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'Those of us who remain must be ready to face martyrdom,' says Archbishop Warda Christianity in Iraq could now be on the brink of completely disappearing – according to one of the country’s most respected Church leaders. In an interview with Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need coinciding with the anniversary of Daesh (ISIS)’s 2014 seizure of Iraq’s Nineveh Plains, Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil stated: “Christianity in Iraq, one of the oldest Churches, is perilously close to extinction.” Archbishop Warda who – with ACN’s backing – oversaw the care of IDPs fleeing Daesh, told the charity that...

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday laid the foundation stone for the first new church in Turkey since it became a modern republic in 1923. The church in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy will serve the 17,000-strong Syriac Christian community, which is also paying for the new building. "It is the Turkish republic's duty to meet the need for space to worship for the Syriac community, who are the ancient children of this geography," Erdogan said during the stone-laying ceremony. Syriac Christians are part of the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic, which Jesus is believed to have spoken....

Facebook, Twitter and Google aren't prepared for deepfakes ahead of the US presidential election, a top Congressman said after the tech giants sent letters last week about how they deal with high-tech doctored videos and other kinds of media manipulation. The companies "have begun thinking seriously" about the challenges, said Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, but it's their responsibility to prevent their platforms from being weaponized. "It's clear they are far from ready to accomplish that," Schiff said in a statement. Deepfakes are sophisticated video forgeries, created automatically by artificial intelligence, that can make people appear to be...

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will travel Wednesday to Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, where mass shootings over the weekend claimed the lives of more than 30 people and injured dozens of others. In a speech on Monday, the president said that the United States is “overcome with shock” and that he and his wife “join all Americans in praying and grieving for the victims, their families and the survivors. “These barbaric slaughters are an assault upon our communities, an attack upon our nation, and a crime against all of humanity,” he said.

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“Socialism does not mean government owns everything,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explained earlier this summer during an Instagram live stream.... Three months prior to Ocasio-Cortez’s declaration, a Harris Poll provided exclusively to Axios showed that 61% of Americans ages 18 to 24 have a positive reaction to the word “socialism,” while 58% responded similarly to the word “capitalism.” Conversely, only 27% of people age 65 and older had a positive reaction to the word that most of them still associate with the Red Scare. The poll also showed that millennials and Gen Zers are more likely than previous generations to accept...

Hello fellow FReepers. Don't post much these days but I lurk a lot. Haven't seen a thread on this topic - if I've missed it, then a link would be appreciated and/or I'll ask the mods to delete this. Like many of you, I'm a big fan of the President and all he's accomplished. I hope his second term is even better. Having hope for the (near) future is a pleasant change from previous administrations. Sadly, Trump is just one man, and he has formidable and powerful forces stacked against him. I have no doubt he will continue to surprise...

Full title: A man broke into a woman's house in Alabama with a gun, police say. She countered with a pot of hot grease Larondrick Macklin, 31, was arrested in Alabama after police say he broke into a woman's home and she threw hot grease on him. Police in Alabama say a man suffered burns across his face after he broke into a woman's house with a gun and she defended herself with a pot of hot grease. According to a statement from the Decatur Police Department, police responded to a call of a domestic dispute last Thursday and discovered...

[Catholic Caucus] WATCH: Polish archbishop decries LGBT ‘rainbow disease’ that’s spreading across country August 6, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The archbishop of Krakow, Poland, has said that his country is under siege from the “rainbow disease” of LGBT activism. While his country is no longer beleaguered by the "red plague" of Soviet communism, Archbishop Marek Jedraszewski said, it is now afflicted by the "rainbow" plague of LGBT ideology, which denies human dignity and aims to control the souls, hearts, and minds of the Polish people. "A red plague is not gripping our land anymore,” the archbishop said, “which does not mean...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ordered a state criminal investigation on Tuesday into the plea agreement that allowed Jeffrey Epstein to skirt federal prosecution for soliciting prostitution from underage girls in 2007. The arrangement, under which Epstein was allowed to serve most of his 13-month state sentence on work release without fear of federal charges, has already cost Alex Acosta his job as U.S. labor secretary. As the U.S. attorney in Miami at the time, Acosta signed off on the non-prosecution deal, which went into effect in 2008. **SNIP** Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw ordered an investigation last month into...

Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax is planning to take legal action against the women accusing him of sexual assault and is arguing that the allegations were made to do “nothing more” than smear his reputation and political career, Fox News has learned. It is not clear what type of legal action Fairfax plans to take or when details of those plans will emerge. His spokeswoman suggested it could be anywhere from the next few weeks to the next few months. The move comes just days after the statute of limitations for his first accuser, Dr. Vanessa Tyson, apparently expired. Tyson...

President Trump says he will impose a 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports beginning September 1. The tariff would affect consumer goods primarily, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs. Cue the histrionics. The Washington Post laments that these tariffs will ruin America’s “holiday” shopping season. The Post cites a study claiming that the price of toys will rise by 17 percent, while the cost of laptops and tablets could increase by $120. Basically, President Trump is the Grinch who will steal Christmas by making toys too expensive. How could he do this to poor little...

Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer responded to Governor Matt Bevin on Twitter after he said protests outside McConnell's home were 'embarrassing the city of Louisville.'

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Well, this is embarrassing: Congress accidentally just banned the federal government. The major faux pas came during a push for more legislation against guns and the deranged people who wield them to commit acts of terror. After some bipartisan bickering and tacking billions of dollars of pork onto the proposed legislation, lawmakers virtuously passed a bill that outlaws violent gun-wielding groups. Though the legislation was intended to target fringe groups that use firearms to commit acts of violence, such as gangs, far-right nationalist groups, and terrorists, it was worded too vaguely and accidentally banned the entire federal government. The...

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — Police shot and killed a man on Tuesday at the offices of the Oregon State Police in a southwestern Oregon town, authorities said. The Grants Pass Department of Public Safety said in a statement that several state troopers received minor injuries during the incident. Details on what happened were not immediately divulged, but Rep. Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, said the state police likely saved lives.

In his own words: Ex-Cardinal's letters to abuse victims VATICAN CITY — At first glance, the handwritten postcards and letters look innocuous, even warm, sometimes signed off by "Uncle T." or "Your uncle, Father Ted."But taken in context, the correspondence penned by disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to the young men he is accused of sexually abusing or harassing is a window into the way a predator grooms his prey, according to two abuse prevention experts who reviewed it for The Associated Press.Full of flattery, familiarity and boasts about his own power, the letters provide visceral evidence of how a globe-trotting...

Peter Strzok, the former FBI agent who opened the bureau’s Russia probe in 2016 and later became a symbol of alleged “deep state” animus for Donald Trump, is suing the government over his firing. In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, Strzok excoriates the Justice Department and FBI for their handling of his dismissal over a trove of text messages he wrote to a colleague that were critical of Trump. Strzok accuses the president of inappropriately bullying law enforcement officials deciding his fate, raises questions about why his texts were leaked to the media and lambastes the administration for only defending...

The Dayton, Ohio mass shooter was a member of a death metal band called ‘Menstrual Munchies’ and was pictured during one on-stage performance in an Antifa mask and a woman’s dress. As we reported earlier, the mainstream media is finally beginning to acknowledge that Connor Betts was a far-left extremist who expressed support for the anti-ICE terrorist, Antifa and the presidential candidacy of Elizabeth Warren, as well as retweeting numerous left-wing personalities and news outlets. Now Death Metal Underground’s Robert de Sandford reports that in a 2018 performance video posted to Facebook (since removed), “Betts dons a dress and a...

House Minority Whip Steve Scalise rebuked Democratic Texas Rep. Joaquin Castro on Tuesday for tweeting out a list of Trump donors and their employers in the San Antonio area. “People should not be personally targeted for their political views. Period. This isn’t a game. It’s dangerous, and lives are at stake. I know this firsthand,” Scalise wrote on Twitter. Scalise was shot in the 2017 attempted mass assassination of Republican congressmen and nearly died. Castro’s tweet listed the names and employers of 44 San Antonio residents, including 11 retirees, who donated the federal maximum of $2,700 to President Donald Trump’s...

Guardian Machine Protection, a spinoff of a local company that provides preventive maintenance service for manufacturing equipment, will hire 170 new workers. An announcement from Greater Fort Wayne Inc. says the company at 6015 Highview Drive will need mechanical engineering technicians to support growth. The company will be hiring in upcoming weeks and during the next five years, said Yan Wall, Guardian's founder and chief executive officer. Wall said Guardian was created out of some of the services provided by Wall Control Services, which started in 2011. Guardian plans to offer manufacturers a subscription-based, flexible model that allows it to...