Free Republic

President Joe Biden makes his first-ever visit to the Texas-Mexico border on Sunday. However, circumstances in El Paso are vastly different this week compared to the humanitarian disaster just weeks earlier. The Biden administration’s border and immigration policies left the city of El Paso in a state of disaster during the month of December. Following Mayor Oscar Leeser’s disaster declaration and the deployment of the Texas National Guard, conditions in the region are now much different. Here are five things President Biden won’t see after actions taken by Texans:

British intelligence may have been leaked to Russia by an alleged German double-agent, an expert on Berlin’s spy services said. British spy chiefs are reportedly furious about the affair, which saw a senior figure inside Germany’s Federal Intelligence Service (BND) arrested shortly before Christmas. In one of the most spectacular double-agent scandals in decades, Carsten L, head of a division inside the BND’s signal intelligence wing, was arrested on charges of high treason in December. Germany believes that he was responsible for passing on highly sensitive battlefield information from the Ukraine war to the Russians. The case will likely have...

In the space of a few days this week, France, the United States and Germany all announced they would donate to Ukraine powerful armored vehicles: French AMX-10RC scout vehicles, American M-2 infantry fighting vehicles and German Marder IFVs. So which of Ukraine’s allies is going to be the first to pledge Leopard 2 tanks? There are several candidates, and it might be only a matter of time—and not much time—before one of them opens up its arsenals and turns the engines of long-stored, surplus Leopards.

Judicial Watch announced today it received 31 pages of documents from the Department of the Air Force, Joint Base Andrews, MD, that show U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd was housed at taxpayer expense at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The records were obtained in response to a September 2022 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Joint Base Andrews, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, and the FBI failed...

Avideo of an electronic announcement at a bus terminal in Belarus calling for males of military age to go to an enlistment center has led to speculation over whether mobilization could take place in the country whose leader is Vladimir Putin's close ally. The appeal appears on digital signage hanging on the first-floor balcony of the waiting room at the transport hub in the city of Barysau (Barysaw), located in the Minsk region, around 45 miles northeast of the capital city.

ARCHBISHOP GÄNSWEIN BEGINS BATTLE FOR TRUTH WITH POPE FRANCIS There are still only excerpts from Archbishop Georg Gänswein's new book. In it, however, he already settles accounts with Pope Francis - and promptly has received criticism. Gänswein also revealed what mission Benedict XVI gave him before he died.

At least no one can say that the January 6 committee didn’t have an impact! Greg Abbott, Kristi Noem, Henry McMaster, and their families will have to guard against identity theft for the rest of their lives, thanks to the committee’s work in exposing their Social Security numbers. How many numbers got exposed? “Around 1900” of them, according to the Washington Post, which came from White House visitor logs supplied to the committee. The J6 committee failed to redact those from a spreadsheet released to the public as part of its final report on the riot. Ben Carson, a Trump...

Back from holiday vacation, I found an interesting email waiting for me in my inbox from Matt Taibbi, the independent journo Elon Musk tasked with reviewing and releasing internal Twitter documents about decisions to censor content and ban users from the platform. “Paul,” Taibbi wrote, “just found a crazy email on Twitter — did you know Adam Schiff’s staff . . . asked Twitter to have you banned?” I was gobsmacked. This would explain why Twitter could never give me a reason for suspending my account, even though I had broken none of its rules. Schiff, the powerful Democratic chairman...

Former President Trump is taking a victory lap following Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s (R-Calif.) win after 15 rounds of voting. “The Fake News Media was, believe it or not, very gracious in their reporting that I greatly helped Kevin McCarthy attain the position of Speaker of the House,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Saturday. “Thank you, I did our Country a big favor!” Although there was talk of Trump’s weakened political clout after Republicans opposed to McCarthy’s Speakership bid ignored the former president’s urging to back him, reports throughout the days-long voting process showed that...

A House Republican who was one of the nearly two dozen holdouts who demanded concessions in order to vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy as speaker warned Sunday that he and others plan to hold the California Republican to his word. “I’m not going to play the ‘what if’ games on how we’re going to use the tools of the House to make sure that we enforce the terms of the agreement,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But we will use the tools of the House to enforce the terms of the agreement.” Mr....

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...

"Motion to Vacate" rule sounds great. But if it allows any Congressman to call for a vote to remove the Speaker, then what's to stop a DemocRAT rep from making this "motion" on a daily (or even hourly) basis against McCarthy to disrupt proceedings or Congressional hearings?

(Daily readings from the USCCB)When Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of King Herod, behold, magi from the east arrived in Jerusalem, saying, "Where is the newborn king of the Jews? We saw his star at its rising and have come to do him homage." Matthew 2:1–2 The Magi were most likely from Persia, modern-day Iran. They were men who regularly engaged in a study of the stars. They were not Jewish but were most likely aware of the popular belief of the Jewish people that a king would be born who would save them.These Magi...

https://twitter.com/mattwalshblog/status/1611070118011801602

There are fears union barons could be plotting the first general strike since 1926 when they meet at a 'war cabinet' later this week. Some of the country's top union bosses, including Mick Lynch, will meet at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) to plan their next move after weeks of crippling walkouts. It will come just a day after they conduct talks with ministers amid ongoing pay disputes that have seen large parts of the country grind to a halt over the last year.

Sunday 8 January 2023The Epiphany of the Lord Solemnity Epiphany Catholic Church, Normal, IL Readings at MassThe readings shown here are for places where the Epiphany is celebrated on Sunday 8 January.If you are celebrating the Epiphany on Friday 6 January this year then these are not the right readings. To see the right readings, you need to set this web site to use your own local calendar. On this web page, find the list of dates. After the last date there is a heading which says “Calendar Used”. Click on the calendar name below this heading, and choose your...

On Jan. 2, 2023, 24-year-old Buffalo Bills Safety, Damar Hamlin, routinely tackled an opposing player for the Cincinnati Bengals. Hamlin stood up and then fell backward on the turf. Hamlin’s heart had stopped. CPR was administered for 9 minutes; his heartbeat resumed, and he was put in an ambulance and taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical center for evaluation and treatment. Fans and players were shocked and praying, and in an unprecedented move, the NFL Monday night football game was indefinitely suspended and ultimately postponed. The next day, it was reported that highly acclaimed internist, cardiologist, and epidemiologist Dr....

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand’s Princess Bajrakitiyabha remained unconscious more than three weeks after collapsing due to a heart problem, a palace statement said in an update on the health of the the 44-year-old potential heir to the throne. Read more here

Russia’s economy contracted for the second quarter in a row as the western response to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine helped plunge the economy into recession.

The XBB.1.5 omicron subvariant is raising concerns of a potential surge in COVID-19 cases as it sweeps across the Northeast. Officials have warned in recent weeks that the strain is highly transmissible, can more easily evade the immunity offered by vaccines or prior infections than past variants — and is likely to drive cases up around the country.