Free Republic

The Big Picture: who is really running the show in the culture war, and its nature and trajectory. Major policies of liberals are contrary to Scripture and have the devil as their author.While it is easy to focus on personalities and daily events in the on-going culture war, the larger picture is that this is a spiritual war in which liberals, to varying degrees, are simply proxy servants for the devil. Who uses these servant to “progressively” transform the world into an alternative world order of perversions of what God has ordained. Thus the real reason for liberal's attack...

President Trump on Sunday urged Michael R. Bloomberg not to pay his campaign consultants, saying they “led you down a very dark and lonely path,” as the former New York City mayor’s campaign spending eclipsed $500 million. Democratic spending on the 2020 presidential primary campaign topped $1 billion last week, with Mr. Bloomberg responsible for the lion’s share at more than $500 million, according to multiple media analyses. “Mini Mike Bloomberg’s consultants and so-called ‘advisors’ (how did that advice work out? Don’t ask!), are on the ‘gravy train’ and all making a fortune for themselves pushing Mini hard, when they...

Here’s where you can stuff your plastic-bag ban. New Yorkers were forced to begin grappling with a new shopping reality Sunday as the state’s ban on plastic shopping bags kicked in — and not many people were happy about it. “I think it’s ridiculous,” letter-carrier Scott Kimmel, 56, said while shopping at the Whitestone Target in College Point, Queens. “I understand about ‘conserve, take care of the environment,’ but c’mon!” About half the shoppers seen by The Post on the first day of the bag ban, including Kimmel, were compensating by bringing their own bags from home, while another quarter...

A common, and emotionally potent, criticism of incarceration in the United States is that it harms children by taking parents and siblings—mostly fathers and brothers, since men account for more than 90 percent of prisoners—out of their homes, depriving families of caregivers, role models, and breadwinners. “More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States,” writes Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza, in an essay published by the Brennan Center for Justice. “That’s 2.3 million families that have been torn apart.” In that same Brennan Center compendium, Van Jones, cofounder of the #Cut50 initiative to reduce the incarcerated...

Attorneys for Nick Sandmann intend to file complaints against five additional media outlets, a status report filed earlier this week says. The report states that lawyers for the Covington Catholic High School senior intend to file lawsuits against Gannett, ABC, ViacomCBS, The New York Times and Rolling Stone. "All of the future defendants listed above have published or republished statements made by Nathan Phillips and others that Nicholas blocked or otherwise restricted Phillips’ free movement and would not allow Phillips to retreat at the National Mall on January 18, 2019. Nicholas reserves his right to file complaints in this Court...

The United States badly bungled coronavirus testing—but things may soon improve. Speed is critical in the response to COVID-19. So why has the United States been so slow in its attempt to develop reliable diagnostic tests and use them widely? The World Health Organization (WHO) has shipped testing kits to 57 countries. China had five commercial tests on the market 1 month ago and can now do up to 1.6 million tests a week; South Korea has tested 65,000 people so far. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in contrast, has done only 459 tests since...

A federal judge ruled that Ken Cuccinelli, who previously headed the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), was unlawfully appointed to run the agency. D.C. District Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee, decided the Trump administration violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act when Cuccinelli, the current deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was appointed to lead USCIS in June 2019. He also ruled that Cuccinelli’s policy that accelerated the screenings for immigrants seeking asylum should be eliminated, according to the ruling obtained by The Hill. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act regulates who the president can put in...

A federal judge on Sunday ruled that it was unlawful to appoint Ken Cuccinelli to lead the agency responsible for processing US immigration requests. The judge also invalidated a set of policies for the asylum seekers who are part of the case. Advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit last year challenging the legitimacy of his role as acting director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, asking the court to set aside asylum policy changes issued shortly after he took office. Cuccinelli is currently serving as the acting Deputy Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees USCIS. The lawsuit...

Continuation of the thread. Previous Thread 6 here. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3820357/posts

A warming planet has major ramifications on winter snowpack across the globe, including a long-term drying trend for many. That's a concern for winter sports enthusiasts and communities that depend on snow throughout the year. Not many understand this better than the climate advocacy group known as Protect Our Winters (POW). The group is an organization of professional athletes and like-minded individuals fighting for policy to protect winter sports and mountain communities. "Increased temperatures are melting away both my sport and my livelihood," professional ski mountaineer and POW representative Caroline Gliech told the US Senate late last year. This year...

