Free Republic

Iran’s government has embarked on an armed strategy of divide, crush and conquer to end nationwide protests against clerical rule in the Islamic Republic. The primary target is the Kurdish minority population, which has been protesting for more than two months. The government, dominated by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has dispatched an aggressive and ill-disciplined militia known as the Basij to assault Kurdish towns and villages in western Iran. For the past eight days, thousands of Basij, transported by armored vehicles and firing heavy automatic weapons, have moved into the western border zone largely populated by Kurds. The Kurds have...

A show with a truly preposterous theory is one of the streaming giant’s biggest hits – and it seems to exist solely for conspiracy theorists. Why has this been allowed? At the time of writing, Ancient Apocalypse has been comfortably sitting in Netflix’s Top 10 list for several days. This presents something of a mystery.... ... if he’s right, and the history of humanity really is just the first five minutes of Prometheus, it would change everything we know about ourselves. But we certainly shouldn’t treat his hodgepodge of mysteries and coincidences as fact. That’s the danger of a show...

Two women who accused Jeffrey Epstein of sexual abuse slapped JPMorgan and Deutsche Bank with separate lawsuits, claiming the financial giants chose profits over reigning in the convicted pedophile’s alleged sex-trafficking operation. The women, identified only as Jane Does, filed the lawsuits Thursday in New York federal court, seeking class-action status and unspecified financial damages, according to the complaints reviewed by The Post. The lawsuits state both banks assisted and participated in Epstein’s alleged sex trafficking by enabling him to make payments to women for sex acts and that the banks profited from Epstein’s activities. “We believe this claim lacks...

This is a parody account (I subscribe to her), but the response here, for Twitter at least, says something about Musk's takeover of it:

Qatar became the first team eliminated at the 2022 World Cup after suffering defeats in their opening two fixtures, the earliest exit by a host nation in the tournament's 92-year history. Qatar, who were controversially awarded the hosting rights in 2010, became the first host country to lose the opening game of the tournament when they were beaten 2-0 by Ecuador on Sunday before losing 3-1 to Senegal on Friday. SNIP Qatar face an uphill task of achieving a win in their final group game as they face Netherlands on Friday, with the European nation needing a win to guarantee...

Elon Musk isn’t upset that ex-President Donald Trump hasn’t returned to Twitter after Musk unbanned him, but he is upset that Trump was banned in the first place. On Friday afternoon, Musk replied to a question about Trump with the eyebrow-raising statement, “I’m fine with Trump not tweeting. The important thing is that Twitter correct a grave mistake in banning his account, despite no violation of the law or terms of service. Deplatforming a sitting President undermined public trust in Twitter for half of America.”After losing the 2020 election, Trump’s official term ended on Jan. 20, 2021, when Joe Biden...

“I feel bad for the Suns fans because they ain’t even gonna get what y’all probably deserve until, probably until you change the mascot,” Odom said. Bootleg Kev replied, “What does that mean? You don’t like the gorilla? Do you think there’s some racial connotations with the Suns gorilla?” Odom, making a face, answered, “Come on, bro,” then expounded upon his reasons.

The attempt by Bill Gates (R), Chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Maricopa County in Arizona, to minimize the election day fiasco at 70 of the county's 223 polling locations failed to defuse suspicion that it was a calculated effort to swing the election in favor of Democrats. His claim that the heavily Republican 59 locations out of the 70 that were affected was "coincidental" seems implausible. Combined with the fact that 75% of Republican voters were predicted to vote at the polls on election day the inability to count a lasrge portion of their ballots lends more credibility...

Paul Harvey - Freedom to Chains

Why Serve a World that Hates You? A meditation on a teaching of St Cyprian’sAs we wrap up November and the traditional meditation we make on the four last things (death, judgement, heaven and hell), A classic meditation of St. Cyprian comes to us in the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours. It is a meditation on a fundamental human struggle to be free of undue attachment to this world and to truly have God, and the things waiting for us in heaven, as our highest priority.St. Cyprian Writes:The world hates Christians, so why give your love...

26th November 2022Saturday of Week 34 in Ordinary time Church of St Catherine of Alexandria, Bethlehelm, Israel Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green First readingApocalypse 22:1-7 ©The Lord God will shine on them; it will never be night againThe angel showed me, John, the river of life, rising from the throne of God and of the Lamb and flowing crystal-clear down the middle of the city street. On either side of the river were the trees of life, which bear twelve crops of fruit in a year, one in each month, and the leaves of which are the cure for the...

