Free Republic

The White House is weighing a plan to require Central American migrants to remain in Mexico while their asylum requests are pending. The proposed change, first reported Wednesday night in the Washington Post, would be a departure from current procedure, which allows asylum seekers to remain in the U.S. until their case is reviewed by an immigration judge. The plan could move forward as soon as Friday, the Post reported, though a Homeland Security spokeswoman vehemently denied any such action was imminent. “DHS is not implementing such a new enforcement program at this time," DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in...

Arizona’s highest court has agreed to hear the appeal of two Christian artists who filed a lawsuit to strike down a city ordinance that would require them to provide services for same-sex weddings despite their religious objections. The Arizona Supreme Court announced Tuesday that they would hear arguments in the case of Brush & Nib Studio et al v. City of Phoenix. At issue is whether Joanna Duka and Breanna Koski, owners of Brush & Nib Studio, should be forced to create wedding invitations for same-sex marriages, which they're morally opposed to. The high court hasn't yet set a date...

The Occupied Territories Bill is fully compliant with EU trade rules, according to new expert legal opinion given to Senator Frances Black. The Bill, which is due to be voted on by the Seanad next Wednesday, aims to prohibit Ireland from trading in goods and services from Israeli-occupied territories by prohibiting “the import and sales of goods, services and natural resources originating in illegal settlements in occupied territories”. Despite government opposition, the Bill has cross-party support from Labour, Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil as well as independent senators. Members within government such as Transport Shane Ross, Minister of State for Disabilities...

This dispute reminds me of the uproar yesterday over the Whitehttps:// House statement on Saudi Arabia: Trump has a point, but his approach to it is unbecoming of the presidency. Wow. After Trump said he was going to file a complaint about the 9th Circuit Court, Chief Justice John Roberts said: “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges…" Per @JoanBiskupic pic.twitter.com/xK2o8GMSI8 — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 21, 2018 That was a reaction to POTUS complaining yesterday after a west coast judge blocked his...

Could China’s ‘social scoring’ experiment which brings new surveillance and supervision to an already restricted society, also lead to further persecution of Christians. Under the slogan, “once untrustworthy, always restricted” China’s planned AI (artificial intelligence) controlled “social credit” system will bring a new depth of intervention into the lives of Chinese citizens, including Christians. The Chinese government pilot schemes, in cities including Beijing and Shanghai, are underpinned by a vast network of advanced surveillance technology which uses face recognition to monitor location and track movement. Individuals’ social “scores” are updated in live CCTV streams as they are going about their...

Experts appointed by President Emmanuel Macron will advise him on Friday to allow the return of thousands of African artworks held in French museums, a radical shift in policy which could put pressure on other former colonial powers. Calls have been growing in Africa for the restitution of their cultural treasures, but French law strictly forbids the government from ceding state property, even in well-documented cases of pillaging. But in a speech in Burkina Faso in November last year, Macron said "Africa's heritage cannot just be in European private collections and museums." He later asked French art historian Benedicte Savoy...

*. God is not male nor female according to The Most Rev Justin Welby * Human language is 'inadequate' to describe the Christian deity - he said * A YouGov survey found 41 per cent of British Christians agreed God 'does not have a human gender' – but most refer to God as maleGod should not be referred to using a gender because 'our father' was not male or female, according to the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Most Rev Justin Welby has warned human language is inadequate to describe the Christian deity and that despite the use of words such...

For President Putin, the Russian Orthodox Church does not have the same significance that the Ukrainian church has for Ukrainian politicians. For Putin, the Orthodox Church is a global, not a national, project. Orthodoxy has always been part of Russian rulers’ global designs, and today’s Kremlin is no exception. The Russian church also serves as a proxy for most Russians’ identification as Russians. The share of those polled who call themselves “Orthodox,” about 75 percent, routinely coincides with the share of the ethnically Russian population of the Russian Federation. “Orthodoxy is a substitute for ethnic identification,” the sociologist Natalia Zorkaya...

GOP Senator Chuck Grassley came to President Trump’s defense on Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked the president for criticizing the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “I think it’s a disgrace when every case gets filed in the 9th Circuit,” Trump said, responding to a California judge’s decision against his administration’s asylum rules. “That’s not law, that’s not what this country stands for. Every case that gets filed in the 9th Circuit, we get beaten and then we end up having to go to the Supreme Court, like the travel ban, and we won.” Roberts responded the next...

Tonight, ABC aired the classic animated Peanuts special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and while many fans tuned in for the warmth of nostalgia to kick off their holiday season, many came away with a less than fuzzy feeling when it came to how one specific character was treated. The special centers around a somewhat impromptu holiday meal that happens when Peppermint Patty invites herself and several others over to Charlie Brown and Sally's house for Thanksgiving despite the fact that they're preparing to go to their grandmother's for the feast. After a little help from Linus, who convinces Charlie...

