Free Republic

rgentina's Congress has legalised abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy, a ground-breaking law for a region that has some of the world's most restrictive termination laws. Senators voted in favour of the bill after a marathon session with 38 in favour, 29 against and one abstention. Until now, abortions were only permitted in cases of rape or when the mother's health was at risk. The bill had been approved by the Chamber of Deputies earlier this month. The Catholic Church, which remains highly influential in Latin America, had opposed the move, calling on senators to reject the bill....

As frustration over the pace of the Covid-19 vaccine rollout continues to build, health officials in Colorado on Tuesday reported the first known U.S. case of the variant of Covid-19 discovered in the U.K. The U.K. variant appears to be more transmissible than other variants ... and has been detected in a number of countries worldwide. The Colorado case... is a man... who has not left the country. The lack of a travel history means he contracted the virus in the U.S., suggesting undetected transmission of the new variant here. The discovery will only add to the urgency of the...

Two of the most notorious bigots in the House of Representatives signed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he “eradicate anti-Muslim bigotry from Facebook”. The three-page letter signed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, as well as 28 other left-wing House members, spends a great deal of time demanding the removal of what it calls “anti-Muslim content” without ever specifically defining it. That’s convenient considering Omar and Tlaib’s own history of racism and antisemitism, and support for the sorts of Islamic bigotry and violence that groups like CAIR, which supports the letter, have become known for....

Bipartisan calls to increase the amount of COVID-19 relief checks to $2,000 is facing resistance in the GOP-controlled Senate and sparking division between President Trump and Republican lawmakers. Calls to boost the amount of the direct payments from $600 are gaining support, with Trump, Democratic leadership and a growing number of GOP senators, including vulnerable incumbents in Georgia, backing the effort. But a House-passed bill is still facing headwinds in the Senate that could doom its chances. The House has already left Washington, D.C., meaning that for the bill to become law, it must pass the Senate, without any changes,...

Two days of communal clashes in southeast Guinea have left at least 11 people dead and more than 40 wounded, officials said Sunday. The violence between mostly Muslim Tomas Mania and mostly animist Tomas was sparked Saturday by the unveiling of a new house for the Tomas patriarch in the town of Macenta, local sources told AFP. Police reinforcements from neighbouring towns failed to stop the fighting Sunday and several of their number had been injured, a prefectural source said. Witnesses said many residents had fled and taken shelter in the surrounding forest. Eleven corpses were brought to the local...

At least nine people, including an infant and a woman, were killed when a landmine hit a vehicle carrying civilians in Somalia's Lower Juba region late on Monday, officials said. The incident took place near the vicinity of Taabto, northeast of Dhobley town near the Somali-Kenyan border. Abdi Asis Hussein Gedi, an official from Jubaland administration in the coastal town of Kismayo, said that a vehicle traveling to the Dhobley town area was targeted by a landmine explosion, killing at least 9 civilians, including a woman and an infant. Those responsible for this heinous attack against unarmed civilians must be...

The question is whether both Houses of Congress need to reject a state’s Electoral College vote for an objection made during the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021 to prevail. As explained below, both Houses of Congress do not have to agree to reject a state’s Electoral College votes for those votes to be voided. There are five scenarios under Section 15 of the Electoral Count Act of 1887(3 U.S.C. § 1 et. seq.) (“ECA”) for counting and resolving Electoral College votes disputes in the joint session of Congress. Scenarios 1 through 4 deal with cases in which...

"I Stand With Israel," proclaimed Rev. Raphael Warnock, the Georgia Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, in an op-ed published on Nov. 9, claiming his views are being misrepresented "for political gain." "Claims that I believe Israel is an apartheid state are patently false — I do not believe that," Warnock wrote. "...I strongly oppose the BDS movement and its anti-Semitic underpinnings..." He concluded that "you can count on me to stand with the Jewish community and Israel in the U.S. Senate." Warnock was responding to a Nov. 5 report noting he had co-signed a March 2019 National Council of Churches (NCC)...

Or maybe not. Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report | CDC. Maybe this falls under the heading of Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. Do you think we cured the Flu, do you think they are ignoring the Flu, or do you think government is lying to you? (Hint: EVERYONE is lying to you.) As usual, click the images for a larger view. Flu map for week 51 from the 2019-2020 Flu Season (from the CDC page linked above). Last year week 51 ended on Dec 21, 2019. And a similar map from the 2020-2021 Flu season, for week 51 - which...

