Free Republic

December 12 2019 Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe Reading 1 Zec 2:14-17 Sing and rejoice, O daughter Zion! See, I am coming to dwell among you, says the LORD.Many nations shall join themselves to the LORD on that day,and they shall be his people,and he will dwell among you,and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.The LORD will possess Judah as his portion in the holy land,and he will again choose Jerusalem.Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the LORD!For he stirs forth from his holy dwelling. Or Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10abGod's...

I consider myself a minimalist. Too much stuff gives me all kinds of stress, from ecological to financial. I’m a big believer in experiential gifts and spending time (together), not wads of money. But I’m buying my kids presents this year. They're tangible, need to be unwrapped and aren't just experiences or vouchers. And I’m feeling good about it. It’s not out of guilt or peer pressure, or any of those other powerful emotions. There is a method to my consumerism. First of all, when I say I’m buying my kids presents, I don’t mean a pile of plastic, electronics...

The Air Force and DARPA are now testing new hardware and software configured to enable 4th-Generation aircraft to command drones from the cockpit in the air, bringing new levels of autonomy, more attack options and a host of new reconnaissance advantages to air warfare. Working with BAE Systems at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., Air Force test pilots are combing ground-based simulators with airborne leer jets to demonstrate how 4th generation cockpit avionics can direct drones from the air, BAE Systems developers said. “The airplane was structurally configured to allow us to take our autonomy hardware and connect it directly...

Jeff Sessions was in Laura Ingraham’s show tonight. Ingraham was very pointed. She asked him about the IG today, Comey, and the FBi Investigation of Trump’s Campaign. She asked him directly twice, wasn’t this essentially Entrapment of his campaign people? Sessions looked like he was going to cry. He then said, feeling the pressure, I’ll answer you like this, we need to find out what happened. WHAT? Yeah, his best answer, 3 years later, after actually being pressed, was - we need to find out what happened. Wow.

Watch them, Friends! Listen. Watch your Democrat lawmakers speak again and again of the moments that mean the most to them: taking their oaths. Holding with reverence their prized Bibles. Daddy's Bible. Grandpa's Bible. The symbols of a deep Catholic faith, for instance: Nancy Pelosi's faith. Watch them speak of the love they have for their LORD, of their religions and precious communities. Their love of Truth, Justice. Listen to them speak of America's foundation: the Lord. The Bible. Faith, righteousnessness, and honesty. This is a solemn time, they say. A prayerful time. Watch these pious men and women bow...

US legislation that paves the way for diplomatic action and sanctions against Hong Kong could potentially threaten the city’s exchange rate peg and long-term status as a financial centre, analysts said. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which was signed into law last month by US President Donald Trump, increases scrutiny of Hong Kong’s economic and political systems, and its passage comes during a time of unprecedented unrest in the city. Among other mandates, it allows the US State Department to suspend Hong Kong’s special trading status based on whether the city retains a sufficient level of autonomy...

With the impeachment nonsense making TV news unwatchable, I’ve been catching up on “Law & Order SVU” recently. The scripts involve the sort of real-life crimes that are a lot more common since our country has become “diverse,” such as child rape and incest. But the child-rapists are never diverse, as they are in real life. No, the perps are always blond, blue-eyed American men. In fact, the modern American white male is the least rapey, most gentle, protective, chivalrous creature God has ever created. Get ready for a gigantic I TOLD YOU SO when American women realize that, from...

Sustained power outages caused by electric-wire failures in Northern California could double or even quadruple in years to come unless PG&E Corp. PCG -1.46% steps up its replacement of aging equipment, according to a utility-commissioned analysis. PG&E’s current rate of electric-line replacement falls far short of what’s needed to prevent a surge of failures due to the effects of aging, according to the analysis by researchers at Georgia Tech. The analysis suggests the current focus on upgrading distribution lines in areas of extreme fire risk fails to solve a more basic problem of age-related deterioration, especially in coastal areas where...

Updated at 8:10 p.m.: Revised with information regarding suspect’s possible location. Police are seeking a 21-year-old fugitive in the killing of a Houston-area police officer, the second death of an area officer in three days. A photo released by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office of Tavores Henderson, wanted in connection with the killing of Nassau Bay Police Sgt. Kaila Sullivan, that shows Henderson's distinctive tattoo. A photo released by the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office of Tavores Henderson, wanted in connection with the killing of Nassau Bay Police Sgt. Kaila Sullivan, that shows Henderson's distinctive tattoo.(Fort Bend County Sheriff's...

On Wednesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) dropped a bomb about FBI interference in the 2016 election while questioning Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz about his report regarding misconduct in the espionage operation against the Trump campaign in 2016. “Is it worse to have a foreign government trying to meddle in our elections, or is it worse to have our own government meddling in the election?” asked Hawley. Referring to the report, Hawley continued: "It shows that our government, the most powerful law enforcement agency in the nation, the FBI, effectively meddled in an...

