Free Republic

MUNDELEIN, Ill. (CNS) — After hearing the story of a Salvadoran immigrant and her plight to leave her home country, bishops from the U.S., Central America and Mexico meeting in Mundelein June 2 turned to a camera facing a woman identified as Maria Antonia. Even though she was who thousands of miles away, in Irving, Texas, they gave her a blessing via Zoom. “Our wish is that your family find stability and you’ll find peace and continue to experiment God’s consolation,” said Bishop Oswaldo Escobar Aguilar of her home country. The bishop of the Diocese of Chalatenango, El Salvador, led...

The Justice Department argued in a brief filed Monday that it should be permitted to substitute itself for former President Donald Trump as defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a longtime magazine columnist, E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, continuing the argument it had initiated under the previous administration even as the White House has changed hands. "Then-President Trump's response to Ms. Carroll's serious allegations of sexual assault included statements that questioned her credibility in terms that were crude and disrespectful," Justice Department lawyers wrote in a brief to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals. "But...

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee is refusing to turn over its records to a state investigation into clergy sex abuse. On Thursday, the Associated Press reported that the archdiocese refused to turn over its sealed records to the state Department of Justice as part of its investigation into clerical sex abuse. The archdiocese claimed the records were sealed as part of a 2012 bankruptcy case. In April, Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul had announced the launch of an investigation into sexual abuse in the state’s Catholic dioceses and at least three religious orders. He asked representatives of the dioceses to an...

Eighteen million virus tests were administered in three days and supermarket shelves stood empty, as a new virus spike in a southern Chinese city makes officials nervous. Lawmakers in the United States, the European Union, and nine other countries are urging their governments to boycott Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics.

Monday’s largest quake hit at about 2:08 p.m. at the south tip of the sea, about 8 miles northwest of Calipatria and 25 miles north of El Centro, USGS said. People reported feeling strong shaking at the epicenter and weak movement as far away as San Diego, Cathedral City and El Centro. Swarms are common in the Imperial Valley, and past swarms in the area have stayed active for about a week on average. Those include a 1981 swarm around Westmorland that included a 5.8 magnitude quake, and a 2012 swarm near Brawley that included a magnitude 5.4 temblor. The...

We all knew this was coming. In order to justify the forced vaccination of children, the powers that be would somehow have to overturn 15 months of observations that COVID is less a threat to children than the flu and that unvaccinated children are less at risk than vaccinated adults (100 times less at risk than seniors), even if we are to believe Pfizer's efficacy data. CDC director reports spike in teen hospitalizations, urges parents to vaccinate kids over 12," was the headline at the Hill on Friday, reporting on the CDC's new study of hospitalizations. Naturally, it caught my...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Senate is expected to vote on a sweeping China bill this week to counter Beijing’s rising economic might and global influence. While it’s unclear how quickly the legislation could move through the House of Representatives, several Republicans in the chamber are opposing a companion bill that attempts to water down some of the provisions in the Senate bill pertaining to human rights and Taiwan.

A lion has died from Covid-19 at an Indian zoo where eight others also tested positive for the virus. The state-run zoo on the outskirts of the south Indian city of Chennai announced the nine-year-old Asiatic lion's death on Friday. 'A 9-year old lioness Neela succumbed to the disease on the evening of 3rd June,' the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, also known as Vandalur Zoo, said. The outbreak was first observed on Thursday when the lioness 'showed some nasal discharge'. The others appear to have been asymptomatic. The affected animals have been quarantined and given antibiotics. They are under observation...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed two pieces of legislation on June 7 designed to combat the influence of communist China in the United States.“If you look right now, there is no single entity that exercises a more pervasive nefarious influence across a wide range of American industries and institutions than the Communist Party of China,” the Republican said during a press conference in Miami.“All we are doing today is saying, ‘Enough is enough.’ We’ve got to start fighting back, and so the state of Florida is doing that,” he said.One of the bills aims to cut the Chinese Communist Party’s...

