Free Republic

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For Ukraine oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, the Westin hotel in Cleveland that he owns with partners became the center of the most powerful Republican gathering in the nation during the 2016 convention. Then-candidate Donald Trump set up his headquarters in the downtown luxury hotel. His family members and top advisers stayed in the penthouse presidential suite. In the lobby that showcases modern, eclectic art, the future president met with a crush of reporters the morning after he delivered his acceptance speech at the convention, gushing over the local hospitality. “The lobby of the Westin Hotel is a palace for insiders,” wrote...

Author’s Note: Interested readers can find all previous volumes of this series here. News Flash: The first 56 volumes are compiled into a book titled “Bible Study For Those Who Don’t Read The Bible.”Thanks for joining our Christmas weekend Bible study. Today we celebrate the birth of baby Yeshua (Jesus’s name in Hebrew) that begins a two-part discussion of Messianic prophecies found in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.First, we read what Jesus said about the prophecies, and a VIP guest offers some meaningful insight. Then a review of what was written in the Hebrew Bible relevant to Christmas and the lineage...

Snip We’re supposed to believe that recklessly spending tax dollars on weird Dem/prog/lib environmental gimmicks, and expansion of the federal welfare state, will put the country on the path to non-inflationary economic growth?Next thing you know, Goldman will be offering its clients shares in the Brooklyn Bridge. To understand why a Wall Street firm that deals with wealth creators, entrepreneurs and companies embracing capitalism would support something so anti-capitalist as BBB, you have to understand what’s missing from Goldman’s economic analysis ....... Unlike stock analysts who must disclose if their firm underwrites stocks of companies that get coverage, there is...

Blaming the unvaccinated is the sharpest tool in resident Joe Biden's shed, and that is not healthy for America. Consider Biden's address to the nation on COVID-19 from the White House State Dining Room Tuesday. Biden started off well enough as he offered that he shared the public's frustration and loss and commended Americans who have been vaccinated. Then he turned to vaccination shaming. "You have an obligation to yourselves, to your family and, quite frankly -- I know I'll get criticized for this -- to your country" to get vaccinated, Biden declared. He added, "I honest to God believe...

A new poll of Arab residents of Jerusalem by a Palestinian media outlet found that 93% of them prefer to remain under Israeli rule and would not give up their Israeli identity card. Arab residents of Jerusalem are, for the most part, not Israeli citizens, but can request citizenship if they wish. Those who are not citizens carry a special ID card allowing them freedom of movement within Israel proper.

Two men have been jailed for a total of 33 years for running a £70m money laundering scheme, £10m of which came from fraudulent Covid loans. Artem Terzyan, 38, from Russia and Deivis Grochiatskij, 44, from Lithuania were sentenced earlier this month at Kingston Crown Court. Police believe the Bounce Back Loan fraud was one of the largest since the scheme started in 2020. At present, police have recovered only £17,000, with most money sent abroad. Details of the case can be reported after court restrictions were lifted. The two men were first arrested in 2018 following a police operation...

Guess what? I scored big for Christmas. I got my number-one gift. Actually, 80 million Trump warriors (aka "deplorables") scored big for Christmas. Because we all asked Santa for a Trump comeback. Well, we got more than we hoped for. Because Trump has made perhaps the biggest comeback in history. And he did it far faster than anyone imagined possible. I call it "The Donald Trump Christmas Miracle." But of course, you'd never know it if you read, watch or listen to mainstream media. Trump's amazing comeback has been buried and blacked out just like stories about Hunter Biden's laptop....

Real time Dashboard that includes mileage, speed, and temperature (will turn on Day 2), and a visual daily time line for every major deployment before reaching L-2. Also, click on the page title for access to an entire website for James Webb Telescope information and visuals.

The Christmas Gospel from Luke provides us with many teachings. One thing that surely stands out, however, is the permeating theme of humility. Throughout the account, God confounds our prideful expectations and insists on being found in the lowest of places.The newborn Christ is not found where we expect Him to be nor does His birth conform to any script we would design. Right from the start, He gives us many lessons in humility and begins His saving work of healing our wound of pride. Let’s look at these lessons in four stages.I. The Procession to the Place – In...

