Free Republic

The Biden administration on Friday released a screening tool to help identify disadvantaged communities long plagued by environmental hazards, but it won’t include race as a factor in deciding where to devote resources. Administration officials told reporters that excluding race will make projects less likely to draw legal challenges and will be easier to defend, even as they acknowledged that race has been a major factor in terms of who experiences environmental injustice. The decision was harshly challenged by members of the environmental justice community. “It’s a major disappointment and it’s a major flaw in trying to identify those communities...

“Bulldog edition” is old newspaper-speak for the early first edition in the late afternoon or early evening paper—back when we had evening newspapers—and not any reference to the temperament of anyone in particular around this particular paper route. I decided to post TWiP a day early this week to begin returning to normal, but also because my inventory of material is overflowing more than usual. I have enough great material for an entire second gallery. So consider today a double-dose: TWiP along with Ammo Grrlll.Our continuing thanks to our northern neighbors, for the beclowning of Justin Trudeau—the greatest Canadian comedy...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is concerned that Republican attacks on the Democrats' handling of the COVID-19 pandemic have "alarming credibility," according to a slide deck obtained by SFGATE. The DCCC, which is the main campaign arm for House Democrats and is currently chaired by New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, worked with outside consulting groups to conduct an online poll of voters in the 60 most competitive House districts for the upcoming 2022 midterms. The poll was conducted from mid-January to early February, had approximately 1,000 respondents and a 3.1% margin of error. Findings from the poll were...

Following an overwhelming defeat in this week’s recall battle, the president of San Francisco Board of Education claimed that her ouster was the consequence of “fighting for racial justice,” and that those who voted “yes” are aligned with “white supremacists.” None of the three board members challenged in the recall won support to continue in their position. Board President Gabriela López, Vice President Faauuga Moliga, and Commissioner Alison Collins all lost their positions by margins of nearly 3 to 1, according to San Francisco’s elections department. “So, if you fight for racial justice, this is the consequence,” López wrote to...

Native Canadians are second class citizens. Justin Trudeau’s crackdown on protests under an Emergencies Act order specifically exempts refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants and other ethnic minorities.Yes, really.The Canadian government’s Emergency Measures Regulations: SOR/2022-21 order bans people from taking part “in a public assembly that may reasonably be expected to lead to a breach of the peace.”However, the law does not apply to “any person in a class of persons whose presence in Canada, as determined by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration or the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, is in the national interest.”This includes Indians, refugees, immigrants,...

Carlo Maria Viganò is an archbishop of the Catholic Church who served as the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States from 19 October 2011 to 12 April 2016. Archbishop Viganò has spoken out against The Great Reset and the Globalist Agenda 2030 publicly many times. He now gives his full support to the Canadian truckers and the worldwide Freedom movement.

I'm not really a protester, but I support the right to protest. I just tend not to show up at those events. I'm glad others do. I don't like crowds. I supported the protests of small business owners during COVID-19. I supported the George Floyd protests. I do not support the violence, looting and rioting within protests. I condemned the violence at former President Donald Trump's inauguration. I condemned the violence during the George Floyd protests. Too many people deploy situational ethics. When rioters stormed the Wisconsin State Capitol to stop the legislature in 2011, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended...

Former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly called Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs” and “anarchists,” said there’s “a lot of respect” for the overwhelmingly white truckers who blocked streets in the Canadian capital and shut down border crossings with the U.S. to oppose COVID-19 restrictions. To Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the truckers who parked bumper to bumper are “heroes” fighting for a righteous cause. Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity sent “solidarity, love and support” to the drivers, who also defied police orders to clear Ottawa’s streets and ignored a court order forbidding them from blaring their horns. GOP Sen. Rand Paul...

(Reuters) - Thousands of Texas voters' mail-in ballots for midterm primary elections have been rejected for failing to comply with new Republican-backed identification requirements passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump's false claims of widespread fraud, county officials said. Election officials in six of the state's largest counties, which are collectively home to about a third of Texas' population, are reporting unprecedented rates of invalid ballots, almost entirely because voters are neglecting to include an ID number on the envelope as the new law demands. In Harris County, home to Houston and 4.7 million people, 3,475 ballots representing...