A top official at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which is hosting talks on a global corporate tax being pushed by the Biden administration, said a 15 percent minimum rate would be a “very significant step forward” that still leaves countries with enough scope to compete to attract multinationals to their jurisdictions.OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg on June 7, which followed a landmark agreement on the tax on June 5 among senior officials from the Group of Seven (G-7) countries, which includes the United States. The G-7 countries agreed to...

Government health official on Monday approved Biogen’s aducanumab as the first treatment to attack a likely cause of Alzheimer’s disease, sending its shares soaring, despite controversy over whether the clinical evidence proves the drug works.Biogen said it has priced the drug, to be sold as Aduhelm, at $56,000 per year. Its shares jumped nearly 52 percent to $434.52 when trading resumed following the approval. U.S. traded shares of partner Eisai Co were already up $33.50, or 45 percent, to $107.75Aducanumab aims to remove sticky deposits of a protein called amyloid beta from the brains of patients in earlier stages of...

There’s a lot of crazy woke-ism out there and it probably would be hard to say what the worst example is.But you probably would have to say that calling mothers “birthing people” is right up there on the crazy meter.I guess I don’t understand why you just can’t call them mothers since that’s what we’ve been calling them in every language for thousands of years. But then I suppose I belong to the perpetually un-woke club.But when you do call them “birthing people” instead of mothers, aren’t you basically erasing the women who are mothers? Just exactly who are you...

Far be it from me to care about what our neighbors to the north do with or to themselves or their country. And with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau planted securely in the lead sled dog spot — where he has been since 2013 — I’m also long past being surprised by any of it.As a result, when I read earlier today that Canada has declared that one month of celebrating gay pride was apparently not nearly enough time for the festivities, and as a result, would now celebrate “Pride Season”? Yeah, zero surprise. Nil. Heeere’s Justin…“Happy Pride season, Canada! Let’s...

A few weeks ago, someone sent me a recording of a talk called “The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind.” It was delivered at the Yale School of Medicine’s Child Study Center by a New York-based psychiatrist as part of Grand Rounds, an ongoing program in which clinicians and others in the field lecture students and faculty. When I listened to the talk I considered the fact that it might be some sort of elaborate prank. But looking at the doctor’s social media, it seems completely genuine. Here are some of the quotes from the lecture: This is the cost...

A new story breaks almost daily claiming that the COVID pandemic that turned the year 2020 AD into a dystopian lockdown was very possibly (probably, by some accounts) not an organically occurring variant that jumped from a bat to a human.Most of us by now have heard about the lab leak theory (especially RedState readers, as we’ve covered it extensively), and have had our opinions firmly formed as to the veracity of the “naturally occurring” claim Beijing so desperately wanted the world to believe. So…what now?Now we make China pay, you say, understandably outraged as your breathing finally regulates post-mask...

On Friday, the Defense Department indicated that they don’t share Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s perspective on flying the LGBT pride flag, saying the Defense Department will not allow the flag to be flown at its installations to celebrate Pride month. Defense Department spokesman John Kirby stated, “After some careful consideration the department will maintain the existing policy regarding the display” at military bases. “There won’t be an exception made for the Pride flag. This in no way reflects any lack of respect or admiration for the LGBTQ+ community.

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Bellows Air Force Station, HawaiiBellows Air Force Station (Bellows Field) is a United States military reservation located in Waimanalo, Hawaii. Once an important air field during World War II, the reservation now serves as a military training area and recreation area for active and retired military and civilian employees of the Department of Defense. Detachment 2, 18th Force Support Squadron presently operates Bellows Air Force Station. Much of the Waimanalo community remains the same as it was more than 50 years ago.In 1958, when the last runways were closed and the flying field...

"Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff, joined by Wangmo Dixey, Bhante Uparatana, Marvin Harada, Tarthang Rinpoche, Shekhar Narasimahn and Erika Moritsugu, holds a Vesak Celebration for the Buddha's birthday, Tuesday May 25, 2021, in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building."

"Manchin and another centrist, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), have created irksome obstacles within their own caucus, and Democrats have yet to land on a strategy for dealing with the internal dissent." "A vocal portion of the party believes that challenging Manchin and Sinema from the left is the best way forward."