Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] The Synodal Church of ”Me, Myself, and I”The Instrumentum Laboris [IL] (Working Document) for the October Synod on Synodality, released June 20, embodies the now familiar pattern seen in the various stages of the synodal process. Certain questions are asked, others are ignored, predictable answers are given, and expectations are raised that a new Church, the Holy Spirit-inspired Synodal Church, will emerge in which everyone will feel seen, recognized, welcomed, accepted, accompanied, cared for, listened to, valued, not judged, and so on. “[A] synodal Church is open, welcoming and embraces all. . .[t]he radical call is, therefore, to...

There is no denying that Donald Trump still holds the most sway over the Republican base. He is a former president, he is still (in their eyes) being persecuted unfairly by the Democrats and the Biden administration, and he is certainly an attention-grabber. But there is a major difference between dominating a primary and winning a general election, and the most recent polling seems to show that, for all his support among Republicans, Trump is still not yet favored over Joe Biden in a “Devil You Know vs. Another Devil You Know” election fight. On Sunday, NBC News released its...

It’s easy to forget President Trump’s foreign policy achievements. For a few reasons. One, obviously, is the media, barely, if at all covering them; two, in all honesty, he made it look easy; and three, while obviously Democrats never gave him credit, neither did the cabal of the Deep State Republicans in the Senate. There is no need to mention names but at least three of their last names start with “M.”Here is a small list of his “never worth mentioning” achievements.Remember that “Junior Varsity” team known as ISIS, brought upon us by Bush’s catastrophic foreign policy blunder and continued...

Homosexual Man Eradicates Leftist Arguments About Conservative "Homophobes"

President Joe Biden targeted makers of AR-15s and other firearms Democrats label “assault weapons,” calling on Sunday for the ability to file lawsuits against such manufacturers. Biden used social media to broadcast his view: Gun manufacturers have spent two decades aggressively marketing assault weapons that make them some of the biggest profits. It’s time we ended gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability – we’ve got to hold them accountable. — President Biden (@POTUS) June 25, 2023

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...

Dozens of reports from local news outlets detail the struggle small businesses had with DeSantis’s shutdown orders.Governor Ron DeSantis has sought to distinguish himself as an elected official who never locked down Florida, shut down small businesses, and kept bars open. However, multiple reports from news outlets detail how the Governor and his administration crushed small businesses during 2020 with orders to shut down, stop serving food, or stripping business licenses altogether. A report from WKMG News 6 Orlando reported that Florida: “launches inspections on bars and restaurants... looking for those who do not follow CDC guidelines,” even detailing how...

Around 90 A.D., the Roman historian Tacitus traveled through Germania observing the lives of its inhabitants. It was quite an eye-opening journey for him. Among his many observations, he noted how the Germanic people chose to live in small separate dwellings, separate from even extended family. Often these dwellings would house just a mother, father, and their children. That seems normal to us today, but it certainly wasn’t to Tacitus and the Romans, or much of the civilized world at that time. Authors Michael Lotus and James Bennett wrote of this in their groundbreaking book “America 3.0: Rebooting American Prosperity...

El Paso police said in a news release that Phoebe Copas, 48, was a passenger on an Uber ride when she shot driver Daniel Piedra Garcia, 52. The incident happened around 2:20 p.m. on June 16 on U.S. 54 near Loop 375. According to police, Piedra was driving Copas from the Westside area in El Paso to Mission Valley. During the drive, Copas believed she was being kidnapped and taken to Mexico, police said. The El Paso Times reports Copas told officers that she saw traffic signs that read "Juarez, Mexico," leading her to believe that her driver was trying...

In this extended "Conversation with the Candidate" segment that appears exclusively online, Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shares his thoughts on immigration, nuclear energy and what he would do in the next pandemic.

Federal prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden in Delaware hid the FD-1023 form housed by the FBI alleging a bribery scheme between the president and foreign actors from IRS agents who conducted a probe into the family finances. On Thursday, the House Ways and Means Committee published transcripts from a pair of IRS whistleblowers alleging widespread interference from the Department of Justice over the course of the tax agency’s five-year investigation, which began as a probe into foreign pornography ring. The documents became public just days after Hunter Biden accepted a plea deal with prosecutors limited to two misdemeanor tax crimes and...

