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‘Fraud’: 3rd German bishop rejects ‘synodal path’ to revisit sexual morality, celibacy May 24, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – In March 2019, after a delay of thirty minutes, an obviously exhausted Cardinal Reinhard Marx announced to the world that the German bishops, in the final minutes of their spring assembly, had “unanimously” approved a “synodal path” for revisiting the Church's teaching on sexual morality, clerical power, and celibacy. However, as LifeSiteNews then was already able to find out, that alleged unanimity was only due to the fact that several bishops had abstained from voting. One of them, as it turns out, was...

A US Representative is urging his colleagues to join him in implementing a nationwide US ban on cryptocurrencies. This cryptocurrency-averse stance comes as the Representative fears that cryptocurrency could replace the US dollar if not immediately curbed. Sherman: ”Cryptocurrencies are only useful for criminals” Specifically, the Congressman in question is the notoriously Bitcoin-averse California Democrat Representative Brad Sherman (D). He made these recent comments during a meeting of the House Financial Services Committee on May 9th. Sherman argued that a US ban on cryptocurrencies is necessary in order to counter, what Sherman claims, are cryptocurrency-specific hazardous effects. Moreover, Sherman made...

On the eve of Memorial Day, President Trump is weighing pardons for military service members and contractors charged with war crimes. It’s hard to imagine a worse string of offenses: murdering Afghan and Iraqi unarmed civilians, killing prisoners and desecrating a battlefield corpse.

Chicago developer Sterling Bay is getting ready to start construction on 30 apartments, and the groundbreaking will be held in an unusual place: within the walls of a new factory on Chicago’s Southwest Side. Workers in the South Lawndale plant next week will begin making modules that will be assembled this summer into 10 three-flat apartment buildings on vacant lots on Chicago’s Near West Side. They’ll frame out the structures and add drywall, plumbing, electrical, and even countertops and cabinets before pushing them onto trucks for delivery to the sites. If all goes according to plan, the first three-flat will...

The Swedish government is weighing whether it should ban its historical imagery including rune script and Norse symbols, since they may be viewed as “hate” symbols. This isn’t an isolated incident, either. In the United States, historical statues and imagery across the country—from war memorials, to Civil War leaders, to paintings of George Washington—have been targeted for destruction by individuals who find them offensive. A new history is being shown to youth in the United States, and in many other countries, which criticizes their traditional cultures, curses their founding stories, and condemns their founders. They are being taught to hate...

“IT’S CHEATING.” That’s the response you’ll hear from self-proclaimed music purists talking about technological innovation in song creation. Sampling, synthesizers, drum machines, Auto-Tune—all have been derided as lazy ways to make chart-topping hits because they take away the human element. (With apologies to Vanilla Ice, Gary Numan, Prince, and T-Pain.) The new argument among fans and musicians will be about the use of artificial intelligence in songwriting. According to several estimates, in the next decade, between 20% and 30% of the top 40 singles will be written partially or totally with machine-learning software. Today, recording pros can use A.I.-powered programs...

The call came in 2014, shortly after Easter. Four years earlier, Catrin Almako’s family had applied for special visas to the United States. Catrin’s husband, Evan, had cut hair for the U.S. military during the early years of its occupation of Iraq. Now a staffer from the International Organization for Migration was on the phone. “Are you ready?” he asked. The family had been assigned a departure date just a few weeks away. “I was so confused,” Catrin told me recently. During the years they had waited for their visas, Catrin and Evan had debated whether they actually wanted to...

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday put on hold court orders in Michigan and Ohio to redraw electoral maps that federal judges found were too partisan. The high court action comes as it is weighing cases from Maryland and North Carolina that raise similar issues and could affect redistricting everywhere. The brief orders from the justices do not telegraph the outcome of the redistricting cases that are expected to be decided by the end of June. They more likely reflect that whatever the court decides probably will affect rulings that struck down legislative and congressional districts in Michigan and...

A man accused of swindling $80,000 from a Georgia woman he met online has been arrested in Tennessee -- and is wanted in other states for similar scams, authorities said. John Martin Hill, 35, connected with the woman from Alpharetta, Georgia, on Match.com in late March, the Gwinnett County Police Department said Wednesday. Hill took the woman out on a date the same day they met, and the two agreed to get married within a week of meeting, authorities said. He told the woman he's a millionaire, and they decided to invest in a love nest. The woman gave her...