Nearly 30 years ago, Sami Al-Arian stood before an audience in Chicago and made his radical ideology as clear as possible. "The Quran is our constitution," he bellowed. "Jihad is our path ... Victory to Islam... Death to Israel... Revolution... revolution till the victory." Two weeks ago, Al-Arian appeared from Istanbul before a virtual audience and made his radical ideology clear, albeit in softer, more academic language. The global Muslim community, or ummah, cannot realize its full potential without "defeating and dismantling the Zionist project," he said during a Dec. 18 panel discussion in Turkey. "We cannot pursue an ummah...

“There be three things which go well, yea, four are comely in going: A lion which is strongest among beasts, and turneth not away for any; A greyhound; an he goat also; and a king, against whom there is no rising up” (Proverbs 30:29-31).

On the day after Christmas, the Iranian Islamic regime’s Ahlul Bayt News Agency published a collection of the sayings from Shia Islam’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Khamenei, about Christianity and related matters. Khamenei denounced the claim that “Islam is hostile to other nations and to other religions” and insisted: “This is not true. Islam is not antagonistic toward other religions.” Digging even deeper, he added: “When Islam dominated non-Muslim regions, the followers of other religions were grateful to Muslims for their Islamic mercy.” Khamenei and his regime are known for their deceptive practices, but this one may be the biggest...

December 30 2020 The Sixth Day in the Octave of Christmas St. Teresa's Church, Hong Kong . Lectionary203Reading 1 1 JN 2:12-17I am writing to you, children, because your sins have been forgiven for his name’s sake.I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.I am writing to you, young men, because you have conquered the Evil One.I write to you, children, because you know the Father.I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning.I write to you, young men, because you are strong and the word of God...

Remember the Hunter Biden laptop story? The story that the Big Tech and media giants censored before the election because it would hurt their candidate, Hunter’s dad, Joe Biden? Remember when Twitter censored The New York Post’s account because it claimed the explosive business memos, photos of a drug-imbibing Hunter, and boudoir photos, some allegedly with an underaged “family member,” came from a “hacker”? The non-hacker, computer repair company owner John Mac Isaac, is now suing Twitter for $500,000,000.00 for libel, defamation, and ruining his business because the social media giant disparaged him. There were no tears from scribes at...

Shootings in Democrat-controlled Portland, Oregon, are up over 116 percent as compared to shootings in the city during 2019. Fox News reports “at least 850 shootings…as of Christmas Eve” 2020, compared to 393 shootings for all of 2019. Moreover, December 2020 alone has witnessed 59 shootings, a significant increase over the 33 shootings in December 2019.

Fox News contributor Stephen Hayes said Tuesday on Fox News Channel’s “Special Report” that President Donald Trump’s demands on the coronavirus stimulus were a “temper tantrum from the president who’s trying to steal an election.”

The two Iraqis are accused of using the “hawala” system to finance ISIS An Iraqi father and son face two to 12 years of imprisonment for financing ISIS terrorists between February 2015 and April 2016 from Poland, according to Polish authorities. The spokesman of the minister-special services coordinator, Stanisław Żaryn, stated that the investigation into the two Iraqi men was conducted by officers of the Wrocław unit of the Internal Security Agency (ABW). The investigation was concluded with an indictment against the Iraqis who had been detained by the ABW in June 2020. The indictment was directed to court by...

Alec Baldwin impersonated the accent of his wife, Hilaria Baldwin, and claimed, "My wife is from Spain," during an appearance on David Letterman's late-night talk show in 2013, according to an old clip that has surfaced online. Hilaria Baldwin's heritage has faced new scrutiny after she recently confirmed she was born in Massachusetts -- and not Spain, as she had previously claimed. In a 2013 interview with Letterman on CBS's "The Late Show," Baldwin told the host his wife was from Spain, then used a fake accent while impersonating her on the phone with a hairdresser or friend. "My wife...

A federal judge has denied a request to move all of this fall's municipal elections in Georgia away from "unsecure, unreliable and grossly outdated technology" and toward hand-marked paper ballots that are optically scanned and counted. The order from U.S. District Court Judge Amy Totenberg Thursday also requires the state to cease using its direct-recording electronic voting machines after 2019 and expresses doubts about the state's ability to roll out its new ballot-marking device system in time for the March 24, 2020, presidential primary election. In the decision, Totenberg also directs the Georgia secretary of state's office to develop a...

Morgan Freeman picked up his bullhorn and baseball bat to star in the 1989 Warner Bros. movie. Joe Clark, the uncompromising New Jersey high school principal who employed a bullhorn and baseball bat to round his students into shape en route to becoming the subject of the inspirational Morgan Freeman film Lean on Me, has died. He was 82. Clark died Tuesday after a long illness at his home in Gainesville, Florida, his family announced. Soon after taking over as head of Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey, Clark expelled 300 students for fighting, vandalism, abusing teachers and drug...