Free Republic

You wonder where the churches are.As American society is awash in new morality, as ageless conventions are toppled and condemned, as the teachings of millennia are dismissed and the very definitions of humanity are changed, where are the shepherds of the Savior’s flock, and what guidance do they give?For the most part, they are passive and silent. Or worse, they have gone over to the side of confusion. But seldom are they heard, and seldom do they lead, and seldom do they seem to be a light of the world.Nowhere do you find the courage and clarity of Isaiah, who...

Any prospect of Russia’s athletes returning to the international spotlight at the 2024 Summer Olympics was flatly rejected Wednesday by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. In a phone call with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach as reported by Fox News, the Ukraine leader slammed the idea even if the athletes arrived under a neutral flag. His condemnation came just days after the IOC said it was open to exploring options that would allow athletes from Russia or its ally Belarus to join others in some international sporting events.

colorado Two police officers were shot and killed at a Motel 6 in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, early on Wednesday morning, authorities confirmed. The officers were responding to a call for a welfare check made to the Bay St. Louis Police Department from the motel, which is located along a stretch of interstate Highway 90 that runs through the Gulf Coast city, officials said. The slain officers were identified as Branden Estorffe, 23, and Steven Robin, 34, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety confirmed in a statement. The officers arrived at the Motel 6 before 4:30 a.m. local time on...

Princess Bajrakitiyabha, the eldest daughter of King Vajiralongkorn, collapsed while training her dogs north-east of Bangkok, the palace said. The 44-year-old was taken to a nearby hospital, then taken by helicopter to Bangkok, where she is being treated. The palace described her condition last night as "stable to a certain extent".

Missouri’s Attorney General Eric Schmitt who, together with Louisiana’s Attorney General Jeff Landry, filed a lawsuit alleging collusion between the federal government and social media companies to censor certain speech, sent a letter to Twitter asking for the preservation of evidence related to communications between the company and federal government officials on content moderation and misinformation. Schmitt, who was elected to the Senate in November, referenced the internal documents, dubbed “Twitter Files,” that are being released by CEO Elon Musk via journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Michael Shellenberger. The files showed that then-deputy legal counsel Jim Baker, who was...

Longshot question of the day: Will a Dell Latitude 5490 laptop with the JXFX4 M'board support / recognize a M.2 SATA 2242 SSD in the WWAN M.2 slot? There is some discussion of this topic, specific to OTHER motherboards in this model on the Dell forum, and an unanswered question about this same M'board on the Dell forum. It appears that at least one M'board, the LA-F401P, does offer the use of a 2nd drive, specifically a M.2 SATA 2242 256 GB SSD, in the M.2 WWAN slot. But, I have the JXFX4 M'board, which also has a M.2 WWAN...

COVID-19 cases have been increasing in China, including since the ruling communist regime eased its “zero-COVID” restrictions on Dec. 7. Netizens have been reporting that hospitals and mortuaries are being overwhelmed by demand, particularly in nine provinces where the relatively new Omicron subvariants BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 have been reported to be spreading quickly. On Dec. 14, China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention announced for the first time that 49 cases of BQ.1 had been found in nine Chinese provinces, as well as cases of BQ.1.1. However, the authorities didn’t identify which provinces were the ones affected. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1...

There is ONLY ONE and OBVIOUS reason for our southern border to be so abused.The Democrats are Satanically evil and bent on destroying ANY visage of a Christian nation, founded on Judeo Christian principles.

RECIPE LINKS AT SITE............ NATIONAL CUPCAKE DAY Each year, December 15th also recognizes National Cupcake Day. The cupcake was originally known as the 1-2-3-4 cake because the recipe called for 1 cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour, 4 eggs, and also 1 cup of milk, and 1 spoonful of baking soda. #NationalCupcakeDay Even the word cupcake sounds like a miniature celebration. They’ve been known by other phrases that make us put our hands together in glee, too! For example: Fairy Cakes Patty Cakes Cup Cakes (different from Cupcakes (one-word) Someone must have wanted to surprise...

After outcry from conservatives and Republican lawmakers who weren't willing to betray the GOP's commitment to the rule of law, legal immigration, and border security, an attempt to grant mass amnesty to DACA beneficiaries is, according to reporting on Wednesday night, dead. Unsurprisingly, the fatally flawed legislative framework that was supposed to gin up support on both sides of the political aisle in the U.S. Senate did exactly the opposite as Republicans who limped across the midterm election finish line with barely a majority in the House and a loss in the Senate were not ready to hitch their names...

