Free Republic

New book suggests St. Gallen Mafia agreement may have led to Pope Benedict XVI’s resignationAuthor Julia Meloni tells us that Martini's own confessor claimed that Benedict's resignation had been “scripted since his pontificate's beginning – because Martini had shifted his votes to Ratzinger at the 2005 Conclave."(LifeSiteNews) — The American scholar and columnist Julia Meloni has just published her long-awaited, excellent, and deeply researched history of the Sankt Gallen Mafia, a group of progressive bishops regularly meeting in Switzerland and plotting to further revolutionize the Catholic Church. The Sankt Gallen Mafia: Exposing the Secret Reformist Group Within the Church tells...

If Baldwin's Crew were in charge of guns in the 1950s, the likelihood of any of my boyhood heroes listed below would have been in extreme jeopardy. And don't start me on the Indians! John Wayne, Audie Murphy, Tom Mix (don't even go there!), Gene Autry, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Lash LaRue the Durango Kid, the Lone Ranger, Gene Autry, James Arness.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland appeared at a House Judiciary Committee hearing to defend his investigation of "the domestic terrorists who have been disrupting school boards across the nation. When I read the letter that the National School Boards Association (NSBA) sent to the White House I knew I had to act swiftly to put these wayward parents in their place." "The problem stems from these parents' abuse of the public meetings school boards hold to extol their triumphs," Garland asserted. "Rather than gratefully accept the fact that public schools are educating their children, some parents insist on quibbling over...

Last December news leaked that the Breakthrough Listen project, part of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), had picked up an unexplained signal from the direction of Proxima Centauri. Although everyone involved stressed how unlikely it was that our first evidence for alien intelligence would come from the nearest star to our Sun, some dared to hope. Further research, however, has made Earth-based interference a near-certain explanation. There are many reasons to study Proxima Centauri besides the possibility of technological radio emissions. Australia’s giant Murriyang radio telescope was pointed towards the star primarily to study stellar flares, but in the...

The nation's top infectious disease expert says some 28 million children ages 5 to 11 in the United States may be able to receive their Covid-19 vaccine in the first two weeks of November.

Media darling Greta Thunberg has agreed that she’s “just saying blah blah blah” on climate change in a BBC interview, arguing “that’s the role of an activist”. The autistic teen, whose otherwise unremarkable refusal to attend school on Fridays to protest climate change was elevated to global prominence by world leaders who took it upon themselves to have her address the United Nations and national parliaments when she was just 15, is enjoying a resurgence in her public visibility ahead of the United Nations COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, Scotland.

<p>Archaeology experts in Mexico say they have detected the ruins of almost 2,500 pre-Hispanic structures and 80 burial sites along a controversial train route project on the Yucatan peninsula. Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History did not say whether any of the remains were disturbed or destroyed by the Maya Train project, which in some places runs alongside existing rail lines. The finds range from simple stone outlines of thatched pre-Hispanic Maya homes to ceremonial platforms. Potential damage to the environment and archaeological sites are some of the reasons why critics oppose the project. The train is intended to connect Caribbean beach resorts to the peninsula’s interior in a bid to stimulate economic development.</p>

The Harris County sheriff said the three surviving children had been 'fending for each other,' with the oldest sibling caring for the other two.... The skeletal remains of a child, and three surviving siblings who appear to have been abandoned, were found inside an apartment in the Houston area, a sheriff said. One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the Harris County Sheriff's Office on Sunday afternoon and told authorities that his 9-year-old brother had been dead for a year and the body was inside the apartment, the office said in a statement. Deputies responded and found the teen, and...

Across the country, employers are firing workers for refusing to comply with vaccine mandates. Some people are opting to quit their jobs rather than take the shot. These workers represent only a tiny fraction of overall employees, not even 1% in some workplaces. But it can add up to thousands of people in many states. Washington state reports that so far, nearly 1,900 state workers, including the head football coach at Washington State University, have quit or been fired for refusing the vaccine. In Michigan, 400 workers at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit walked away from their jobs....

