Free Republic

I explore some of the last surahs from the Koran, and explain why Muhammad incriminates himself when he condemns slanderers and backbiters.

Last Friday, Prime Minister Trudeau abruptly reversed himself and demanded that the blockades of rail lines, which have sprung up in various places this month, be cleared. Monday, police in Ontario cleared out one of the larger protest camps, arresting 10 people and clearing the way for trains to resume service. But the protesters werenÂ’t done. Later that night they began throwing burning tires onto the tracks: This was the scene Monday night on the rail lines near Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. Police arrested 10 people earlier in the day and cleared out the camp that was set up Feb....

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is preparing a procedural vote that condemns Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders' praise of purported accomplishments by communist regimes. Majority House Democrats will be faced with three choices, reports LifeZette, "Kill it in the cradle, vote against it thus apologizing for communism, or vote for it and trash their front-runner." "Do they stand with Bernie or do they stand for freedom?" McCarthy asked. Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey already has weighed in on the side of freedom. "Stalin doubled literacy in the Soviet Union, even as he murdered tens of millions of people,"...

Sometime in late 2019, a mysterious virus emerged in the city of Wuhan, China. Easily transmissible, it spread through the city like wildfire. By late January 2020, local hospitals were overwhelmed with critically ill pneumonia patients. China ordered a quarantine of the entire city – a city of 11 million people. Experts named the virus COVID-19 (a.k.a. “the coronavirus”). The quarantine of Wuhan, which now includes dozens of cities and over 700 million people, is implemented with the hope of ending all spread of the disease. If it fails, a global pandemic will strike the world. This isn’t without precedent....

Posting as vanity but this is making the rounds on the net. Posting for those that may wish to share or write a story on it.

Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders will be hosting a rally in Los Angeles on Sunday (Mar. 1), and Public Enemy is set to perform. Comedian Sarah Silverman and beloved actor Dick Van Dyke will also take part in the event. The rally comes just two days before Super Tuesday (March 3), during which the greatest number of U.S. states (California included) will hold primary elections and caucuses. Sanders has already won the New Hampshire and Nevada primaries. Public Enemy's performance comes as no surprise, as in their decades-long career, the group has often focused on political commentary and African American...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Thursday that House Democrats will run on their own policy agenda in the lead-up to November, even if it means breaking from the platform of the party's presidential nominee. The issue of 2020 messaging has come under the spotlight with the surging campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a liberal icon whose left-leaning platform — including policies like "Medicare For All" and the Green New Deal — has energized progressive Democrats but has also sparked waves of panic among more centrist lawmakers fighting for reelection in battleground districts. Appearing to choose her words carefully, Pelosi...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) appeared on the front page of a Cuban newspaper Tuesday following his nuanced comments on the Cuban revolution. The current Democratic primary frontrunner was praised in a column published on the front page of Granma, the Cuban Communist Party’s official newspaper, for saying Fidel Castro’s communist regime was successful in expanding literacy programs in the island nation. However, Sanders went on to explain he did not support the country’s authoritarian leadership. “We're very opposed to the authoritarian nature of Cuba, but you know it's unfair to simply say everything is bad," Sanders said on CBS' "60...

The police have been called multiple times now on supporters of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) over a series of protests targeting officials in the Democratic Party. A video posted online Wednesday shows one of these protests by self-styled “Berners,” who showed up late Friday night with a bullhorn and a flashlight at the house of the chair of Nevada’s Democratic Party to issue warnings against conspiring to undermine Sanders in next day’s caucuses.

Nuns Perform Hindu Ritual During Doxology at Cdl. Cupich Mass ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - Catholics all over the world have been scandalized by nuns performing a distinctive Hindu ritual during the elevation of the Holy Eucharist at a Mass celebrated by Cdl. Blaise Cupich in Rome.       The "arati" ritual is one of twelve Hindu symbols, rituals and ceremonials approved by the Vatican for the "Indian Rite Mass" and has led to widespread syncretism, liturgical abuse, confusion among the laity and a moratorium on evangelization in India.  A trio of Indian nuns, who had completed their diploma in safeguarding at the Gregorian Pontifical University's Center...

Markets are reeling again on Thursday, after the U.S. reported its first coronavirus case involving a person who didn’t travel to an infected country, and didn’t knowingly interact with someone who did. Experts are becoming increasingly resigned to a worldwide spread of the disease, even as China’s new infections slow. 4:00 p.m. ET: Dow drops more than 1,100 points after news California is monitoring thousands of possible casesS&P 500 (^GSPC): -4.43% or -137.94 points to 2,978.45 Dow (^DJI): -4.43% or -1,194.98 points to 25,762.61 Nasdaq (^IXIC): -4.61% or -414.29 points to 8,566.48 Crude oil (CL=F): -3.67% or -1.79 to 46.94...

