Free Republic

Every year, Catholics around the world donate tens of millions of dollars to the pope. Bishops exhort the faithful to support the weak and suffering through the pope’s main charitable appeal, called Peter’s Pence. What the church doesn’t advertise is that most of that collection, worth more than more than €50 million ($55 million) annually, goes toward plugging the hole in the Vatican’s own administrative budget, while as little as 10% is spent on charitable works, according to people familiar with the funds. The little-publicized breakdown of how the Holy See spends Peter’s Pence, known only among senior Vatican officials,...

All three networks devoted reports Wednesday to hyping radical Swedish teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg being honored by Time Magazine today with their “Person of the Year” award. Journalists from ABC, NBC, and CBS all praised the “deserving” “good choice” and touted the teen “taking on” world leaders while “inspiring” other teens to become climate evangelists. NBC spent the most time groveling over Greta. They even had Time’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal on to puff up the teen as “the biggest voice on the biggest issue facing the planet this year,” leading a “worldwide movement.” Today show co-host Hoda Kotb...

Huge night for gun owners, 18 new sanctuaries, including in Prince William County, City of Chesapeake, and Spotsylvania County! There are now a total of 77 sanctuaries across Virginia. Tomorrow night is going to have another large number of localities considering resolutions! To check the full list and count of sanctuaries, remember to just go to the VCDL.org main page. Here are the new sanctuaries on Tuesday night: Bath County - Unanimous Big Stone Gap Bluefield Caroline County - 600+ in attendance Chesapeake - unanimous! Massive turnout well over 1,300 people Cumberland County Floyd County - 5 to 0 -...

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Vin Scully. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Vin Scully is a retired broadcaster for the Brooklyn, then Los Angeles Dodgers, who called the games starting with Red Barber back in the Jackie Robinson era. He is considered one of the greatest announcers of all time. Back when California was part of the United States, one could not watch the Dodgers without listening to Vin Scully, even on national broadcasts, tuning out the national announcers in favor of the Great One. All hints,...

Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., said Tuesday she’s willing to impeach President Trump again if he wins reelection in 2020. TMZ founder Harvey Levin presented Bass with a scenario in which Trump wins a second term but Democrats take over the Senate from the Republicans.

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve witnessed a cultural transformation wherein people describe themselves in terms of how they “identify.” It’s common to hear men say they “identify as a woman” or in some extreme cases to hear a Caucasian person identify as black. However, no amount of identifying as a woman will make a man have a period. No amount of identifying as a woman will allow a man to grow or birth a child. Identifying as a woman makes a man a woman as much as my identifying as a 2-year-old makes me a toddler. Our identity and...

Posted on December 10, 2019December 10, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope Modern Problems File: Losing God as the Center of Our Worship “Mirror baby”. Licensed underCC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.I have noted before on this blog that one of the trends in modern liturgy is the shift of focus from God to “the assembly.” Too much of liturgy today is anthropocentric.Back in the 1990’s, in his book Why Catholics Can’t Sing, Thomas Day observed that modern liturgy often amounts to “the aware, gathered community, celebrating itself.” Many songs today go on at great length about how we are...

Wednesday, December 11, 2019 The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 51% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-eight percent (48%) disapprove.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is rushing the impeachment vote to the floor of the House before the Christmas recess to keep wavering Democrats in key battleground districts away from their constituents, the majority of whom are potentially uncomfortable with impeaching the president. “House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled two articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump over his contacts with Ukraine: Abuse of power and obstruction of Congress,” Breitbart News Network reported.

The DOJ Inspector General’s report disclosed a multitude of FISA violations by the FBI. As noted by John Solomon, there were 51 Woods violations and nine false statements made to the FISA Court. To understand just how shoddy the FBI’s work was in securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant targeting the Trump campaign, you only need to read an obscure attachment to Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report. Appendix 1 identifies the total violations by the FBI of the so-called Woods Procedures, the process by which the bureau verifies information and assures the FISA court its evidence is true....

