Free Republic

On Monday, a Texas civil rights attorney launched a clemency petition for National Security Agency whistleblower Reality Winner in Dallas. The attorney, Alison Grinter, encountered Winner through Crystal Mason, a Texas mother who served time alongside Winner in a Fort Worth federal prison after receiving a five-year sentence for “illegal voting” in the 2016 presidential election. Mason and Winner became friends in the facility’s newsroom, where they spent long hours watching TV news and debating current events. After hearing about Winner from Mason, Grinter began corresponding with the whistleblower’s mother, Billie Winner-Davis, on Twitter. Last year, the two women drove...

As the campaign “to eradicate pornography and illegal publications” sweeps across the country, religious materials not approved by the Communist Party are seized.On December 7 last year, the police raided a house church meeting venue in Lichuan county, administered by Jiangxi Province’s prefecture-level city of Fuzhou, searching for unlicensed religious materials. Claiming that anything that is not approved by the state is “pirated,” officers confiscated several boxes of Bibles, hymn books, and other religious literature found in the church. They also noted down the ID information of all congregation members who were present and threatened to arrest them if they...

Pro-Trump preacher accused of homophobia and IslamophobiaLONDON (ChurchMilitant.com) - A leading traditionalist Catholic politician has robustly defended Franklin Graham's right to freedom of speech and freedom of religion after all seven venues booked by the preacher banned the evangelist from speaking during his forthcoming tour of the United Kingdom. Liberal Anglican bishops had joined hands with anti-Christian secularists and gay activists in attempting to silence Graham by accusing him of peddling hate speech. The Leader of Britain's House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, condemned Graham's "no-platforming" as a "particularly disagreeable modern trend" and stressed that freedom of speech was of "fundamental...

Michael Bloomberg may have just lost his shot to get the Democrat’s 2020 nomination based on a resurfaced video in which he says the elderly should not get full medical care in order to save money. (see video) Here’s a partial transcript via Newsbusters: “If you’re bleeding, we’ll stop the bleeding. If you need an x-ray, you’re gonna have to wait,” Bloomberg told a Jewish family, explaining his view on how our medical system should work. “All of these costs keep going up, no one wants to pay any more money,” he continued. “And at the rate we’re going, health...

US Attorney General Bill Barr has called out far left billionaire George Soros for subverting the American legal system and creating more crime and violence. Speaking with Martha MacCallum on Fox News last week, AG Barr accused Soros of systematically targeting district attorney races throughout the United States using divisive and dangerous tactics. https://youtu.be/qbmtcZ2hClE?t=36 Soros-backed District Attorneys are causing mayhem across the US. Soros also backed the new District Attorney in San Francisco — Bill Ayers’ stepson Chesa Boudin Is it any wonder why Soros groups are banned from entire countries? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbmtcZ2hClE&feature=youtu.be&t=36

Pablo Escobar’s Hippo Herd Is Treating Colombia’s Lakes Like One Big Toilet They’re thriving, pooping, and fouling up the water around the drug lord’s former estate. JESSICA LEIGH HESTER FEBRUARY 12, 2020 You can't easily spot the poop in the soupy green water, but it's definitely down there. You can't easily spot the poop in the soupy green water, but it's definitely down there. FICG.MX/CC BY 2.0 In This Story PLACE Hacienda Nápoles DESTINATION GUIDE Colombia PABLO ESCOBAR, THE LATE COLOMBIAN drug lord who founded the notoriously violent Medellín Cartel, had a thing for hippos. He once installed a quartet...

Not that anybody is wondering, but if you asked me what books have been of the greatest influence on how and what I think, aside from the BIBLE, and the plays of Shakespeare, I'd answer: Homer, Odyssey Plato, Phaedrus Plato, Symposium Virgil, Aeneid Augustine, Confessions Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy Anonymous, The Quest of the Holy Grail Dante, The Divine Comedy Spenser, The Faerie Queene Herbert, The Temple Pascal, Pensees Milton, Paradise Lost Fielding, Tom Jones Boswell, Life of Johnson Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France Manzoni, The Betrothed Dickens, Bleak House Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov Marcel, Man Against...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (WGEM) — A Senate bill in Illinois would ban the use or sale of gas-powered leaf blowers in the state. Illinois Senator Laura Fine (D) SB3313 filed last week by Senator Laura Fine (D) of the 9th Senate District amends the Environmental Protection Act. It states that "a person may not operate or sell at retail a gas-powered leaf blower in the State. Provides that a person who violates the amendatory Act's provisions shall be subject to a civil penalty not to exceed $500." The bill lists environmental and noise pollution as the reasons for the ban. It...

