Free Republic

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ NIGHT BOARDING Paratroopers board and position their gear inside an Air Force C-17 Globemaster III aircraft before participating in a night jump at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, March 31, 2016. Air Force photo by Alejandro Pena Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. ROCKET EXERCISE A Marine Corps UH-1Y Venom fires rockets during an urban close air support exercise at Yodaville near Yuma, AZ, April 1, 2016. The Venom is...

Vatican City, May 15, 2018 / 01:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican published an instruction Tuesday aimed at applying norms established in Pope Francis’ 2016 apostolic constitution on women’s contemplative orders, which emphasizes the need for networks of monasteries in contemplative life. The instruction states that all monasteries of nuns must be affiliated with a federation, or organization, of religious houses. Published May 15, the document concerns the nearly 38,000 nuns around the world in contemplative religious orders, and underscores that these religious institutes, “wholly devoted to contemplation, always occupy an eminent place in the mystical body of Christ.” Therefore,...

If there's one thing Donald Trump Jr. cleared up with his congressional testimony, it's that he doesn't remember a lot of things. In a newly released transcript of his testimony, Trump repeatedly couched his answers about that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting by saying he did not “remember” or that he didn't “recall” certain things. Even when he was pretty sure, he'd say “not that I recall” or something like that. The result was a pretty cagey piece of testimony.

The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church has expressed its attitude towards the upcoming LGBT parade in Sofia, calling on the members of the LGBT community to renounce their sins. The parade is scheduled for June 9. In its statement, posted on the Bulgarian Church’s official site, the Synod declares that its position towards sin remains unchanged. Rather than engaging in pride parades, the hierarchs have called for piety and a renunciation of sin and its demonstrations. “Taking into account free will, the Holy Orthodox Church again appeals to its children, brothers, and sisters, and lovingly reminds them that...

. He’s the luckiest man in the city’s poorest borough and he wants to stay that way. An unemployed Bronx man — who doesn’t even have a bank account — became an instant millionaire last month when he scratched off a winning $5 million lottery ticket. But the stuff of dreams quickly turned to sudden panic when he went to claim his prize — only to learn that he can’t collect the windfall without taking part in a press conference that will let everyone in the neighborhood know he’s loaded.

Senate to Consider Anti-Gunner for Powerful Ninth Circuit CourtContact Your Senators to Oppose Bennett!Dear Friend: Repeatedly, President Donald Trump has criticized San Francisco’s leftist Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for assuming the role of “super-legislature” and blocking his agenda. Yet, Trump has nominated a leftist, anti-gunner to fill a seat on that court, and the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved that nomination -- despite GOA’s opposition to the nomination. The nominee for the nation’s second highest court is Mark Jeremy Bennett who, as Hawaii’s Attorney General, opposed the Supreme Court’s determination in Heller that the Second Amendment is an individual...

Former President Barack Obama and his wife Michele have signed a multi-million book deal with Penguin Random House. Terms of the deal were not released but Financial Times reported bidding for the two-book deal had reached more than $65 million, a record amount for presidential memoirs.

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — A North Philadelphia election worker has pleaded guilty to election fraud during a 2017 special election for a state House seat in the city. Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro says 59-year-old Thurman George, a machine inspector at Poll 43-7, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to frauds by election officers. George, along with three other election workers, was accused of harassment and intimidation against voters who wanted to vote for candidates of their choice, but not the candidate being pushed by the city’s Democratic Party machine. Minority inspector Calvin Mattox previously pleaded guilty to not meeting the qualifications of...

Most people still remember the story of Nadya Suleman, dubbed “Octomom,” a single woman who used in vitro fertilization to become pregnant with eight babies simultaneously. Suleman had asked her fertility specialist, Dr. Michael Kamrava, to implant at least a dozen embryos into her uterus, leading to the birth of the famous octuplets in 2009. Dr. Kamrava’s medical license was later revoked by the California Medical Board. In commenting on the case, Judith Alvarado, Deputy Attorney General in California, concluded that Dr. Kamrava had acted “like a cowboy” in ignoring fertility industry guidelines.When it comes to the “wild west”...

A Jewish lawyer in New York was caught berating Spanish-speaking workers at a Manhattan restaurant and threatening to call immigration agents on them in a clip shared widely on social media. Aaron Schlossberg had a meltdown in a Fresh Kitchen in East Midtown Wednesday morning after hearing some of the employees speak Spanish to one another and to Spanish-speaking customers, Gothamist first reported. “Every person I listen to — he’s speaking it, she’s speaking it. This is America!” the man shouted. The man appeared to be filming the encounter, as did one of the employees and other customers in the...