An Arkansas judge has ruled that Hunter Biden must make himself available for a March deposition in connection to his ongoing child support battle with a former stripper, despite his attempts to postpone the matter until April, according to court papers and a report from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Independence County Circuit Court Judge Holly Meyer handed down the order during a Wednesday afternoon conference call, the Gazette reported. “He needs to make himself available and unless his hair is on fire, he needs to be in Arkansas and he needs to be in a deposition,” Meyer told attorneys during the...

Quebec Premier Francois Legault accused First Nations protesters of being armed with AK-47 assault rifles and said police are reluctant to remove barricades because of potential violence. “The SQ [Surete du Quebec] is working on a plan to dismantle the barricades,” Legault told reporters, according to CBC. But he said The SQ — Quebec Provincial Police — haven’t made much progress because the Mohawks at the First Nations Reserve of Kahnawake have access to weapons, including AK-47s, Montreal’s City News reported Wednesday.

It struck me about one hour into what Politico calls “the snarling incoherence of the latest Democratic presidential debate” that was “painfully hard to follow.” What precisely was so painful? It was not what divided this gaggle of politicians vying for your affection. It was what united them. They all agree that their job is to have a plan for your life. This is the source of the pain. How did it happen that all these candidates have come to believe that it is their job to plan the economy, manage your finances, fix your job, improve your wages, get...

Did the Wuhan coronavirus originate from a wild animal market -- or a laboratory accident? TheStreet posed the question of a top microbiology expert who said either was possible. But, he cautioned, any idea that this particular virus was "created" in a lab can be easily tossed in the wastebasket. "Based on the genome sequence and properties of the virus, there is no basis to suspect the virus was engineered," said Prof. Richard H. Ebright, the laboratory director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology and a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University. It is important to distinguish,...

Dozens of Democratic superdelegates say they’re willing to sacrifice party cohesion to prevent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders from becoming their party’s nominee at the Democratic National Convention in July. The New York Times spoke with 93 superdelegates following Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses on Feb. 22, the vast majority of which said they believe the Democratic Party is headed toward a contested convention. Of the superdelegates interviewed, 84 said Sanders does not deserve to become the party’s nominee based solely on having secured the most, but not over 50%, of the delegates during the primaries and caucuses.

Officers responded and tried to stop the SUV, but the driver didn't yield and they started chasing the vehicle before it crashed on the 110 Freeway near the Vermont Square neighborhood. Aerial video from Sky5 showed a damaged Lincoln Navigator with the same license plate as the one stolen from outside a church in East Pasadena the night before. A casket was visible in the back of the vehicle, video showed. "The deceased individual's remains— they were undisturbed besides, perhaps, some impact from the traffic collision," Grubb said. The black Lincoln Navigator was carrying a casket with a body inside...

"Strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience" (Col. 1:11). God always empowers you to do what He commands you to do. An alarming number of Christians seem to lack spiritual stability. Many are "carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming" (Eph. 4:14). Others lack moral purity. Many are driven by their emotions rather than sound thinking. Increasingly, therapists and psychologists are replacing pastors and biblical teachers as the heroes of the faith. While we still proclaim a sovereign, all- powerful...

As the Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread like wildfire across the globe, a National Taiwan University (NTU) professor on Saturday (Feb. 22) said the virus is likely man-made, based on its unusual structure. At a seminar on the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) hosted by the Taiwan Public Health Association at NTU, Fang Chi-tai (方啟泰), a professor at NTU's College of Public Health, addressed the many theories circulating that the virus somehow leaked from or was released from the Wuhan Institute of Virology biosafety level 4 laboratory (BSL-4 Lab). He said that what is known is that there are many deadly viruses...

Joe Biden (D) has retaken the lead in Florida from Mike Bloomberg (D) while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), who is rising nationally and dominating in several Super Tuesday state polls, continues to fail to gain traction in the Sunshine State, a St. Pete Polls survey released Thursday showed. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) continue to fail to make any significant strides in Florida, coming in a distant third place with 13 percent support. His failure to gain traction in Florida has been a reality but solidified following his controversial remarks on Fidel Castro’s Cuba, praising the literacy rates under his oppressive...