It’s almost impossible to be as wrong as a liberal is on everything. Some people do manage to do it, on occasion, but by and large it’s not an easy task. Surfing the web the other day I came across one of the dumbest posts I’ve ever seen, which I realize is kind of like saying one drop of water is wetter than the others, but this one is a special kind of stupid. It’s a Huffington Post piece entitled, “The Toxic Phrase We Need To Stop Saying Around The Holidays.” I read it with a combination of laughter and...

I will be blunt: There’s very little newsworthy happening around the holidays but media outlets still have pages, either on paper or in the cyber world, that need to be filled. This is the time when you get a lot of cozy human interest stories and cute cat and dog photos. But still, there’s yawning empty space and looming deadlines. That’s when writers dig deep into themselves and write those essays that come most easily to them: They go public with their pet peeves. And that, undoubtedly, is why an MSNBC writer decided that the best thing to write for...

December 26th, 2021 Feast of the Holy Family St. Anne's church, Amager, Copenhagen, Denmark Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White First reading1 Samuel 1:20-22,24-28 ©This is the child I prayed for: he is made over to the Lord.Hannah conceived and gave birth to a son, and called him Samuel ‘since’ she said ‘I asked the Lord for him.’ When a year had gone by, the husband Elkanah went up again with all his family to offer the annual sacrifice to the Lord and to fulfil his vow. Hannah, however, did not go up, having said to her husband, ‘Not before the...

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)It's been said that the most important event in human history was the birth of Christ. When you examine this claim with an open mind, there can be no denying it, as there is clearly no event that has reverberated throughout the world that effected so many for so long by altering the course of history forever. In a book written by cultural historian Christopher Dawson,...

Apart from its legislative and regulatory policies, the administration is doing everything it can to hamper the production of conventional fuels. The standard, and oft used, countermeasure is to seek judicial relief from nonsensical overreach, which takes a lot of time and money, but several states this week showed a more creative side, and it’s a good thing in my book. At the Federalist, Tristan Justice details the administration’s misguided actions which prompted the response: resident Joe Biden has been aggressive in quickly curtailing oil and gas development as promised on the campaign trail. Beyond the illegal suspension of new...

Booster protection against symptomatic illness caused by the Omicron variant dropped by up to 25% within 10 weeks, new real-world data found - though it's not yet clear whether everyone may need further doses in 2022. The UK Health Security Agency said protection against symptomatic COVID-19 caused by the variant dropped from 70% to 45% after a Pfizer booster for those initially vaccinated with the shot developed by Pfizer with BioNTech. In the same analysis published on Thursday, the agency found the effectiveness of Moderna's booster paired with two doses of the Pfizer vaccine held at 70% to 75% for...

Attorney Lin Wood announced on Friday that podcaster Doug Kuzma, a supporter of former President Donald Trump known for his anti-vaccine stance, is in the hospital due to COVID after attending a QAnon-friendly conference in Texas earlier this month. Wood wrote in a Telegram post that he received a call for help from Kuzma's administrator, who said the Frog News Network host had been suffering from the disease and his lungs were not responding to treatment. According to Telegram posts by Frog News Network on Saturday, Kuzma was placed on a ventilator early Christmas morning and was unconscious and unable...

Wanda Young, one of the original Marvelettes on Motown’s Tamla label in the 1960s and later the group’s lead singer, has died. She was 78 and passed on Dec. 15 in Garden City, Michigan from complications of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to her daughter. Young joined the Marvelettes as they signed their first record deal with Motown. The group scored Motown’s first song to reach No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1961. The song also was No. 1 on the R&B chart. “Please Mr. Postman” became the Marvelettes signature, and has since been covered by...

Good Samaritan helped move 2 children in the car away from fire, according to FHPA woman was killed in a fire at a gas station Wednesday afternoon in Palm Harbor, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The victim was putting gas in her car when another driver backed into the pump, causing it to overturn and trap the woman against her vehicle, troopers said. FHP said that the exposed gasoline erupted in flames, and the fire was extinguished by crews from several different departments. A good Samaritan, 34-year-old Jared Pierson, helped the victim’s two children fight the uncontrollable flames, and...

Coping with the isolation, fear and sadness of the pandemic may have been a little easier if you had a trusting and loving dog by your side. But you don't need to tell that to Francois Martin, a researcher who studies the bonds between animals and humans. His two Great Danes helped him through the last two years, and he just completed a study that shows living with a dog gave folks a stronger sense of social support and eased some of the negative psychological effects of the pandemic. "When you ask people, 'Why is your dog important to you?...