Free Republic

When Abraham Lincoln spoke the prophetic words "a house divided against itself cannot stand" — in a speech before the Illinois Republican state convention in 1858 — he was a relatively unknown politician. He saw the obvious: North and South were hopelessly divided over the issue of slavery — or more fundamentally, states' rights — and a breakup was all but all but unavoidable. This came to pass in just a few years' time in the form of the Civil War. Is America nearing a similar point in 2021? Today it is not so much North versus South or free...

Because Democrats are trying to incorporate the president’s American Families Plan into their $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, Americans should be happy that it’s having such a devil of a time getting through Congress. Biden’s “plan” is to raise taxes, and not just by upping tax rates, but also by changing how and when taxes are collected. The proposed changes to the capital gains tax is supposed to target only the super wealthy, but that’s also how the income tax was sold, and we know how that went. On April 28 the White House released a fact sheet that outlines the...

The Collect (Opening Prayer) for this week’s Masses (27th Week of the Year), though directed to God, teaches us that our prayer is not always about things with which we are comfortable. It sometimes leads us to examine areas of our life in which we struggle with sin or we struggle to desire to be free of sin. Here is the prayer:Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not...

The current consensus on energy and climate is both unserious and incoherent. Burning fossil fuels is said to be responsible for global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions. Although nuclear power is a carbon-free energy solution, much of the public seems to be more afraid of a reactor accident than extinction by the greenhouse effect. Solar and energy conservation have been media darlings since the energy crisis of the 1970s. President Barack Obama spent $100 billion on “green energy” in just one stimulus package. Yet there is little to show for it. World energy use is projected to grow rapidly....

October 6th, 2021St. Bruno Church of St. Bruno des Chartreux Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First readingJonah 4:1-11 ©Jonah is angry at God's mercyJonah was very indignant; he fell into a rage. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Ah, Lord, is not this just as I said would happen when I was still at home? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. So now, Lord, please take away my life, for I might as well be dead...

Have we ever had a president who in mere months made so many dumb, intemperate decisions, thereby precipitating major crises? You’d think that the Afghanistan and border fiascos would suffice for one four-year term. But the smart money is that we haven’t seen the last of Biden-manufactured crises. Biden is a nightmare version of Pig-Pen of the Peanuts comic strip.. A perpetual cloud of incompetence, conceits, corruption, and shabby political motives swirls around him. Per Richard Fernandez at PJ Media, September 27: As Niall Stanage of the Hill put it, “President Biden’s biggest vulnerability isn’t any single issue. It’s the...

Like many high schools across the United States, Olympia High School in Orlando, Florida elects a homecoming court each fall, including a king and queen. And like many high school girls, Evan Bialosuknia dreamed of winning queen. But Evan's win would be historic – as the first transgender queen elected.

Japan’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday it would consider its “options” and make necessary “preparations” toward supporting Taiwan if China continues to ramp up its military intimidation of the island. Asked by reporters how Tokyo views Beijing’s record-breaking flyovers through Taiwanese airspace in recent days, Japanese Foreign Minister Motegi Toshimitsu said he hoped “this matter is resolved peacefully between the two parties through direct talks.” “Additionally, instead of simply monitoring the situation, we hope to weigh the various possible scenarios that may arise to consider what options we have, as well as the preparations we must make,” he said at...

The bodies of three alleged criminals are hung from two cranes in a public display in northeast Herat, Afghanistan on October 5, 2021.AFP via Getty Images The Taliban hung the dead bodies of three alleged criminals in public view in Afghanistan on Tuesday — a shocking display reminiscent of the Islamic militant group’s brutal regime of the late 1990s. The alleged criminals were killed by man after they tried to break into his home, deputy governor Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Muhajir told AFP. Their corpses were hoisted from two cranes in the Obe district in northeast Herat. The gruesome scene was...

The U.S. government is reportedly secretly issuing warrants for Google to provide user data on anyone typing in certain search terms, raising fears that innocent online users could get caught up in serious crime investigations at a greater frequency than previously thought. In an attempt to track down criminals, federal investigators have started using new "keyword warrants" and used them to ask Google to provide them information on anyone who searched a victim's name or their address during a particular year, an accidentally unsealed court document that Forbes found shows. Google has to respond to thousands of warrant orders each...