When alleged crypto-fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried finished testifying at a congressional hearing last December, Democrat Maxine Waters, chair of the House Financial Services Committee, blew him a kiss as he walked by. And why not, since the shambolic 30-year-old former multibillionaire is acknowledged to be the second-biggest donor to the Democrats, after George Soros. He helped bankroll Joe Biden into the White House and had promised to donate $1 billion to help the party win the 2024 presidential election. There are those, such as Elon Musk, who allege that SBF, as he is called, already has funneled $1 billion of stolen...

The 27-year-old accomplished the feat by decoding a rule taught by “the father of linguistics,” Pāṇini. The discovery makes it possible to “derive” any Sanskrit word – constructing millions of grammatically correct words including “mantra” and “guru” – using Pāṇini’s famous “language machine.” Pāṇini’s system — which includes 4,000 rules detailed in his greatest work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī — was written around 500 BC. Linguists say it works like a machine. Feed in the base and suffix of a word and it should turn them into grammatically correct words and sentences through a step-by-step process. Until now, however, there has been...

OPENING EXCERPT (Video is 23 minutes long, and well worth it):You know, it doesn't take a Rocket Surgeon to come to the conclusion that we (and by we, I don't mean just US citizens, but common people all around the world) are being lied to by our global elites, constantly, energetically, we're being lied to a lot, and we know it. In fact, we live in a world where someone can walk up to you, punch you in the face, and then claim that you hit them. And, if you try to argue what you know to be true, you'll...

The last we checked in on Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College, the Ohio Supreme Court refused to hear Oberlin College’s appeal, ending the college’s fight to overturn the massive jury verdict. The $25 million verdict plus interest and attorney’s fees resulted in an almost $32 million judgment, with interest running at about $4000 per day since June 2019. In all, over $36 million was owed, secured by an appeal bond. While Oberlin College announced, after the Ohio Supreme Court ruled, that it had agreed to pay the judgment, in fact it did so out of legal compulsion, not good faith....

Pray For The Peace of JerusalemMatthew 19Divorce 19 When Jesus had finished saying these things, he left Galilee and went into the region of Judea to the other side of the Jordan. 2 Large crowds followed him, and he healed them there. 3 Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” 4 “Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and...

Wind howled through leafless trees and through the windows of the blown-out apartment building as the surveillance team marched up flights of stairs covered with broken glass. The cold numbed their fingers as they set up their equipment: a laptop-size thermal imaging sight, its tripod and a Starlink satellite dish and battery. (snip) What unfolded over the next half-dozen hours was a routine but essential part of the daily rhythm of the war — part drudgery and part urgent calculation as the team ascertained the coordinates for enemy positions, relaying them to the Ukrainian artillery battery miles away. This type...

you might be a lot more likely to get into a car crash. Or at least those are the findings of a new study published this month in The American Journal of Medicine. During the summer of 2021, Canadian researchers examined the encrypted government-held records of more than 11 million adults, 16% of whom hadn’t received the COVID vaccine. They found that the unvaccinated people were 72% more likely to be involved in a severe traffic crash—in which at least one person was transported to the hospital—than those who were vaccinated. That’s similar to the increased risk of car crashes...

An alleged "torture chamber" that housed Ukrainian children has been uncovered in Kherson, according to a top Ukrainian human rights official Wednesday. Speaking during a presentation on human rights abuses committed against Ukrainian civilians, Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said officials uncovered evidence of the chamber through their investigations. (snip) "In one of the torture chambers, we discovered a separate cell where children were kept," he continued. Lubinets said people who were held in the chamber described a room next to theirs where they knew children had been held and which Russian officials referred to as the...

Saturday, Dec. 13, 1862. IN THE FIELD -- 11 o'clock, A.M. The great battle, so long anticipated between the two contending armies, is now progressing. The morning opened with a dense fog, which has not entirely disappeared. Gen. REYNOLDS' Corps, on the left, advanced at an early hour, and at 9:15 A.M., engaged the enemy's infantry. Seven minutes-afterward the rebels opened a heavy fire of artillery, which has continued so far without intermission. Their artillery fire must be at random, as the fog obstructs all view of almost everything. Our heavy guns are answering them rapidly. At this writing, no...

Court victories are not enough against these people. They push and push until they get the compliance they want. Refusing to respect the Constitution; the Church Amendment, which protects the conscience rights of doctors; or a 2016 court case brought by a religious hospital and more than 20,000 health care professionals, the Biden administration maintains it has sufficient authority to punish groups that don't perform gender "transition" surgery and abortions. Following a pathway blazed by President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2016, rejecting conscience objections, the Biden administration breathed new life into the left's open season...