Free Republic

ROME — Pope Francis has banned plastic in Vatican City State to stand in solidarity with environmentalists. He made the announcement from aboard the papal plane during a long-haul flight back from his recent trip to Africa. The pope said he had been disturbed by a conversation a couple months ago with sea chaplains and fishermen who recounted how they had gathered six tons of plastic from the ocean over the course of a few months. “In the Vatican we have banned plastic,” Francis told journalists. “We are working on that.” The pope went on to explain that his prayer...

Ric Ocasek, founding member and lead singer of The Cars, has died in New York City, the NYPD confirms. He was found unresponsive at his East 19th Street residence in Manhattan and pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.

My latest at PJ Media: Eighteen years after the September 11 jihad attacks that murdered nearly three thousand people, this is where we are: the Bloomfield Hills Baptist Church in Michigan has canceled an event called “9/11 forgotten? Is Michigan surrendering to Islam” under pressure from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a group with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. And so the answers are clear: yes, 9/11 has been forgotten, and Michigan is indeed surrendering to Islam. The event was to feature an ex-Muslim, Shahram Hadian, speaking on “How the Interfaith Movement is Sabotaging America and the...

It would astonish most people to learn that many news stories are connected in some way. Such is the case with two seemingly disparate major stories that dominate the news: the effort to tag President Donald J, Trump as having colluded with Russia and the matter of abortion-in particular the Center for Medical Progress' 2015 undercover videos that showed Planned Parenthood's involvement in the illegal trafficking of aborted baby tissues and organs. Those two stories are intertwined in surprising ways.

Former first lady Michelle Obama is coming to Newark Nov. 3 and fans are shelling out big bucks to hear what she has to say. The cheap seats for the “Moderated Conversation” at the Prudential Center were going for $144 on Ticketmaster. Want face time? Prime seats and a “meet and greet” will cost you $2,500. Floor seats are priced as high as $1,300 and the most expensive ticket currently available is $4,200 for a suite-level ducat.

9/11 Commission Chiefs Say 'Terrorism Needs to Be Prevented at the Source,' While Ignoring Its Source BY ROBERT SPENCER SEPTEMBER 13, 2019 9/11 Commission Chiefs Say ‘Terrorism Needs to Be Prevented at the Source,’ While Ignoring Its Source SEP 15, 2019 5:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER My latest at PJ Media: Former New Jersey Governor Thomas H. Kean and former Indiana Congressman Lee H. Hamilton were chairman and vice-chairman, respectively, of the 9/11 Commission. On Tuesday, they published an op-ed in USA Today calling for a bold new approach to the global problem of jihad terrorism. Their innovative new idea?...

Rio Rancho mayor says "zero tolerance" for anyone who displays violence or aggression RIO RANCHO, N.M. — We're only hours away from the gates opening at the Santa Ana Star Center in Rio Rancho. KOAT spoke with Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull about what people should expect Monday when President Donald Trump is in town. This will be the biggest event Rio Rancho has ever hosted, and as you would expect, a lot of planning has gone into it. “We’re dealing with a sitting president of the United States here, so there’s going to be high security all over,” Hull...

President Trump on Sunday announced he had authorized the use of the U.S.'s emergency oil reserve in response to a series of drone attacks in Saudi Arabia that have disrupted the Gulf country's crude output. "Based on the attack on Saudi Arabia, which may have an impact on oil prices, I have authorized the release of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, if needed, in a to-be-determined amount sufficient to keep the markets well-supplied," Trump said in a series of tweets. "I have also informed all appropriate agencies to expedite approvals of the oil pipelines currently in the permitting process...

President Donald Trump will attend a Houston rally next week featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and visit an Australian-owned manufacturing facility in Ohio with Australia’s prime minister. The White House says the president will visit Houston, Texas and Wapakoneta, Ohio on Sunday, September 22 to underscore the important partnerships between the United States and India, and Australia. President Trump will use the “Howdy, Modi! Shared Dreams, Bright Futures” event in Houston to “emphasize the strong ties between the people of the United States and India” and reaffirm the two countries’ strategic partnership. He hopes to discuss ways to...

  Our Troops Rock!  Thank you for all you do!   For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.   Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ~ Hall of Heroes ~SGT Alvin C. York (Info found here.)             BIOGRAPHY Alvin Cullum York (1887-1964) ended the First World War as one of America's most famous soldiers, with fame and popular recognition assured following a remarkable act of courage and coolness in October 1918. Having grown up in poverty the young...