Republican Sen. Mike Lee said he ‘absolutely’ thinks Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin should switch parties on ‘Sunday Night in America’

President Joe Biden decamped to Wilmington on Friday, escaping the White House he's likened to a "gilded cage" for a weekend at his Delaware home. It's yet another weekend away from Washington as the President has spent a noteworthy portion of his first year in office at one of his two Delaware homes or at Camp David, working remotely. A CNN analysis of Biden's public schedule indicates the President has spent a significant amount of time away from the White House, particularly on weekends, since his January inauguration. Including this weekend's trip to Delaware, Biden has taken 35 personal trips...

A lot of people think that Joe Biden is the President of the United States. While it is true that Biden is the titular twit who is the figurehead of the government he is not really in charge. He meanders about reading note cards and is steered by his manipulative spouse. Here he seems entirely unaware of his surroundings as Jill tends to him. https://youtu.be/PQ6sRt1zgQMHe is not in mental attendance and thus someone else is making the decisions. That person appears to be Jen Psaki. She is the one who tells us what Joe Biden means. She is the one...

I very seldom post anything but this is important. I have been working in high tech for over 40 years and have branched out into network security as a hobby. This weekend me and my support team discovered by accident FB can monitor your non-phone conversations by accessing your smartphone microphone. We are also positive that they are sharing this information within the FB organization and highly likely selling the info to other parties. This affects FB, Instigram, WhatsApp and FB Marketplace so far that we know. The fix is you MUST disable microphone access on ALL of these apps...

“Our investigators show that Fauci’s NIH division shipped part of a $375,800 grant to a lab in Tunisia to drug beagles and lock their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies so that the insects could eat them alive,” the non-profit White Coat Waste project told reporters. “They also locked beagles alone in cages in the desert overnight for nine consecutive nights to use them as bait to attract infectious sand flies,” all to test an “experimental drug.” White Coat Waste also claimed that some of the dogs had their vocal cords removed so their barking would not...

During a Monday appearance on “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) said inflation was not really discussed with the White House during negotiations over the Democrats’ spending package. Anchor Erica Hill asked Dingell how much inflation, which she noted had been a “major concern” and was “growing at a rate we haven’t seen in 30 years,” was discussed during the White House negotiations.

My friend got married this year, a year of many challenges. It’s been a special journey for her, so I got her a special gift: a mezuzah. In the Jewish world, that’s not an uncommon gift as the couple is establishing a new home together, and on every doorpost of every traditional Jewish home one places a mezuzah. It’s also appropriate, as it is customary to wish a newly married couple to build a bayit ne’eman b’yisrael, a faithful/enduring home in Israel. The home is the physical foundation of a family’s faith, reverence for God, and the Torah. Normally, this...

On this date in 1769, five French Creoles were shot in New Orleans for a revolt the previous year against a Spanish takeover. This date’s story begins with the French King Louis XV getting his French clock cleaned in the French and Indian War. This conflict blew an ill wind all over Francophone North America, much of which was taken by the British. Result: a quarter-millennium later, this blog is in English. Even what France kept, she did not keep. In a secret pact, France ceded to wartime ally Spain “the country known as Louisiana, as well as New Orleans...

Our sad excuse of a president, Joe Biden, appeared in another gaffe filled town hall event Thursday night on CNN, his favorite network. The moderator, Anderson Cooper, tried mightily to assist Biden as often as possible, finishing his thoughts, and answering his softball questions. Luckily for Biden, mostly sympathetic Democrats asked the questions, and his supporters filled the audience and cheered his ludicrous answers. Even in this type of encouraging atmosphere, Biden’s performance was embarrassing. His worst moments came in response to a question about the border. One of the few Republicans in the audience, Megan Crawford, a law student...

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a ridiculous Halloween costume guide that urges parents to avoid costumes “that perpetuate gender norms.”

This week on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) slammed the U.S. Supreme Court as an “extremist court” that was “out of step with the American people.” Host Jonathan Capehart aired a clip of a Democratic Texas state representative lamenting that the Supreme Court was acting like abortion was “an issue that we need to vacillate over.”