Free Republic

It has only been a year since Arizona passed the country’s first comprehensive school choice program. But since then, seven other states, including Florida, have followed suit with at least eight more on track to adopt similar bills in the near future. Families who take advantage of such legislation typically get a separate account from the state or local government for each child they wish to educate independently. The funds can be spent on a variety of approved placements including private and parochial schools, online academies, private tutors, and even home schools. Given the outsized influence of the teacher unions...

"If a man comes into your assembly with a gold ring and dressed in fine clothes, and there also comes in a poor man in dirty clothes, and you pay special attention to the one who is wearing the fine clothes, and say, 'You sit here in a good place,' and you say to the poor man, 'You stand over there, or sit down by my footstool,' have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives?" (James 2:2-4). Favoritism is motivated by an evil desire to gain some advantage for yourself. The story is told of...

HARRISBURGH, Pa., Friday, June 19. Governor CURTIN visited Camp Curtin to-day, and was received with a warm and enthusiastic welcome. The soldiers followed him in vast crowds as he drove around the camp, vainly endeavoring to find the Commandant. At the unanimous importuning of the Volunteers he addressed them. He spoke as follows: "He had called to see their officers. He was sorry that they were not present attending to their duties as they should be. However, the men were here, and he would inform them of what he intended to have communicated to the officers in writing. He had...

Some of the largest general consumer S&P 500 companies are raising prices to boost their own profits even as the Fed raised interest rates to control inflation, according to a new watchdog report. “Higher interest rates haven’t stopped S&P companies, especially in the big food industry, from inflating consumer prices despite reporting billions in extra net earnings and over a trillion dollars in giveaways to wealthy investors,” said Liz Zelnick, the director of economic security and corporate power at the nonprofit Accountable.US, in a release.

The Essendon football club in Australia is actively considering replacing the bomber aircraft it has used as a logo in various forms since World War II. A research project is now underway seeking to determine how the club’s members and stakeholders view the team in light of modern sensitivities. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, Essendon wants to know whether its fans believe the wartime aircraft logo is the best representation of the Melbourne suburban club that plays in the national Australian Football League.

Customers checking out at Macy's this month have been surprised by a request during checkout to "round up" and make a donation to the controversial group, The Trevor Project, which has been accused of grooming children through its at-risk hotlines for LGBTQ youth. Macy's support of The Trevor Project is nothing new -- the relationship between the two organizations dates back more than ten years by now. It turns out that Macy's is, in fact, the largest funder of The Trevor Project, and a proud national Pride partner. This goes hand-in-hand with Macy's DEI commitment, of course, which has "become...

On February 23rd, of this year, Jaqueline Breger, the principal investigator for Harris/Thaler Law Corporation, at the invitation of State Representative Liz Harris (R), made a presentation to a joint committee for the state of Arizona on Municipal Oversight and Elections, which was shocking in scope and magnitude of both the various levels of statewide corruption and election fraud. The report presented was assembled under the direction of John Harris Thaler, Senior Attorney in charge of investigations, who has specialized in racketeering and corruption for over 30 years. His five-man team, which has participated in some of the largest investigations...

MOSCOW, June 20. /TASS/. Ukraine’s armed forces command is plotting to deliver strikes on Russian territory, including Crimea, with HIMARS rockets and Storm Shadow missiles, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu said at a ministry board meeting on Tuesday. "According to our data, the leadership of the Ukrainian armed forces is planning to deliver strikes on the territory of the Russian Federation, including Crimea, with HIMARS [rockets] and Storm Shadow missiles," he said. The top military official stressed that the use of these weapons outside of the special military operation zone would trigger immediate strikes by Russia on decision-making centers in...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the White House claim to be pleased by his trip to Beijing: President Xi Jinping actually met with him and agreed to continue talking. Thing is, it seems China will only deign to keep talking as long as Washington keeps appeasing it with actual concessions. Blinken didn’t even get his central ask, restoring military-to-military communication channels that Beijing cut last year but the Bidenites paint as the best way to avoid stumbling into a war. (Indeed, the Chinese Communists still won’t even meet with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.) Crucially, Washington had to bribe Beijing...

On the Monday edition of Inside Politics, CNN fill-in hosts Dana Bash and Phil Mattingly were frustrated that voters continued to believe their lying eyes when it came to the economy. Both Bash and Mattingly pulled out the tired excuse that cable pundits have been using since Biden first took office: Biden’s poll numbers aren’t bad because the economy is bad; they’re bad because voters just don’t understand how good things are. Bash framed the discussion as though President Biden and his administration were the protagonists of the story: “Think about the frustrations that I know you hear, covering the...