When Catholic couples experience trouble getting pregnant, they often seek medical help and begin to research what options are available to them. A number of moral considerations and questions generally emerge during this process: Why are techniques like in vitro fertilization (IVF) considered immoral? What approaches will the Church allow us to try? What does our infertility mean, spiritually and personally, in the face of our fervent but frustrated desire for a baby?When a couple, after having non-contraceptive sexual intercourse for a year or more, begins to investigate whether there are issues related to infertility, some medical professionals simply...

Sidney Bouvier Gilstrap-Portley allegedly posed as a 17-year-old Hurricane Harvey refugee so he could play boys' basketball at Hillcrest High School in Dallas, Texas. On Tuesday, the Dallas Morning News reported the 25-year-old, who also spent time at Skyline High School, was arrested Friday on a charge of tampering with government records. The mother of a 14-year-old female student told the paper he dated her daughter while at Hillcrest High. Gilstrap-Portley, who officials say was operating under the alias Rashun Richardson, was named the District 11-5A Offensive Player of the Year during the 2017-18 season.

Researchers have been able to confine light down to a space one atom, the smallest possible. This will pave the way to ultra-small optical switches, detectors and sensors. Light can function as an ultra-fast communication channel, for example between different sections of a computer chip, but it can also be used for ultra-sensitive sensors or on-chip nanoscale lasers. There is currently much research into how to further shrink devices that control and guide light. New techniques searching for ways to confine light into extremely tiny spaces, much smaller than current ones, have been on the rise. Researchers had previously found...

On Wednesday, European Council President Donald Tusk tweeted the following: "Looking at latest decisions of @realDonaldTrump someone could even think: with friends like that who needs enemies. But frankly, EU should be grateful. Thanks to him we got rid of all illusions. We realise that if you need a helping hand, you will find one at the end of your arm. 8:36 AM - May 16, 2018" The vacuous stupidity of that statement is defined by what lies east and south of Brussels, where Tusk is based. Tusk's is the most pathetically ironic of tweets. He fires off his tweets...

On his MSNBC show this evening, Ari Melber not so subtly suggested to Michael Avenatti that Michael Cohen might have put out a Mafia hit on him. Said Melber: “We had the Trump lawyer, a former lawyer, last night. Wasn’t just criticizing you, he was asking the question of whether Michael Cohen’s role was to deal with the Mafia for Donald Trump. I mean, he said that, and he’s a Trump lawyer. When you say “ugly,” do you have concerns about your own role, your own safety, your own precautions?”Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

Frontline police officers will carry handguns for the first time to cope with the terrorist threat in rural areas, under plans being considered by chief constables. Officers responding to emergencies in remote locations where firearm units cannot be quickly deployed would be routinely armed. Simon Chesterman, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said that the proposal was being considered in areas of England and Wales where it was prohibitively expensive to have fully trained specialist units on standby. It will be seen as controversial because Britain has a tradition of unarmed policing and less than 10 per cent of officers...

GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) announced Wednesday he will oppose the nomination of Gina Haspel, President Trump's pick to lead the CIA, citing her ties to the controversial "enhanced interrogation" program used during the George W. Bush administration. "Congress needs to be able to provide fully informed oversight. My questions about Ms. Haspel's role in the destruction of videotapes relevant to discussions occurring in Congress regarding the program have not been adequately answered," Flake said in a statement. Flake, a vocal critic of Trump who is set to retire after this year, is the third Republican senator to come out...

s a kid, I’d sometimes try to imagine what life would be like without a particular sense or part of my body, like with questions from the Would You Rather? game. Would you rather be deaf or blind? Would you rather have no legs or no arms? I’d try to erase the sound of my mom’s piano playing, the sight of the ground growing smaller as I soared on the tree swing in my backyard, or the feeling of playing basketball so hard my lungs might explode, but I just couldn’t. How could life go on without these sensations that...

Scot Peterson, the sheriff’s deputy vilified for failing to confront the Parkland school shooter, has begun receiving a state pension of $8,702.35 a month. Peterson resigned and retired Feb. 22, a week after the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where he waited outside as Nikolas Cruz killed 17 people and wounded 17 others. Peterson began to receive his pension in April, according to the Florida Department of Management Services. He can receive the payments for the rest of his life. The 55-year-old Peterson, a Broward deputy for 32 years, was paid $101,879.03 last year — $75,673.72 in base...

Moving away from the classic M40-series, Marine Scout Snipers have a new and improved precision rifle platform that is making it out to the Fleet. The Mk13 Mod 7 rifle is based on the Accuracy International AICS long action system. Whereas the legacy Remington 700-based M40, used and extensively upgraded since the 1960s by the Marines, is chambered in NATO-standard 7.62x51mm, the new rifle brings .300 Win Mag to the Marines’ lexicon. Army snipers have long since upgraded to chamberings that offered more room to reach out and touch someone. “The .300 Winchester Magnum round will perform better than...