Free Republic

Eighth Week in Ordinary Time Mark 10:46–52 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus heals a blind man. Physical blindness is an evocative symbol of the terrible blindness of the soul that all of us sinners experience. When the pusilla anima (small soul) reigns, when the imago Dei (image of God) is covered over, we see within the narrow spectrum of our fearful desires. Blind Bartimaeus, sitting helplessly by the road outside of Jericho begging for alms and attention, expresses this hopeless and darkened-over state of soul. When he hears that Jesus of Nazareth is in the vicinity, he begins to cry...

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - Newport News Police held a press conference Tuesday after there was an exchange of gunfire between a man and officers earlier that day. Police Chief Steve Drew says the incident took place at Port Warwick after officers were trying to track down a wanted man. At 10:45 a.m., officers were attempting to serve a fugitive with outstanding warrants from James City County who was located in a local apartment complex. Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew identified the suspect as 22-year-old Deston Coward. "They originally saw him in the apartment complex over here around Thimble Shoals,...

For Stephanie Davis, who grew up with little, the military was a path to the American dream, a realm where everyone would receive equal treatment. She joined the service in 1988 after finishing high school in Thomasville, Georgia, a small town said to be named for a soldier who fought in the War of 1812. Over the course of decades, she steadily advanced, becoming a flight surgeon, commander of flight medicine at Fairchild Air Force Base and, eventually, a lieutenant colonel. But many of her service colleagues, Davis says, saw her only as a Black woman. Or for the white...

A professor with the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has said that there is a general dismissal of the fact that more than half of all Americans have developed natural immunity to the coronavirus and that it constitutes “one of the biggest failures of our current medical leadership.”

The entire corporate culture is directed at telling White men that they are evil, an ideology that has profoundly dangerous consequences. Christopher Rufo’s fame as the person who exposes government agencies and corporations that have bought into critical race theory (“CRT”) is growing and that’s a good thing – knowing he’s there means that employees forced to participate in CRT “training” are beginning to see him as a way to expose their employers’ grotesquely un-American (and quite illegal) racist programs. The latest example of this pernicious program comes from Lockheed-Martin, which is the largest defense contractor in America -- thanks...

Motorists will see the highest gasoline prices in seven years when they hit the roads this Memorial Day weekend, the traditional start of the summer driving season, as fuel demand surges alongside coronavirus vaccination rates. Retail gasoline prices are at about $3.04 a gallon on average nationwide, the most expensive since 2014, data from the American Automobile Association showed. And after a year of lockdowns to curb the coronavirus pandemic, tens of millions of American road-trippers are expected to be stung by those prices: More than 34 million Americans are expected to take to the highways between May 27 and...

It’s way too early to be planning for 2024, yet far too many people are focused like a laser on it. If Republicans don’t retake the House and/or Senate in 2022, there won’t be much left to defend by 2024. That’s where the focus should be. But because, in conservative circles, there’s little attention being paid – meaning clicks, cable news bookings, etc. – to anything unrelated to former President Donald Trump, too many people needed for those 2022 victories are pandering for attention rather than the cause. Donald Trump has always been the focus of attention, everywhere he went....

In a drastic move signaling California's looming drought crisis, federal water managers announced Wednesday they're cutting water allocations to farms and cities again. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which supplies water in California through the Central Valley Project, said it expects to cut its delivery to the urban areas it serves by more than half, allocating 25% of the contracted amount rather than the 55% that was announced earlier. Water districts in the San Francisco Bay Area that have contracts with the Central Valley Project and are affected by the cut. The federal government also announced that their water allocations...

In leisure moments mystery stories are captivating. Readers and viewers are eager to watch the solver of the whodunit, able to overcome red herrings, false suspects, locked rooms, misdirection, genre stereotypes, and false alibis. Since Edgar Allen Poe's The Murders of the Rue Morgue and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, there have been many famous fictional detectives, some of whom have achieved legendary status. To name a few of the hundreds of police detectives, and private and amateur sleuths, we have Sherlock Holmes, master of logical reasoning; Philip Marlowe , quintessential hardboiled private eye; Jessica Fletcher, mild-mannered novelist;...

As we know, history tends to rhyme. It’s never the same, but when you zoom out, the bigger picture often looks very similar. What does it mean for gold? Short-term implications With gold’s back-and-forth price action mirroring its behavior from 2012, the yellow metal is likely destined for devaluation. Back then, gold zigzagged with anxiety before suffering a material drawdown. In fact, in early October 2012, it moved slightly above the initial highs right before sliding. Moreover, while the yellow metal has bounced above its declining resistance line (the black line below), the price action mirrors gold’s behavior from early...

