Free Republic

The Illinois Baptist State Association will join two lawsuits involving religious liberty issues for the purpose of protecting Southern Baptist churches in the state. The IBSA Board of Directors voted to participate in the litigation in its fall meeting Sept. 10. One case involves zoning regulations that prohibit churches and church plants from being located in certain areas of a city. The other contests requirements that churches and religious institutions cover the cost of abortions for their employees. Both were approved by acclamation.

President Donald Trump has used the Rose Garden at the White House for major policy announcements, Medal of Honor ceremonies, impromptu press conferences and as a backdrop for Twitter videos, but on Friday the first lady will steal it for an evening of al fresco dining in honor of Australia. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be the second foreign leader honored with a rare state visit to the White House since Trump took office. The day will begin with the military pomp of a South Lawn arrival, then the leaders will hold a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office...

President Trump on Friday dismissed growing scrutiny over a whistleblower complaint that reportedly raised concerns about a conversation he had with a Ukrainian leader, saying the focus should instead be on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden's ties to Ukraine. "It doesn't matter what I discussed, but I'll tell you this, somebody ought to look into Joe Biden's statement," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with the Australian prime minister. Trump said he did not know who the whistleblower is, but derided the complaint as "partisan" and "ridiculous" and asserted that Biden is getting a pass because...

With all the problems in the world, Democratic presidential candidates are focusing on — meat. During a climate change forum hosted by MSNBC on Thursday, longshot candidate Andrew Yang was asked by an audience member about “what policy adjustments” he’d make to “curb expansion and reduce the environmental impact of the cattle industry” in order to “reduce demand.” “Cattle is very energy-consuming and energy-expensive. And if you project forward on what we would need to do to reduce emissions, you would want to modify Americans’ diets over time,” Yang said.

Overlord DVD 48.9K subscribers The Princess Bride is a classic film, a national treasure that should be handed down through the ages, but according to Variety Sony is talking about a Princess Bride remake. My head nearly exploded when I heard this. Here is my rant.

President Trump wasted no time mocking Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday after Hizzoner announced he was ending his far-fetched bid for the presidency. “Oh no, really big political news, perhaps the biggest story in years! Part time Mayor of New York City, @BilldeBlasio, who was polling at a solid ZERO but had tremendous room for growth, has shocking dropped out of the Presidential race,” Trump tweeted Friday morning. “NYC is devastated, he’s coming home!”

Until Jesus returns and sets up His perfect kingdom, the culture wars will continue to rage, and there will be many setbacks along the way. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be some real victories as well. Let’s focus on some positive, recent news.1) The number of abortions in America continues to drop.To be sure, this news is hardly all positive, since hundreds of thousands of babies are still aborted every year in the USA. How excited would we be about a hypothetical headline during World War II that stated, “The number of Jews being slaughtered is declining”? Or, in...

A fire in 1973 at the National Personnel Records Center in Overland, Missouri destroyed between 16 and 18 million United States Military service files. It is history that deserves to be remembered.

Dear Chuck, I can’t wrap my head around negative interest rates. What does this mean for my savings accounts in the bank? Can you help me figure this out? Confused about Rates Dear Confused,You are not the only one who finds this a challenge to understand. Simply put, it inverts the model that we have known and practiced for years: putting savings (money) in the bank to earn interest not to pay interest!Some History and Bigger Picture Negative interest rates have historically been used to combat deflation. Finance writer Justin Kuepper explains,“...deflation causes people and businesses to hoard cash rather...

Despite our ever-greater mobility and even more efficient connectivity, sociologists continue to note that Americans struggle to form lasting, fulfilling relationships of all kinds, but especially marriages. We face a very real epidemic of loneliness, one that is, not coincidentally, accompanied by a steady decline in marriage. According to Pew Research, marriage rates have fallen to historic lows over the last 30 years, especially among younger people. At the same time, the typical age at first marriage has climbed to a historic high. Increasingly, Americans who are looking for love can’t find it, at least not in the traditional ways....