KING COUNTY -- Seattle and King County announced Sunday two more confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in King County residents. The additional cases bring the total number of cases in King County to six. Public Health expects that number to rise as more people are tested and results come back. Local testing for the virus began Friday. The two new cases are: A man in his 60s, hospitalized at Valley Medical Center in Renton. The man has underlying health conditions, and is in critical but stable condition. A man in 60s, hospitalized at Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle....

...An obviously rattled Warren took to the stage in Houston where she ranted and raved, attacking her Democrat opponents and generally seeming a bit unhinged...Part of this has to be a reaction to Bernie actively campaigning in Massachusetts and polling ahead of Warren in her home state. He is also fundraising far more than she is; the AP reports: “Sanders raised stout $46.5M in February; Warren got $29M.”

PARIS - Several women walked out of France's film academy as it presented its version of the Oscars on Friday where director Roman Polanski's latest film is up for the most awards. Women's rights activists also protested outside the Paris concert hall where the Cesar awards were being held. Polanski decided to skip the ceremony because of earlier protests by women's groups denouncing the 12 nominations “An Officer and a Spy” received after a French woman brought a new rape accusation against him. A few hundred protesters brandishing signs with phrases such as “Victims, we believe you” and “No to...

Southwest Valley Constructors was awarded a $175.4 million contract for border wall construction in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, the Pentagon announced Friday. Work on this contract will be performed in (the vicinity of) Rio Grande City, with an estimated completion date of Oct. 4, 2021, according to the Department of Defense. The project is funded with Fiscal 2018 and 2019 appropriation funds, with the full amount of the award being obligated immediately.

The worst outbreak of coronavirus in Europe has spurred the U.S. government to issue the highest level of warning Sunday to the two Italian regions hardest hit by the virus. The State Department updated its travel advisory to its highest level -- Level 4 -- urging Americans, "Do Not Travel" to the Lombard and Veneto regions in northern Italy. The travel advisory cited quarantines set up in 10 Lombard towns and one in Veneto, with a combined population of 50,000 people, as well as "the level of community transmission of the virus" Sunday's message comes after an earlier warning late...

In the 1960s, Milton Friedman reportedly visited a construction site in a foreign country. To his surprise, the canal builders used no heavy machinery and instead armed thousands of men with shovels. He questioned the bureaucrat about this odd choice and the bureaucrat responded that it was a jobs program. “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal,” Friedman said. “If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.” Friedman’s absurd proposal illustrates the absurdity of make-work bias—the belief that conserving labor makes us poorer. Make-work bias was particularly popular during the Industrial...

A sick cartoon depicting the rape of 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg has sparked outrage at a Canadian oil company where employees are circulating helmet decal bearing the image. Alberta-based X-Site Energy Services' logo is plastered on a sticker - which MailOnline is refusing to show - that shows a silhouette of female marked 'Greta'. The firm has denied circulated the image on social media, but did not deny creating the sticker that was pictured online. When confronted about whether he was comfortable with a depiction of rape, general manager Doug Sparrow was more concerned with disputing that the teenager...

Claiming to be the "only true Christian running for president this year," Democratic candidate, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg explained why religious objections to the LGBTQ agenda "cannot be allowed." "The right to freedom of religion is a right to worship as you choose as long as what you choose to believe does not contradict the public policy guaranteeing that lesbians,' gays,' bisexuals,' transsexuals,' and bleep' rights to be accepted as they are," Buttigieg said. "In the privacy of your own mind you can harbor whatever thoughts you want, but in public you must obey the laws enacted by our courts...

New York Assemblyman Felix Ortiz is a legislative genius. When last we checked on his work, he was planning to GPS-enable every new gun in the state, and require firearm owners to have just the sort of insurance that the state was busily shutting down. Amidst all of that, I somehow missed another one of his bills. A03779 Establishes a statewide database to maintain and track coded ammunition; establishes penalties for individuals who violate such provisions; also establishes the ammunition coding system database fund. That’s all bad enough. Basically, it would require every single, individual cartridge in the state, for...

The National College Players Association is calling on the NCAA to hold upcoming "March Madness” tournament games without fans as a way to protect athletes from contracting and spreading the coronavirus. The nonprofit advocates for the rights and safety of college athletes. On Saturday, the group said it’s in the best interest of the NCAA to take "precautions” to help prevent a pandemic. "They should also make public which actions will be taken and when,” according to a statement. "Precautions should include cancelling all auxiliary events that put players in contact with crowds such as meet and greets and press...