Free Republic

In the 2020 CARES Act, Congress gave student-loan borrowers a temporary break from repaying their loans. President Trump extended that twice and President Biden once, with loan payments now set to resume Oct. 1, 2021. Borrowers could have kept paying if they wanted to, but almost nobody did. As Tom Lee of the American Action Forum recently explained, the portion of borrowers repaying their student loans dropped from 46% at the beginning of 2020 to 1% today. The portion of borrowers in forbearance rose from 10% to 57%. The rest include borrowers who are still in school, who have gotten...

Just before last November's presidential election, two former Army officers wrote an open letter to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a man called Mark Milley. The letter was published on a left-wing blog called "Defense One." Within minutes it was all over the Internet. The authors of the letter had a direct order for Mark Milley, who strictly speaking did not report to them. "If Donald Trump refuses to leave office," the letter began, "the United States military must remove him by force, and you must give that order." You must remove the president by force. That...

LEVELLAND, Texas (KCBD) - An LSO SWAT Commander was killed and four other officers were injured in a deadly SWAT standoff in Levelland. Law enforcement secured the area near 10th Street and Avenue J around 2 p.m. Thursday, and worked to push back the perimeter as the subject, later identified by law enforcement as 22-year-old Omar Soto-Chavira, fired shots “in all directions” from inside. Soto-Chavira then surrendered to officers around 11:30 p.m. He was transported to Lubbock to be treated for his injuries. Three responding officers were treated for their injuries and released. Sgt. Shawn Wilson with Levelland Police was...

More than two dozen electric Proterra buses first unveiled by the city of Philadelphia in 2016 are already out of operation, according to a WHYY investigation. The entire fleet of Proterra buses was removed from the roads by SEPTA, the city's transit authority, in February 2020 due to both structural and logistical problems—the weight of the powerful battery was cracking the vehicles' chassis, and the battery life was insufficient for the city's bus routes. The city raised the issues with Proterra, which failed to adequately address the city's concerns. The city paid $24 million for the 25 new Proterra buses,...

Doug Ross runs a Top 20 Tweets from BadBlue Tonight feature: last night this came in at #16. Not something you often see. Route of the Tour de France temporarily blocked by llamas in fog. Photo from TdF Race Radio. pic.twitter.com/RSC5abj6I0 — John O'Connell (@jdpoc) July 15, 2021It turns out the photo is actually from the Tour de France a few years ago but since it got retweeted it qualifies and I think it deserves a much higher ranking than 16, based solely on the responses it engendered. While many observed that “Llamas in the Fog” would make an exceptionally...

It looks like the post-modern lot has finally reached what many would think to be a sacred science that usurps the boundaries of racism, equality or wokeness: mathematics. In Ontario, students in Grade 9 are now being taught about the “subjective” nature of math, including the historical use of math to “normalize racism”, according to the Toronto Sun. Education Minister Stephen Lecce announced last year that changes in Ontario’s curriculum are inclusive of a ‘subjective’ and ‘decolonial’ approach to mathematics, the report says. The Ontario Ministry’s website says “an equitable mathematics curriculum recognizes that mathematics can be subjective”. The post...

Background: I’ve known Jackie for at least a decade. I met her while she was working at a local gym as a personal trainer, a grueling 12 hour/day job. A few years ago, she was experiencing burnout and decided to move to Spain to teach English in primary school. We reconnected a few weeks ago after not speaking for a few years. As we were catching up it became clear to me that several of her political opinions had changed. I remembered her as a typical New York liberal and now she sounded like … a libertarian. I asked her...

Did you know that Black people are not going to be allowed to vote in America anymore? At least in states controlled by Republicans. Sounds a bit unlikely, but that's a conclusion you might have come to if you took seriously what President Joe Biden said in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Biden decried Republicans' proposed changes in election laws as "the 21st century Jim Crow assault" that tries "to suppress and subvert the right to vote in fair and free elections, an assault on democracy." This is, to be polite, unhinged nonsense. Biden is old enough to remember what real Jim...

I have been thinking on this one for some time and I truly hate to have to write this. It is going to stir up some folks and government in particular. The truth has to be presented. The universal penalty for treason IS death. No country can tolerate traitors in its midst, or, it falls. It is becoming apparent that at least two nations along with probably several very wealthy individuals who hate the United States have in several ways (direct payments, business deals, etc.) have completely undermined the loyalty of government officials, media moguls, activist organizations (BLM, Anti-fa, etc.)...