Remember, do not kill a mockingbird. When a whistleblower is singing for America’s protection, we embrace and celebrate him. Inventor and software designer Dennis Montgomery, a CIA/DOD/DHS/NSA/FBI contractor-turned-whistleblower, alerted FBI Director James Comey’s office in 2015 that President Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan and Obama’s Director of National Intelligence James Clapper had turned the super-surveillance system that Montgomery designed for foreign surveillance, known as THE HAMMER, into a domestic surveillance system. Montgomery became alarmed when Obama and his intelligence chiefs Brennan and Clapper turned the super-surveillance system against the American people. Montgomery asserts that Obama, Brennan, and Clapper used THE...

A federal judge on Friday blocked a Mississippi law that banned abortions once a fetus's heartbeat is detected, as early as six weeks into pregnancy. Judge Carlton Reeves, an Obama appointee, wrote that the law "threatens immediate harm to women’s rights, especially considering most women do not seek abortion services until after 6 weeks."

Melania Trump looked summer-ready for Memorial Day weekend as she jetted out from Washington, D.C., to Japan alongside husband President Donald Trump today. The 49-year-old sported a postcard-print, long-sleeved silk shirtdress from Calvin Klein, which she cinched in at the waist with a narrow brown belt. The dress was initially priced at $3,900 but is currently available on Matchesfashion.com for 50% off ($1,950). For footwear, the first lady went with soaring navy Christian Louboutin’s Agneska pumps. The shoes boast an almond toe, low vamp and curvy counter that shows off the sides of the foot, with a mid-heel and a...

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s order allowing Attorney General William P. Barr to declassify any intelligence that sparked the opening of the Russia investigation sets up a potential confrontation with the C.I.A., effectively stripping the agency of its most critical power: choosing which secrets it shares and which ones remain hidden. On Friday, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said the agencies under his purview would give the Justice Department “all of the appropriate information” for its review. But Mr. Coats, a seasoned politician, also included a not-so-subtle warning that his agency’s secrets must be protected. snip ...intelligence officials believe...

How intent are Democratic voters on ousting President Trump? A fresh poll reveals that nearly 58% of them would prefer a 2020 nominee they disagree with on most issues, as long as they believe he or she would likely defeat Trump, with just 34% backing a contender they tend to agree with most of the time but who appears likely to lose. That might read like typical voter concerns about electability.But Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth poll, said his national survey of registered Democrats exposed a pragmatism among rank-and-file voters on the Left that is the product of an...

The official Voice of America radio has fired two more reporters for their role in a broadcast interview with a dissident Chinese billionaire amid charges radio executives caved to Chinese government pressure in canceling the broadcast midstream. The Guo interview had been scheduled for three hours but was cut off after an hour and 19 minutes following protests from the Chinese Embassy in Washington to VOA and the State Department. The VOA did not respond to an email request for comment on the latest firings.

The end of the Mueller melodrama has marked the beginning of real fear in Washington. The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative was always implausible. One, the Washington swamp of fixers such as Paul Manafort and John and Tony Podesta was mostly bipartisan and predated Trump. Two, the Trump administration’s Russia policies were far tougher on Vladimir Putin than were those of Barack Obama. Trump confronted Russia in Syria, upped defense spending, increased sanctions, and kept the price of oil down through massive new U.S. energy production. He did not engineer a Russian “reset” or get caught on a hot mic offering...

An upstate New York man was busted for driving with a crudely drawn fake vehicle safety inspection sticker, prompting local authorities to mock the creation. Cops spotted the phony red sticker when they pulled over 35-year-old Manuel Muniz on Monday morning in Amsterdam, NY, according to WRGB. The sticker, which had the words “New York State Safety Emissions Certificate,” tried to mimic the real deal, with a hole-punched January 2020 expiration date and a bar code drawn in black marker.Muniz was slapped with a violation for driving an unregistered vehicle.

I meant to post something last night, really, but we had a crisis involving the home cooling system suddenly not working and endangering my 89-year old mother (who has a history of heart failure). Thank G-d it's fixed now, but I realize just a prolonged power outage at the wrong time of year could be fatal. Anyway, yes, today is my 20th anniversary as Free Republic's you-know-what in the punch bowl, as well as its most grumpy and offensive member. I first signed up to defend Israel from the freaking NAZIS who were infesting the site back then. Eventually I...

A Thursday press conference with Donald Trump turned into an impromptu hearing, as questions from the media drifted to Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's claims that the president threw a "temper tantrum" when he called off a Wednesday meeting.Several top aides stepped forward during the presser to recount their own version of the events, with all of them supporting President Trump's version that he was "calm" while refuting claims by Pelosi and House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that he was "yelling," "banging his fist on the table" or "throwing a temper tantrum."