Free Republic

The governing body of the largest Mennonite denomination in the United States passed a resolution on Sunday (May 29) confessing to “committing violence against LGBTQ people” and committing to LGBTQ inclusion. In a separate vote, Mennonite Church USA also repealed instructions to pastors not to officiate at marriages between people of the same sex. The denomination’s official confession, which views marriage as between a man and a woman, remains unchanged. Nearly 83% of the delegates meeting at a special assembly in Kansas City, Missouri, voted in favor of repealing the guidelines barring marriage for same-sex couples, while the resolution for...

<p>MEMPHIS, Tenn. — A mother is accused of firing shots at six children, injuring a 12-year-old boy at a house in North Memphis.</p><p>Latorya Lemons, 35, is being held on a half-million-dollar bond on six charges of aggravated assault, six counts of felony reckless endangerment and two counts of violating bail conditions.</p>

Kentucky Democratic Senate candidate Charles Booker released a campaign video Wednesday which features him wearing a noose, in an attempt to highlight Senator Rand Paul's opposition to a 2020 bill that would have made lynching a federal hate crime. The video, which starts with a graphic warning, opens with a shot of a noose hanging from a tree. "The pain of our past persists to this day," Booker, who is Black, says in the opening lines. "In Kentucky, like many states throughout the South, lynching was a tool for terror. It was used to kill hopes for freedom."

A spokesperson for the Washington Post issued an apology after a writer retweeted a sexist joke and other writers at the news outlet objected vocally on Twitter. Dave Weigel retweeted a joke about women on Friday and immediately regretted it after he was criticized heavily for joking on Twitter. Weigel deleted the tweet, but it was saved for posterity by random people on Twitter and other writers at the outlet, like Felicia Sonmez, who objected to the sexist message. \u201cFantastic to work at a news outlet where retweets like this are allowed!\u201d

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis, Bishop McElroy, and Amoris LaetitiaBy now it is part of an old news cycle that Bishop McElroy is to be made a Cardinal. And the reactions to the news, as might be expected, reflect antecedent theological commitments. In short, theological liberals are cheering and the conservatives are jeering. Over at The National Catholic Reporter Michael Sean Winters is gushing like a fifteen year old adolescent over this appointment, which makes me suspicious. But I have long since gotten beyond judging folks based on who likes or dislikes them. (Because, you know, blind squirrels and acorns and...

On Friday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” White House Council of Economic Advisers member Heather Boushey stated that “the reason that we see inflation today is because we’re recovering from this historic global pandemic.” Boushey said, “Well, let me be very clear, you know, the reason that we see inflation today is because we’re recovering from this historic global pandemic. So, the president has outlined a number of steps that he is taking to make sure that we contain inflation. One of them is letting the Federal Reserve do their job. But another set of them is making sure that...

SANTA CRUZ – Much was discussed but no decision was made on Thursday by Santa Cruz Superior Court Judge Syda Cogliati regarding restitution for the vandalized Black Lives Matter mural in downtown Santa Cruz. Members of the public were hard-pressed to find an open seat in the courtroom where attorney arguments continued for the two men accused of defacing the Center Street mural last summer. Brandon Bochat, 21, and Hagan Warner, 20, were arrested last July on suspicion of felony vandalism and were later charged with an additional hate crime enhancement and misdemeanor reckless driving.

In the wake of the devastating nuclear meltdown at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant in 2011, officials have been hunting for new sources of green energy — and they're leaving no stone unturned. A heavy machinery maker in Japan called IHI Corp has successfully tested a prototype of a massive, airplane-sized turbine that can generate electricity from powerful deep sea ocean currents, Bloomberg reports, laying the groundwork for a promising new source of renewable energy that doesn't rely on sunny days or strong winds. The company's latest prototype is called Kairyu and weighs in at 330 tons. Two counter-rotating turbine fans...

(snip) But in one very important way, gay marriage will not quite be marriage even in New York, even 30 days from now when the law goes into effect. That is because the psycho-sexual-financial-commercial-legal dramas that entangle the domestic lives of straight people often have another component: religion. And religious institutions have an exemption in the new law over accommodating gay people. It was key to the passage of the legislation. Marriage without a church or temple wedding isn't the real thing. Why can some people have all the bells and whistles in the church of their choice but not...

