Free Republic

Australia’s re-elected Prime Minister Scott Morrison once brandished a lump of coal in parliament, crying, “This is coal — don’t be afraid!” His surprise win in what some dubbed the “climate election” may have stunned the country, but voters should know what comes next in energy policy — big coal. Battered by extended droughts, damaging floods, and more bush fires, Australian voters had been expected to hand a mandate to the Labor Party to pursue its ambitious targets for renewable energy and carbon emissions cuts. Instead, Saturday’s election left them on course to re-elect the Liberal-led center-right coalition headed by...

Pete Buttigieg received a standing ovation from the crowd at the end of his Fox News town hall in Claremont, New Hampshire Sunday night. The South Bend, Indiana Mayor and 2020 presidential candidate drew raucous applause throughout his town hall with Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, particularly when he dismissed President Donald Trump’s tweets: “I don’t care,” Buttigieg remarked when asked how he felt about the missives. ... Buttigieg spent the town hall deftly handling Wallace’s pointed questions on a host of issues from fiscal policy to late term abortions. The South Bend, Indiana mayor also addressed an elephant in...

’m an unlikely person to be supporting Alabama’s new pro-life law. I was pro-choice for many years, and as a young woman I had not one, but two abortions. Both of my abortions would have been illegal under Alabama’s new law passed last week. The law bans abortion at all stages and allows an exception only to save the life of the mother. Other states like Missouri and Louisiana aren’t far behind Alabama—and I applaud them all. I’ve come a long way to get to this position. As I mentioned, I was once pro-choice. In 1972, I actually joined a...

If you missed the live broadcast on Fox News Channel, you can catch it here.

“With Gen Z … we have to show them rather than just talking about it,” said Michelle Jordan, an assistant vice president of HR development and college recruiting. Move over, millennials. The next generation is just starting to make its way into the workforce, and employers are taking note. The first wave of Generation Z, those born after 1996 and more than 60 million strong, will start moving from college to career this year. These newest workers come from the first post-Sept. 11 generation, one that’s grown up with social media and smartphones, watched their parents go through the housing...

Scott Morrison dragged the Liberals to an election win that proved the bookies wrong and disproved seven myths promoted by the media pack: SACKING LEADERS IS BAD Commentators claimed the Liberals made themselves unelectable by sacking prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Wrong. He’d lost every poll in nearly two years, and could never have won as Morrison did. VOTERS HATE NEGATIVE POLITICS Morrison campaigned harder against Labor policies than he fought for his own. It worked. Voters got scared about Labor’s huge tax grab, particularly on negative gearing and franking credits. Scare campaigns work against scary policies. ..... KEEP CHRISTIANITY OUT...

More than $20 billion has been added to the value of Australia’s big four banks today as they enjoy a stunning rally on the share market in the wake of the Coalition’s election victory. The stockmarket has rallied this morning, with the banks and health insurers leading the way following Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s surprise win. In early trade today, the key ASX 200 index jumped 1.3 per cent — climbing above 6400 points for the first time since 2007, to a fresh 11-year high. The index broadly tracks the nation’s 200 biggest listed companies. The Coalition’s unexpected win has...

There is a moderate risk for severe weather in parts of Oklahoma and Texas, including Oklahoma City, on Monday. There is a chance for violent, long-track tornadoes, destructive winds and very large hail in this region. Additionally, damaging winds, large hail and strong tornadoes will be possible across parts of the Southern Plains from Midland, Texas, to Wichita, Kansas.

I haven't done one of this in awhile. It was about a seven hour project and I must admit that I cried while doing it. The slaughter of innocent babies must end. Please share it on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram if you have those accounts. And send it to email friends. PROTECTING THE INNOCENT IN THE WOMB

Which came first, the pigs or the pioneers? In Barbados, that has been a historical mystery ever since the first English colonists arrived on the island in 1627 to encounter what they thought was a herd of wild European pigs. A recent discovery by an SFU archaeologist is shedding new light on the matter. Christina Giovas uncovered the jaw bone of a peccary, a South American mammal that resembles a wild pig, while researching a larger project on prehistoric animal introductions in the Caribbean... Giovas and collaborators George Kamenov and John Krigbaum of the University of Florida radiocarbon-dated the bone...

