Free Republic

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned home to Ukraine on Friday, following his visit to the United States earlier this week. “I am in my office,” Zelensky said in a video posted to Telegram early Friday. “We are working toward victory.” Zelensky traveled to the U.S. on Wednesday to meet with President Biden and American lawmakers and speak before a join meeting of Congress. It was his first known trip outside of Ukraine since Russia invaded nearly 10 months ago. President Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine following a meeting with Zelensky at the White House on Wednesday, vowing to stand...

Happy Friday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Craydon was growing weary of answering questions about his tunic every time he went to the skate park.While much of the country is in full holiday “wait until next year” mode, Kari Lake is spending her run-up to Christmas weekend using the legal system to get some answers about what went wrong in Maricopa County on election day. Last week, I wrote of my admiration for Lake’s unwillingness to roll over and play dead for the Democrats and their flying monkeys in the mainstream media.The lawsuit brought by Lake’s legal team was originally...

A plan is starting to form just in case there is no solution to the resistance against Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as the Speaker. According to reports, House Republican Whip Steve Scalise is being told to be on standby. This may not sit well with McCarthy, but the Republican Party has to get a Speaker in place as quickly as possible if they are going to stop this runaway train.

It’s Christmas in America, a time of hope, joy, and forcing yourself to be nice to your loudmouth, opinionated neighbor who thinks Antifa may be on to something and Black Lives Matter is the cat’s meow.However, nobody — I mean nobody — is going to get me to say nice things about Joe Biden this Christmas. He may win grudging praise from me from time to time when, like a broken clock, he’s accidentally right about something.Generally, I don’t make friends with people who call me a racist because I disagree with them. And someone who deliberately gins up hysteria...

America’s Catholic Bishops Made Back All $3 Billion in Sex Abuse Settlements by Trafficking Illegal Immigrants at Taxpayer ExpenseDoes this explain their open borders fanaticism?One of the creepy ironies of abortion is that the U.S. has imported, in sheer numbers, virtually one immigrant for every American child aborted since 1973. (That is, around 1 million per year.) It’s almost as if our country and its economy needed those people, and after it shipped them to medical waste dumpsters, it had to go find them in foreign countries — stripping entire cities and their families of fathers. Likewise, as Gateway Pundit...

The House Jan. 6 committee’s final report says that former President Donald Trump criminally engaged in a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the lawful results of the 2020 presidential election and failed to act to stop his supporters from attacking the Capitol. Trump “lit that fire,” the committee’s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, wrote in the report.

No longer do you have to choose between just two man made winter celebration events, now there’ a third. Festivus! Let’s explore why this one may be the right one for you. !. No pressure to buy gifts for anyone. It’s completely optional and not expected. It’s on you. So Festivus is STRESS FREE. 2. No more going to company Christmas parties where the temptation to indulge in too much alcohol and have an inappropriate incident. Remember how Larry got drunk and put his arms around the company President? She didn’t like it and Larry was fired the next day....

Estimates from China’s top health authority say that nearly 37 million people were infected with COVID-19 in a single day on Dec. 20, according to a Bloomberg report. The report added that it is also likely that 248 million people contracted the virus in the first 20 days of the month. According to Bloomberg, the minutes didn’t note the number of deaths from COVID-19. Cases in China have surged just weeks after the country moved away from nearly three years of a strict “zero-COVID” policy. World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday sounded the alarm over rising...

Democrat leaders who had condemned crackdowns on the violent Black Lives Matter riots of 2020 were too worried about “optics” to appropriately prepare for the massive protests at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, according to a lengthy new report about the security failures on that day. GOP lawmakers, who were prevented from collaborating on preparations for the joint session of Congress, found Capitol Police were left untrained to handle mass demonstrations while House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was personally involved in security decisions that left the complex vulnerable to unrest.The more than 140-page report, completed by an independent probe of...

The United States Department of State has just issued its annual watchlist of the world’s worst religious freedom offenders, and strikingly, Nigeria did not make the cut. The country is among the most dangerous in the world to be a Christian, and daily we hear news of abuses imperiling the human rights of all Nigerians. In breaking news: Since at least 2013, the Nigerian military has conducted systematic, wide-scale forced abortions on at least 10,000 women and girls, many of which were kidnapped and raped by Islamist militants. Yet in spite of clear-cut evidence of mass human rights atrocities, the...