The push by mainstream media and leftist academics to normalize pedophilia as an acceptable sexual identity appears to be reaching a new level of intensity, as an American student shared a powerpoint slide from a college class describing pedophilia in strikingly ambiguous terms on Friday. Alex Malazza, a self-identifying Catholic student of San Diego, posted evidence of the sick propaganda on his Twitter account. He specified that the “lesson” took place at a state university- while it’s unclear exactly where he’s a student, the major state university in his city is San Diego State University. Alex @alexjmazzara An actual topic...

President Donald Trump is set to face a backlash from Hollywood as he descends on Los Angeles to raise money for his re-election campaign during the week of the Emmy Awards. Mr Trump's opponents in the entertainment industry have demanded to know who is going to his fundraising event on Tuesday, and vowed "not to work with them again" on film and television projects. The US president escalated the row by calling attention to a massive rise in the number of homeless people in Los Angeles, and elsewhere in California, blaming Democrats for the crisis. Ahead of his visit Mr...

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accused security guard and Lockheed Aircraft employee Cesar Eugene Thane of delivering the fatal blow to his father Robert Kennedy. The social media post was published on the day of Thane’s death in the Philippines. “Thane Eugene Cesar died today in the Philippines. Compelling evidence suggests that Cesar murdered my father,” RFK Jr. wrote. “On June 5, 1968, Cesar, an employee in a classified section of Lockheed’s Burbank facility, was moonlighting as a security guard at the Ambassador Hotel,” he continued. “He had landed the job about one week earlier....

Here’s a stomach-churning feat: A woman from Arizona devoured not one, but two 72-ounce steak dinners in about an hour at the Big Texan Steak Ranch in Amarillo. The Big Texan posted this message and two photos on Facebook on Tuesday afternoon: This lovely lady @omgitsmiki from Tucson, AZ completed not only one, but TWO 72oz steak meals back to back. First in 26:40 and second 34:30 👏🏼🤠🥩 @ The Big Texan Steak Ranch & Brewery The woman, identified as professional competitive eater Miki Sudo, posted a short video on Instagram of her polishing off that second steak. She’s won...

The single most important fact of Republican life in 2019 is this: The GOP is Donald Trump’s party now. When the GOP chose Trump as its presidential candidate in 2016, traditional Republican conservatives of the Buckley-Goldwater-Reagan school were forced to consider how far they might go to accommodate the ascendant nationalist-populist movement embodied by Trump. Some of them took a genuinely sympathetic view of Trump partisans who feel left behind by the elite-dominated politics of Washington and hoped to articulate a new class-solidarity synthesis on the right, while others cynically believed that they could simply redirect Trump and Trumpism to...

EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden is not the Democrats’ official 2020 rival to Donald Trump, but the former Vice President and the former Celebrity Apprentice host are squaring off like contenders when it comes to Los Angeles fundraisers this month. Just under two weeks after the upcoming 10-candidate debate, hosted by ABC News and Univision, nomination front-runner Biden will be making another Hollywood ATM swing through town on September 25 and 26. As the race narrows heading into the final months before the first primaries, the ex-veep again will be courting deep-pocketed West Coast donors who are sizing up how he’ll fare...

Three quarters of a century ago - September 1944 - this week's song was in the midst of a nine-week run at Number One on the Billboard pop chart. It's stuck around through all the decades since - which is unusual because it's not a timeless love ballad, but rather a cautionary tale for slacker schoolkids set among the grubbier habitués of the barnyard. It was introduced earlier that year in the film Going My Way, in which Bing Crosby played an unconventional Catholic priest and Barry Fitzgerald tagged along heavy on the blarney. The movie was a smash, cementing...

Navy veterans speak about when the nuclear bomb blew up near them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8O8sBIsKHI  

House Democrats are proposing to block President Donald Trump’s aid to farmers amidst the country’s tariff fight with China, which could have a devastating impact on America’s farmers. The Washington Post revealed Thursday that it has reviewed a draft of a bill written by House Appropriations Committee Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY) that would block Trump’s ability to help farmers while the country fights China’s unfair trade practices. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said in a tweet Thursday that Democrats are trying to “squeeze” American farmers by blocking this aid. “Farming is hard enough work as it is. But now...

In 1954, a prison doctor in Kentucky isolated seven black inmates and fed them “double, triple and quadruple” doses of LSD for 77 days straight. No one knows what became of the victims. They may have died without knowing they were part of the CIA’s highly secretive program to develop ways to control minds—a program based out of a little-known Army base with a dark past, Fort Detrick. Suburban sprawl has engulfed Fort Detrick, an Army base 50 miles from Washington in the Maryland town of Frederick. Seventy-six years ago, however, when the Army selected Detrick as the place to...