Open Carry often leads to interesting conversations. An ethnic Chinese emigrant approached me as I was openly carrying, as I often do during my daily activities. I will not identify the woman, who is an acquaintance. The reasons will become obvious. She started by asking me if I had been dove hunting. I said I had. She asked if I had been successful. I said I had. It was the start to a conversation on geopolitics, an opening, a subtle approach to ask about gun control in the United States.The lady knows almost nothing about guns, United States gun laws,...

Unless he convinces Israeli lawmakers from outside his party to join him in a national unity government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 10-and-a-half-year run in office may soon end following inconclusive results inhis country’s parliamentary elections this week that appeared to deprive him of a governing majority in the Knesset. President Donald Trump took a hands-off approach when asked about the elections in America’s foremost ally in the Middle East. “Our relations are with Israel, so we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters while touring California. In Israel, Netanyahu has leveraged his ideological affinity with Trump as a selling point...

Lots of buzz about this in political media this afternoon. But then, there were also many “bombshells” during the course of the Mueller investigation that caused a stir in political media and you know how those turned out.Speculation about the troubling “promise” Trump may or may not have made to a foreign leader has naturally focused on Putin and Kim Jong Un. Did he promise Putin he’d make some startling international concession, like exiting NATO, in exchange for God knows what? Did he tell Kim that he’d withdraw U.S. troops from South Korea if Kim did X,Y, and Z?...

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson expressed concern about "big, hairy men" trying to infiltrate women's homeless shelters during an internal meeting, according to three people present who interpreted the remarks as an attack on transgender women.

Andrew Yang is widely identified as a “hi tech entrepreneur,” leading many people (including me) to assume that he is worth many millions of dollars, and independently wealthy. That made sense considering his plan to give a thousand bucks a month (borrowed, of course) to everyone (and it’s not clear to me if legal or illegal aliens qualify).But according to information in this column by James Freeman in the Wall Street Journal, he isn’t more than middle class, at least by the standards of Silicon Valley.  Julie Bykowicz reported in the Journal in May: Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang, a self-described...

Do leftists ever think through the implications of their bright lightbulb poppings?One of their latest stupidities, via Glen Reynolds of Instapundit (who has a fine curation), came a couple days ago from the Presbyterian side of things, with seminarians at New York's Union Theological Seminary offering up their 'confessions' to plants, an act than makes even less sense than trying to talk to a goat. According to the Washington Examiner, they tweeted: "Today in chapel, we confessed to plants," the nation's oldest independent seminary declared Tuesday on Twitter. "Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow...

Facebook has new devices to help you video chat from your couch! Smart speakers are popular these days but Facebook says they’re missing a key feature – the ability to video chat! The company’s new line of gadgets called Portal look like picture frames but let you make video calls, too! There’s even a model that sits on top of your TV so you can video chat from the couch. Portal TV. This device sits on top of your TV and lets you video chat from the most comfortable seat in the house: your couch. It’s much more relaxing than...

KYIV—Ukraine is ready to investigate the connections Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden had with the Ukrainian natural-gas company Burisma Holdings, according to Anton Geraschenko, a senior adviser to the country’s interior minister who would oversee such an inquiry. Geraschenko told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview that “as soon as there is an official request from the Trump administration, we’ll look into it,” but “currently there is no open investigation.” “Clearly,” said Geraschenko, “Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in prison.”...

Greta Thunberg, the Swedish child activist who doesn't know much, but is very certain of what she's saying, is having her heyday in the U.S., fiercely putting on her 'I won't eat those peas' face for the camers, telling the U.S. Congress they're not trying hard enough, leading a giant global protest today, and getting hailed as the child savior of the earth.Just one glitch here. Her home nation of Sweden, yes, you read right, Sweden, isn't buying the global warming claptrap anymore. Mark Morano over at Climate Depot has found a damning survey. An international opinion poll published today reveals that half of...

CNN’s Martin Savidge traveled to the iron range area of Minnesota this week. The Iron Range near Lake Superior is traditionally a Democratic stronghold. Not anymore. Miners and working families are voting for Trump. Democrats and their Socialist promises scare the hell out of middle Americ