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., lit into the “weirdos” that he said are tearing the United States apart, in a fiery speech at the Reagan Foundation that connected the hyperbolic political debates of the last few years with the global threats facing the nation. The Nebraska Republican ripped into “performance artists” on the far left and far right who have dominated politics for close to a decade, saying they’re more focused on getting likes and retweets for themselves on social media than on preserving the United States’ standing as a global superpower amid new threats from adversaries like China.

Ukraine says the Russian army looted or damaged more than 1,000 computers at the Chernobyl nuclear power station and stole trucks and radiation dosimeters. Chernobyl's information director Vitaliy Medved said nuclear equipment was not damaged and "regarding radiation safety everything is OK". The losses caused by the Russian occupation - now ended - are put at more than 1.6bn hryvnia (£44m; $54m). The explosion of a reactor at Chernobyl spread radiation across Europe in 1986. The decommissioned plant, north of Kyiv, lies near the Belarus border and was quickly occupied by Russian troops after their 24 February invasion. Russian forces...

Growing up in Guadalajara, Mexico, Katya Echazarreta was encouraged to abandon her dreams of traveling to space. “Everyone around me — family, friends, teachers — I just kept hearing the same thing: That’s not for you,” Echazarreta told The Associated Press. Echazarreta, 26, will prove them wrong Saturday when she joins a diverse international crew boarding the fifth passenger flight by Blue Origin, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space travel venture. She and five others, including Victor Correa Hespanha, the second Brazilian to fly to space, will blast off from Texas atop a New Shepard rocket for a 10-minute flight. The...

Not a happy video, but one of a grieving angry great grandfather.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, known professionally as Dr. Oz, won Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary election on Friday after opposing candidate Dave McCormick conceded. According to the Associated Press, McCormick realized that despite an ongoing state recount, he would not receive enough votes to beat Oz. “It’s now clear to me with the recount now largely complete that we have a nominee,” McCormick said, according to the AP. “Tonight is really about all us coming together.” Since the recount remains underway, the race has not officially been called by the AP. Oz’s political victory comes after an extremely tight race between himself...

The Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District board took no action Friday evening against its embattled police chief, Pete Arredondo, in a special board meeting called in response to last week’s mass shooting at Robb Elementary School. As incident commander, Arredondo made the decision to wait more than an hour for backup instead of ordering officers at the scene to immediately confront the shooter who killed 19 students and two teachers. The head of the state police later said this was the “wrong decision, period.” Many residents had called on Arredondo to quit or be sacked, saying decisive action could have...

OH: JD Vance - replacing Rob Portman NC: Ted Budd - replacing Richard Burr PA: Mehmet Oz - replacing Pat Toomey Others: MO: Roy Blunt - Eric Greitens likely nominee - not a RINO AL: Richard Shelby - Britt and Brooks in runoff - Trump endorsed Brooks then withdrew endorsement OK: James Inhofe - TBD

The U.S. Supreme Court today denied review in Community Baptist Church v. Polis, (Docket No. 21-1328, certiorari denied 5/31/2022). (Order List). In the case, the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a district court's denial of a preliminary injunction in a free exercise challenge by two churches and one of their pastors to COVID restrictions imposed by the state of Colorado. It similarly affirmed the dismissal of a challenge to the federal government's award of COVID relief aid to the state. (See prior posting.)

On Friday’s “CNN Newsroom,” White House Senior Adviser and Infrastructure Implementation Coordinator Mitch Landrieu responded to concerns about the economy from people like Larry Summers, Jamie Dimon, and Elon Musk by stating that “We don’t need expectations.” Because current numbers are good. He added that while inflation is a challenge, “the president’s economic policies have put us in a very strong position to move through this very difficult time.”

Only months after suffering a huge and unexplained increase in their death rates in the fall of 2021, many Western European countries are seeing a new spike.The increase includes some Covid deaths but is not limited to them. Several countries now have death rates more than 15 percent above normal, an extremely unusual event - especially since demographers expected death rates to fall as Covid eased.The spike last fall came a few months after near-universal Covid vaccinations. This spring’s rise comes on the heels of third-shot “booster” mRNA jabs that were far more common in Europe than the United States.Notably,...