Free Republic

The Mars 2020 rover is set to land in Jezero Crater, which scientists estimate was once filled with water. Photo by NASA/MRO ================================================================= May 28 (UPI) -- A new photo captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and shared online this week features the landing site for the space agency's Mars 2020 mission. The Mars 2020 rover, scheduled to launch next year, is expected to land in the Jezero Crater, located in a region of Mars known as the Syrtis Major quadrangle. The crater is thought to have once been filled with water, and its watery history is visible in the...

A four-centuries-old Sikh heritage shrine in Pakistan was partially destroyed by locals and civic authorities this week. The Guru Nanak Palace, called Mahalan by the locals, stood near Bathanwala village in Pakistan’s Narowal city, only 100km from the Lahore. Pakistan’s leading newspaper The Dawn reports that the demolishing party pulled down parts of the structure, sold off its windows, doors and ventilators. The Guru Nanak Palace is said to be four centuries old. The structure stood four storeys tall and was made brick, sand, clay and limestone. It had had 16 rooms, the walls of which were adorned with pictures...

Russia’s state nuclear agency has launched a new icebreaker, Ural, as part of the country’s plans to dominate the newly warming Arctic region. The nuclear-powered ship is one of three new icebreakers commissioned by Moscow to navigate waters choked with sea ice and smash its way through if necessary. The ship, Ural, is the third in the class of three Project 22220 icebreakers. The ship was constructed by the Baltic Shipyards of St. Petersburg and will be handed over to Rosatom, Russia’s nuclear agency, in 2021. The Project 22220 ships are 173 meters (567 feet) long and 34 meters (111...

"What Robert Mueller basically did was return an impeachment referral. Now it is up to Congress to hold this president accountable. We need to start impeachment proceedings. It's our constitutional obligation."

New York Times reporter Nick Confessore jabbed at Trump critics Tuesday over their claims that White House officials bucking subpoenas might herald the end of democracy. In just two tweets, Confessore pointed out that there is precedent for a showdown between a White House and an oppositional Congress over who does and who doesn’t comply with the inevitable subpoenas. “Another crazy NYT story here about the White House ignoring a congressional subpoena, like it’s a choice or something,” Confessore tweeted, along with a NYT story about an Obama official refusing to comply with a subpoena. He followed that with a...

A shrewd primary pander, even though the odds of such a law passing Congress *and* surviving Supreme Court scrutiny are teeny tiny — for now. But within 10 years? If Democrats flip the Senate and President Harris gets to replace a few conservatives on the Court with liberals? Sure, this might fly. Put nothing past them, especially when it comes to abortion. Her proposal will target states with a history of passing abortion laws that were later struck down for contradicting Roe, not any state with a pro-life majority. But it amounts to roughly the same thing: Virtually any attempt...

About two-thirds of the way through the 1964 movie Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, a larval Mothra convinces a bickering Godzilla and Rodan to help her to face the movie’s titular dragon. It’s a moment fans of Toho’s giant monster movies long waited for. That it exists in a movie where a princess is possessed by the spirit of a Venusian emissary and is the target of Yakuza attacks makes the monster team-up almost secondary. In contrast, Michael Dougherty’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters will never once let you forget the reason you’re in the theater. Heeding the words of Dr....

John Cleese has criticised Londoners for voting to remain in the European Union. The 79-year-old Fawlty Towers star - who revealed last year he was moving to the Caribbean because he is “disappointed’ with Britain - accused the capital city of not being English. Cleese tweeted: “Some years ago I opined that London was not really an English city any more. Since then, virtually all my friends from abroad have confirmed my observation So there must be some truth in it...

From the volume of bellicose rhetoric in China’s state media, you might think Beijing is digging in for a bloody fight to the finish in its trade conflict with the United States. But after the US administration this month jacked up import tariffs on US$200 billion of Chinese goods to 25 per cent, and threatened equal tariffs on another US$340 billion, the Chinese government faces a problem. The policy responses it is considering are all either impossible, impractical, ineffective or expensive. This leaves Beijing in an unenviable position. The usual trade-war response to the imposition of tariffs is to impose...

