Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] How Goodwill Was Squandered This week our eyes were graced with the scandalous spectacle of Father Mattia Bernasconi, vicar of the pastoral care for young people of the parish of San Luigi Gonzaga in Milan, celebrating Mass on an air mattress in the water at the beach at Alfieri in Italy's Crotone region—for no reason save that "it was hot." The source for the story can be found here.I do not draw attention to this for the purposes of making another tired old "Look how bad the Novus Ordo is" post. We all know how bad the...

Country star Wynonna Judd is planning to formally contest her late mother’s will which left her entire $25million fortune to her husband. Naomi Judd, who was the long-time singing partner of her daughter Wynonna as The Judds, left her two daughters out of her will in a baffling move. Both Wynonna, 58, and Ashley, 54, did not feature in the will, and did not get any part of her estate, with the Nashville superstar leaving everything to her widower Larry Strickland. The couple had been married for 33 years, with Naomi making Strickland the executor of her estate in a...

According to the largest study of its type, brain scans of individuals obtained as they engaged in different activities or even did nothing accurately indicated whether they were politically conservative or liberal. .... snip...

Celsius Network, once a titan of the crypto lending world, is in bankruptcy proceedings and facing down claims that it was running a Ponzi scheme by paying early depositors with the money it got from new users. Some of the 1.7 million customers ensnared by the alleged fraud are now directly pleading with the Southern District of New York to help them get their money back. Christian Ostheimer, a 37 year-old living in Connecticut, wrote in a letter included in court exhibits that he trusted Celsius with his retirement savings and has lost more than $30,000, which has brought him...

Remember, you are not trying to establish an environment of tolerance and mutual-understanding. Like Isabella and Ferdinand, you are trying to recover the territory. Treat the new Left like people who hate you, because they do. Let’s face it, conservatives are lousy when it comes to activism. We don’t see ourselves as activists, and we’re not very good at adopting such an approach, even as all that is most dear to us is swept away by ideological mischief-makers who know little more than the thrill of repudiating what they do not understand. The reason, of course, that conservatives are poor...

Days before the Capitol riot provoked a years-long effort to impeach, prosecute, and politically malign former President Donald Trump, Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney coordinated efforts to deter the very actions she now claims haunt the former president. Cheney has blamed Trump for not ordering the National Guard to defend the Capitol complex, even though multiple sources confirm that he authorized their deployment days prior to the Jan. 6 rally at the White House and riot at the Capitol. Security officials in charge of the Capitol declined to call up troops to protect it, government records show. Yet Cheney herself seems...

Nervous pundits warn that for the good of the country, the Justice Department ought not to indict Donald Trump, since prosecuting a former president is the sort of thing “banana republics” do. That’s wrong on two grounds. First, it is not up to Attorney General Merrick Garland to decide what’s in the country’s long-term democratic interests. The decision whether to “spare the country” the turmoil surrounding a past president’s criminal trial rests with the chief executive, as was the case under President Gerald Ford. The closest the Justice Department’s prosecutorial guidelines come to that concept is the requirement that a...

One of the first moves the newly formed Warner Bros. Discovery made when it took over CNN was shutting down CNN+, the nascent streaming service that was touted as the network’s bridge to the future. The next month, when Chris Licht took over as CNN’s chairman, he told employees in his first town hall meeting not to worry about ratings, a mainstay of TV news used as a benchmark for revenue and relevance. Now, three months into Licht’s tenure, the network finds itself facing big questions about how it can continue to grow its business with its moonshot streaming service...

Freep mail 4Liberty if you want On/Off this list. Alternative streaming websites - https://americasvoice.news https://rumble.com/BannonsWarRoom (<-- this one streams “Battleground” show at 6pm)

In peer-reviewed breakthrough, embryos grown from stem cells; diverse group of scientists says method may one day be used to ethically grow cells for replacement human organs An Israeli lab has grown synthetic mouse embryos with brains and beating hearts — in an egg-free sperm-free procedure that used stem cells taken from skin. The breakthrough, published on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Cell, represents the first time that an advanced embryo of any species has been created from stem cells alone, cell biologist Prof. Jacob Hanna of the Weizmann Institute of Science told The Times of Israel. Hanna, whose team...