A judge has issued a permanent injunction prohibiting members of a pro-life church from demonstrating outside a Spokane Planned Parenthood facility. According to The Spokesman-Review, Judge Timothy B. Fennessy ruled that “reasonable minds can only reach one conclusion, that Covenant Church intends to interfere with access to or safe and effective delivery of health care services provided by Planned Parenthood.” The Church at Planned Parenthood is a group run by Covenant Church, and is known for holding worship services in protest of abortion on a stretch of grass located across the street from the abortion facility. With the judge’s order,...

MOUNT CLEMENS, Mich. (AP) - Michigan's third-largest county, where voters backed former President Donald Trump in 2020, is hiring a specialist to examine its election hardware and software. The work in Macomb County is not a second look at the results of the presidential election. Rather, the Republican county clerk, who was elected last year, said he wants to lead the state in “election integrity.” A contractor, Pro V&V, will be paid roughly $16,000 to take apart the county election server, Anthony Forlini said Tuesday. Pro V&V will take pictures, record serial numbers and perform other tasks to get a...

OMAHA, Neb. -- Work at all of the Kellogg Company's U.S. cereal plants came to a halt Tuesday as roughly 1,400 workers went on strike, but it wasn't immediately clear how much the supply of Frosted Flakes or any of the company's other iconic brands would be disrupted. The strike includes plants in Omaha, Nebraska Battle Creek, Michigan; Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Memphis, Tennessee.... ...The company insists that its offer is fair and would increase wages and benefits for its employees that it said made an average of $120,000 a year last year. "We are disappointed by the union’s decision to...

Pop star Billie Eilish slammed Texas for saving unborn babies from abortions in a vile rant Saturday at the Austin City Limits Festival, calling the state heartbeat law “s—” and saying she wants to “punish this f—— place.” The 19-year-old singer/songwriter is part of a chorus of celebrities who are criticizing the Texas pro-life law. Jennifer Aniston, Amy Schumer, Jennifer Lawrence and Sharon Stone are among the others. Eilish bashed the law on stage during her concert in Austin, Texas, standing in front of a banner that read, “Bans off our bodies,” the entertainment news site Pop Buzz reports. “When...

The billion-dollar abortion chain Planned Parenthood just lost another attempt to block the Texas heartbeat law in court, meaning babies will continue to be saved from abortion violence. On Monday, the Texas Supreme Court refused the abortion chain’s request to allow its lawsuit to proceed, the Texas Tribune reports. Texas Right to Life, one of the parties named in the lawsuit, celebrated the ruling. “We are thankful that Planned Parenthood’s attempt to shortcut the normal process of litigation was again denied,” said Kimberlyn Schwartz, media and communication director for the pro-life organization. Federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, also...

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There’s a new type of killer whale that prowls deeper waters and specializes in hunting big game, new research by a B.C. scientist suggests. ...But evidence indicates there’s a newly identified type of orca — outer coast killer whales — that are a distinct subgroup of transient whales, and which frequent the ocean depths along the continental shelf off the coast of central California and Oregon, said lead author Josh McInnes, a scientist with the Marine Mammal Research Unit at the University of British Columbia. Once believed to be part of the larger West Coast population, these outer coast killer...

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), said that the United States still does not have an FDA-approved vaccine for COVID as he exposed what was really approved by the government agency on “Fox News Primetime.” The FDA put out a fact-sheet on the Pfizer-BioNTech and Comirnaty vaccines. That’s plural, because one is not the other and the FDA even makes that distinction on their fact-sheet. On the fact-sheet, Pfizer says that the FDA approved the Comirnaty vaccine which was created by Pfizer for the company BioNTech. BioNTech has said that it will not be made available until 2023 or possibly 2024. Title...

Having lost a Texas state Senate race in 2020, Pete Flores is taking another crack at a post in a newly drawn district, earning the endorsement of former President Donald Trump to boot. Trump wrote Tuesday in a statement from his Save America PAC: "Pete Flores will be a great state senator for the terrific people of Central Texas. With 27 years in strong law enforcement, Pete will stand for law and order, loves our military and our vets, and will fight to secure our border. Pete is strong on our second amendment and will fight for low taxes. Pete...

WASHINGTON - The Biden administration warned Arizona on Tuesday that it could lose some of its state and local recovery funds because it has been using money meant to combat the pandemic to undercut mask requirements in schools. In a letter to Arizona’s Republican governor, Doug Ducey, the Treasury Department said the state was misusing the money, which was intended to help local governments bolster public health measures. As part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package that Congress passed earlier this year, states and cities were awarded $350 billion of relief money that they could use for a wide...