Free Republic

Where are the workers? On welfare, which now pays more than work for millions of Americans. A new study by the Foundation for Government Accountability shows that amid the pandemic, available welfare benefits have become so generous that it makes financial sense for many of the unemployed to stay home rather than work. President Joe Biden and Democrats are trying to extend this backward system in the Build Back Better Act. If they do, a generation of families will suffer on the economy’s sidelines. Employers are desperate to fill a near-record high 10.4 million open jobs, and as a result,...

OBILE, Ala. (AP) — An Alabama woman who says she was falsely arrested for shoplifting at a Walmart and then threatened by the company after her case was dismissed has been awarded $2.1 million in damages. A Mobile County jury on Monday ruled in favor of Lesleigh Nurse of Semmes, news outlets reported. Nurse said in a lawsuit that she was stopped in November 2016 when trying to leave a Walmart with groceries she said she already paid for, according to AL.com. She said she used self-checkout but the scanning device froze. Workers didn’t accept her explanation and she was...

JAMES TISSOT'S VISIONS OF CHRIST. Primary Source: The Life of Our Lord Jesus ChristAs Depicted by Jacques Tissot By SHANE JENKINS31 "The Youth of Jesus"Luke 2 32 "Two or Three Gathered in My Name"Matthew 18 33 "The Voice in the Desert"Luke 3 34 "The Axe in the Trunk of the Tree"Matthew 3 35 "He Who Winnows His Wheat"Luke 3 36 "Saint John the Baptist and the Pharisees"Luke 3 37 "Saint John the Baptist Sees Jesus from Afar"John 1 38 "The Baptism of Jesus"Matthew 3 39 "Jesus Transported by a Spirit onto a High Mountain"Luke 4 40 "Jesus Tempted in...

The Democrats’ $1.75 trillion tax and spending bill is filled with special interest giveaways to trial lawyers, union bosses, wealthy blue-state taxpayers and even reporters. Aside from being a blatant giveaway to favored political interests, this is an effort for the Left to utilize the tax code for social engineering and to push woke policies. Here are six ways Democrats are using the tax code to reward special interests: 1. Giveaways to the News MediaThe bill provides a $1.6 billion tax giveaway to media companies of all sizes. In addition to the conflict of interest created by politicians giving reporters...

Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle Matthew 4:18-22 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus calls his first disciples. What is it about this scene that is so peaceful and right? Somehow it gets at the very heart of Jesus’ life and work, revealing what he is about. He comes into the world as the second person of the Blessed Trinity, a representative from the community that is God—and thus his basic purpose is to draw the world into community around him. Jesus says to Simon and Andrew, “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” This tells us something...

The United States and Britain warned Russia on Tuesday over any new military aggression against Ukraine as the Western military alliance NATO met to discuss Moscow’s intentions for massing troops on the border with the former Soviet republic. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was to brief his 29 NATO counterparts on Washington’s intelligence on the group’s eastern flank and in Ukraine, which is not a member.

Japan confirmed its first case of the COVID-19 omicron variant on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press. The infection was found in a Namibian diplomat in his 30s who recently entered Japan, the AP noted. The diplomat, who tested positive for COVID-19 when he landed at Tokyo Narita Airport Sunday, is receiving care at a hospital. Initially, the man had no symptoms. However, he is now showing signs of fever, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shigeyuki Goto said, according to the news service. Japanese health officials reportedly stated that the diplomat had been fully vaccinated with the Moderna vaccine as of July.

According to Gallup, on the issue of crime, resident Joe Biden is 18 points underwater. While 57% of Americans disapprove of how he is handling crime, only 39% approve. Biden's dismal rating was recorded before the verdict came in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial -- not guilty on all five counts -- a verdict Biden declared had made him "angry." Biden's rating also came before career criminal Darrell Brooks, free on $1,000 bail after running over his girlfriend, drove his Ford Escape into the Waukesha Christmas parade, killing six and injuring 60. Biden's low rating on crime came before "flash mobs"...

BRADLEY Cooper revealed he was “held up at knifepoint” in New York City while on his way to pick up his 4-year-old daughter Lea from school. While detailing the traumatic experience, the 46-year-old actor said he thought he was going to be asked for an autograph or photo, not have a knife shoved at him. As this week’s guest on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Bradley shared that he quickly realized he’d gotten “way too comfortable” in NYC when he found himself being help up at knifepoint at a subway station. Of the late 2019 incident, he said: “I used...

