Free Republic

9 min video at link: Climate Scientist Michael Mann shares his thoughts on which contenders did the best and worst in the CNN climate townhalls.

The Episcopal Church saw a greater decline in members and average worship attendance in 2018 than in 2017. According to statistics recently made available by the Office of the General Convention, The Episcopal Church saw its active baptized members decline from approximately 1.712 million in 2017 to 1.676 million. The 36,000-member drop is larger than the previous two years, when the denomination declined by about 32,500 members in 2017 and a little more than 34,000 members in 2016. In 2018, the average Sunday worship attendance declined by about 23,500 people, making it the largest drop the church body has seen...

VIDEO Last Spring, history professor Allan Lichtman was all over TV insisting that unless the Democrats impeach President Donald Trump, he would be re-elected according to his election model. Now that the August congressional recess has come and gone with no impeachment in sight due in large part to the complete bust of the Mueller Report which found NO Trump-Russia collusion, where is Lichtman? It would be interesting to see him interviewed again as to the probability of Trump's re-election according to his model now that impeachment is off the table.

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., is prepared to do whatever it takes to pass a Green New Deal, vowing to take executive action or even push to get rid of the Senate filibuster in order to get it done. During a CNN town hall Wednesday devoted to climate change and featuring Democratic presidential candidates, an audience member asked Harris how she would work with Republicans to advance her goals related to the environment. Harris stated that she would try to reach across the aisle, but then discussed the measures she would take if this avenue failed. “If they fail to act,...

In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court of the Philippines has dismissed a landmark petition to legalize same-sex marriage in the majority Catholic country. On Tuesday, the country’s highest court ruled that Jesus Nicardo Falcis III, an openly gay attorney who initiated the petition in 2015, had no legal standing in the case since he had not applied for a marriage license, the South China Morning Post reported. Despite its decision, in a text released to journalists, the court noted the Southeast Asian nation's 1987 Constitution “does not define, or restrict, marriage on the basis of … sexual orientation, or...

EXCLUSIVE: FBI Never Searched Pervert Weiner’s Laptop Until After the 2016 Election – Weiner’s iPad and iPhone Are Now Missing! ... Obama White House ran the Weiner email investigation with the aid of the corrupt FBI and DOJ. Now we know the corrupt FBI didn’t even search Weiner’s laptop till after the 2016 election and then somehow have misplaced Weiner’s iPhone and iPad. We raised this question in April 2018 – Why would Mueller, Comey, Hillary and the Deep State go all in to remove President Trump from office? Their actions are more like rabid dogs than sore losers. ......

Another member of the intellectual dark web has jumped into the world of tech development to circumvent censorship. Dave Rubin, host of the popular podcast and YouTube show The Rubin Report, announced on September 3 that he was launching a beta for his new tech company and that his show would be joining The Blaze TV. The company, which was started six months ago, has invented an app that will eventually allow creators to essentially “create your own terms of service,” according to Rubin. Rubin plans on inviting his subscribers to test the beta this week. On the latest episode...

MILWAUKEE —With 14 months to go until the 2020 presidential election, former Vice President Joe Biden is favored by 51 percent and President Donald Trump by 42 percent among Wisconsin registered voters in a potential match. Four percent say they would not support either candidate and 2 percent say they don’t know. This is the first Marquette Law School Poll of 2019 that has asked head-to-head vote choices for potential 2020 nominees. In a match with Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sanders receives 48 percent and Trump 44 percent, with 5 percent supporting neither and 2 percent who don’t know. When matched...

The Best Gun is the One you Have with You - What would you think of a gun that you could carry in plain sight, was easily accessible in your back pocket or a belt holster, and wouldn’t attract the slightest attention? Nobody would look twice at it, even if you were in a T-shirt, with no jacket, and they were standing right next to you in the supermarket check-out line, or even if you were wearing only shorts and sneakers playing Frisbee at the park. This invisible gun could save your life in a desperate situation, when its appearance...