Israel headed on Wednesday towards a third national election in less than a year with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing the fight of his life for political survival after a criminal indictment. After giving its preliminary approval, and barring last-minute progress in deadlocked efforts to form a new government, parliament was set to vote for its dissolution later in the day and approve a March 2 election date already agreed by the two major parties.

Francis X. Murphy was just 18 years old when he got married on Dec. 6, 1941. The next day, Pearl Harbor was bombed, and the United States was at war. Murphy joined the 83rd Airdrome Squad. He went to Europe and fought in D-Day and the Battle of the Bulge. To this day, the 95-year-old from Whitman remembers the bloodshed from what remains the third-deadliest battle in American history. “You either kill them or they were going to kill you, and that’s how it was,” Murphy said bluntly.

Assignment asks middle schoolers 'How many slaves would equal 4 white people?' KANNAPOLIS, N.C. — A local middle school social studies assignment is raising serious concerns. Students at Kannapolis Middle School were asked how many slaves would be needed to equal at least four white people. The question was asked as part of a lesson on the Three-Fifths Compromise, which is a 1700's law to count slaves as less than white people. Content Continues Below But, parents are wondering why a teacher would think the assignment was acceptable. [‘Set your price for a slave': Missouri teacher placed on leave after...

In April 2014, then-President Barack Obama signed a law authorizing loan guarantees for Ukraine. That same month, then-Vice President Joe Biden went to Ukraine and made these points: The Obama administration was going to guarantee $1 billion in loans to Ukraine, and the United States was going to help Ukraine develop its energy industry. "Just last week the United States government signed a bill proposed by our administration for a $1 billion loan guarantee agreement with Ukraine," Biden said in Kyiv. "With the right investments and the right choices," Biden said, "Ukraine can reduce its energy dependence and increase its...

Puerto Rico Governor Wanda Vazquez just signed a new firearms law that greatly undoes severe restrictions in place for decades (facebook live at link just ended).

The probability of the amazing Horowitz coin toss is astounding. Every one of the 17 known improprieties in the FBI investigation into Donald Trump all came up heads, in favor of the FBI. Yet, the IG can find no bias. The likelihood of that event in infinitesimal. 17 coin flips all heads = .5 to the 17th power or .00000762939 Will some bloody Congress-critter ask him if bias is statistically certain.

The two people who stormed a kosher grocery store in Jersey City with rifles, killing three people inside and also murdering a veteran detective, have been identified as David Anderson and Francine Graham, four law enforcement sources familiar with the case tell News 4. Three sources say Anderson was a one-time follower of the Black Hebrew Israelite movement, a group whose members believe they are descendants of the ancient Israelites and may adhere to both Christian and Judaic beliefs. There was a note with religious writings in the U-Haul he and Graham allegedly drove to the scene, but a motive...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalm 53 Psalm 53[a] For the director of music. According to mahalath.[b] A maskil[c] of David. 1 The fool says in his heart,     “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and their ways are vile;     there is no one who does good. 2 God looks down from heaven     on all mankind to see if there are any who understand,     any who seek God. 3 Everyone has turned away, all have become corrupt;     there is no one who does good,     not even one. 4 Do all these evildoers know nothing? They devour my people...

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, as he explains, is bound to assume good faith unless given “documentary or testimonial evidence” otherwise. Yet he has compiled a factually damning report that even a thick-headed and biased press will have to take account of. A shorthand version of his report: Here are 50 facts that can be explained only by FBI incompetence or political bias. We find no documentary or testimonial evidence of bias. The mystique of Christopher Steele has gone poof, along with the reputations of many pundits. The FBI saw that he was being paid to sell claims to...

Here is a chilling case of sanctuary chickens coming home to roost. Upon being convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping, home invasion and the brutal murders of two doctors on Tuesday, African criminal Bampumim Teixeira taunted the Massachusetts prosecutor who won the case and vowed to rape his wife. "You better hope I don't get out of jail," Teixeira threatened as he was dragged away in handcuffs by a quartet of court security officers. The killer appeared to greatly enjoy the media spectacle while striking fear into the hearts of innocents. He will be sentenced on Friday. I am outraged on...