Free Republic

The pause on construction of the border wall costs taxpayers about six million dollars per day while construction sites sit idle, Breitbart Texas learned from a senior Department of Homeland Security official. On Sunday, March 21, the 60-day pause in construction of the border wall is scheduled to end. According to the source, the expenditures are required for materials orders placed before the pause and expenses for the cost of equipment sitting idle. When the issuance of a stop work order causes a contractor to idle equipment, they are entitled to be compensated for rental expenses or costs of ownership....

WASHINGTON (WFLA) – A man accused of setting a Florida church on fire last year is facing a federal hate crime charge. Court records show that a federal grand jury in Orlando returned an indictment on Wednesday against 24-year-old Steven Shields. He’s charged with using fire to commit a felony and intentionally damaging religious property. He also faces state arson and burglary charges. According to the indictment, Shields intentionally set fire last July to the Queen of Peace Catholic Church in Ocala. The Marion County Sheriff’s Office said last year that Shields plowed a minivan through the church’s front door,...

The Church of England may institute a quota on black and minority ethnic clergy within its ranks as well as institute anti-racism training, according to a report leaked Saturday. The Spectator obtained a copy of a report set to be turned into the Archbishops’ Council next week by the Church of England’s anti-racism task force, which was established after Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby apologized for the denomination’s racist past last year. The British magazine reports that the title of the document, slated to be released to the public on April 22, is “From Lament to Action: Report of the...

Denver Newsroom, Mar 19, 2021 / 03:01 am MT (CNA).- Israeli archaeologists announced this week the discovery of several new sets of Dead Sea Scrolls— ancient fragments of biblical text that have, for the past 70 years, contributed to scholars’ knowledge about the Old Testament. The new scroll fragments, which the Israeli Antiquities Authority announced March 16, include the books of Zechariah and Nahum, both minor prophets. Dr. John Bergsma, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville who has written and spoken extensively on the Dead Sea Scrolls, told CNA that an interesting feature of the scrolls recently found...

There was an extraordinary public exchange between the U.S. and China before their high-level meetings in Alaska on Thursday. The Chinese dismissed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan as “condescending.” In diplomatic terms, it meant that China felt it didn’t have to listen to anything they said. A U.S. representative anonymously told the media that China was “grandstanding,” which meant essentially the same thing as the Chinese characterization of U.S. officials. In other words, before the meetings even started, both sides had determined not to hear what the other was saying. In case you...

Poor Amy Gardner. She is the fiction writer at the Washington Post who bungled the story on President Donald Trump’s conversation with Georgia state election officials.Gardner’s fake news account made it seem that Trump was urging Georgia officials to illegally reverse the results of the election by hunting down fraud, real or imagined.We now know her source for that information was Jordan Fuchs, a deputy in the office of the Georgia secretary of state.The Washington Post has since published a thick correction to Gardner’s fictional account.But Gardner’s article did what it was designed to do. It contained secret code words...

Pastor James Coates’ church had been admitting believers exceeding 15 percent of the building’s capacity, violating lockdowns in Alberta.EDMONTON, Alberta, March 17, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Canadian Pastor James Coates, who was jailed for holding church services amid COVID lockdowns, will soon be released from prison. His legal team announced today that Crown prosecutors agreed to drop most of the charges. “The Justice Centre today announced that Crown Prosecutors have agreed to withdraw all but one of the Public Health Act offences that Pastor James Coates has been charged with. The Justice Centre expects Pastor Coates will be released from jail...

I’m a cynic. Always questioning, never happy with simple answers. Always watching what is going on, asking “why?” When it comes to COVID, I’ve had more questions than there are real answers. I currently have two main quarrels with our approach to COVID. One, masks. I live in sunny California. It’s the first day of spring. My farmers market requires masks, and I can’t help but wonder, walking around outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine, why? They don’t work, we know that. I breathe and my glasses fog up. Clearly, air is getting in and out. If it weren’t,...

Co-founders Lisa Wheeler and Kari Beckman talk about the genesis, focus, and goals of the Catholic community to be located just north of Tyler, Texas.The hills, lakes, and piney woods of East Texas will soon be home to a planned Catholic community, with the aim of living intentionally faithful lives and supporting, preserving, and spreading the Catholic Faith. Called “Veritatis Splendor,” the community is in its nascent stages. The organizers have purchased 600 acres of land in rural Texas, outside the small city of Winona, located about 20 minutes north of Tyler. Plans for the community include a grand Oratory,...

Emily Ford completed her 10-week thru-hike on March 6, with help from canine companion Diggins. Throughout her icy, 10-week, 1,135-mile trek, Emily Ford found comfort in one thing: sharing king-sized Rice Krispie treats with Diggins, her Alaskan Husky companion on Wisconsin’s formidable Ice Age Trail. The 28-year-old Ford completed the trail on March 6, making history as only the second person on record to complete the thru-hike in winter. Ford, who is Black, is the first person of color to achieve this milestone, but she’s modest in speaking of her accomplishment: “There’s tons of other people doing this also, so...