Anti-Trumper Brian Kilmeade and FOX News ran a segment on Monday claiming Kari Lake is down by one point in Arizona. Kari Lake is the most attractive Republican candidate in the country today. Kari is the total package of grit, intelligence, courage, beauty, and charisma. FOX News wants her gone. This is who the American people and working class are up against. Do not fool yourself.

It should come as no surprise that the $739 billion “Inflation Reduction Act” doesn’t reduce inflation much at all. Moody’s Analytics chief economist Mark Zandi says that, over a ten-year period, the bill would reduce inflation by all of one-third of a percentage point. “Through the middle of this decade the impact of the legislation on inflation is marginal, but it becomes more meaningful later in the decade,” Zandi wrote. As Politico reports, “That assessment lands on the heels of another report from the Penn Wharton Budget Model — whose research is said to be favored by Manchin (D-W.Va.) —...

President Joe Biden continued to test positive for COVID-19 Tuesday but is feeling "well," according to a memo from Dr. Kevin O'Connor, Biden's physician. "The President continues to feel well, though he is experiencing a bit of a return of a loose cough. He remains fever-free and in good spirits. His temperature, pulse, blood pressure, respiratory rate and oxygen saturation remain entirely normal. His lungs are clear," O'Connor wrote. O'Connor added that Biden "will continue his strict isolation measures" and "will continue to conduct the business of the American people from the Executive Residence." Biden initially tested positive for COVID-19...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris jointly endorsed U.S. Rep. Karen Bass on Tuesday to become the next mayor of Los Angeles, providing a boost to her campaign against billionaire developer Rick Caruso and cementing her place as the favorite of the Democratic establishment. In a statement, Biden and Harris said they were eager to work with Bass and her “innovative strategies” to deal with the city’s homeless crisis and rising crime rates. The endorsement was not a surprise. Bass was on Biden’s short list when he was selecting a vice president and Harris,...

The People's Liberation Army (PLA), on the night that US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi landed in Taiwan for her provocative visit that violates the US promise of opposing "Taiwan independence" secessionism, launched massive military drills around the island of Taiwan, including a long-range live fire drill in the Taiwan Straits and a live fire conventional missile drill to the east of the island, with analysts saying China is not merely targeting a visiting 82-year-old US politician, but is eyeing the anti-secession campaign against the secessionist Taiwan authorities and is to concretely speed up the reunification process. The PLA will also...

My entire original answer: “ Because a dozen or so major cities with a majority of the nations criminals, drug users, welfare recipients, misfits and radicals would control the country. Plus the great % of sparsely populated but productive part of the country would have little say on how they are governed. The original framers of our constitution wanted a truly representative democracy where all peoples/groups/minorities would have a say in their governance. They didn’t want mob rule. PS of course i realize the mega cities have many, many decent and productive people living in them”

A raid of an (Logansport) Indiana specialty car shop by San Mateo County (California) Sheriff’s Office deputies is facing scrutiny over allegations Sheriff Carlos Bolanos did so as a favor to a friend. The issue stems from an alleged payment dispute between Mark Racop, the owner of Fiberglass Freaks, which makes classic 1966 Batmobile cars, and (San Francisco) Bay Area real estate broker Sam Anagnostou, who ordered one in 2017. According to Racop, a missed 2019 payment from Anagnostou and a lack of contact over nine months about the payment bumped Anagnostou to the end of the line for a...

...The villa was laid out around two courtyards and the many rooms were adorned with mosaic floors. In addition to geometric patterns, there were also motifs of various mythological figures and scenes taken from Greek mythology; e.g. Princess Europa being abducted by the god Zeus in the form of a bull and Aphrodite at sea in her seashell.Motifs from the stories of the much younger Roman author Virgil are also represented.Inscriptions in the floor have revealed that the owner was named Charidemos and that the villa was built in the mid-fifth century.Mosaic flooring was a costly luxury: expensive raw materials...

"I'm a federal agent."

A total of 27 skeletons were discovered in a burial pit carved into rocks in the eastern Turkish province of Adiyaman on Wednesday. The discovery came to light when locals alerted the authorities about the illegal excavation by treasure seekers in a rural area of the Golbasi district.Initial findings dated skeletons in Roman-era graves to 1,600 years ago. Archaeologists are now examining the findings.Along with skeletons, broken lachrymatory bottles, a staple of ancient Roman tombs and three intact spindle whorls, usually found in ancient graves of women, were discovered in the grave. Authorities told the media outlets that it was...