While Brittney Griner enjoys being home in the U.S. after a much-publicized prison stay in Russia, another American with a similar case continues to be imprisoned. Marc Fogel, who, like Griner, attempted to enter Russia with a small quantity of marijuana, has been jailed by Moscow officials for nearly a year and a half. Griner, who was detained in Russia in February 2022, returned to the U.S. two weeks ago after the Biden administration secured her release in a high-profile prisoner swap.

Across cultures, people have sought to flee oppression and escape persecution from the beginning of recorded history. A recurring theme in Western classical literature and in modern classics such as Superman and Disney originals, which revolve around the struggle between good and evil, is the need and critical role for a rescuer or savior.The ultimate rescuer and savior for mankind would be a “messiah,” who would vanquish evil, oppression and falsehood once and for all. It is no accident that only Christianity has its roots and its entire reason for being in the messiah Jesus Christ. No other religion makes...

European natural gas inventories fell by -109 BCF over past week. EU nat gas storage 83% full. Current inventories at 3195 BCF.

While it was dabbling with disinformation offices and censorship projects, the Homeland Security Department failed to follow its most basic safety procedures and terminate the security credentials for thousands of its ex-employees, its internal watchdog disclosed in a stinging report Thursday that rebuked years of inaction.The revelation from the DHS inspector general means that the federal agency charged with protecting America from cyber and terrorist attacks left its own system vulnerable to security breaches by failing to terminate personal identity verification (PIV) card access or withdraw security clearances."There is a risk that individuals who no longer require access to systems...

FOURTH WEEK OF ADVENT Luke 1:57–66 Friends, today’s Gospel tells the story of the birth and naming of John the Baptist. John’s father Zechariah had been rendered speechless after his vision in the sanctuary, but we hear that "his mouth was opened, his tongue freed, and he spoke blessing God." What follows this passage is the wonderful Canticle of Zechariah, which puts Jesus and John in the context of the great story of Israel. I would like to explore two lines of that great prayer today.The God of Israel, Zechariah prays, "has come to his people and set them free."...

The U.S. Will Have Given Ukraine OVER TWO TIMES The Entire Military Budget of Russia! Clip...

Sen. Rand Paul on Friday released his annual federal spending audit in which the Kentucky Republican found what he considers about $500 billion in wasted taxpayer resources – from billions on COVID-19 relief funds to ineligible recipients to a $118,000 study on the Marvel movie villain Thanos.Paul’s 2022 Festivus Report – inspired by the send-up Festivus holiday on the "Seinfeld" sitcom – finds "a whopping $482,276,543,907" worth of federal waste, according to Fox News.Paul takes particular aim at the $3.5 trillion Inflation Reduction Act that the Democrat-controlled Congress recently passed.“Who’s to blame?” asks Paul, who further argues the bill “ultimately...

A church in the United Kingdom has decided to take Jesus and the Nativity out of Christmas, instead promoting a message for the "queer and questioning." Summit News explains it is All Saints with Holy Trinity Church in Loughborough and it held a service Monday. It was in a social media statement that trainee priest Rachael Brind-Surch boasted of alterations made to the traditional "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." "Flipping love my church," claimed Brind-Surch, as the first verse of the hymn was revealed to be: "God rest you, queer and questioning, your anxious hearts be still, Believe that you...

A Pennsylvania city treasurer has been charged by the attorney general’s office for absconding with more than $100,000 of taxpayer money.Uniontown city Treasurer Antoinette Hodge is accused of stealing almost $107,000 in 2020-2021 while serving as an elected official.“The defendant is a public official entrusted to oversee city funds with integrity and accountability,” said Attorney General Josh Shapiro in a press release. “Instead, she is accused of stealing from taxpayers to enrich herself. My Office will investigate and prosecute anyone who abuses their position of power for their own financial gain.”City Council kicked off an investigation in 2021 after a...

A classic good news, bad news story. The good news? US new home sales rose 5.8% in November, better that the expected -5.1%, The bad news? On a year-over-year basis, US new home sales FELL Sales of new US homes unexpectedly rose in November, suggesting some stabilization in demand as mortgage rates eased late in the month from their highs. Purchases of new single-family homes increased 5.8% to an annualized 640,000 pace last month after rising in October, government data showed Friday. A mid-month retreat in 30-year mortgage rates back below 7% along with an increase in builder incentives may...