A camera-trap study in the Mendocino National Forest in Northern California reveals that black bears are adept at finding and stealing the remains of adult deer killed by pumas. This "kleptoparasitism" by bears, as scientists call it, reduces the calories pumas consume in seasons when the bears are most active. Perhaps in response to this shortage, the pumas hunt more often and eat more small game when the bears are not in hibernation. The findings are published in the journal Basic and Applied Ecology. Pumas, also known as mountain lions or cougars, are apex predators, but this doesn't mean they...

We proudly handed the Biden Administration the most secure border in history. All they had to do was keep this smooth-running system on autopilot. Instead, in the span of a just few weeks, the Biden Administration has turned a national triumph into a national disaster. They are in way over their heads and taking on water fast. The pathetic, clueless performance of Secretary Mayorkas on the Sunday Shows today was a national disgrace. His self-satisfied presentation—in the middle of the massive crisis he helped engineer—is yet more proof he is incapable of leading DHS. Even someone of Mayorkas’ limited abilities...

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

Recently, I was invited to a dinner in Tampa to honor of U.S. war veterans. As usual, I had the pleasure to meet some new people and my conversation with a kind, elderly woman stuck with me. She kept asking me about my stay and experiences in Tampa and general questions about Afghanistan my homeland. Suddenly she noticed my cell phone on the table and asked me if we have cell phones back home? I gently answered with a smile, yes ma’am after 18 years of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, there have been tremendous achievements. Our conversation reminded me of...

Ann Wilson has detailed the “cruel and nasty” body shaming that gave her anxiety during the height of Heart’s career. “Anxiety about that really peaked for me in the 1980s when Heart was having its biggest commercial success,” the singer recalled on Mind Wide Open, the IGTV series and podcast hosted by Chris Cornell's daughter, Lily Cornell Silver. “When that happens, you get into this really intense cross section of spotlights. And, on top of that, it was MTV days when you had to not only be in a band, you had to look like a model, you had to...

Ben Shapiro believes the government has the right to force you to take a COVID-19 vaccine. Tom Pappert by TOM PAPPERT March 20, 2021During the March 18 episode of his radio show, conservative commentator Ben Shapiro made the case for mandatory vaccination. When a caller asked Shapiro about the use of fetal baby DNA, and about the vaccine companies not having any liability and having access to a special government-sponsored payout system for those who sustain critical injuries or die because of vaccines, Shapiro made the case for mandating them anyway.Shapiro claimed that personal liberty only counts when it comes...

The onslaught of abominable filth, which covers gore, cursing (including the cursing of God, heavenly creatures [holy s], and the Lord Jesus Christ), sexual / content and depravity in its myriad of horrific perversions--the willful ("experimenting") or mentally-ill, disturbed forms of sexual identity dysphoria [use the entire alphabet if you will] (including suggestive language and motions), incredible, senseless violence, horror, rage, rape, mind-bending and shocking criminal insanity, fear-mongering, indoctrination / programming via imagery with layering subconscious suggestions / commands, continues in all forms of media. Movies, live TV (cable, internet, satellite, personally recorded media). I can't wrap my brain around...

Editor's note: This 2010 column originally appeared in print in the San Francisco Chronicle. As of 2019, the Chronicle and SFGATE have been separate editorial operations.San Francisco's hidden truth is out. That's what community organizer Carol Mo calls the realization that Asian residents are being targeted for robberies, burglaries and intimidation by young black men. "It is San Francisco's dirty little secret," said Mo, a former Safety Network Community organizer in the Sunset District. "It's not news to us." Hundreds of people marched into Tuesday's Board of Supervisors meeting to express their fear, frustration and outrage. But so far...

Since 1984, Dr. Anthony Fauci has served as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. During that period, his salary has steadily increased. The latest federal government payroll study indicated Fauci earned $417,608 in 2019. His salary not only exceeded the President of the United States, but also of every other person in our federal government with over 4 million employees. Clearly, he is not only overrated, but also overpaid. It is high time the highest paid federal government employee, Dr. Anthony Fauci, be fired. Fauci is irritating for a number of reasons. He loves the media...

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said Sunday that he thinks he is "close" to securing the Republican votes needed to overcome a Senate filibuster to advance a key immigration measure that would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. "I've been stopped by the filibuster five times from passing it. I had a majority, I didn't have 60 votes. Do I have 60 now? I think I'm close," the Illinois Democrat told CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union" Sunday. Durbin, the Senate's second-ranking Democrat, said he plans to...