Free Republic

My imaginary 4 year old just came to me and said, “Mommy, if gun restrictions stop gun violence, why is the gun crime rate in Chicago so high?” I honestly have no idea how to respond.

* Church of England is planning to hire 'sports ministers' to engage more people * 'Muscular Christianity' was popular in the 19th but had links to imperialism * The Church is set to spend £2million in Nofolk setting up ten sports churchesThe Church of England is to resurrect the Victorian idea of ‘muscular Christianity’ and use sport as a way of filling its pews. It yesterday announced plans to hire ‘sports ministers’ and fund sports clubs ‘to reach people who may never have been to church before’. ‘Muscular Christianity’ was popular in the 19th century and holds that physical exercise...

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough issued a damning warning to donors to President Trump’s reelection campaign on Monday morning following a bloody weekend of mass shootings that left nearly 30 people dead. “For those of you funding Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, you may want to take note: Because you keep writing checks to this president, it’s on you,” he said. “It really is, it’s all on you because you are funding this white supremacist campaign, CEOs. You really are. Business people, millionaires and billionaires, it’s your money that is funding this white supremacy because you won’t tell him to stop.”...

Former president Barack Obama on Monday called on the country to reject words "coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders" that feed fear and hatred and normalize racist sentiments, a tacit rebuke of President Donald Trump in the wake of the Texas and Ohio shootings.

The archbishop of Chicago says “hateful rhetoric” from some of the country’s leaders is partly to blame for mass shootings. Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich issued a statement Sunday in the wake of deadly mass shootings in Ohio and Texas that claimed at least 29 lives in less than 24 hours and wounded numerous others. Cupich didn't name anyone specifically, but says the public needs to hold leaders accountable "who fuel these violent acts by dividing humanity through hateful rhetoric." He says "elected officials who have failed to condemn hate speech" must be stopped.

David Whitlock has not showered or bathed for 15 years, yet he does not have body odour. “It was kind of strange for the first few months, but after that I stopped missing it,” he says. “If I get a specific part of my body dirty, then I’ll wash that specific part” – but never with soap. As well as germs, soap gets rid of the skin’s protective oils and alters its pH level. Although Whitlock appreciated gaining an extra 15 minutes a day from soap-dodging, his primary motivation was to encourage friendly microbes to live on him in symbiotic...

If some fifty years ago you happened to find yourself in one of the small villages in the Dutch countryside, you could hardly get lost. The only thing you needed to do was look up, find the church tower and you would always find your way back. Because the church - literally - was at the heart of the village. In the rural communities the church was a central point of life as well. Sunday Mass, the Catholic feast days, weddings and funerals: The church was the place where everyone met each other and shared the day’s news. The parish...

St. Seraphim of Sarov is one of the most beloved saints of not only the Russian Church, but the entire Orthodox Church. His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia traveled to the Sarov and Diveyevo Monasteries for the celebration of the feast of the uncovering of the great saint’s relics (August 1) this year, which was augmented by the spiritual joy of the consecration of a new place of worship. His Holiness arrived to the Nizhny Novgorod Metropolis on the eve of the feast, accompanied by a number of other hierarchs and clergy, and was greeted at the...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told me yesterday that he’d advised President Trump it would be a huge mistake, substantively and politically, to withdraw all U.S. military members from Afghanistan by the 2020 election. What he's saying: "When it comes to the election of 2020. I think it would be very easy for the president to defend leaving a counterterrorism force that was recommended by our military and intelligence community, to protect the homeland after the debacle in Iraq." "It would be hard, in my view, and a high-risk strategy, to reject such advice for political reasons," Graham added. "As to...

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called out Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday night after a photo surfaced on social media, showing a group of young men “groping and choking” a cardboard cutout of the freshman congresswoman — while wearing shirts that say, “Team Mitch.” “Hey @senatemajldr – these young men look like they work for you,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. “Just wanted to clarify: are you paying for young men to practice groping & choking members of Congress w/ your payroll,” she asked, “or is this just the standard culture of #TeamMitch?” The picture in question was posted on Facebook and then...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Treasury Department labeled China a currency manipulator Monday after Beijing pushed down the value of its yuan in a dramatic escalation of the trade conflict between the world’s two biggest economies. The decision, which came hours after President Donald Trump accused China of unfairly devaluing its currency, marks a reversal for Treasury: In May, it had declined to sanction China for manipulating its currency. The U.S. has not put China on the currency blacklist since 1994.The designation could pave the way for more U.S. sanctions against China.Earlier Monday, China had allowed its currency to weaken...

Most people only think of our "Founding Documents" as comprising two things: The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Some, or perhaps many, might correctly also say that the Articles of Confederation is a (third) founding document. There was actually a fourth. The Continental Congress passed on October 20, 1774 the Articles of Association, sometimes also called the Continental Association. (full text) In it, it contains this following text: 2. That we will neither import nor purchase any Slave imported after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discontinue the Slave Trade, and will neither...

[Catholic Caucus] What Benedict XVI Would Say To the Synod For the Amazon The forward march toward the synod for the Amazon is increasingly construed as a pitched battle with its epicenter in Germany and with very high stakes: the essence of Jesus' mission, and therefore of the Church as well.Of German language and stock, in fact, are the leaders of both formations. On one side Cardinal Cláudio Hummes and Bishop Erwin Kräutler, the biggest promoters of the synod. On the other cardinals Gerhard Müller and Walter Brandmüller, very severe critics of how the assembly has been set up. With...

Former Vice President Joe Biden pushed back Monday evening on President Trump’s characterization of mental illness as the cause of an El Paso, Texas mass shooting over the weekend. “Hatred is sick, but it's not a mental illness,” Biden said in a Monday interview on CNN. "White supremacy is wrong. But it's not mental illness." The suspect in the shooting, which killed at least 22 people on Saturday, has been tied to a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto that was posted online just before the attack began and speaks of a Hispanic “invasion” of the U.S. Although President Trump condemned white supremacy...

But taxpayers now on the hook for 26,000 government pensions over $100,000, a 13-fold increase from 2005

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke compared the rhetoric of President Trump to Nazi Germany Monday, before declaring, “Well, Jesus Christ, of course he’s racist.” O’Rourke joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to discuss his thoughts on the tragic mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio when host Joe Scarborough criticized Republicans who don’t condemn rhetoric used by Trump. “I mean the president has not been shy. He’s not been saying this behind closed doors. This is out in the open. All people of one religion, inherently defective ... should be banned from the shores of this country,” O’Rourke said on...

Are there foreign forces interfering in Hong Kong affairs and fomenting unrest? Of course, there are. Just because local opposition figures laugh it off and ridicule such claims doesn’t make them untrue. And I am not even talking about long-ago, on-record funding of local anti-China groups by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), which is financed by the United States Congress. Just consider two incidents from last month, a lively period of anti-government protests. Riding on her high horse, but acting in the most irresponsible way possible, the British Labour Party’s shadow Asia minister, Helen Goodman, released the names of...

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) — High school classmates of the gunman who killed nine people in Dayton, Ohio, say he was suspended years ago for compiling a "hit list" and a "rape list," and questioned how he could have been allowed to buy the military-style weapon used in this weekend's attack. The accounts emerged after police said there was nothing in the background of 24-year-old Connor Betts that would have prevented him from purchasing an AR 15-style rifle with an extended ammunition magazine that he used to open fire outside a crowded bar early Sunday. Police on patrol in the entertainment...

Saw John Rich of Big & Rich fame on The Five mention this Made in America Trade Show. Thought I would look up the website and post it for visibility.