...November 30 is the feast date of St. Andrew the Apostle, Christ‘s very first disciple along with his brother St. Peter. Andrew gets pretty short shrift in the New Testament compared to his brother, even though the Gospel of John actually credits our man with being the first of the two boys to cotton to the Nazarene’s preaching. Despite playing such a minor role in the sacred texts, he has a cultural footprint far in excess of fellow apostolic extras like Saint Bartholomew. After the master’s crucifixion, Andrew is supposed to have preached in Turkey and Greece. Romanian and Kievan...

I have a Ministry to the homeless in my city, and boy this article really Nails the insanity. A couple days ago one guy asked me to charge his tablet because he broke his charger. An hour and a half later he had called the police claiming I stole his tablet. The police officers told him he's no longer wanted downtown for lying about this to them. Now I understand a little more. The newer versions of meth are causing people to be bipolar and paranoid all at the same time along with their inability to communicate. This guy has...

Vandals broke into Rep. Debbie Dingell’s Michigan office, and trashed some items belonging to her deceased husband, the congresswoman said on Monday. Dingell, a Democrat who made headlines for a shouting match with Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene on the steps of the Capitol in September, told The Detroit Free Press that a plate glass window and objects on the walls in the Dearborn office were smashed. The office had previously been used by her husband John Dingell, who preceded her in Congress, the newspaper stated. “I’m deeply concerned about the break-in & vandalization of my Dearborn office today,” she...

It would only require one or two results this weekend – none of them farfetched – for Notre Dame to reach the College Football Playoff for the third time in four seasons, including each of the past two. Maybe Georgia blows out Alabama. Maybe Baylor or Iowa beat Oklahoma State or Michigan. Maybe Cincinnati stumbles. That’s it. That’s all it would take. If it happens, Notre Dame will compete once again in the playoff … only this time without its head coach. It is the latest example of a sport gone mad – with money, with realignment, with championship aspirations,...

Lawmakers like Sens. Rand Paul and Ted Cruz have called for Dr. Fauci to step down and be prosecuted over the course of COVID-19. Fauci scoffs at such threats, calling it "noise." "They're really criticizing science because I represent science. That's dangerous." https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1465003501541597191

And right on cue, here comes the fear-monger machine, working overtime:Drugmaker's CEO warns of 'material drop' in effectiveness Markets fall on fears of prolonged pandemic Time needed to see if vaccines work against Omicron Variant was first detected in Netherlands on Nov. 19 Japan reports first case as new variant spreadsI believe the panic is premature. All I have to say is if China’s not worried, I’m not worried: And clearly China’s not worried. After all, they invented it, they should know how it works.So my advice is to stock up on Vitamin C, Robitussin, Mucinex, make up a big...

CHICAGO (AP) — Jussie Smollett staged a racist and homophobic assault and told police he was the victim after the television studio where he worked didn’t take hate mail he had received seriously, a prosecutor said during opening statements in the ex-“Empire” actor’s trial Monday. Smollett has maintained he was attacked in downtown Chicago in January 2019 by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, a report that ignited political and ideological divisions around the country. But special prosecutor Dan Webb said the actor recruited two brothers to help him carry out the fake attack, then reported it to Chicago police, who...

No president has ever proposed a more egregiously misnamed piece of legislation than resident Joe Biden's so-called Build Back Better plan. The label "Progressive-Democrats" chose for this European-style socialist legislation is an example of their favorite ploy: semantic subterfuge -- assigning an appealing name to an appalling concept. n reality, the plan is a socialist wealth redistribution ploy to erode America's free market economy and replace it with government control, burdensome regulations and even higher taxes. When it comes to building back better, what Biden and the Democrats need to rebuild are the successful policies of the previous administration they...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemDaniel 9Daniel’s Prayer 9 In the first year of Darius son of Xerxes[a] (a Mede by descent), who was made ruler over the Babylonian[b] kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. 3 So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. 4 I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed: “Lord, the...

Human beings are by nature tribal. We are tribal because our ancestors were tribal. Our ancestors were tribal because tribalism had evolutionary survival value. Fifty thousand years ago, our ancestors lived in small communities of about 150 people. These tribes competed with other tribes for resources, and the competition was often violent and brutal. Loyalty to one’s own group and hostility to members of other groups was a valuable characteristic in tribal combat. Someone who loved his neighbor (that is, a member of another tribe) as much as himself would not have been of much value in tribal warfare. If...

The value of these super-abundant follies will trend rapidly to zero once margin calls and other bits of reality drastically reduce demand.Inflation, deflation, stagflation–they’ve all got proponents. But who’s going to be right? The difficulty here is that supply and demand are dynamic and so there are always things going up in price that haven’t changed materially (and are therefore not worth the higher cost) and other things dropping in price even though they haven’t changed materially. So proponents of inflation and deflation can always offer examples supporting their case. The stagflationist camp is delighted to offer a compromise case:...