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Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Psalm 119Psalm 119[a]ח Heth 57 You are my portion, Lord; I have promised to obey your words. 58 I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise. 59 I have considered my ways and have turned my steps to your statutes. 60 I will hasten and not delay to obey your commands. 61 Though the wicked bind me with ropes, I will not forget your law. 62 At midnight I rise to give you thanks for your righteous laws. 63 I am a friend to all...

Traveling to Philadelphia Tuesday, President Joe Biden laid out in apocalyptic terms the gravity of the "threat" to American democracy from Republican efforts to reform and rewrite state election laws. "We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That's not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then never breached the Capitol as insurrectionists did on Jan. 6." Biden is inviting a comparison of what he faces with what Abraham Lincoln faced when he took office in 1861 with seven Southern states having voted to secede and Fort Sumter a month away. The...

Recent revelations about General Mark Milley show some who is out of control and who has lost track of the fact that our military has civilian leadership. SNIP Milley, 63, is not a graduate of America’s military academies. Instead, he’s an Ivy League product, having attended Princeton and Columbia. Apparently, at least as to Milley, the rot had already started to set in when he attended those institutions. For many of us, Milley entered our consciousness on June 23, when he insisted that West Pointers should study Critical Race Theory and that he, especially, wanted to understand “White rage.” At...

WASHINGTON (SBG) — A state-licensed homeopathic doctor from Napa, Calif. is the first person in the country federally charged for selling fake COVID-19 vaccination cards as well as immunization pellets she claimed would give buyers immunity from the virus for life, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Castro (and now post-Castro) regime in Cuba is a deeply repressive communist dictatorship whose ultimate place in the proverbial ash heap of history cannot arrive soon enough. A retrograde relic of the Cold War era -- when it served as a strategically positioned Soviet satrapy -- the impoverished island nation has barely changed an iota since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The most recent bout of unrest there, spurred by a restive Cuban population yearning for the basic freedoms that most of their Latin American neighbors take for granted, is also a harrowing portent of what could someday...

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (WPRI) ─ An unexpected visitor at a Massachusetts wildlife hospital Wednesday gave the phrase “through sickness and health” a whole new meaning. The story begins with a Canada goose named Arnold. Arnold and his mate, according to Cape Wildlife Center in Barnstable, have lived on a pond near the facility for several years. But on Tuesday, staff members noticed Arnold began walking with a limp and kept falling over. After catching him and bringing him inside, the wildlife hospital discovered Arnold had two open fractures on his foot. “Our best guess is that a snapping turtle or other...

owering, towering hypocrisy. Black Lives Matter, an organization founded and led by "trained Marxists," has released a statement on this week's slave uprising in Cuba, brimming with sycophancy for the brutal Cuban dictatorship: (Tweet at link) The statement came out with some funny timing, too, according to Fox News: The BLM tweet was sent out at about the time Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel admitted in a televised address that his government's failures played a role in the protests over food shortages and other issues. He had earlier called on "revolutionaries" to counter the anti-government protesters. Black Lives Matter Global Network...

We're six months into the Biden administration, and the liberal media is still obsessing over new books full of titillating tales from anonymous sources about President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, Mark Levin's newest bestseller -- provocatively titled "American Marxism" -- is too counterrevolutionary for these journalists to take seriously. CNN's Brian Stelter touted two new anti-Trump books that were No. 3 and No. 4 on Amazon. But "in a display of our fractured state of the union, two Fox hosts" were beating them. "Mark Levin is at #1 and Jesse Watters is at #2. The difference, of course, is that Levin...

Planes are flying into more inclusive skies. German airline group Lufthansa has dropped welcoming language that includes gendered phrases, including the traditional “ladies and gentlemen.” The company — which includes Lufthansa, Eurowings and Brussels Airlines — has begun instead referring to customers as “guests” or getting rid of the direct subject altogether and simply offering, “Good morning here on board,” CNN reported.

APOSTOLIC LETTER ISSUED "MOTU PROPRIO" BY THE SUPREME PONTIFFFRANCIS “TRADITIONIS CUSTODES”On the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970 Guardians of the tradition, the bishops in communion with the Bishop of Rome constitute the visible principle and foundation of the unity of their particular Churches.[1] Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, through the proclamation of the Gospel and by means of the celebration of the Eucharist, they govern the particular Churches entrusted to them.[2] In order to promote the concord and unity of the Church, with paternal solicitude towards those who in any region adhere...