Amazon employees at five the United Kingdom's largest warehouses are planning to stage rallies and protests on Black Friday to bring attention to their "inhumane conditions," Buzzfeed News reported. The protests are being staged by GMB Union who help negotiate on behalf of Amazon employees, although they aren't officially recognized. Other unions throughout Europe are coordinating similar protests in collaboration with GMB. Workers in Spain, Italy, Poland and Germany are planning to walk off the job on Friday when the internet giant is scheduled to have Black Friday deals. The main distribution centers who are protesting are in Rugeley, Milton...

Warning: If you have not taken mind-altering prescription drugs yet, don’t, because if anyone has a good story, which can even be a total lie about you being a “danger” or “threat” to society in any way, all they need is a sympathetic judge, and then a swat team will be raiding your house in the early morning hours to take your guns. Should you resist, you will be shot to death on the spot, in your own home, even if you’ve never committed a crime, and all your guns are legally obtained. Currently, there is an attempt to scrub...

Obama showed his true self in comments about President Donald John Trump on Monday. It was not pleasant. Unable to articulate a reasoned argument using facts, Obama attacked the president in a manner that if it were the other way around would be deemed racist. Maybe it is. Obama said, “The reason we don't [invest in climate change policies] is because we are still confused, blind, shrouded with hate, anger, racism — mommy issues.” Mommy issues? By all accounts, President Trump adored his immigrant mother and in fact married immigrants on two occasions. He was thrilled to meet Queen Elizabeth II...

Years ago, I framed an old family photograph and put it in a prominent place for Thanksgiving visitors to see. Four of us are elegantly posed by the photographer, taking ourselves oh-so-seriously for the family album. The younger generations gathered around the table to see their parents and grandparents at a younger stage of their lives, which they could scarcely imagine. The portrait -- in black and white, no less -- was made for posterity, not just a fleeting Instagram. Daddy and my brother were solemn in their best dark suits with a white handkerchief in their breast pockets, and...

Investigative journalist Laura Loomer has been permanently suspended from Twitter, she confirmed in a conversation Wednesday evening with Big League Politics. Loomer had more than 200,000 followers on the platform, making her a force to be reckoned with in a medium populated by dullard NPC’s with blue check marks next to their names. Loomer said that she was banned for a tweet she wrote criticizing Sharia law for oppressing women and men around the world.

California raised more than $800 million from selling permits to release greenhouse gases in the latest quarterly auction. Auction results released Wednesday show all available permits were sold through California’s cap-and-trade program. The program requires polluters to obtain permits for each ton of carbon they release.

President Donald Trump has reportedly shelved his ‘deal of the century’ peace plan, at least for now, Palestinian Authority media outlets reported on Thursday. The decision was taken after Ron Dermer, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, reportedly recommended that the White House postpone the publication of the initiative because of the political and security crisis in Israel, according to the Palestinian Authority paper Al-Quds. An unnamed Israeli diplomatic source said Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu "prefers no ‎announcement of the plan whatsoever, especially now, amid the ‎recent developments in the region and the political ‎crisis in Israel." The Trump...

A fifth caravan of Central American migrants was stopped in its tracks yesterday by immigration agents and Federal Police after illegally crossing Mexico’s southern border. A group of more than 300 people, mostly from El Salvador, arrived in the Guatemala border town of Tecún Umán earlier this week and yesterday morning waded across the Suchiate river to begin the long journey through Mexico to the United States border. But the migrants only made it as far as Metapa, a town 18 kilometers north of the border, before they were intercepted by National Immigration Institute (INM) agents and anti-riot police. Senior...

It’s a Trumpian dream come true in TJ: mobs seeking to attack migrants as they arrive seeking asylum. With passions inflamed by –at best– hyperbolic claims made on social media, anti-migrant protests led by various right wing groups have been taking place as elements of the caravan demonized by the U.S. President and his cohorts have been arriving in Tijuana. One Facebook post claimed Hondurans tortured and killed a dog. Another claimed LGBTQ migrants were seeking molest children. The first group to arrive was about 400 refugees, mostly from Honduras. Initially they staying in Playas de Tijuana, on the border...

FULL TITLE: Hillary Clinton: Europe 'needs to get a handle on migration' in order to halt rise of rightwing populists ----- Hillary Clinton has issued frank advice to European leaders: If you want to stop the rise of rightwing populists then get a handle on your immigration crisis. Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, said during an interview with The Guardian that the one million migrants and refugees that have flooded into the European Union since 2015 have thrust immigration into the spotlight and fueled the rise of hardline leaders around the globe. And while she praised German chancellor Angela...