Democrats are worried that if he doesn’t win the party’s presidential nomination himself, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) will be a thorn in the side of the Democratic nominee for president — especially if it’s former Vice President Joe Biden. The Democrats worry that Sanders won’t be a team player if he loses, and that he and his supporters will be particularly problematic if Biden or another rival seen as out of step with progressives comes out on top. “I think Bernie will do everything in his power to elevate himself by pushing others down,” said one aide to a Democratic...

Speaking from the Department of Justice Wednesday morning, Special Counsel Robert Mueller said he is retiring and returning to private life. The Special Counsel's office on this case is officially closed and up until this point, Mueller has been a DOJ employee. "I'm speaking out today because our investigation is complete," Mueller said. "We are formally closing the Special Counsel's office and I am resigning from the Department of Justice to return private life." For weeks the Special Counsel's 400-page report on the investigation into the 2016 election has been questioned, with Democrats and Republicans calling on Mueller to testify...

A British court is ordering Boris Johnson to face accusations that while holding public office, he lied in order to sway voter opinion on Brexit. The case was brought by a "private prosecutor" who says Johnson abused the public's trust while holding official posts. Johnson has quickly emerged as a front-runner to replace Prime Minister Theresa May, who is resigning next month. But with today's ruling, he must also face charges of misconduct in public office.

If pro-lifers are going to oppose the killing of unborn children, we are told over and over again, then we must be willing to take care of these children and their families even after they’re born. And since we don’t, it’s widely assumed and repeated, we have no right to oppose abortion. As if this line of argument wasn’t repeated enough, it’s become especially popular in the wake of the new anti-abortion laws in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, and now Missouri. For example, a recent political cartoon by Nick Anderson depicts pro-lifers gazing in awe at a pregnant woman’s belly and...

Good Morning/Afternoon,MEGAWELCOMEToHumpDayAndRestOfTheShortWeekDITTOS!

VIDEO Joe Biden couldn't control himself at the May 28 Houston Town Hall. He did the last thing he should be doing: groping yet another girl. This brought a rather harsh response, as you will see, from his Democrat primary opponent, Mike Gravel.

May 28, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Recent Pro-Life Laws Are Encouraging, but Is There Danger Ahead? There is a “sorting” going on among the states of our nation on the issue of abortion. States are lining up on one side or the other as they did long ago around the Mason-Dixon line on the issue of slavery. In those times it was a divide that was largely between northern and southern states; today the split is between red (conservative) and blue (liberal) states. The pro-abortion position has steadily become more radical: recent demands are for abortion with essentially no...

“If we had confidence the president DID NOT commit a crime we would have said so. We did not however make a determination if the president did commit a crime.”

Toppling Ten Fake Facts That Prop Evolution BY BRIAN THOMAS, PH.D.* TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 2019 ICR founder Dr. Henry Morris wrote in 2003, “Practically all the media strongly promote evolution and...the general public has been taught only evolution in public schools and secular colleges all their lives.” Yet, according to yearly polls, about half of Americans still distrust at least some evolutionary ideas. Dr. Morris suggested these people may recognize the evidence that counters big-picture evolution. I’ve found that by asking thought-provoking questions about evolutionary arguments, I can help friends recognize enough weaknesses for them to think more about creation...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by John Adams. Click image (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle.John Adams was the 2nd President of the United States, but more importantly, he was one of the instigators and progenitors, along with Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, who provided the initial spark to create the U.S. Constitution. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidential spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter...

What is "mind-boggling"? This good news from "Jeopardy!" host Alex Trebek. The game show star says he is "near remission" less than three months after announcing his diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer — an illness with a survival rate of only 9 percent. Trebek called his positive response to chemotherapy "kind of mind-boggling." "The doctors said they hadn't seen this kind of positive result in their memory," Trebek told People, adding that some of his tumors "have already shrunk by more than 50 percent." Trebek, 79, says the progress brought him "tears of joy." He still has several more...