Free Republic

It was a tough call deciding on the lead theme for the week, given how Jeffrey Toobin’s reinstatement at CNN summons fond memories of the eternal return of Anthony Weiner. It just shows that the Toobin Missile Crisis wasn’t armageddon for his media career. But Kamala Harris distributing faceless cookies of herself has to be perfectly fitting for her faceless, clueless vice presidency.And finally:

The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located. This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack...

His name’s not Jonah — but this Cape Cod man sure has something in common with the biblical figure now. Commercial lobster diver Michael Packard was going about his business off the coast off Provincetown, Mass. when he was swallowed whole by a humpback whale — trapped in its gullet for nearly a minute before being coughed back up, according to a report. Packard, 56, was about 35 feet below the surface near Herring Cove Beach at 8 a.m. Friday when the massive mammal tried to turn him into breakfast, the Cape Cod Times reported. “All of a sudden, I...

Calgary police are searching for a driver who rear-ended a teenager on a bicycle, then dropped him off at a hospital but left without leaving her name or telling police. The collision happened on May 31 at about 9 p.m. at Fonda Way S.E. and Radcliffe Drive S.E. in the Forest Heights neighbourhood, the Calgary Police Service said in a release on Friday. After hitting the cyclist, the woman drove the teen to the Peter Lougheed Centre, gave him $100 and left him at the front entrance. The teen suffered a fractured nose and "significant scrapes to his face and...

“Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, the height of which was sixty cubits and its width six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of...

“Then out of the smoke locusts came upon the earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the earth have power. They were commanded not to harm the grass of the earth, or any green thing, or any tree, but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads” (Revelation 9:3-4, NKJV). Why is “greenness” important to our faith? Remember, the locusts are commanded not to touch anything green. Simply put, they can’t hurt anybody who’s walking in faith. Even at the height of these demonic forces’ attacks, those who place their...

The New York Times won a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the coronavirus pandemic despite calling the lab leak theory a “fringe conspiracy theory.” The Pulitzer Prizes — one of the most prestigious awards in journalism — were announced Wednesday, with The New York Times (NYT) staff collectively receiving an award for its pandemic coverage. The paper’s award-winning stories include one from January 2020 about a “mystery, pneumonia-like illness,” several early stories in spring 2020 detailing the spread of the pandemic, a constantly updated map about the case count across the U.S., and reporting on coronavirus in nursing homes,...

By moving the All-Star Game from Atlanta to Denver because Georgia is protecting peoples’ votes, Major League Baseball is hypocritical in its rationale. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred stated that the “best way to demonstrate our values as a sport” would be to move the upcoming All-Star Game and its Entry Level Draft out of Georgia. The decision came after the state’s legislature passed and Governor Brian Kemp subsequently signed the “Election Integrity Act of 2021” into law. Opponents of the new law decried it as racist, oppressive and disenfranchising. This voter integrity measure has been attacked for allegedly denying persons...

US lawmakers have recently begun discussing the need for a federal plan to find out what types of cash payments are made after ransomware attacks. Cyberattacks have been ramping up in recent months, with each one underscoring the nation’s under-preparedness. The digital infrastructure of private companies and government organizations have plenty of vulnerabilities, and their responses to damaging attacks have been frantically improvised. Worsening the situation are the significant delays in responding to cyberattacks, an inevitable consequence of the fact that the federal government has no uniform approach to combating malicious hackers. In May 2021, $4.4 million in Bitcoin was...

The more one thinks about the events of the past year in light of the information we’re now learning, the angrier one gets. Last week, RedState reported that the Defense Intelligence Agency had for some months been working with a legitimate, high-level Chinese defector who knew about the Chinese military’s work on bioweapons. Worse, the DIA had refused to let other alphabet agencies know about the defector because they were concerned about Chinese agents having infiltrated those other agencies. Now, RedState’s Jennifer Van Laar is back with more: (a) the virus was deliberately leaked from a Chinese military lab and...

President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin are currently not expected to hold a joint news conference after their June 16 meeting, CNN reported. Biden and Putin’s much-anticipated meeting comes on the heels of the 2021 G-7 summit. The duo will speak for the first time since Biden took office in Geneva, Switzerland. Two U.S. officials familiar with the matter told CNN that plans currently don’t include a joint press conference. This would mark a change from Biden’s predecessor, former President Donald Trump, who met with Putin on June 16, 2018, and held a joint press conference afterwards. The...

