Free Republic

Google provides a significant percentage of the incoming traffic which many news sites get, but the algorithms that determine which sites get that traffic are proprietary and not widely understood. Academics at Northwestern University decided to attempt to quantify how those algorithms work by looking closely at search results for news related queries for one specific month, November 2017. The researchers identified 200 search terms related to hard news events and then ran those terms once for each minute of each day. What they found after collecting all of this data is that Google’s top story search results are concentrated...

Louis Farrakhan spoke at a Catholic church Thursday night in the wake of his Facebook ban and denied that he hates Jewish people while ranting about “Satanic Jews.” The Nation of Islam leader spoke at the controversial St. Sabina Church on Chicago’s South Side, where he claimed to not be a preacher of hatred while castigating those who he said did not follow “God’s word.”“I’m here to separate the good Jews from the Satanic Jews,” Farrakhan said alongside radical activist Rev. Michael Pfleger, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.“I have not said one word of hate. I do not hate Jewish...

The federal government recorded a $160.3 billion surplus in April as revenues for the month jumped to an all-time high. But even with a flood of tax receipts, the deficit so far this year is running 37.7% higher than a year ago. The Treasury Department reported Friday that the deficit for the first seven months of the budget year that began Oct. 1 totals $530.9 billion, compared to a deficit of $385.5 billion for the same period a year ago. The Trump administration projected in March that this year’s deficit will hit $1.1 trillion, up from last year’s deficit of...

A new reading of an ancient tablet that is hard to decipher suggests that the biblical King Balak may have been a real historical person, suggests a new study. But the study’s researchers recommend that people take this finding “with due caution,” and other biblical experts agree.”As the authors admit, this proposal is very tentative,” said Ronald Hendel, a professor of the Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who was not involved in the study. The tablet in question is known as the Mesha Stele, an inscribed 3-foot-tall (1 meter) black basalt stone that dates...

Layne Chesney, the teenager who was badly burned in a New Year's Eve bonfire, has died. She was 15. Chesney was burned over the majority of her body. She had been recovering in a hospital since the incident on Dec. 31, 2017. According to a post on her mother's Facebook page, Layne died today. "Layne was called home today by our creator. She fought a hard battle right until the end- never wanting to quit- because quitting was not in her nature..." says the post, which was published just before 12:30 p.m. "We are heart broken, but remain always grateful...

The Hennepin County Attorney's Office confirms prosecutors will seek the maximum sentence for the suspect alleged to have thrown a 5-year-old boy over the railing of a third-story balcony at Mall of America last month. Emmanuel Deshawn Aranda has been charged with first-degree premeditated attempt to commit murder. On Thursday, the county attorney's office confirmed they have filed an upward departure in the case, meaning they will seek the maximum sentence of 20 years (240 months) in prison. Last week, a family spokesperson said the boy is now out of critical condition, and is alert and conscious. The family hopes...

Ben Shapiro admitted on Friday he wasn’t prepared for a recent interview with BBC host Andrew Neil that resulted in the conservative star abruptly ending the segment. “[Andrew Neil] DESTROYS Ben Shapiro! So that's what that feels like ;) Broke my own rule, and wasn't properly prepared. I've addressed every single issue he raised before; see below. Still, it's Neil 1, Shapiro 0,” Shapiro tweeted with a link to a Daily Wire article he penned detailing “all the dumb stuff” he’s ever done.

Three Senate committee chairmen demanded answers this week about the role played by the Justice and State departments in furthering the goals of Christopher Steele, the former British spy who compiled the discredited anti-Trump dossier that helped launch the special counsel’s investigation. Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham fired off inquiries to the Justice Department inspector general and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, while Sens. Charles E. Grassley and Ron Johnson, heads of the Finance and Homeland Security committees, respectively, sent their own letter to Mr. Pompeo and FBI Director Christopher Wray on Thursday. They were all reacting to news that...

AUSTRALIA: Melbourne family forced to flee after becoming targets of African Muslim migrant crime gangs “We’re sick of feeling unsafe in our own home,” says young Melbourne family that has decided to flee their increasingly dangerous neighborhood and jump ship to the next state over, after repeatedly being targeted by African Muslim (mainly Sudanese) migrant crime gangs implicated in a wave of home break-ins, car thefts, store burglaries, and assaults. Daily Mail (h/t Sara S) The Beaton family, from Hopper’s Crossing in Melbourne‘s west, have been the victims of multiple home invasions, car break-ins and burglaries in the past year...

Conservative host Ben Shapiro appeared on the BBC, Thursday, in a contentious interview and attacked the bias and agenda of the network. After host Andrew Neil derided Georgia’s new pro-life abortion bill as “extreme,” “hard policies” that would “take us back to the dark ages,” Shapiro unloaded, “Okay, so you’re supposedly an objective calling polices with which you disagree barbaric.” Neil huffed that “I’m not taking a view” of abortion. Shapiro shot back: “Sir, you just suggested that the pro-life position is inherently brutal and terrible. So, I’m asking you, as an objective journalist, would you ask the same question...

