Free Republic

Qom became the bedrock of Iran’s theocracy and remains one of the country’s holiest places — home to 200,000 religious scholars, a destination for Shiite Muslim pilgrims and a center of Islamic thought in a country whose political system is controlled by the clerical establishment. But the city of about 1 million is no longer single-mindedly religious. ....Mousavi said it was little surprise that clerics had slipped in popularity and attendance at mosques across the Islamic Republic seems to dip lower and lower. “Clergymen have no role in the hearts and minds of people as they did 38 years ago,”...

The Queen will be asked by the government to suspend Parliament just days after MPs return to work in September - and only a few weeks before the Brexit deadline. BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg says it will make way for Boris Johnson's new administration to hold a Queen's Speech - laying out the government's plans - on 14 October. But it means MPs are unlikely to have time to pass any laws that could stop the prime minister taking the UK out of the EU without a deal on 31 October. Tory backbencher and Remain campaigner Dominic Grieve called...

Despite forecasts from leading economists predicting a recession, U.S. consumer confidence is currently at the highest levels in almost 19 years. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index is at a steadfast high, slightly declining in August to 135.1 from 135.8 in July, according to the business research group, indicating U.S. workers and consumers are confident in their economic position. After falling to 121.5 in June, the first time it dropped in three months, the index has basically been stagnant, said Lynn Franco, the senior director of economic indicators at the Conference Board. The current 135.1 August reading compares to a...

US President Donald Trump emphasized North Korea’s economic potential in remarks at the G7 Summit in France, adding that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is also well aware of it. The remarks appeared to be part of a series of conciliatory gestures toward Pyongyang with the aim of resuming working-level talks on denuclearization. Speaking at a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron on the summit’s final day on Aug. 26, Trump was replying to a question on Iran when he added that Kim “is a man with a country that has tremendous potential.” Trump also mentioned North Korea’s...

Not, that I want to get too political, but this video that is playing all across China pretty much says it all. ItÂ’s all about the Trump Trade War. And it shows how the Chinese feel about it. This post is about a movie that is playing all over China this Summer. It is allegorical. While it is a story about a British Boxing champion, and his involvement within China, there are very CLEAR parallels about what is going on in the Trump Tariff situation. China has this alligorical movie about the Trump USA trade war with China that has...

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August 28 2019 Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church Reading 1 1 Thes 2:9-13 You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,we proclaimed to you the Gospel of God.You are witnesses, and so is God,how devoutly and justly and blamelesslywe behaved toward you believers.As you know, we treated each one of you as a father treats his children,exhorting and encouraging you and insistingthat you walk in a manner worthy of the Godwho calls you into his Kingdom and glory. And for this reason...

North Korea appears to be preparing to test a new ballistic missile submarine capable of launching nuclear missiles, significantly bolstering the regime’s ability to conduct long-distance attacks. Satellite photographs taken Monday of the Sinpo South Shipyard in North Korea show the new submarine with nearby cranes and support craft, suggesting the submarine may be in preparation for a launch test. Last month, North Korea claimed that Kim Jong Un had inspected a “newly built submarine” at the shipyard. The new photographs appear to confirm the claim, say Joseph Bermudez and Victor Cha of Beyond Parallel, a research project backed by...

The president has made identity politics part of his vision – progressives must fight back on those same terms The 2020 US presidential election is going to be about native entitlement. It’s going to be about race and immigration and deportation and Israel and every other wedge issue Donald Trump can summon to split the vote into “us” and “them”. He will become Chief Native, swelling his supporters’ sense of dominion over others less white. The campaign has already started; his social media presence has gone from ungainly swiping to a more coherent regular punching. He has in effect launched...

Two U.S. senators say that they were denied visas as part of an official delegation to Russia for talks with their counterparts in the country's parliament. Amid tensions over arms control, human rights, and Russian aggression in Ukraine, Venezuela, and Syria, it's a sign of the frayed ties between Washington and Moscow, despite President Donald Trump's consistent calls for better relations with President Vladimir Putin's government -- including its readmission to the G-7. Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Democrat Chris Murphy of Connecticut were scheduled to leave on their trip next week, according to aides, with stops in Ukraine,...

Selling political favors works: That’s clearly Mayor Bill de Blasio’s philosophy, and his bid to box in hotels to please their union is but the latest example. On Monday, Crain’s reported that Hizzoner ordered city planners to “study” the idea of forcing hotels to get special permits, a move long sought by the hotel union. Just coincidentally, the union is the only labor group backing de Blasio’s 2020 bid. This month, The Post reported that 70% of his donors are tied to it.