Perth chef bans vegans from restaurant Follows a bad experience and review Move ignited a war of contrasting reviews On the Saturday in question Mr Mountain said he forgot about the women's request because he had been busy catering a private party. His sous chef was not happy that evening, scolding him for 'not telling them about the vegan customer.' On Sunday the young woman lodged a complaint. 'My only option was the vegetable dish… it was okay but not that filling… and I was shocked to see it was $32,' she wrote in her complaint via a direct Facebook...

In a shocking video from Bordeaux City in France, an alleged migrant of African origin was seen violently dragging an elderly woman and her granddaughter. The harrowing video shows the violent migrant pulling the grandmother down to the ground, who looked shocked at the incident as her reaction indicated. The incident has raised concerns over safety in the locality as there was no one to help the distressed grandmother and the little girl. The video captures the accused standing on the street close to the house before the elderly woman and the granddaughter opened their door to look for something....

A Rasmussen poll taken in October of 2021 found that 56% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. Another Rasmussen poll dated April of 2023 revealed that 60% of all likely voters believed that cheating affected the outcomes of many 2022 midterm elections. Unsurprisingly in a Rasmussen poll published on June 14, 2023, 54% of all likely voters believe that cheating will determine the outcome of the 2024 presidential election. For a majority of the American electorate, and for a much higher percentage of Republicans, the issue of whether there was rampant...

Correspondent David Pogue joins Titanic enthusiasts who will happily pay a small fortune to ride in OceanGate's specially-designed submersible vehicle, equipped with 4K video cameras, to visit the remains of the luxury liner 13,000 feet beneath the North Atlantic (weather conditions permitting). Originally broadcast November 27, 2022.

For extremely obvious reasons, it’s always a little unsettling when the far-right is having a good moment in German politics. That’s exactly what’s happening now as the avowedly anti-immigrant and Euroskeptic Alternative for Deutschland Party, known as AfD, is now neck-and-neck with the Social Democrats, the party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The AfD, which is polling at 19% (to the SPD’s 20%), is closing in on becoming the country’s second most popular political faction. The Christian Democratic Union Party still holds the top spot at 27%. What explains AfD’s recent upward trajectory, and what does it tell us about the...

Former President Donald Trump said Monday that he did not show the classified U.S. military document that he referred to during an audio-recorded meeting with a book publisher in July 2021. In the first of a two-part Fox News interview on Monday, Trump insisted that he never showed any classified military plan to attack Iran prepared by General Mark Milley, then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump says he never ordered the plan. The meeting occurred on July 21, 2021, approximately six months after Trump’s presidency ended, at Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey. The meeting involved...

20 June 2023Tuesday of week 11 in Ordinary TimeSan Silverio Chapel Palmarola island, ItalyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(I).First reading2 Corinthians 8:1-9 ©The Lord Jesus was rich but became poor for your sakeNow here, brothers, is the news of the grace of God which was given in the churches in Macedonia; and of how, throughout great trials by suffering, their constant cheerfulness and their intense poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity. I can swear that they gave not only as much as they could afford, but far more, and quite spontaneously, begging and begging us for the...

Hunter Biden’s world was crashing down on him in 2018. He was the target of a federal tax investigation, in the throes of drug addiction, and had just fathered a child with whom he wanted no contact. But one thing brought the troubled first son joy: a temporary legal reprieve for a longtime business partner who defrauded a Native American tribe out of $60 million. "Im [sic] smiling for the first time in a year," Hunter Biden wrote his partner, Devon Archer, on Nov. 18, 2018, after a judge overturned Archer’s conviction months earlier for defrauding the Wakpamni tribe in...

It’s been a persistent drumbeat for many years: Fossil fuels are obsolete, and the facilities that produce them, along with any further facilities that might be built for that purpose, will shortly become worthless. These facilities will be “stranded assets.” And any energy company stupid enough to make further investment in fossil fuel extraction or use will inevitably suffer a total loss. Do you believe that prediction? Those making it are among the aggressive promoters of an energy transition to supposedly superior sources like the wind and sun. The prediction has been widely used in the attempt to bludgeon energy...

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2017 began investigating Townstone Financial, a small mortgage company in Chicago, over possible violations of civil rights law. The bureau bars lenders from making statements that "discourage" minorities from applying for loans. Townstone may have violated that regulation, the agency said, when its employees discussed crime in Chicago on a company-hosted radio show about the mortgage market, which also advertised Townstone's services. The offending statements, plucked from five episodes recorded over a three-year period, included a reference to the South Side of Chicago as a "war zone," as well as a recommendation that home...