Free Republic

THE GREAT SIN OF PRIESTS TODAY is to preach what they believe people want to hear instead of what people need to hear to follow Jesus with the cross and arrive to heaven for all eternity. Priests who do not spend at least one hour in church before the tabernacle, with our Eucharistic Lord each day, very often suffer from loneliness and thus do not want to lose their friends or offend anyone. Thus there are very few priests who have the courage to do as the saints, such as Saint John the Baptist, the “greatest born of women” (Mt...

* Donald Trump said Sen. Mitch McConnell has a "death wish" for supporting "Democrat sponsored Bills." * He also insulted McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao, referring to her as the "China loving wife, Coco Chow." * McConnell recently voiced support for changing the way Congress counts electoral votes. In the latest salvo from the ongoing feud between Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell, the former president posted what appeared to be a death threat against the Kentucky senator on Friday. After criticizing McConnell for approving "Trillions of Dollars worth of Democrat sponsored Bills," Trump wrote on Truth Social that he believes the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered one of his most unhinged performances on September 30 in a speech announcing the annexation of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Addressing hundreds of Russian officials during a ceremony in the Kremlin, Putin had relatively little to say about the war in Ukraine. Instead, his address was dominated by some of the fiercest anti-Western rhetoric of his 22-year reign. Putin branded Western leaders as “racist” and claimed they were guilty of “spreading Russophobia all around the globe.” However, his main focus was the allegedly imperialistic policies of the West. The Russian leader supported...

Kamala is slammed for causing 'undue panic' to survivors of Hurricane Ian after saying the Biden administration will focus on 'giving resources based on equity' to 'communities of color' - as Ron De Santis' spokesperson accuses her of 'lying' In her latest gaffe, Vice President Kamala Harris said Friday that 'communities of color' would be the focus of federal hurricane relief Her comments come as Floridians begin to count the cost of the devastating effects of Hurricane Ian Harris was almost immediately called out by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' aid Christina Pushaw Pushaw called Harris' remarks 'false' and accused the...

*snip* Nationally, however, there is a shortage of distribution transformers that take electricity from high-voltage lines and reduce it to levels that can be used in homes and businesses, industry officials said.“It’s a critical component to the electrical grid that has been in scarce supply for a number of months now,” said Joy Ditto, president and CEO of the American Public Power Association. “We started to recognize it as a national concern in late winter, early spring, and the situation is getting worse.”It used to take about three months for a transformer to show up after being ordered, but now...

Retail giant Toolstation revealed that sales have rocketed by a third recently The news comes as people have been finding cheaper ways to heat their homes Experts warn the rise in woodburning could lead to higher pollution levels The energy crisis is leading cash-strapped Britons to explore new ways to generate heat. First, sales of woodburning stoves soared by 40 per cent. Now, it has emerged that chainsaws have seen a surge in demand – to cut wood for the stoves. Retail giant Toolstation yesterday revealed that sales have rocketed by a third in recent weeks. The firm believes the...

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7 KJV).

Wall Street ended Friday -- the final day of the month and the quarter -- on another down note, with the main stock indexes posting their third straight quarterly loss for the first time since the Great Recession. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 500 points for a loss of 1.7 percent on the day, marking a decline of 8.8 percent for the month of September, 6.6 percent for the quarter, and 21 percent since the start of the year. The market's dismal recent performance follows historically high inflation, rapidly rising interest rates, and fears that the economy could soon...

President Barack Obama reflected just days before leaving office on the many causes of Hillary Clinton's upset 2016 loss – and considered how things might have turned out had key actors including Bill and Hillary Clinton made 'different decisions.' Obama made the comments off the record during a meeting with progressive columnists just three days before being succeeded by Donald Trump following the bitter election, where Clinton won the popular vote but Trump prevailed in the Electoral College. A transcript was included in a cache of documents the Justice Department provided to Bloomberg as part of a FOIA request –...

The New York attorney general is angling to get her case accusing Donald Trump and his company of fraud to trial by the end of next year - before the first primaries in the 2024 presidential election. Letitia James´ office, which filed the lawsuit last week, assigned the case to a state court judge who repeatedly ruled against the former president in related subpoena disputes - including holding him in contempt, fining him $110,000 and forcing him to sit for a deposition. Trump's lawyers are also objecting to Manhattan Judge Arthur Engoron's continued involvement and accused Attorney General Letitia James´...