Hunter Biden’s slap-on-the-wrist plea deal after failing to pay taxes on millions of dollars in income, and a felony gun charge he won’t be prosecuted for, follows a long history of Biden family members running afoul of the law — and skating. Hunter Biden, 53, could have faced felonies for both his tax charges — and a multitude of other crimes evidenced on his abandoned laptop. Instead, he pled guilty to just two misdemeanor tax offenses, virtually guaranteeing he will not see the inside of a jail cell. “The Biden family are beginning to make the Medicis look like small-time...

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said he's no longer using the term "ESG" (environment, social and governance) because it is being politically "weaponized" and he's "ashamed" to be part of the debate on the issue. What's new: In a conversation at the Aspen Ideas Festival on Sunday, Fink acknowledged that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' decision to pull $2 billion in assets hurt his firm in 2022, but made clear last year was his company's best with net flows of $200 billion from U.S. clients.What he's saying: "I'm ashamed of being part of this conversation," Fink said."When I write these [investment] letters,...

It could be the plot of a dark comedy if it weren’t a science tragedy. A janitor working in a laboratory who was annoyed by an incessant beep reportedly flipped a switch that killed the noise — but also shut off a storage freezer, destroying decades of scientific work, according to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute lab in Troy. The cleaner’s alleged carelessness cost the lab at least $1 million in damages, a lawsuit the university filed against its third-party cleaning service charges. “People’s behavior and negligence caused all this,” Michael Ginsberg, RPI’s attorney, told the Times Union in Albany. “Unfortunately,...

Silverado! No, not the Chevy full-size pickup truck, but the precious metal Silver is up over 1% this morning! The US Treasury 10Y-2Y yield curve remains inverted at -102.7 basis points for the 244th straight day as M2 Money YoY (aka, liquidity) evaporates. Silver is up over 1% this morning. Bitcoin Cash is up 12.39% this morning. Speaking of Silverado, a fully loaded new 2023 Chevy Silverado 1500 ZR2 costs around $100,000. Thanks Biden and Powell (BiPow?). Try financing that purchase with auto loan rates soaring!

The world just got a hint of a tantalizing but possibly even more dangerous future without Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Western stakes in the Ukraine war rose significantly as a result. A mutinous weekend that saw mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin flagrantly mock the Kremlin before aborting his march on Moscow evoked Russia’s blood-soaked history of revolutions and coups. Meanwhile, efforts by the White House and its foreign allies to find out exactly what was happening underlined the volatile nature of a war that could rewrite the map of Europe and modern history. Ultimately, a civil war that seemed about...

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign has unveiled a new nickname for Ron DeSantis in a new ad targeting Florida’s Republican governor.The verified Trump War Room account rolled out a Twitter ad Tuesday that accused DeSantis of forcing Floridians to remain in their homes during the COVID pandemic.The blistering ad, which was fact-checked by Twitter’s community notes feature, also offered the governor a new moniker: “Lockdown Ron.”“Lockdown Ron DeSantis shut Florida down during the pandemic, much more so than other states,” Trump War Room declared. “Now he’s trying to gaslight the American people into thinking otherwise.”The post, which contained a 30-second...

Church attendance in the United States is lower than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, a new survey indicated. In the new Gallup survey, 31 percent of respondents said they have attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the last seven days. In Gallup polls conducted from 2020 to the most recent May 1-24, 2023 poll, an average of 30 percent of respondents said they had attended services in the last week. These data represent a modest decline of an average of four points since the four-year period before the pandemic, when an average of 34 percent of respondents said...

North Korea issued a stark warning to the Biden regime, accusing that U.S. “bellicose moves” have escalated military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, nudging the region toward the “brink of a nuclear war.” (snip) The North Korean government has accused South Korea and the United States of increasing tensions to pre-war levels with their “delusional anti-communist military confrontation” and “rhetorical threats,” according to a report published by the Institute for American Studies at the North’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

[Catholic Caucus] The Campaign against Bishop Dominique Rey Intensifies; What Is His "Crime"?Paix Liturgique Letter no. 942 (June 19, 2023: source in French)Any day now, lightning will strike Mgr Dominique Rey, whom the Pope will probably deprive of his episcopal faculties by flanking him with a coadjutor endowed with "special powers". He is guilty, gravely guilty, of having turned his diocese into a crossroads of traditional and charismatic currents, a haven for young non-conformist priests, with a flourishing seminary, a young clergy of 250 active priests, with parish priests and vicars for every steeple. It's unbearable! At the end of...