Call this the moment that Republicans well and truly pounced. At least that’s how The Hill reports it, with a headline blaring that “conservatives rip FBI over IG report.” While The Hill also includes a short clip of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) expressing his anger over the “indictment” of the FBI’s actions, it doesn’t mention the portion of Cruz’ interaction with Michael Horowitz caught by Jason Howerton.In this brief exchange, Cruz focuses on the report of an attorney who altered documents in order to support the FBI’s FISA warrant application renewal. Did an FBI attorney really create “fraudulent evidence”...

Amazon signed a deal to lease more than 335,000 square feet of space in Manhattan’s new Hudson Yards neighborhood, office realty group SL Green Realty announced Monday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the deal on Friday. The deal comes less than a year since Amazon announced on Valentine’s Day it would halt plans to build its new headquarters in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens, New York. Amazon and lawmakers who brokered the deal behind closed doors faced pushback from local activists and city council leaders who criticized the nearly $3 billion in performance-based incentives offered to the...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Wednesday that the league had “moved on” from last month’s long-awaited workout with Colin Kaepernick, three years after the former 49ers quarterback kneeled during the pre-game national anthem in protest of racial injustice. The protests drew the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump and Kaepernick said teams would not sign him because of his activism. He eventually settled a collusion grievance case with the National Football League in February. The NFL announced the special workout with just a few days’ notice, and the 32-year-old quarterback moved the tryout from the...

The audition date was set. On Dec. 4, students at Alexander Hamilton High School in Elmsford, N.Y., would have the chance to flaunt their vocal chops with the hopes of landing a role in the drama club’s highly anticipated spring musical: Disney’s “Tarzan.” But just days before the scheduled tryouts, administrators announced a change of plans. Instead of “Tarzan,” the Westchester County high school would be putting on a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night.” The reason for the abrupt change? Two parents complained about racism. “The concerns were over the original story line behind ‘Tarzan of the Apes,’...

A Progressive United Methodist congregation in Southern California is marking the Advent season with an outdoor nativity display featuring the holy family in cages. According to the Los Angeles Times, the depiction of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as refugees in cages likens one of the most well-known images of the Christmas season to photos that have become synonymous with criticism of the Trump administration’s border separation policies. “We don’t see it as political; we see it as theological,” Claremont United Methodist Church lead pastor the Rev. Karen Clark Ristine told the Times. “Imagine Joseph and Mary separated at the border...

I’ve said before that I take after George Orwell. Disinformation scares me more than bombs. As bad as they are, bombs don’t lie. They don’t make it impossible to tell truth from falsehood. They are trying to kill you. But there’s one thing that scares me even more than that. It’s indifference. As bad as things are right now, as unpopular as this president is, I don’t think enough Americans are scared enough, or enraged enough. As bad as things are, I fear that most people, but especially middle-class white liberals, are not inspired nearly enough to care.

MADRID, December 11, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Spanish authorities revealed that tens of thousands more citizens died than were born in the first six months of 2019. The alarming statistics not only reveal this time period to have the lowest birthrate in almost 80 years, but they also highlight the country’s trend toward what observers are calling the country’s “demographic suicide.” According to the Spanish National Statistical Institute (INE), between January and June of this year, Spain saw only 170,074 children born. In this same time frame, 215,478 citizens died. This means that there was a decline in Spain’s population by...

Chilean officials say they have located debris believed to be from an air force plane that went missing on Monday. They said the wreckage was found floating 30km (19 miles) from where the C-130 Hercules cargo plane with 38 people on board last made contact. The wreckage was spotted in a body of water known as the Drake Passage. The plane was en route from Chile's southern city of Punta Arenas to the country's Presidente Eduardo Frei Montalva base in the Antarctic. The located debris "could be part of the remains of the sponges of the internal fuel tanks," Air...

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, along with the other 5 dioceses in California, will be subpoenaed for additional records as the state attorney general continues to investigate whether dioceses complied with mandatory reporting requirements. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced in May he would investigate all of California’s Roman Catholic dioceses to ensure that church officials followed state law and reported sexual misconduct allegations to law enforcement. The announcement of that investigation came after Becerra’s office began requesting that victims of clergy sex abuse submit complaints to his office last year. The Sacramento diocese, along with five other dioceses,...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ NATIONAL STRIPES Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Scott Farrell folds the U.S. flag aboard the guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville in the South China Sea, July 9, 2016. The Chancellorsville is patrolling in the U.S. 7th Fleet area of responsibility supporting security and stability in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region. Navy photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Andrew Schneider Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. NIGHT-VISION VIEW Soldiers look through their night-vision...