Lyman direction -The Ukrainian Army liberated Drobysheve. Russian troops defending the town retreated to Lyman. -Ukrainian forces liberated Yampil and are pushing towards Lyman and Zarichne through the forest area. -Fighting is reported in the vicinity of Terny and Stavky. -The only exit route from Lyman is within the firing range of UA forces. Russian troops defending Lyman are de-facto surrounded. -The Ukrainian Army is also advancing north, but the movement is obscured by the fog of war and actual well maintained silence regime by Ukrainian soldiers. ✈ Denys Davydov Telegram Channel: https://t.me/pilotblog youtube.com/c/PilotBlogAirplanesandAviation https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/

The recent success of Ukraine's counterattack against the Russian troops that invaded has sent them into a disorderly retreat. Putin has sent press gangs around Russia to draft 300,000 more men into his army. A bogus referendum held in parts of the Russian-occupied portions of Ukraine is being used to justify their annexation to Russia. Belarus is offering to send 100,000 troops to help defend the annexed territory from Ukrainian aggression. Last, but not least, Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons—citing the precedent established by the atomic bombs the US dropped on Japan to end World War II. President...

Former President Donald Trump on Friday night directly ridiculed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying on his social media platform that the Kentucky Republican had a "death wish" for supporting "Democrat sponsored bills." Trump, in his Truth Social post, also mocked McConnell's wife, Elaine Chao -- who was born in Taiwan and served as Trump's secretary of transportation -- referring to her as McConnell's "China loving wife, Coco Chow!" Trump's broadside at McConnell and mockery of Chao came hours after Congress approved and President Joe Biden signed a stopgap funding bill to avert a federal government shutdown. The bill cleared...

Vladimir Putin has accused the West of undermining "traditional values" in service to "Satanism," prompting some to compare the Russian president's remarks to rhetoric from MAGA Republicans. Putin said that "Western elites" were pushing a "radical denial of moral norms, religion and family" during a speech on Russia's claimed annexation of four regions of Ukraine on Friday. He said that residents of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were becoming Russian citizens "forever" before setting his sights on the "challenge" of values held in the U.S. and allied countries. "The dictatorship of the Western elites is directed against all societies, including...

Aside from the fact that they’re both pushing 80, can be brash and abrasive to their detractors, and have agreed on more policy issues than either side would care to admit – tariffs and withdrawal from Afghanistan, to name two – Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden couldn’t be more unalike. Had there been no President Trump, there almost certainly never would have been a President Biden. And if Biden runs for reelection in 2024, he might be the Democrat with the best chance of beating Trump and the worst chance of beating any other Republican. Most folks can agree,...

I have a son in the seventh grade in the William S. Hart Union High School District in Santa Clarita, California. I hope that I don’t have to spend my golden years deprogramming my son from false information being conveyed by the schools. I am trying to avoid this by keeping informed about what the schools are teaching.My son told me that he is being taught about Islam in his history class. He said that he was taught that a verse in the Quran numbered 2:256 states: “Let there be no compulsion in religion, for the truth stands out clearly...

...But the new vaccines protect against two different strains of Covid-19: the original strand and the latest Omicron variant, BA.5. BA.5 just emerged in August, and it’s spreading extremely fast–it now accounts for 88% of the cases in the U.S. The FDA authorized these “bivalent” boosters on August 31. My main point today is to explain how this happened so quickly, and why it didn’t involve many months of clinical trials the way that the original vaccines did. Some people have expressed suspicion about the speed with which these boosters appeared, but those suspicions are entirely unfounded.... (W)e change the...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5:14)Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

Why Russia will lose this war? Much of the "realist" discourse is about accepting Putin's victory, cuz it's *guaranteed*. But how do we know it is? I'll argue that analysts 1) overrate Russian army 2) underrate Ukrainian one 3) misunderstand Russian strategy & political goals🧵 Consider a timely paper on Russian army by Bismarck Analysis. It's good & informative. It's correct on its land-based and artillery-centric character. It's also correct that Minister of Defence Serdyukov greatly increased army's efficiency in 2007-2012. But it's still misleading Yes, Minister Serdyukov indeed reformed the army. He increased its efficiency, fought with corrupt and...