Beijing (AFP) - China hit out at the "dark history" of the US intelligence community Thursday, after President Joe Biden ordered a probe into the Covid-19 origins which threatens to set the course for relations between world's top economies. The countries' trade envoys have held "candid" phone talks on the progress of a deal plotted as a pathway out of a trade war sparked by former President Donald Trump, which saw tariffs lumped on tens of billions of dollars of the rivals' goods. But on Wednesday, President Biden reopened a barely healed sore between the countries by ordering US intelligence...

An interesting question was raised just the other day as to what have been the greatest law enforcement revolvers. I suppose you could look at it from several different perspectives. You might consider those guns that were the trend setters or you might tally up the guns that have had the highest production numbers. Or, you might just go with your favorites. And I suppose that there is nothing wrong with any of that. When I first put on the badge of a Texas peace officer, the revolver was king. So I have a bit more than just academic interest...

I’ve been writing a great deal about buyer’s remorse. But just when I think I’ve said everything that needs to be said on the subject, it suddenly gets even worse. President Asterisk’s poll numbers are going south faster than a Minnesota snowbird in October. But, not to be undone, President-elect Harris is racing old Joe to the bottom of the scale. Even liberals are starting to disclose how truly nasty and unlikeable the duo really are. Has Joe managed to “red pill” the population? In our modern-day version of The Matrix, the left has been attempting to “blue pill” us...

Biden’s nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, is a long-time gun control advocate. Putting him in charge of the ATF is a guaranteed attack on American’s Second Amendment rights. As Wednesday’s Senate hearing showed, the guy is also a crackpot and a liar. If you check out leftist media outlets, including taxpayer-funded NPR, it’s clear that Chipman’s attraction for Democrats is his commitment to grabbing guns: Chipman is a veteran of ATF, where he spent 25 years as a special agent. He currently works as a senior policy adviser at Giffords, an organization...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Psalm 77Psalm 77[a] For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm. 1 I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me. 2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands, and I would not be comforted. 3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned; I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.[b] 4 You kept my eyes from closing; I was too troubled to speak. 5 I thought about the former days, the years of long ago; 6...

Amazon recently released a docuseries by none other than Borat Sagdivev. Of course, Borat is a fictional character, one of many played by English actor Sacha Baron Cohen. The agitprop pushed by Cohen -- his comedic specialty -- offers an ivory tower glimpse of how cultural elites view average Americans. The latest “documentary” -- yes, that term is used loosely here -- is another example of narrative-driven infotainment that remains questionable at best. For background, the original Borat movie was released in 2006. Ostensibly, it was about a Kazakh journalist traveling to the United States in the hopes of translating...

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas suggested he will further gut a law enforcement program that helps keep criminal illegal aliens from being released into American communities. In a committee hearing with House lawmakers on Wednesday, Mayorkas suggested that he will take more action against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) program that allows local police to partner with ICE agents to keep criminal illegal aliens off the streets. “I’m certainly aware of some of the abuses of the 287(g) program and I believe that I brought an example of that abuse to an end recently,” Mayorkas...

It's becoming more likely that a key global temperature limit will be reached in one of the next five years. A major study says by 2025 there's a 40% chance of at least one year being 1.5C hotter than the pre-industrial level. That's the lower of two temperature limits set by the Paris Agreement on climate change. The conclusion comes in a report published by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). The analysis is based on modelling by the UK Met Office and climate researchers in 10 countries including the US and China. Leon Hermanson, a senior Met Office scientist, told...

Okay, let’s say out loud what the regime doesn’t want said – there was no insurrection. At least not in Washington, D.C. Now, in places like Portland and Seattle, there were and are insurrections, actual ongoing occupations of actual territory by actual criminals where the government is expressly told it’s not in charge and to stay out. And, of course, the government tolerates those insurrections. It does so because the Democrats in charge – this nonsense never happens in Florida with DeSantis in charge – perceives the actual insurrectionists as political allies, so they do nothing. Some insurrections, it appears,...

Chris Harvey, the elections director within the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, has decided to leave the agency for a different position. Harvey oversaw the 2020 election and was responsible for implementing a new voting system and machines in the state of Georgia. In a statement announcing his departure, Harvey stated, “When I reflect on the many years I have spent fighting for the integrity of Georgia’s elections, I am most proud of the successful elections we executed in November 2018 and 2020.” While Harvey is “proud” of his work in the 2020 election, voters in the November 2020 election...