Free Republic

Former President Barack Obama on Monday unveiled a new initiative to influence redistricting efforts across the United States. The initiative, Redistricting U, will send activists to provide free training and tools to volunteers involved in redistricting efforts and guide groups on how to “be leaders in the movement for fair maps.”“Training is at the heart of organizing. It’s why I’ve always made it a priority – from my 2008 campaign until now,” Obama wrote in a tweet announcing Redistricting U, which is part of the All On The Line campaign.In February, Obama’s Organizing For Action and former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Redistricting Action...

'Why Don't We Murder More White People?' 'Why Don't We Murder More White People?' is a gallery installation + film displayed at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California, at their annual pop-up, Public Square! From the Public Square program: "Why Don’t We Murder More White People? is an examination on whiteness, its unassailable immortality, and how it permeates our daily lives. Communicated through installation and film both centered in living spaces, WDWMMWP aims to interrogate empathy and morality as a fulcrum of identity. As we watch the death of black and brown people become normalized...

New Mexico is home to part of the Permian play, the star of the shale industry and the place where oil production is growing at the fastest pace in the country. It is also the state whose new governor has one of the most ambitious emissions plans in the U.S. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham took office with two climate-friendly pledges: to make New Mexico’s electricity emission-free by 2045, and to curb methane emissions from the oil and gas industry more substantially than they are being limited now. However, the oil industry is one of the biggest revenue contributors to the...

[Catholic Caucus] Fr. James Martin’s Big Gay Interview  With special guest John 'Skippy' Podesta I won't quit till I'm a star On Broadway On Broadway On Broadway.  For both his supporters and his foes, Fr. James Martin, S.J. has become a tired meme.   His art of gaslighting Catholics into accepting homosexuality and transgenderism while simultaneously protesting his devotion to Church teaching is well known.   His cringe-worthy social media postings of 1970s-tier photos of the life of Christ mixed with comments about how Catholics in the Western world are obligated to accepted tens of millions of military-age men from the Global South into...

Deutsche Bank said in a court filing Tuesday that it has tax returns relevant to House Democrats' subpoenas for financial records of President Trump, his family, and his businesses, but the bank didn't publicly identify whose returns they had. The name or names of the individuals or entities whose tax returns Deutsche Bank has were redacted in the version of the document posted on the federal courts' public legal database. The bank also said in its letter to a federal appeals court in New York that it has tax returns "related to parties not named in the Subpoenas but who...

The Chinese state propaganda outlet Global Times cited the words of pop superstar Taylor Swift in an attack on President Donald Trump on Monday after she accused him of “gaslighting” his opponents into questioning their own love for the country. In a piece titled “Why Are the Chinese Brushing Aside Trump’s Tweets?” opinion writer Mu Lu tries to downplay Beijing’s reported concern at Trump’s warnings against China last week, when he ordered American companies to immediately leave China and move their production back to the United States. “The vast amounts of money made and stolen by China from the United...

ATLANTA, GA—CNN has apologized to Stalin and Mao after a guest compared the brutal dictators to Donald Trump. "I am so sorry to all of Stalin and Mao's brave supporters," said Brian Stelter in an on-air apology Tuesday morning. "We never meant to associate these great men with Donald Trump. We did not intend to disparage communism in that way." "Sometimes, you really need to make the point that Trump is a totalitarian tyrant," said Stelter. "But dragging Stalin and Mao's names through the mud in the process is not the right way to go about that. There are good...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Racism in America is institutional and it is a “white man’s problem visited on people of color,” Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday, arguing that the way to attack the issue is to defeat President Donald Trump and shame the racists he has emboldened. Taking aim at incendiary racial appeals by Trump, Biden said in an interview with a small group of reporters that a president’s words can “appeal to the worst damn instincts of human nature,” just as they can move markets or take a nation into war. Biden is leading his Democratic challengers for the...

Before long we’ll be moving the clocks back an hour yet again (or at least most of us will), but that’s not what this story is about. There’s a new proposal that doesn’t seek to eliminate Daylight Savings Time but instead would eliminate time zones all across the United States and the rest of the world as well. And it comes to us from no less of an august source than Johns Hopkins. Now that I’ve picked my jaw up off the floor, let’s see what this is all about. Here are two of their professors discussing the idea on...

After NBC News published a hit piece on news outlet the Epoch Times and its association with the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement persecuted by China’s government, the Wikipedia page for the outlet was vandalized and filled with attacks sourced to the piece. One editor involved has a history of attacking Falun Gong and defending Chinese communist figures such as Mao Zedong. The editor also contacted an Antifa-supporting socialist editor with a similar history, which included downplaying the oppression of Uyghur Muslims in China’s Xinjiang province. Other Wikipedia articles associated with Falun Gong have also been subject to smears from...

