Free Republic

The streets of Daraa are empty these days, as if the war had returned to the city. The videos that appear on social networks under the hashtag #savedaraa are often grim – many houses were shelled by the Syrian army and completely destroyed and thousands of refugees are again leaving the city and nearby villages, fleeing yet another round of violence and hunger. Daraa, an impoverished city surrounded by agricultural areas in southern Syria, became the cradle of the Syrian revolution in 2011. A decade later, it is still fighting against the oppressive regime and protesting negligence, poverty and violence,...

Senate votes 64-33 to waive Budget Act in relation to bipartisan infrastructure bill. ---- Yippee. Spend, spend, spend! All the RINOs voting with Democrats. Now voting on procedure... What do McConnell and Bernie Sanders or Warren from MA have in common? Well, a lot more than they pretend...

Explanation: Earthlings typically watch meteor showers by looking up. But this remarkable view, captured on August 13, 2011 by astronaut Ron Garan, caught a Perseid meteor by looking down. From Garan's perspective onboard the International Space Station orbiting at an altitude of about 380 kilometers, the Perseid meteors streak below, swept up dust left from comet Swift-Tuttle heated to incandescence. The glowing comet dust grains are traveling at about 60 kilometers per second through the denser atmosphere around 100 kilometers above Earth's surface. In this case, the foreshortened meteor flash is right of frame center, below the curving limb of...

Facebook already asks for your thoughts. Now it wants your prayers. The social media giant has rolled out a new prayer request feature, a tool embraced by some religious leaders as a cutting-edge way to engage the faithful online. Others are eyeing it warily as they weigh its usefulness against the privacy and security concerns they have with Facebook. In Facebook Groups employing the feature, members can use it to rally prayer power for upcoming job interviews, illnesses and other personal challenges big and small. After they create a post, other users can tap an "I prayed" button, respond with...

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time John 6:41-51 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus offers himself as food for the soul. There is a great truth revealed in the bread of life discourse. It is the law of the gift. This personal, incarnating God wants to be eaten and drunk, to be radically and fully for the other. Why were the gods of the ancient world so popular? Because they were projections of ourselves—vain, arrogant, resentful, violent. This means that they put little moral pressure on us. They were frightening but not morally demanding. But this God who shows that he is...

Today I received in the mail a sample Voter Informational Guide and Sample Ballot for the CA Gubernatorial Recall Election, 14 September 2021. Great news. You can either mail or vote at assigned polling places. Polling places are listed and if you need riding assistance you may place a request. 46 names appear on the ballot. 9 are Democrats and you can also write in a name if you choose. Mail ballots will be mailed to registered voters between Aug 16 to Sep 7, 2021. Details may be found at http://www.sbcvote.com

A Washington State inmate was sentenced to an additional 24 years for murdering his cellmate - a convicted child rapist who had abused his minor sister. Shane Goldsby, 26, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder charges, and was sentenced last week for beating his cellmate Robert Munger, 70, to death in June 2020. Munger was serving a 43-year prison sentence at the Airway Heights Correctional facility on multiple child molestation and child pornography charges, when Goldsby was assigned to his cell. Goldsby said that he killed Munger after discovering his younger sister, who is still a minor, was one of Munger's...

The so-called bipartisan “infrastructure” bill, backed by Senate Democrats and 18 Senate Republicans, would reward blue states with federal money for driving up immigration levels to the United States. The bill, among other things, includes the Digital Equity Act that would help expand broadband to American communities that currently lack access to the internet. Slipped into the legislation are provisions allocating federal funding based on the number of newly arrived immigrants in a state or region — a design that rewards blue states who tend to have the largest foreign-born populations in the nation… … California, for example, would be...

KENOSHA, WISCONSIN: Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhouse, charged with shooting three people and killing two at a protest in Wisconsin last August, pleaded not guilty to his charges on Tuesday, January 5. In the hearing before Kenosha County Court Commissioner Loren Keating, the teen’s attorney Mark Richards waived his client’s right to hear his charges read, and quickly pleaded not guilty on Rittenhouse’s behalf to all the charges against him. Rittenhouse has been charged with five felonies in connection to the protest shooting, including first-degree intentional homicide and first-degree reckless homicide, as well as a misdemeanor charge for possession of a...