Egypt: Muslims strip elderly Christian woman, burn Christian homes, force victims to recant their testimony FEB 17, 2020 12:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER See how easy this was? Reconciliation achieved! All is well! “Islamophobia” was averted! “Coptic Christians Forced to Reconcile,” International Christian Concern, February 13, 2020: 02/13/2020 Egypt (International Christian Concern) – Last month, an Egyptian court sentenced to ten years in jail the individuals in Karm village responsible for stripping an elderly Coptic woman, Souad Thabet, of her clothes in 2016. Five Christian houses were burned during the incident. Following this sentence, pressure in the village has been...

... The researchers found that 3,019 medical workers had been infected, among whom 1,688 patients were in severe or critical condition. As of Feb. 11, the government acknowledged more than 1,700 medical workers nationwide as confirmed with the disease, almost 90% of them in Hubei, according to Chinese National Health Commission deputy chief Zeng Yixin at a press conference Friday. ...

Senator Thom Tillis and other liberal Republicans are hell-bent on turning our rural communities into pipelines for cartel drug trafficking and criminal aliens. Rather than holding vote after vote on ridding our communities of sanctuary cities and dangerous criminal alien gangs and drug traffickers, liberal Republicans like Thom Tillis are working on, amazingly, more amnesty for illegal aliens. The North Carolina senator evidently doesn’t think that the Tar Heel State is turning blue like Virginia as quickly as he would like. He also believes that now that he lied about being tough on illegal immigration in order get Trump’s endorsement...

Boy Scouts bankruptcy filing expected within hours, victims’ lawyers say The Boy Scouts of America, after decades of being crippled by child sex abuse claims, plans to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy by early Tuesday, the Daily News has learned.

An international organization of environmental protestors dug up the lawn of Trinity College, Cambridge, as part of a week-long series of demonstrations for fossil fuel divestment. Extinction Rebellion protestors dug channels into the turf of Trinity College’s 16th-century great gate with shovels and pitchforks and planted their flags. “Trinity College must cut ties with fossil fuel companies and stop trying to hawk off nature for profit,” the organization’s Facebook page says. “Oh, and it should take the opportunity to replace the lawn with flowers. Spring is just around the corner after all.”

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Zen offers Mass, and a war cry for the Church Cardinal Joseph Zen offers a Solemn High Pontifical Mass in New York City February 17, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – It would be easy to understand if 88-year-old Cardinal Joseph Zen had been weary and less than eager for an interview. He had traveled to New York after a grinding schedule of long flights, interviews, and meetings. But he was joyful and relaxed when he showed up for his interview with LifeSite’s Claire Chretien in Manhattan.  Cardinal Zen, the Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, was 15 minutes early....

Democratic Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey called on the Trump administration to “reverse course” on a decision to deploy special Border Patrol tactical units in sanctuary cities to assist in the apprehension of illegal aliens. Warren and Markey delivered a joint letter addressed to the chiefs of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Saturday, deriding a decision by the administration to deploy CBP officers to sanctuary cities across the country. The two lawmakers also demanded answers to a number of questions about the operation.

Senator Tom Cotton says that China is refusing to hand over evidence concerning the bio-safety level 4 research lab in Wuhan despite a new report from biological scientists at the South China University of Technology saying it may have been the source of the coronavirus outbreak.During an appearance on Fox News, Cotton told Maria Bartiromo that new evidence confirmed the source of the virus was not the meat market in Wuhan.“Here is what we do know. This virus did not originate in the Wuhan animal market,” said Cotton. “Epidemiologists who are widely respected from China published a study in...

When the US housing bubble burst in 2007, most observers were focused on the threat to Wall Street banks and their massive derivatives books. This was a legitimate fear, since the worst case scenarios involved the death of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, with all the stock market carnage that that implied.But for China the stakes were a lot higher — picture half a billion people taking to the streets and demanding an end to a government whose only claim to legitimacy was its ability to provide millions of ever-more-lucrative jobs. So while the US was bailing out every...

Nuts or evil? The latter. https://t.co/NNIMv3XT2H — Pamela Geller (@PamelaGeller) February 17, 2020 Gotta love our president. He hits back every single time. President Obama was perhaps the worst POTUS ever. He should not be allowed to take credit for the booming Trump economy. #Trump2020! Did you hear the latest con job? President Obama is now trying to take credit for the Economic Boom taking place under the Trump Administration. He had the WEAKEST recovery since the Great Depression, despite Zero Fed Rate & MASSIVE quantitative easing. NOW, best jobs numbers…. — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2020 President...

Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg said at a town hall in Reno, NV if President Donald Trump could “do chores” if he refused to leave the White House after losing his reelection bid. A voter asked Buttigieg what he would do if Trump said, “No, this is all a hoax,” and refusing to concede. Buttigieg said, “I mean, if he won’t leave, I guess if he’s willing to do chores, I guess we could work something out.” He continued, “I think we want to set a goal of winning big enough that this election is...

Silent movie classic The Covered Wagon shows the gentle side of men as protectors and lovers of women and male energy let loose on entering and conquering a new frontier. How much of these qualities are present in President Trump? He breaks through bullshit. But his weaknesses are huge. How will history view his presidency?