...

Gloria Steinem doesn’t have her facts straight, but don’t expect the media to call her out on it. On Tuesday, feminist activist Gloria Steinem appeared as a guest on PBS’ Tavis Smiley. During the show, Steinem praised abortion for giving her “my life” and bashed the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood’s practice of aborted baby parts. She blamed the “attack” on Planned Parenthood on everything from the “ultra-right wing” to “patriarchy” and a “long-term racist system.” Host Tavis Smiley hailed Steinem as a “feminist icon” and “renowned social activist” before asking about her newly published book, My Life on the Road....

In one of his Truth Social bombs, President Donald Trump insisted we should rename Lake Ontario to Lake America after Canada refused to accept his trade negotiation terms. It obviously echoes his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. It's easy to find these whole geographic kerfuffles unnecessary. But the media hated the first one so much that the Associated Press found itself restricted from the White House press pool for refusing to accept the new Gulf terminology. What they hate is anything Trump does to add a patriotic pro-America tinge to something that they associate...

Over the past decade, the secular media has told us incessantly that American Christianity is in its death throes. The number one news story on religion in recent years has been the rise of the “Nones,” or people who say they have no religion.So, is it finally the end for American faith? No. If you dig a little deeper, you’ll see why it’s not.More people tell pollsters today that they have no religion. The total number of Nones, agnostics, and atheists rose from about 16% to 28% of respondents between 2007 and 2023, according to Pew Research.A generation ago, cultural...

One thousand days is a long time in politics...When I wrote about Javier Milei’s first 100 days in office, Argentina was embarking on yet another attempt to break free from a cycle that had become painfully familiar: fiscal excess, monetary financing, inflation, capital controls and, eventually, crisis. Markets were optimistic, but they had been optimistic before. Argentina has a habit of disappointing even its most enthusiastic supporters.At the time, Milei inherited an economy in severe distress alongside a reform agenda that many viewed as politically impossible to implement. Today, as Argentina approaches the 1,000-day mark of his presidency, investors can...

Joe Rogan has had enough of the women lining up outside a Massachusetts courthouse in pink to cheer a mother who strangled her three children to death.Sitting with comedian Brian Simpson, he refused to accept the "Free Lindsay" spectacle as a mental-health awareness campaign.He treated it as a grotesque inversion of basic human instinct: hundreds of adults, overwhelmingly women, performing solidarity with a child murderer.Joe Rogan condemns the "Free Lindsay" crowd: "If those ladies could see the crime scene and see those dead kids with their vacant eyes staring up because their mother took their life, the last thing that...

If you've looked at gas prices lately you already know the conflict with Iran is still having a big impact on prices at the pump. However, there's a genuine disagreement over how much oil is currently making it through the Strait of Hormuz. This week the Trump administration has claimed that the total amount of oil passing through the strait is approaching pre-war levels. Here's a CNN report from yesterday.The US military escorted 40 commercial vessels carrying 18 million barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz, marking a wartime high as Iran and the US exchanged a new round...

The richest man in the world, who was laser-focused on delivering Pennsylvania for President Donald Trump in 2024, is wielding his wallet in the Keystone State once again to support Republicans in three swing congressional districts ahead of the midterms. America PAC, Musk’s super PAC, has contributed roughly $12,000 apiece in support of U.S. Reps. Ryan Mackenzie, of Lehigh; Rob Bresnahan, of Lackawanna; and Scott Perry, of York — all GOP incumbents facing tough reelection challenges, according to an independent expenditure report filed Wednesday. Though small potatoes in comparison, America PAC’s contributions in Pa. come roughly two years after Musk...

New York City's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani, has spent much of his brief political career being treated by the national media as some kind of irresistible force, a fresh-faced wunderkind whose progressive appeal stretches far beyond the activist left and into mainstream America. He's the future, they tell us. [Insert needle scratch noise.]There's just one not-so-tiny problem with that narrative: Americans don't actually like him very much. A new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll lays it all out in black and white. As RedState's Nick Arama reported Wednesday, there was some good news in that poll Republicans heading into the midterm elections....

A Latino running group has been run out of a historically black Los Angeles neighborhood after opponents told organizers to find somewhere else to pound the pavement. Barrio Athletics announced that its Sunday 5K moved from Leimert Park in Crenshaw to Elysian Park near Dodger Stadium following “careful conversation with community leaders.” What started as a neighborhood dispute over the run quickly turned into showdown over who belongs in one of LA’s most important cultural enclaves.Barrio Athletics had planned to meet at Leimert Park at 9 a.m. and run along Crenshaw Boulevard, but community members immediately objected, saying the event...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. Ronald Reagan - Day of Prayer And if I say to a wicked person, ‘You will surely die,’ but they then turn away from...

If you’re looking to get married, the place to go might be the Provo area in Utah. Or maybe Fort Wayne and the southern suburbs in Indiana. Both locations feature some of the highest rates of new marriages over the past year in the country, according to a new project by the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) called the Marriage Map. In the Provo area, fully 13.2 percent of never-married adults aged 22 to 39 got married last year. In the Fort Wayne area, the number was 10.6 percent. The Marriage Map is a newly released, interactive online map created...

Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy had jokes for Vice President JD Vance during the latter’s press briefing Thursday. The event was the first since former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt exited the post in August. “I just want to ask you, if there’s been reports about this, but I have not heard you talk much about you lost a ton of weight lately. How much sauerkraut do you eat in a day?” Doocy asked. Vance appeared caught off guard by the question. “Oh my lord, okay. So when you’re the vice president of United States and one...

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day. Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent...

The 2026 WNBA season may be on pause, but action hasn’t stopped as nearly a quarter of the league heads to Berlin to battle for gold at the 2026 FIBA Women’s Basketball World Cup.

Punishing a company for building the best product doesn't serve the businesses or users antitrust enforcers claim to protect. =============================================================== After ruling in 2025 that Google was guilty of "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in the digital ad market, Judge Leonie Brinkema of the Eastern District of Virginia on Wednesday rejected a Justice Department proposal that would have forced Google to sell off parts of its advertising business as punishment. Brinkema's opinion is sealed for 14 days, so it's unclear why she chose to reject the Justice Department's proposal. However, The Wall Street Journal reports that Brinkema had previously...

On Thursday, 33 Democrats joined Republicans to pass a law that would take federal funding away from academic institutions involved in any kind of boycott of or divestment from Israel. The legislation passed 237–169. The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act, headed by Republican Representative Virginia Foxx and Democratic Representative Josh Gottheimer, strips federal funding from any school that carries out a “nonexpressive commercial boycott” of Israel—like “refusals to deal” with it on a business level. Notably, the bill also applies to boycotts of institutions based in Israeli settlements. “Thank you @RepJoshG and @virginiafoxx for leading this important bipartisan effort...