Free Republic

21 April 2022Easter Thursday St Anselm Church, Philadelphia, PA Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: White.First readingActs 3:11-26 ©You killed the prince of life: God, however, raised him from the deadEveryone came running towards Peter and John in great excitement, to the Portico of Solomon, as it is called, where the man was still clinging to Peter and John. When Peter saw the people he addressed them, ‘Why are you so surprised at this? Why are you staring at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or holiness? You are Israelites, and it is the God...

The never-ending media outrage machine is undoubtedly focusing on the next soon-to-be crisis and amplifying anything that could possibly pit one of us against the other. Outrage drives ratings up, but it also drives people apart. I've been focusing instead on causes that bring people together. Since this Friday we celebrate the 52nd annual Earth Day, I want to focus on my love of nature. For years, I thought my love of nature was due to the times I had spent as a grade school student outdoors with my family. When I was a child, my father (former House Speaker...

Melvin Capital, the embattled hedge fund run by its once high-flying founder Gabe Plotkin, has been discussing a novel plan with its investors under which the firm would return their capital, while giving them the right to reinvest that capital in what would essentially be a new fund run by Plotkin.

When Russia invaded Ukraine no one knew how long the ensuing conflict would last, or how deep the shockwaves sent through Europe or the rest of the world would be. As the war approaches its third month, however, the economic fallout from the conflict is becoming clearer and the outlook does not look good. Against an already turbulent backdrop of global inflationary pressures amid rising food and energy prices and disrupted supply chains following the coronavirus pandemic, the war between Russia and Ukraine is exacerbating supply and demand tensions, damaging consumer sentiment and is threatening global economic growth.

Next Sunday, French voters will decide on their next president. While most of the country and the rest of the world are united, for valid reasons, against populist Marine Le Pen, the truth of the matter is that voters have a choice between two shades of illiberalism: the aggressively populist one of Le Front National and its authoritarianism-light version represented by incumbent President Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen is everything observers around the world are saying she is. She is anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim, taking positions among the worst that populism has to offer. She's also obsessed with "wokisme," a catchall word...

TEMPLE, Texas - A woman stole more than $2,000 in meat from an H-E-B grocery store as the clerk tries unsuccessfully to stop her, according to the Temple Police Department. Police say it happened on April 15 around 3:34 p.m. at the store located on the 3000 block of S. 31 Street in Temple. Officers were dispatched to the location for reports of a theft in progress. When police arrived, they were told that two women had stolen a large quantity of meat and then drove off. A store employee saw the two women exit the store with the purloined...

Washington -- April, the great poet T.S. Eliot has tried to tell us, is the cruelest month of the year, and yet we continue to go out without our raincoats. Many pedestrians even forget their windbreakers. What about the fate of the flagship of Russia's Black Sea fleet, the Moskva? A stray cigarette was presumably tossed on the floor of one of the ship's secured ammunition rooms and kaboom, the ship went down along with some 500 luckless Russian sailors. They could not even get help from their Ukrainian cousins, yucking it up a few miles away. Thus far, it...

Rudy Giuliani’s presence alone stirred up primetime drama during Wednesday night’s episode of “The Masked Singer” as judge Ken Jeong stormed off stage when the former mayor was unveiled as the secret contestant dressed as a giant rooster. In a segment taped months ago, Giuliani popped out of a jack in the box while singing a rendition of “Bad to the Bone” — leaving Jeong to say “I’m done” before heading backstage. Some crowd members gasped in disbelief as the panelists struggled to identify the contestant as the man who spearheaded an effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election. “Is...

As energy costs continue to bite thanks to the sanctions on Russia, Germans are being told to take fewer showers. Yes, really. Amidst discussion in the country of a potential total energy embargo on Russia, articles about the supposed health benefits of showering less have begun to pop up. In an article titled ‘‘It’s enough to wash THESE four body parts – Why the skin cleans itself if you let it’, Germany’s Bild newspaper cites advice by economy minister Robert Habeck, who has called on citizens to cut back on their heating, sauna visits, and showers to help the country...

With justices set to hear arguments next week, feds only put a minuscule 0.1% of illegal aliens into required border program last month. ========================================================================= The Biden administration has been repeatedly ordered by courts to continue enforcing the Trump-era Remain in Mexico policy for illegal migrants, but its own records show it has willfully thumbed its nose at those rulings as it waits for a final crack at the Supreme Court. U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency data reviewed by Just the News shows just 199 of the 221,303 illegal aliens stopped by federal agents in March were placed into the...

