Free Republic

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Susan Rice is leading the administration's gun control efforts. Jean-Pierre said there is "no one better" than Rice to lead the effort in the wake of a mass shooting Tuesday at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. She was responding to a question about whether President Joe Biden intended to tap his vice president as a gun czar, a role Biden held during the Obama administration that some Democratic lawmakers have urged the president to fill again. “We have a whole-of-government approach … that Ambassador Susan Rice is leading, along with other departments,”...

“‘“And forgive us our debts”’” (Matthew 6:12). Sin dominates the hearts and minds of lost men and women, separates them from God, and is therefore their greatest enemy and problem. It is the common denominator for every crime, immorality, pain, and sorrow—and there is no natural cure: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil” (Jer. 13:23). The natural individual does not even want his or her sin cured (John 3:19). If sin is our greatest problem, our greatest need is the forgiveness God provides....

When Adam sinned, he tried to hide from God. When Jonah refused to preach to Nineveh, his fear drove him into the ocean, trying to flee the presence of the Lord. After Peter denied Christ, he left to weep bitterly. Adam, Jonah, and Peter ran away from God, not because they lost their love for him but rather because they feared that the Lord was too angry to have mercy on them. The accuser of the brethren waits like a vulture for you to fail in some way. At that point, he uses every lie in hell to convince you...

Texas Democratic candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke said Thursday on “MSNBC Prime” that he believes there will be a “reckoning” led by voters reacting to mass shootings in the upcoming midterm elections in November. O’Rourke said, “The choice is to vote for people who reflect and represent your values. What I’m trying to say is that too often, we dismiss folks to others who belong to the other political party. We say all Republicans are this or that or all Democrats are this and that. I’m just saying that the majority of us in Texas, which includes Republicans and Democrats,...

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Officials in Ukraine have admitted that Russia has the “upper hand” in fighting in the country’s east, as Ukrainian forces fell back from some of their positions in the Donbas region. The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said just 5% of the region remained in Ukrainian hands – down from about 10% little more than a week ago – and that Ukrainian forces were retreating in some areas. Pro-Russian separatists from the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic have said they have established full control over the strategic town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine. The claims have not been independently verified....

WASHINGTON, Monday, May 20. The following is the latest received at the War Department from Gen. BANKS: WILLIAMSPORT, May 26. Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War: We believe that our whole force, trains and all, will cross in safety. The men are in fine spirits, and crossing to good order. The labor of last night was fearful. The enemy followed us last night on our march, but has not made his appearance this morning. The news of your movements South has unquestionably caused them to look out for their safety. Your dispatch was read to the troops this morning...

Vladimir Lenin supposedly once said, “The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” There’s some doubt as to whether this line is genuine; regardless, it seems like a pretty good description of what the Biden administration is doing to America’s middle class. Inflation is running rampant. The Producer Price Index, the most useful measure of general inflation, is up a whopping 16.3% from April 2021, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That means that roughly $1 out of every $6 that people earn has been lost to inflation in a single...

My wife and I have thoroughly enjoyed the television series Blacklist, and I would recommend this nine season action thriller to anyone who enjoyed the likes of "24" or "Designated Survivor". My one question to Blacklist fans: When night, or dark environment scenes are playing, does it appear too dark, almost impossible to perceive? I adjusted all my TV settings to no avail. Any input appreciated!

As I’ve been pointing out now for a couple of years, the obvious gap in the plans of our betters for a carbon-free “net zero” energy future is the problem of massive-scale energy storage. How exactly is New York City (for example) going to provide its citizens with power for a long and dark full-week period in the winter, with calm winds, long nights, and overcast days, after everyone has been required to change over to electric heat and electric cars — and all the electricity is supposed to come from the wind and sun, which are neither blowing nor...

I don’t have anything of value to add about Uvalde and I’m as heartsick and angry as you are.But I do want to try to impose some reality in our thinking about guns: This will happen again, and again. Because guns are a problem that cannot be fixed. Three reasons: (1) The Second Amendment, like it or not, provides cover that makes reforming gun laws difficult to do and then more difficult to legally sustain. (2) Guns are more popular than you probably realize and our political system gives so much leverage to one particular political party that if this...

IPray For The Peace of JerusalemGenesis 9The Sons of Noah 18 The sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham and Japheth. (Ham was the father of Canaan.) 19 These were the three sons of Noah, and from them came the people who were scattered over the whole earth. 20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded[a] to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. 23 But...

Harley-Davidson electric bicycle off-shoot Serial 1 introduced its MOSH/CTY and RUSH/CTY models in August, 2021. Serial 1 positioned both bicycles to urban riders and commuters with a 529Wh li-ion battery and a mid-mounted Brose electric motor. The new BASH/MTB electric mountain bike builds on those foundations for a more rugged clientele.

The incoming Congress could end the FBI’s use and abuse of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to spy on “U.S. persons.” The 18-member U.S. intelligence community (IC) has released the Annual Statistical Transparency Report Regarding the Intelligence Community’s Use of National Security Surveillance Authorities. One of the few to pay attention was historian Matthew Guariglia, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation and an affiliated scholar at the University of California’s Hastings School of Law. This government document, the ninth such report to be made public, “provides statistics and contextual information concerning how the Intelligence Community uses the Foreign...

The Biden Administration’s Department of Education has announced that it will be withholding federal lunch funds from public school systems that do not allow students to use restrooms and other private facilities that are designated for the other gender. As reported by The Federalist, an Education Department spokesman said that, after the initial press release announcing the policy earlier this month, official rules outlining the new policy will be implemented in June. The new policy would affect the allocation of funds from the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which feeds nearly 30 million students every day, as well as up...

The Chinese military must be able to destroy SpaceX’s Starlink satellites if they pose a threat to national security, according to an April publication by Chinese military researchers. The researchers speculated that US military drones and stealth fighter jets could boost their data transmission speed by more than 100x using the Starlink network. Notably, SpaceX has signed a contract with the US Department of Defense to develop technology based on the Starlink platform – which includes instruments sensitive enough to track hypersonic weapons traveling at 5x the speed of sound or faster. The paper also recommends developing a satellite surveillance...

Regardless of the verdicts for Sussmann and Hale, it’s increasingly clear Americans continue to live in two separate and unequal systems of government. he Elijah Barrett Prettyman Courthouse in Washington, D.C. is center stage this month to two competing tales of stolen presidential elections. In the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Christopher Cooper, federal prosecutors have presented a detailed account of the greatest scandal in U.S. political history: the conspiracy of the country’s most powerful interests to fabricate the Trump-Russia collusion hoax in order to sabotage Donald Trump before the 2016 election. Michael Sussmann, a lawyer formerly employed at...

BTE cooks off a bit later

Raffensperger won Republican primary against Trump-backed rival From the moment Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger defied Donald Trump, his chances of reelection were in serious doubt. How could the man who famously refused the president’s demands to “find” more votes and overturn the 2020 election results win a Republican primary against a Trump-endorsed challenger? Not only did Raffensperger survive, he won the primary outright without a runoff by earning a majority of the vote against four candidates, including Trump’s choice, U.S. Rep. Jody Hice. Instead of bending to Trump, Raffensperger campaigned as a principled conservative, an engineer and...

What if the lights go out this summer? How much food gets lost? In February 2021, I wrote on the near collapse of the Texas electric grid and asked this rhetorical question: "how would you and your family like to be trapped in your car at 16 degrees below zero?" Given that it is summertime, and the living is theoretically easy, let me ask another one. If the lights go out, how much refrigerated food will you lose? Similarly, will you be able to replace lost food? We have all seen huge food price increases and heard media reports of...