With so many rats running for president in 2020 it's hard to keep up with who's in and who's out. Hopefully, this post will help. Below is a list of declared candidates, their occupation, the date they dropped from the race (if they did) and misc. notes.This thread will be reposted each week, likely on Monday, with the dropouts from the previous week and newly declared candidates noted. The dust biter(s) from last week: Seth Moulton (h/t rightwingintelligentsia). Newly declared candidates from last week: None, thankfully.Please let me know via FReepmail if you find errors. Thanks! upchuck Nbr Name Occupation...

California’s got the most gun control laws in the country. It’s also trying to win the race on bad legislative ideas, too. California’s Assemblywoman Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles) is pushing a resolution that California would use its economic might to nudge banks and lending institutions away from doing business with federally licensed law abiding firearms manufacturers and retailers if they have open accounts with the Golden State. Assembly Concurrent Resolution 115 would “encourage” six lending institutions to cut all business ties with America’s firearms manufacturers. The goal, according to Kamlager-Dove, is eliminate the production of firearms and the means to...

The UM News Service has reported that I filed a complaint against the Rev. Anna Blaedel for violating the UMC’s longstanding prohibition of “self-avowed practicing homosexual” clergy, and that the Iowa Conference Committee on Investigation (COI) has certified a bill of charges. Those interested in a three-minute summary of my perspective can scroll down to the italicized text, which I read at the COI hearing earlier this month. But there is a bit more background. I am grateful for the professional, non-partisan manner in which the COI completed its work. I am disappointed that Blaedel has since painted a misleading...

STARR COUNTY, Texas – (Yesterday, Mon, August 26, was) the last chance for public comments regarding the proposed border wall construction in Starr County (actually, almost the whole Rio Grande Valley)... The proposed action is to construct a border wall system... (which) would consist of 30-foot tall steel posts and enforcement zones with gates and surveillance technology.

Jesuit Priest Blesses Gay Man Just Before His Assisted Suicide Abp. Terrence Prendergast: 'We cannot be forgiven pre-emptively for something we are going to do' SEATTLE (ChurchMilitant.com) - Days before a Seattle man planned to marry his same-sex partner and kill himself, a Jesuit priest led the entire parish in a final blessing of him. After a diagnosis of cancer in 2018 and one round of chemotherapy, Robert Fuller picked May 10, 2019, as the day he was going to die and began planning a party where he would marry his same-sex partner then kill himself. An Associated Press report chronicling...

Radical Democrat congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was denied access to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) contracted facility earlier this month after she failed to request a tour. Tlaib then created a public relations spectacle, claiming she was unfairly barred despite showing up to the facility without notice.Earlier this month, Tlaib stormed the Calhoun County jail in Michigan with two members of her staff, two immigration attorneys, and a reported group of eight or nine people. Calhoun County jail has contracts with ICE.Tlaib tweeted that she was “denied access to tour the facility,” and received nearly 12,000 “likes” on Twitter.“If they...

Alabama Republicans are urging lawmakers to remove Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. from Congress after a series of controversial statements, including remarks about Israel and her support of economic boycotts against that country. The state GOP passed a resolution last weekend at the party's summer meeting in Auburn calling on its congressional delegation to “proceed with the expulsion process” against the first-term congresswoman. “Representative Omar has engaged in rhetoric that explicitly runs counter to American values and patriotism by falsely accusing U.S. armed forces of committing war crimes while on mission to liberate her home country of Somalia,” the resolution said....

BREATHITT COUNTY, Ky. (LEX 18) — The County Judge Executive for Breathitt County was arrested on Tuesday on 18 felony counts. These recent charges are separate from the charges that Jeff Noble was indicted for at the beginning of August. Noble was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly spending $986.08 on diesel for his personal vehicle. Noble had charged the County Road Department and Breathitt County General Fund for the diesel. According to the arrest citation, Noble filled his personal vehicle's tank with diesel on 16 separate occasions.

2020 Democratic presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang scored a major endorsement this weekend from fellow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the founder of PayPal who now leads SpaceX and Tesla. “I support Yang,” Musk tweeted in response to another tweet commenting on a post from Yang urging voters to have an open mind. Elon Musk ✔ @elonmusk I support Yang 101K 11:16 AM - Aug 10, 2019 Twitter Ads info and privacy 21.8K people are talking about this Musk’s tweet was a welcome endorsement for Yang, who has struggled to garner support in the crowded field of candidates in...

Not Authorized: The Untold Story of the Death of the Old Mass Introduction: A Time of Confusion Although it is now frequently claimed that the traditional Latin Mass (TLM) was never abrogated (totally abolished) following the Second Vatican Council, this position is squarely at odds not only with the lived experience of several generations of Catholics, but with the rapid and near total disappearance of the TLM within a brief period of time. For many years after 1970, there was considerable confusion about the legal and sacramental status of the TLM following the publication of the new Missale Romanum of...