“Israel’s ominous escalation” (8/28/19) could also be called the Washington Post’s “ominous escalation” with three articles/editorials in three days about Israel’s allegedly egregious responses to Iranian aggression. Of course, the Post calls Israel’s response to weapons buildups on its borders and attempted drone attacks as Israeli “aggression.” What else does one of the smallest countries in the world have to do in its spare time than to poke a hornet’s nest of enemies that have them pretty much surrounded? The Post editorial says that “since July, Israel has quietly expanded its air campaign” against Iran. Might that have anything to...

[Catholic Caucus] McCarrick created 'culture of fear and intimidation,' Seton Hall review finds Disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick created a “culture of fear and intimidation” at the Seton Hall University seminary, according to a report released by the university on Aug. 27. “McCarrick used his position of power as then-Archbishop of Newark to sexually harass seminarians. No minors or other University students were determined to have been affected by McCarrick,” said the statement. Seton Hall is sponsored by the Archdiocese of Newark, which McCarrick led from 1988-2000. The Archbishop of Newark serves as president of the university’s board of trustees.It is one...

An American woman has been charged with human trafficking after allegedly trying to smuggle a six-day-old baby out of the Philippines. At a press conference by the Philippines National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Thursday, International Airport Investigation Division chief Manuel Dimaano said the 43-year-old US woman had used a sling bag to allegedly hide the baby while passing through immigration, and did not provide any documentation for the child. Dimaano said that after immigration, the woman allegedly removed the baby from the bag and was carrying it when she tried to board her Delta Airlines flight at Manila's Ninoy Aquino...

Sounding more and more like a politician and less and less like a pope, Pope Francis threw out this one for his American critics who view him as just a bit too political. According to Fox News: Pope Francis told a reporter on Wednesday it was an "honor" to be the subject of attacks from American religious conservatives and their Catholic allies. The pope was speaking with French journalist Nicholas Seneze, the author of "How America Wants to Change Popes," when he responded to his American critics while heading to Mozambique for a three-day tour of sub-Saharan Africa. His stances on climate change,...

Since 2015, residents of the state of Maine have been allowed to carry a concealed firearm without any special permit, and now the results are in: crime has fallen to the point where the state is now rated the safest in the nation from the threat of crime. The Maine Examiner reports: When Maine passed a “Constitutional Carry” law allowing Maine residents to carry a concealed firearm without any special permit in 2015, opponents of the law forecast a dangerous future for the state. They said the new law would hurt public safety and put Maine kids at risk. One...

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A female inmate who requested medical assistance inside a facility near Orlando was instead beaten “within an inch of death” by male guards, a lawsuit filed this week alleges, in what her attorney is describing to Fox News as the “worst case of prison abuse in Florida I’ve ever seen.”

O’ROURKE: “This is one of the pernicious outcomes of Donald Trump’s trade policies, this trade war with China that has not only closed markets that farmers in Iowa and across this country have worked their entire lives to open up. It’s not only put them further in debt at a time of declining farm incomes, it is providing an incentive for people to burn down the Amazon rain forest to plant soybeans so that they can sell into China, because China right now is looking for new — new sellers, new producers for those soybeans that they are no longer...

Today, on Beacon Hill, a joint hearing will be held on a pair of bills that would clear the way for illegal immigrants in Massachusetts to receive driver’s licenses.

While the United States rests on her 60-year-old laurels, China has mounted an aggressive and long-term assault on the deep ocean, or the region known as the Hadal Zone (areas deeper than 6,000 meters[19,685 ft]). Our country’s efforts to explore these depths effectively ended in 1960 at the conclusion of Project Nekton. That was when the U.S. Navy’s Trieste I Bathyscaphe reached the deepest known part of the ocean, the Challenger Deep, with Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss explorer Jacques Piccard inside a tiny steel sphere. China’s current efforts are being led by Professor Cui Weicheng of Shanghai Ocean University...

In the past 30 years, there have been only a handful of days when I could not take this walk. This summer, there have been only a handful of days when I could. Water levels on Erie and the other Great Lakes are higher than the historic norms, on Lake Erie much higher. You need not take my word for it. An article this week in the U.K. Guardian assured its readers, "Depths of lakes that hold about 90 percent of U.S.'s freshwater spiking to record levels, from 14 inches to nearly 3 feet above long-term averages." "Bigger picture, it's...