Rep. Ilhan Omar's mysterious marital life has been much written about. Was she a bigamist? Was she married to her brother? It's unclear, but not unlikely. At a minimum, she seems to be playing musical husbands -- or is it lovers? The latest seems to be this fellow: A Washington, DC, mom says her political-consultant husband left her for Rep. Ilhan Omar, according to a bombshell divorce filing obtained by The Post. Dr. Beth Mynett says her cheating spouse, Tim Mynett, told her in April that he was having an affair with the Somali-born US representative — and that he...

This week’s widespread media blitz heralding Netflix’s broadcast of its first Obama-endorsed presentation, “American Factory,” was more than synchronicity. It felt as though US publicists and journalists collectively exhaled their relief at finally regaining the bully pulpit. Reviews of “American Factory,” a doc by indie veterans Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar, were not reliable accounts of the film’s quality. Its lack of focus following a Chinese manufacturer’s takeover of a former General Motors plant in Ohio — a move that fails to relieve working-class anxieties but, instead, predicts job-market doom — didn’t faze flacks and reviewers. The media class saw...

The Lawfare group are the external influence agents for corrupt politically motivated lawyers working in government. The group fingerprints show up everywhere including among “beach friends” and legal schemes hatched from the premise of their assembly. Lawfare = use the law as a tool in warfare. [Adult Alinsky disciples.] The Lawfare group is headed by Comey’s friend Benjamin Wittes; and the group give resistance advice to ideologues inside government as well as outside organizations who are resisting (suing) the Trump administration. So when Benjamin Wittes announces to his ideological resistance followers: …”You should thus expect charges against McCabe to be...

President Trump is running for reelection on the strength of the economy as concerns spread about slowing growth. While Trump may not have to worry about a recession just yet, history shows it could make his push for another term in the White House a lot harder. Only two presidents since World War II — Harry Truman and Jimmy Carter — have run for reelection in the same year as a recession. Truman won, Carter lost.

President Trump slammed New York Times columnist Bret Stephens, suggesting he's "loaded up" with bed bugs. After the president floated the idea of hosting next year's G-7 summit at his Doral resort, a report resurfaced that his resort settled a lawsuit in 2017 after a New Jersey man named Eric Linder alleged he woke up one morning at Trump's property with bites all over his body. Trump denied of having any bed bugs at his resort Tuesday morning, blaming "Radical Left Democrats" for spreading "nasty rumors."

Her love life was already complicated. Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) — who was accused of being “the other woman’’ in a DC doctor’s marriage Tuesday — had previously been involved in an intertwined pair of relationships for years. Records show that the 37-year-old Somali refugee applied for a marriage license to a man named Ahmed Abdisalan Hirsi in 2002. She was 19, having immigrated to the States five years earlier. The duo was never officially married, at least at the time. Instead, they wed in a traditional Muslim ceremony and had two children before splitting up in 2008, Omar has...

Former New York Fed President Bill Dudley on Tuesday called on the Federal Reserve to manipulate the economy to stymie President Trump’s reelection. Dudley made the plea in an op-ed published by Bloomberg News. Dudley argued that Trump’s effort to reset trade with China is hurting the economy and that the Fed should enact policies that hinder Trump and hurt his reelection chances. President Trump has been fighting the Fed over rising interest rates and a too rapid pullback on quantitative easing that stifled the nascent economic boom stemming from Trump’s economic policies and tax cuts. The Fed has since...

A Texas district judge temporarily blocked the implementation of Facebook’s new “Off-Facebook Activity” tool over concerns of erasing criminal evidence. The “Off-Facebook Activity” tool prevents search history from being linked to individual users. The feature was announced more than a year after Facebook said it was working on a “Clear History” tool that would allow users to completely clear their browsing data after it was revealed that the tech giant used that information to target advertisements.

New photos taken of a North Korean shipyard suggest the country could be building a submarine that could potentially be capable of launching a nuclear missile, a report early Tuesday said. The photos show vessels and cranes that could be used to haul a missile out to sea for launch, according to experts at a Washington-based think tank, NBC News reported. The satellite photos seem to confirm North Korean state media reports from July about a newly built submarine. “There is no conclusive evidence at the moment that this is a near-term certainty,” an expert said of a possible missile test. Once a...