A judiciary panel at the University of Georgia has concluded that a teaching assistant and graduate student who came under scrutiny last January for making racially charged statements did not violate the student code of conduct. The graduate student had been accused of purposefully omitting a trespassing arrest from his UGA admissions application, among other allegations. University of Georgia (UGA) TA and graduate student, Irami Osei-Frimpong, was cleared by the panel on Tuesday after facing expulsion over allegations that he had failed to list his previous attendance the University of Chicago, as well as that he had purposefully omitted a...

Former Vice President Joe Biden continues to make false claims about President Donald Trump’s massive tax cut, saying Thursday it had not helped average Americans. “The God awful tax cut has not helped anybody who’s real, anybody out there breaking their neck trying to figure out how to make the next meal,” Biden said at a fundraiser. Since announcing his presidential campaign, Biden has continually attacked Trump’s tax cut. “There’s a $2 trillion tax cut last year. Did you feel it? Did you get anything from it? Of course not. Of course not,” he said during his April campaign launch...

The Department of Housing and Urban Development proposed a new rule Friday to make people seeking housing assistance have to prove their legal status, in a move that could oust thousands of illegal immigrants. Secretary Ben Carson said the rule would bring policy into compliance with the law, which generally tries to restrict public benefits to citizens and legal residents. “There is an affordable housing crisis in this country, and we need to make certain our scarce public resources help those who are legally entitled to it,” Mr. Carson said. When the Washington Times broke the news of the rule...

Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bennet is dodging responsibility for his role in provoking a student walkout at a vigil for victims of the STEM School Highlands Ranch shooting. Bennet, who has represented Colorado in the Senate since 2009, responded to criticism that a vigil organized by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence on Wednesday was unduly politicized. The vigil drew national attention after a mass of students walked out in protest because numerous speakers, including Bennett, chose to argue in favor of gun-control while honoring the victims. "Last night should have been about Kendrick Castillo and the STEM School...

Vatican II Springtime: the Collapse of Female Religious in Latin America The number of female professed religious in Latin America: (1) 1980: 120,016 (89,936 in South, 30,080 in Central America and Mexico) Note: In 1980, the population of Latin America was of approximately 364,000,000,including approximately 92,000,000 in Central America and Mexico (2) 2016: 102,953 (69,552 in South, 33,401 in Central America) Note: In 2016, the population of Latin America was of approximately 640,000,000; including approximately 175,000,000 in Central America and Mexico, where a slight increase of female religious was not at all proportional to the demographic expansion. (3) The...

Former top FBI lawyer James Baker offered a robust defense Friday of the bureau’s investigation into President Trump and his 2016 campaign, taking aim at Trump’s allegation that the inquiry was tantamount to a coup and describing how he sought to ensure agents’ work was on solid legal footing. “There was no attempted coup,” Baker said bluntly. “There was no way in hell that I was going to allow some coup or coup attempt to take place on my watch.” The comments, which came at a taping of the Lawfare podcast in front of a live audience at the Brookings...

Sri Lanka MP Says Gov Failed to Stop Attacking Because of Muslim Politicians After the Sri Lanka massacre of Christians there has unfortunately been far too little discussion about why the massacre was allowed to happen. And the Sri Lankan government quickly shut down social media, to cheers from the government party in the United States, to avoid any discussion about it. We know that the Sri Lankan government had an early warning about the attack. We know that they knew these Islamic groups were a threat. Why was nothing done? One Sri Lankan MP has an answer. MP Venerable...

• Slap a new tax on banks with more than $50 million in assets. Kamala Harris especially likes this one, which would bring in an estimated $61 billion. Banks are big and bad, unless you want or have home mortgage. • Increase by 88 percent the amount of income Americans must pay Social Security taxes on from the current $132,900 up to at least a quarter-million. Maybe more. Yeh, sure, some middle-class families will be caught in the cash net. But see, silly person who doesn’t understand how government works, they’re spending all the current Social Security tax income already....

The 18-year-old accused in the fatal shooting at a Colorado charter school shared social media posts that were critical of President Trump and Christians, but heaped praise on former President Barack Obama. On what appears to be his Facebook page, Devon Erickson gave no indication of the carnage to come at STEM School Highlands Ranch. The shaggy-haired teen filled his page with posts about the Denver Broncos, playing paintball and appearing in community plays like “Les Miserables” and “Legally Blonde The Musical.”

[Catholic Caucus] Medieval Scholar: Francis Is Worse Than Previous Heretical Popes A comparison between Francis and previous heretical popes - such as Liberius, Honorius and John XXII - “doesn't stand up at all,” Claudio Pierantoni, professor for Medieval Philosophy at the University of Chile, told LifeSiteNews.com (May 7). Pierantoni signed the April Open Letter accusing Pope Francis of heresy. He explains that, • Liberius (+366) was forced by the emperor to sign a false Trinitarian formula when the theological terminology wasn't yet fully defined; • Honorius (+638) questioned a single teaching about Christ's two wills, also because of a terminological...