“Trust science, not the scientists.” That is the essence of science. That should be widely shared. Unfortunately, climate change advocates have completed the twisting of science (although this was well under way). Science was created to eliminate opinions and the role of prestigious experts. We are watching the rapid collapse of COVID-19 experts, like a house on a Malibu cliff after a heavy rain. Will the unsustainable hoax of climate change be far behind? The establishment system exalts experts if they advance statist goals. But the public rejects royalty. First, science has decayed into “Imagineering.” Thought experiments are not science....

June 12 , 2021The immaculate heart of Mary Church of the Immaculate heart of Mary, Singapore Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White >Readings for the feriaReadings for the memorialThese are the readings for the feriaFirst reading2 Corinthians 5:14-21 ©From now onwards we do not judge anyone by the standards of the fleshThe love of Christ overwhelms us when we reflect that if one man has died for all, then all men should be dead; and the reason he died for all was so that living men should live no longer for themselves, but for him who died and was raised to...

Comparisons are being made of our current economy to that of the Jimmy Carter presidency of the 1970s. President Biden's policies appear to parallel those of the Carter administration. We haven't heard the term "stagflation" in the news for the past forty years. That's the term for high unemployment and high inflation. It's measured by what is called the Philips Curve. There certainly are similarities to our present economy and that of the 1970s. Presently we are looking at inflation, slow job growth, shortages of materials, and even long lines for gasoline. While the gasoline shortage was only a temporary...

Kamala Harris’s short tenure in the Veep’s office, in its own way, has been even more disastrous than Biden’s equally short tenure in the Oval office. We all knew Biden would be a bumbling fool, but thanks to the power of the pen and the executive orders the radicals on his staff have been writing, he’s been incredibly effective. In six months, he’s dismantled America’s security, economy, and sanity. Meanwhile, Kamala has failed at the one thing for which she was responsible: Bringing control to the border. Now, some are wondering if that failure was orchestrated in the White House...

Black Lives Matter is disintegrating into squabbling over money, even though it won’t frankly admit the base motivation behind the fights that have erupted and escalated yesterday. Democrats always project their own plans and values onto their enemies. So when Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted, “it’s all about the Benjamins, baby” intending to allege that “Israel’s allies in American politics were motivated by money rather than principle,” she inadvertently exposed the real motivations of many of her major allies. Monica Showalter prophetically saw Black Lives Matter starting to fall apart over money almost two weeks ago, and events yesterday confirmed her...

"In 2020 I boldly declared that Trump was the only thing standing between our country, the American people, and socialism. I turned out to be correct," said George P. Bush in announcing his candidacy for Texas attorney general. Nearly 75 million Americans agreed, but his uncle, George W. Bush, was not among them. It is likely that if George W. had said what George P. did, the Democrats could not have "harvested" enough votes to put their man over the top. But he didn't. The result, as George P. pointed out, "was over 30 trillion dollars in total spending and...

"Men want sex." Gloria Purvis is quite blunt speaking to a group of about 130 young women from around the United States, Canada and Mexico. This is the GIVEN Catholic Young Women's Leadership Forum, being held at the Catholic University of America. The theme of the forum, and the GIVEN Institute that runs it, is: "Discover the gift that only you can give, because of the gift that you are." Purvis' message to these young women, all under 30, is that we need a civilization of love, and it is only possible if women know their own beauty. It's a...

Rep. Ilhan Omar has once again exposed a rift in the Democratic caucus. A dozen House Democrats rebuked the polarizing Minnesotan for appearing to equate the United States and Israel to Hamas and the Taliban, adding that her comparison "at best discredits one's intended argument and at worst reflects deep-seated prejudice." Omar's fellow members of the Squad were incensed. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) alleged that, by "skipping private conversations" and publicly chastising Omar in a way that will likely draw news coverage, they put Omar in danger. "Freedom of speech doesn't exist for Muslim women in Congress. The benefit of...

Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) appeared on MSNBC's "Andrea Mitchell Reports" to explain his Party's strategy for dealing with the surge of illegal immigration. "Republicans call this a border crisis," Carper said. "The truth is that it's not the border that is the source of the crisis. This crisis is in the countries these migrants are coming from. The willingness to undertake a long, grueling and dangerous journey stems from the appalling conditions in these migrants' home countries. These countries are places of crime, violence, corruption, and lack of economic opportunity and hope. Closing the border and deporting these refugees doesn't...