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, recently purchased a 9% stake in Twitter, the social media platform that permanently banned former President Donald Trump and that conservatives accuse of suppressing their content. Musk's purchase made him Twitter's largest shareholder, and he vowed to take it over, possibly to turn it into a private company. Its CEO vowed to fight the effort, and one of its largest shareholders, a Saudi Arabian prince who owns 95% of Saudi's Kingdom Holding Company, issued a statement rejecting Musk's offer as inadequate. Conservative pundit Derek Hunter said: "Media outlets are applauding Saudi Arabia's...

WASHINGTON, Sunday, April 20. Major-Gen. McDOWELL, remains in the city to-night, and returns to camp to-morrow. His forces are still. in possession of Falmouth, opposite to Fredericksburgh, a fact well-known to the rebels, wire occupy the latter city, and who are preparing to oppose any attempt of McDowell to cross the river; hence it is supposed that the loyal citizens of the United States may be trusted with the same information. When the rebels retreated across the Rappahannock and burned the bridge behind them they also burned the steamer St. Nicholas, which was stolen by the rebels months ago, and...

CNN+ anchor Chris Wallace praised outgoing White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki Wednesday on his show “Look Who Is Talking to Chris Wallace” for bringing “civility” back to the White House briefing room.Wallace said, “You have been, I think it’s fair to say, been widely praised for your stint here at the White House. In fact, I have praised you for your stint here at the White House. How do you think you’ve done?”

Food Crisis A third of farmers in Jilin, Heilongjiang, and Liaoning report they can’t get the necessary inputs to begin farming. This report from the CCP administrations in those regions comes mere weeks before farmers were due to start planting, meaning they would at best miss the best time to plant - driving down yields - and at worst not be able to plant at all. The later seems likely, given the recent fertilizer shortage brought about by Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The war in Ukraine will have a further impact for China, due to their reliance on roughly 2...

Following a stunning defeat in federal court earlier this month, one of the lead prosecutors handling the trial of four men charged with conspiring to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020 has withdrawn from the case. Andrew Birge, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Michigan, announced in a filing yesterday that Jonathan Roth “withdraws his appearance as an attorney for the United States,” Roth and assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler represented the government during the three-week trial, which resulted in the acquittal of two men and a mistrial for two others. Defense attorneys argued the FBI entrapped...

The reason Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter couldn’t be clearer: more freedom of speech on a platform that, like it or not, has become Earth’s “de facto” town square, as he put it. Twitter, along with just about all the Big Tech giants, uses dirty algorithms and misleading information to shoot down conservative voices in the name of battling false and misleading information. We all know the drill. It steered users away from clicking on New York Post’s consequential Hunter Biden laptop story by posting warnings such as “potentially unsafe” and warned that the story contained “hacked materials.” It...

The 80-year-old Sen. Bernie Sanders has not ruled out running for president in 2024, should President Joe Biden not seek re-election. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that Sanders' 2020 Campaign Manager Faiz Shakir wrote a memo telling allies that the Vermont progressive would consider a third bid for the White House. 'In the event of an open 2024 Democratic presidential primary, Sen. Sanders has not ruled out another run for president, so we advise that you answer any questions about 2024 with that in mind,' Shakir wrote. The 79-year-old Biden has long said he'll run for re-election - though recent...

IPray For The Peace of JerusalemRevelation 10The Two Witnesses 11 I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers. 2 But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. 3 And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the...

America these last 14 months resembles a dystopia. It is becoming partly the world of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, partly the poet Homer’s land of the Lotus-Eaters. Nothing seems to be working. And no one in control seems to care. The once secure border of 2020 vanished. Two-million people have crossed the southern border illegally in the last twelve months. Millions more are on the way. The Biden Administration unilaterally and simply destroyed existing immigration law. What followed was surreal. The administration claimed COVID was again on the horizon. So it justified forcing American citizens to keep wearing masks in...

American consumers are spending more, getting less, and borrowing more to fund this involuntary spending spree. Retail sales in March were 7% higher than they were in the stimulus-fueled March of 2021, but thanks to inflation, they didn’t get as much bang for their buck. Seasonally adjusted, retail sales were up 0.5% month-on-month in March at $677 billion.As WolfStreet put it, “Stimulus Miracle March 2021 was a very tough month to beat. But Americans did blow by it. What they didn’t do is blow by the now raging inflation.” Unsurprisingly, higher gasoline prices accounted for the bulk of that increase...