MARACAIBO/PUNTO FIJO (Reuters) - Soldiers oversaw rationing of gasoline at service stations in several parts of Venezuela on Sunday as worsening fuel shortages forced angry drivers to wait for hours to fill their tanks, prompting protests in some areas. Venezuela, whose economy is reeling from a five-year recession amid a prolonged political crisis, saw long lines of vehicles appear at services stations in several regions this week after a shutdown at the OPEC nation’s second-largest refinery. Shortages have been exacerbated by tough U.S. sanctions on Venezuelan state oil firm Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) in January, which have slashed crude...

A group of heavily-armed men — riding on a motorcycle and in three cars — went on a shooting rampage at a bar in Brazil, killing at least 11 people on Sunday, according to officials. Seven men were said to have carried out the 4 p.m. attack, according to Brazilian news outlet G1, which cited Pará officials. Six women and five men were killed. Officials said almost all of them were shot in the head. ... The bar that they targeted is in a high crime area, which had to get police reinforcements earlier this year, according to G1.

For all the obvious reasons, people who come to Italy often find it a difficult place to leave. Now, some are finding they don't have to go home – they already are home. Sandy and Phil Ferretti, from Long Island via Florida, run the Relais Ortaglia B&B in Tuscany. Phil is the great-grandson of an Italian immigrant. "Who would have thought we would have ended up in Tuscany, but we're here!" said Sandra. Ferretti discovered a connection to Italy that's deeper than he thought; he may actually be Italian, because of what's known as the Law of Blood.

First Asian country to legally recognize gay partnershipsTAIPEI, Taiwan (ChurchMilitant.com) - Taiwan has legalized same-sex marriages, making it the first Asian country to do so. Sparked by a 2017 Constitutional Court resolution that determined Taiwan's civil code defining marriage as specifically between one man and one woman was unconstitutional, the court gave the legislature two years to draft a legally binding change that recognized same-sex unions. As a result, the legislature drafted three potential replacement codes, eventually settling on the draft considered the least stringent by a 66-23 vote on May 17. The draft passed was the only one to...

The Moscow city administration had refused to allow representatives of the LGBT community to hold a gay pride parade on May 25 and three rallies on May 25, 26, and 27, LGBT activist Nikolai Alexeev told Interfax. The estimated number of would-be participants in the procession is 300. “The Moscow authorities just forbade the holding of a Moscow gay parade for the 14th year in a row, and also three LGBT meetings, including with a call for the execution of the decree of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of ‘Alexeev and others vs. Russia’ on...

What's going on? Why the change to your format and user posts? Don't like it. Keep it simple. Don't want to read posts that are repeated and have a huge number of comments. zzzzz

Catholics are protecting Shengdiliang Shrine in Xiwanzi Diocese in China's Hebei province. (ucanews.com photo)Chinese Catholics prevented local authorities from dismantling holy statues at a shrine in Hebei province, but they are worried about another round of persecution by communist officials after a church in the northern province had its cross removed. When the faithful heard that authorities were planning to demolish statues at Shengdiliang Shrine in Xiwanzi Diocese on May 13, they started to sleep overnight at the site to protect them. The shrine has statues of Jesus the Good Shepherd, Lazarist Bishop Joseph-Martial Mouly (the first bishop of Xiwanzi)...

Insurgent Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg acknowledged at the Fox News town hall in Claremont, New Hampshire Sunday evening that he needs to do more to appeal to "black and brown" voters, even as he confidently parried a series of policy questions -- and, on several occasions, went directly after President Trump. Buttigieg argued that minority voters are "skeptical of people who seem to come out of nowhere," after moderator Chris Wallace noted that he was polling at one-percent support among nonwhite primary voters according to a recent Fox News poll. On fiscal policy, Buttigieg pushed for four distinct tax...

If Bernie Sanders were an MLB general manager, he would probably be the type who chases bargain players rather than signing free agents to mega contracts. The presidential contender posted a video on his Twitter account Saturday showing him at a campaign stop talking about raising pay for school teachers. And he used baseball salaries to make his point. "If we are a nation that can provide contracts to baseball players for hundreds of millions of dollars, don't tell me we cannot pay teachers in this country the kinds of wages and salaries they deserve," Sanders said.

ROME - It’s become a staple of Francis’s pontificate to use words and events to indirectly send a message to nationalists and populists that when it comes to immigration the Church has no intention of backing down. Whether Francis is criticizing those who prefer to build walls instead of bridges, carrying immigrant children on the popemobile after his audience, or meeting with evicted Roma people his point is clear, and a multicultural event in Rome this Sunday might be the latest message the pontiff sends to the anti-immigration camp. “The Festival of Peoples wishes to offer an important witness of...