An Irish-based senior executive with Twitter has secured a temporary High Court injunction preventing the social networking giant from terminating her employment. The order was secured by Sinéad McSweeney, who is Twitter’s Global Vice President for Public Policy. She claims that by not responding to a generic and vague email sent to all Twitter employees by its owner, multibillionaire Elon Musk, earlier this month, she has been treated as if she is no longer employed by the company. […] Mr. Musk, she claims, has since the takeover been running the company “in an unorthodox manner” and has been rehiring and...

Elon Musk has vowed to create his own smartphone if Apple and Google ban Twitter from their app stores. Musk announced his plan in a tweet on Friday. Podcaster and former OAN host Liz Wheeler had tweeted, “if Apple & Google boot Twitter from their app stores, @elonmusk should produce his own smartphone. Half the country would happily ditch the biased, snooping iPhone & Android. The man builds rockets to Mars, a silly little smartphone should be easy, right?” Musk responded that he would if that is what it came down to. see tweet “I certainly hope it does not...

CHICAGO (CBS)-- A woman who has a concealed carry license took on four armed men who tried to carjack her early Wednesday morning in the Calumet Heights neighborhood. Police said a 23-year-old woman was sitting in her car shortly after 2 a.m. near 89th Street and Kenwood Avenue, when four men got out of a black sedan, and one of them tried to open her car door while flashing a gun. The woman, who has a concealed carry license, shot that man in the head, then ran off from her car. Another of the would-be carjackers shot the woman in...

While Paul McCartney continues to make music, there is a popular conspiracy theory that he died long ago. Beatles fans have analyzed every lyric and album cover to find hidden clues suggesting the British singer is dead. One piece of music history that fans of The Beatles use to justify this theory is the cover of Abbey Road, which contains plenty of supposed clues. The conspiracy theory that Paul McCartney is dead sparked in 1967 but gained popularity in 1969. Many believed that Paul McCartney had died in 1966 in a car accident and had been replaced by a lookalike....

If you are like me, you are exhausted of the lies. Every day seems to bring new revelations about how our lives came to be upended. The connections are becoming clearer between the pandemic response and the growing economic crisis, the ballooning debt, the growth of the surveillance state, the corruption and scams, chilling absence of integrity in public life, and, with the failure of FTX, the way in which an outright financial scam was integral to the calamity. While we await new revelations, depositions, coverups, pleas for amnesty, and bad economic news, whom can we trust? Is anyone telling...

California's Air Resources Board has laid out a plan to ban all diesel-powered trucks that would cause inflationary ripples throughout the entire economy.The plan would mandate that all new trucks operating around busy railways and ports be zero emission vehicles by 2024 - while all diesel trucks would be phased out by 2035, and eventually, banishing every truck and bus fleet from California roads by 2045, where feasible, according to SFGATE.The proposed Advance Clean Fleets regulation first targets the busiest trucking areas in the state — around warehouses, sea ports and railways. The board says the pollution in these areas...

Former Trump Justice Department head William Barr, in the course of reiterating his strong preference that his party nominate a less deranged presidential candidate next time, expressed a fear that has been in wide circulation: If defeated in the primary, Donald Trump “will burn the whole house down by leading ‘his people’ out of the GOP.” One version of this is that Trump will either form a third party or simply refuse to endorse another Republican, thereby dooming his party’s chances. Those of us considering the question from a less friendly standpoint than Barr — I consider the Republican Party...

Following his takeover of Twitter, “Chief Twit” Elon Musk has quickly begun to address many of the platform’s problems. Musk, who intends for Twitter to be a platform for legal free speech, has moved to crack down on terrorists and violent far-left extremists who have for many years been a fixture on Twitter and used it to organize riots. Now Tesla, which Musk owns, has become the target of violent retaliation by far-left militants angered by the suspension of their accounts. This week, Musk moved to ban a pro-Palestinian “resistance” group called “Jisr Collective,” which promoted and celebrated terrorist acts...

For the first time, more than half of all Americans who died after contracting COVID-19 were vaccinated at least once, according to data on COVID-19 deaths in August analyzed by The Washington Post. Of the deaths attributed to coronavirus in August, the Post reported that 58% received either a primary dose or a booster of some type of COVID vaccine.The newspaper cited an analysis of data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted by Cynthia Cox, vice president of the Kaiser Health Foundation. Calling it a "continuation of a troubling trend" over the past year as vaccination...