[Catholic Caucus] EWTN priest: Latin Mass restrictions have ‘harmed the church,’ seek to suppress traditional liturgyFr. Gerald Murray gave a lengthy interview in which he thoroughly analyzed Traditionis Custodes and the subsequent Responsa ad Dubia, warning how they had 'harmed the Church.' Thu Feb 17, 2022 - 11:42 am EST (LifeSiteNews) — A Canon lawyer frequently featured on EWTN has responded to the Vatican’s most recent restrictions on the Latin Mass and pointed out a number of potential canonical errors in the Responsa which placed restrictions on the traditional sacraments, saying that the Vatican’s restrictions on the traditional liturgy “have...

Systemic racism. We’re (falsely) told it’s “baked into American law and society.” But pro-abortion activists refuse to see it in the one industry that deliberately kills for a living. The same putrid pseudoscience – eugenics – that brought us the Holocaust birthed Planned Parenthood. Yet somehow, this billion-dollar abortion chain has convinced the black community that killing our Posterity is a social good. So, when a cop kills an unarmed black life, social justice warriors demand that there must be justice! But when an abortionist kills an unarmed black life, they celebrate it as reproductive justice. When it comes to...

Might be connected to the LRAD Sonic Weapon used by police https://www.theepochtimes.com/australian-police-confirm-use-of-lrad-sonic-weapon-at-protest-against-covid-19-vaccine-mandates_4280693.html?utm_source=partner&utm_campaign=CFP Definitely something used in Canberra this isn't sun burn pic.twitter.com/gn7lpim8fV — shez 🌸 (@sheryl59514812) February 17, 2022

The Shadow Knows! Wu-Xia employs an approximation that makes a nonlinear term structure model extremely tractable for analysis of an economy operating near the zero lower bound for interest rates. It can be used to summarize the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy (ZIRP + QE). The Shadow Rate is now -0.1974%. The good news? The Atlanta Fed Wage Growth tracker is showing a 5.1% wage growth. The bad news? Inflation is ruining that growth at a whopping 7.5% rate leaving REAL wage growth at -2.4%. And the Atlanta Fed’s GDPNow Q1 forecast is a measly 1.285%. Apparently, the fiscal...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Texas grand jury indicted 19 Austin police officers on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for their actions during 2020 protests over racial injustice that spread nationwide following the killing of George Floyd, according to people familiar with the matter.

Catholic Charities, Texas diocese under fire for transporting illegal migrants with Biden adminWatchdog groups and a Republican congressman are pressing Catholic Charities over the group’s role in the Biden border crisis. MCALLEN, Texas (LifeSiteNews) – Catholic Charities and a South Texas diocese are facing growing scrutiny over their roles in transferring illegal migrants across the U.S. in partnership with the Biden administration. The Diocese of Brownsville and the diocese’s Catholic Charities branch are subjects of a new lawsuit by watchdog groups, filed days before a GOP congressman threatened to subpoena Catholic Charities USA for details about the organization’s activities at...

When NBC's Lester Holt asked resident Joe Biden what might prompt him to send U.S. troops to rescue Americans fleeing Ukraine, Biden replied: "There's not. That's a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another." It's not like we're dealing with a terrorist organization. We're dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. ... Things could go crazy quickly." Biden was saying Americans are not going to fight Russians in Ukraine, even to protect or extract imperiled U.S. troops, diplomats or citizens. Speaking last week on the Senate floor, Sen. Ted Cruz echoed Biden: "I...

A photographer who fell while taking pictures at the Rams's Super Bowl parade revealed afterward that she suffered a fractured spine in the process. A day later, the Rams, quarterback Matthew Stafford and his wife, Kelly, are stepping in to take care of the bill. The team and the Staffords released a statement on Thursday wishing the photographer, Kelly Smiley, a speedy recovery and pledging to pay for her hospital bills and replace her cameras, which were also broken in the fall.

During an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, White House Chief Medical Adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to a question on what the threshold of cases that would cause him to determine the coronavirus pandemic has passed is by saying that “there’s no magic number” and that metrics for making decisions will look more at the rates of severe disease and hospitalizations over infection rates, but “We don’t know what that number is yet.” Host Linsey Davis asked, “[O]ur country, right now, at least, is still seeing about 147,000 new cases of COVID per day. But what would that threshold...

“‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted’” (Matthew 5:4). The positive result for those who mourn is very clear: “they shall be comforted.” God reserves the blessing of His comfort exclusively for the contrite of heart. Those of us who mourn over sin will have our tears wiped away by Jesus’ loving hand. The Old Testament similarly speaks of God’s comfort for the true spiritual mourners. Isaiah said that Messiah would come “to comfort all who mourn, to grant those who mourn in Zion, giving them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of...

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemColossians 3Living as Those Made Alive in Christ 3 Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ, who is your[a] life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. 5 Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which...