Free Republic

State lawmakers want to square conflicting health care values between public University of California hospitals and Catholic hospitals that collaborate on patient care, under a new bill introduced Wednesday by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. Under longstanding agreements between UC Health and Catholic hospital systems like Dignity Health or St. Joseph Health, UC doctors and medical students who provide care inside Catholic hospitals must abide by Catholic Church directives that prohibit abortions, sterilizations, contraception, some end-of-life options and gender affirmation surgery. Wiener says this makes the public university system complicit in discriminating against women and transgender patients. “The fact...

NEW YORK — Two Catholic organizations in southern Texas are prepared to provide humanitarian relief to a combined 400 migrants a day, with the expectation that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will release more migrants as soon as next week. “Having participated in a few meetings with other non-profit organizations as well as the government agencies, they are letting us know and they are also getting us ready that families are going to be released,” Rebecca Solloa, the executive director at Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Laredo told The Tablet. Solloa didn’t have an exact date when the government...

In the New Year, systemic racism has continued to force inequity in home ownership rates across the Bay Area, and Black families who are in a position to purchase a home often face discrimination. It is no secret that home ownership is a proven pathway to building wealth in the United States. But in a competitive housing market with some of the most expensive homes in the country, it is tough for Black Bay Area residents to buy a home to start the process.

China's Xinhua news agency and the Global Times state newspaper both praised Mr. Biden's "amazing show of respect for China and President Xi Jinping. Even when Xi was eating his lunch Joe was appropriately respectful, though he did mysteriously mumble 'if Oliver Twist can have pudding, then the God Damned President of the United States ought to have pudding.' Xi was puzzled and wanted to know who this privileged Mr. Twist is. This aside, the communication between the two leaders was a dramatic contrast to the disrespect shown to China by Mr. Trump. Trump was repeatedly and inharmoniously pushing his...

On the 140th anniversary of the death of the great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, on February 9, 2021, commemorative events were held at his grave at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Holy Trinity Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg. The requiem for the writer was performed by the clerics of the Cathedral of the Vladimir Icon of the Mother of God in St. Petersburg (FM Dostoevsky was once a parishioner of this cathedral) Priest Alexander Prokofiev and Deacon Andrei Reimers. “We often remember both the personality and the work of the great Russian writer, the genius of Russian literature...

Remember when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was almost universally hailed by the left over his many coronavirus briefings to the extent that he even won an Emmy in November for them? Of course, the Emmy Founders Award was given to Cuomo in November not so much for what he said but more for the fact that was considered the favored counterpoint to President Donald Trump's coronavirus briefings which they hated because he was, well, Trump.A big part of the Emmy ceremony was the top gushing over Cuomo by celebrities which in retrospect, due to the revelations about Cuomo's office...

Late News: Syrian government media reporting air defenses in operation tonight... White House Deputy Press Secretary T.J. Ducklo resigning this weekend. The resignation one day after he received a one week suspension for threatening a reporter... Responding to his acquittal at the second impeachment trial, President Trump said: "Our movement has only just begun"... ..Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said Trump was: "practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day" regarding the incident at the US Capitol... President Joe Biden said in a statement: "the substance of the charge is not in dispute"... From Ogden, Utah the...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capita Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

In a quiet but stunning correction, the New York Times backed away from its original report that Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick was killed by a Trump supporter wielding a fire extinguisher during the January 6 melee at the Capitol building. Shortly after American Greatness published my column Friday that showed how the Times gradually was backpedaling on its January 8 bombshell, the paper posted this caveat:UPDATE: New information has emerged regarding the death of the Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick that questions the initial cause of his death provided by officials close to the Capitol Police.The paper continued to...

A video posted to Instagram on Saturday evening by user 'standwithseattlepd' shows a snow barrier built by protesters outside of the Seattle Police Department's East Precinct. In the video, a police vehicle is seen rolling backwards after attempting to drive over the barrier. "Antifa goons blocked the exit of the East Precinct with a pile of snow tonight, in an effort to stop vehicles from responding to emergency calls," the user claimed in the caption on a separate video showing a crowd of officers later standing around the barrier. Another video of the incident posted by journalist Andy Ngo shows...

Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne was deeply involved in the analysis of the 2020 U.S. general election, leading a team of ‘white hat’ hackers to delve into exactly what happened. Now he has preliminary results of where the foreign interference (cyber attacks, acts of war) came from. His preliminary data is below…you be the judge.

Electric-vehicle drivers put about half as many miles on their cars as the average driver. At least, that's what a new study, conducted by researchers working for the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), is estimating. Those results are based on calculations that look at the increase in home energy usage for homes with EVs in California. The study authors did not ask the EV drivers themselves. Nor did they check odometer readings through service records or using other methods. They do admit that getting that kind of information would be best but that these numbers are "within the vehicles...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is trying to prevent Democrats from treading on Texans’ gun rights, calling on his state to become a “sanctuary” for the Second Amendment. In his State of the State address last week, Abbott said, “Texas must be a Second Amendment sanctuary state.” “Politicians from the federal level to the local level have shouted: ‘Heck yes, the government is coming to get your guns,'” he said. “We won’t let that happen in Texas.” Abbott’s comments are a direct reference to Beto O’Rourke, the Texas Democrat who has hinted he might challenge for the governorship in 2022.

In April 2011, an Assistant Secretary in the Obama administration’s Office for Civil Rights named Russlyn Ali sent a letter to college and university deans. The purpose of the letter, which began with the ostensibly courteous greeting, “Dear Colleague,” was to inform schools of the agency’s displeasure with the campus response to what it saw as a troubling “epidemic” of sexual violence and to give “guidance” about the procedures that institutions should follow to better protect students. Missives clarifying agency regulations are a fairly common, if tedious, form of bureaucratic communication in D.C., of interest to few people other than...

For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! ~ Hall of Heroes ~ Gary W. Martini Info from here. Private First Class Gary Wayne Martini (September 21, 1948 - April 21, 1967) was a United States Marine who posthumously received the Medal of Honor for heroism in April 1967 during the Vietnam War. Martini was born on September 21, 1948, in Lexington, Virginia. His early education was completed in Frankford, West Virginia, where he participated in intramural sports....

On a Saturday morning in August 2019, a 21-year-old White man with ear protectors, safety glasses and an AK-47-style rifle walked into a crowded Walmart in El Paso, Tex., his pockets bulging with ammunition. He had to driven hundreds of miles across the state, prosecutors say, because he wanted to kill Latinos.Kevin McAleenan, the acting Homeland Security secretary, was at a Coast Guard picnic in Virginia that day, and soon the urgent messages began arriving. A sinking feeling of horror set in as the magnitude of the attack became clear. “It was devastating,” he said.Twenty-three people were murdered in the...

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for an investigation into an alleged cover-up by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration over how many patients died in nursing homes early in the COVID-19 pandemic. "It's very troubling. We've got to know more. We now need a full accounting of what happened," de Blasio said during a radio interview on Friday. "Think about seniors, who their lives were in the balance and their families, you know, just desperate to get them the help they needed," de Blasio continued. "We need to know exactly what happened here. We need to make...

Last call is getting a little later. Gov. Cuomo on Sunday issued an executive order pushing the statewide curfew for bars, restaurants and other establishments with liquor licenses from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. “Hospitalizations and the positivity rate continue to decline, and with the holiday surge now in our rear-view mirror, we must keep taking steps to further re-open the economy safely and responsibly,” he said in a Sunday statement. The later curfew also applies to gyms and fitness centers, casinos and pool halls, his office noted. **SNIP** Cuomo’s new executive order comes as a growing number of Albany...

"Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. . . . They will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary” (Isaiah 40:31). Relying on God’s power gives us confidence to live as Christians. What should be our response to God’s power? First, we should worship Him. Our response should follow what God told Israel: “The Lord, who brought you up from the land of Egypt with great power and with an outstretched arm, Him you shall fear, and to Him you shall bow yourselves down, and to Him you shall sacrifice” (2...

We have learned from Isaiah 49 that the Lord knows your battle. He has fought it before you. And it is no sin to endure thoughts that your labor has been in vain, or to be cast down with a sense of failure over shattered expectations. Jesus himself experienced this and was without sin. It is very dangerous, however, to allow these hellish lies to fester and enflame your soul. Jesus showed us the way out of such despondency with this statement: “I have labored in vain…Yet surely my just reward is with the Lord, and my work with my...