Scores for first ten teams are below in Comment #1, based on Value of Each Medal Category (Gold=5 points, Silver=3 points, and Bronze = 1 point) x Number of Medals in Each Medal Category. But first a word about the Olympics. The Olympics is one of the few chances for nations to come together peacefully and, actually joyfully, to compete. National pride and sovereignty as well as individual skill and prowess is on display. The Olympics is for people like me who like sports, watching skill in action, the human drama of individuals striving for and reaching life-long goals, and...

The far-right media has become very interested in Wyoming politics, but only because it smells blood. Liz Cheney’s blood, to be precise. But I’d caution anyone who thinks it’s time to write Cheney’s political obituary that there’s much yet to unfold before the state’s GOP voters go to the polls a year from now. Can a three-term Wyoming congresswoman who has taken a principled stand against a disgraced former president to uphold American democracy return to the U.S. House? I don’t see why not. Cheney has money and the support of her party’s traditional establishment. It’s not the scenario faux-news...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ The Purple Heart Medal … 239 Years Old! Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies militaryand the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. President Trump awarded a Purple Heart to Army Sgt. 1st Class Alvaro Barrientos on April 22 at Walter Reed Military Medical Center. Barrientos was wounded last month in Afghanistan and lost part of his right leg. The Purple Heart is an American decoration-the oldest military decoration in the world in present use and the first American award made available to...

<p>MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The University of Wisconsin removed a large boulder from its Madison campus on Friday at the request of minority students who view the rock as a symbol of racism.</p><p>Chamberlin Rock, on the top of Observatory Hill, is named after Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, a geologist and former university president. Students of color on campus say the rock represents a history of discrimination. The boulder was referred to as a derogatory name for Black people in a Wisconsin State Journal story in 1925.</p>

See Video: It’s not in text. Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is wrong to ban mask mandates in schools and businesses.

As the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games come to a close, here is a brief list of just some of the athletes who used the world stage as a platform to point to God. 1. Sydney McLaughlin Not only did U.S. Olympian Sydney McLaughlin win the gold medal for Team USA in the 400-meter hurdles, but the 21-year-old also set a world record with a time of 51.46.After McLaughlin’s win, she said that it was made possible by “just trusting the process and giving the glory to God.”The outspoken Christian posts about her faith often on her Instagram. “Let me start...

Have you been treated for hepatitis C virus (HCV) recently? If so, it may be time to get retested for the virus, according to a global meta-analysis presented at the 11th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2021). The analysis found that gay and bisexual men, also referred to as men who have sex with men (MSM), living with HIV had the highest rate of hepatitis C reinfection globally, regardless of injection drug use.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., on Sunday defended a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure proposal as crucial to heartland states, pushing back at criticism that the plan fails to address border security. In an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Cramer argued the infrastructure addresses “the movement of goods.” “This compromise of the $1.2 trillion [bill]… over a third of it is not just infrastructure,” he maintained. “It's roads and bridges specifically. In addition to that, there's ports, waterways, railroads, airports, broadband, all of which are critical to the movement of goods and services around the country and around the world.”...

In the volume void that follows the resumption of futures trading, and which saw US futures trade modestly lower, a sudden burst of selling in the gold futures contract sent Gold futures plunged as low as $1,677.0 or almost $100 lower from the Friday close of $1,761.50. Together with Friday’s post-payroll plunge, this has been the biggest 2-day drop in gold (in dollar terms) since the March 2020 crash.

Fresh off of her comments to CBSN about needing private security as she calls for the defunding of police to leave her constituents unprotected from violent offenders, Squad member and Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO) was welcomed like a conquering hero Sunday morning on CNN's State of the Union as co-host Dana Bush bought into Bush's savior shtick.Teasing the segment, Bash said that with her recent sit-in on the Capitol steps, Bush had thrown "millions of struggling Americans a potential lifeline." And Bash praised Bush for "forcing action." The CNN host was effusive in her praise as she began her questioning...

David Chipman, Joe Biden’s choice to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is in danger of not being confirmed in the Senate thanks to his work with an anti-Second Amendment group and his withholding of vital information during confirmation hearing. Several moderate Democratic senators, including Angus King of Maine and Jon Tester of Montana, don’t believe that Chipman can work with the gun industry. Other Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin question his veracity after Chipman withheld the fact that he made an appearance on Chinese state-run propaganda outlet that was used by the Communists to explain away...