Free Republic

The French government said Sunday that hundreds more had been arrested in a fifth night of rioting sparked by the police killing of a 17-year-old, as police deployed reinforcements to flashpoint cities around the country. Protesters, mostly minors, have torched cars, damaged infrastructure and clashed with police in an outpouring of rage since an officer shot Nahel M. point blank as he attempted to flee a traffic stop on Tuesday. The killing was captured on video, which spread on social media and fueled anger over police violence against minorities, exposing severe racial tensions in France. A day after Nahel was...

Miami — A controversial Florida law which took effect Saturday no longer recognizes driver's licenses issued to undocumented immigrants from other states, among other restrictions. It is part of a sweeping immigration bill signed by Republican Florida governor and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis back in May that is prompting many to leave the state. The run-up to the new law has sparked protests by immigrant workers, from those in the tourism and hospitality industry, to those who work in agricultural fields.

Any halfway informed person knows we are entering a new legal environment. Thanks, Joe. The erudite and insightful Roger Kimball, who is well known to the readers at American Thinker, discusses in his essay the disappearance of the American respect for and application of the rule of law: Instead of proper rule of law we are living with that Orwellian alternative, Our Rule of Law — an arbitrary enforcement of the laws and use of the coercive power of the state. Mr. Kimball opens with a recall of the Hemingway novel The Sun Also Rises, which describes what is playing...

Trying to understand consciousness calls to mind images of pensive philosophers in a thinking pose. Soft rock and freestyle rap with lyrics based on theories of consciousness aren’t exactly on the bingo card. Yet the tunes galvanized an eager crowd at the 26th Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC 26) meeting in New York, as attendees awaited the results of the scientific face-off of the century: a head-to-head trial that pitted the two top theories of consciousness against each other. It found that consciousness may emerge from a grid-like interconnection of neurons at the back of the head....

British Military families have been left “appalled” after they were given just a week’s notice to leave their homes at a former airbase in Essex to make way for alleged asylum seekers. The Conservative government of Rishi Sunak has given some military families just a week’s notice that they would have to leave their home at a former air base outside the village of Wethersfield in Essex. They will be forced to leave so that the base can be converted into a migrant camp as the government continues to try to reduce the £6 million per day bill for accommodating...

The last forty years of politics and religion has been focused squarely on the ascendancy of the Religious Right. I must admit that I’ve probably contributed my fair share to that discourse, as well. A motley crew of white evangelicals and traditional Catholics locked arms on some social issues, started voting in large numbers for Republican candidates, and changed American politics forever. But I think that era of religion and politics is rapidly coming to a close. The Religious Right is no longer a primarily religious movement - it’s one about cultural conservativism and nearly blind support for the GOP...

Hotel workers, including a security guard, called the police — but otherwise it looked like they “didn’t take it seriously,” the boyfriend said. A young couple was robbed at gunpoint inside their Queens hotel room by men they thought were delivering an Uber Eats order, according to a new lawsuit blaming the hotel for negligent security. The man and woman, both 26, were staying at the Boro Hotel in Long Island City after visiting with friends on Jan. 2, 2021 when the traumatizing incident went down, according to their Brooklyn Supreme Court lawsuit from Friday. “It was pretty scary,” said...

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was “profoundly disrespectful” when disagreeing with fellow Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Anchor Dana Bash said, “Thomas wrote, ‘Justice Jackson uses her broad observations about statistical relationships between race and select measures of health, wealth, and well-being to label all blacks as victims. Her desire to do so is unfathomable to me. It is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push though barriers. Their race is not to blame for everything good or bad that happens in...

In the wake of the failed rebellion in Russia, Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is positioning himself as a warlord ready to go into battle for Vladimir Putin. But unlike the paramilitary Wagner group, which Moscow is now seeking to disband, Chechen special forces have earned a reputation as “TikTok fighters” more concerned with their social media appearance than battlefield successes. Following rival warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin’s mutiny, Kadyrov has sought to emphasise his continuing close ties to Putin, posting a selfie with the Russian president on his Telegram channel on Wednesday and bragging about their meeting the day before. Yet the...

As ranked-choice voting gains momentum, election integrity advocates are fighting back over what the call a “confusing” voting system that they say would give the left more power. Ranked-choice voting is an election process being introduced across the country, amid pushback from some states, including efforts to ban it. With RCV, if no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, then a runoff system is triggered. When voters cast their ballots, they rank each candidate in order of first-to-last. If one candidate doesn't reach the 50% plus-one vote threshold, then the candidate with the least amount of first-choice votes...

A major study into the impact of the pandemic on Amish communities has found that Covid death rates among the traditionalist groups of citizens are 90 times lower than for the rest of America. The main difference, the study revealed, is that Amish communities completely ignored the guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Amish families did not get vaccinated or wear masks, nor did they engage in lockdowns, social distancing, or any other type of restrictions. But the separated communities didn’t avoid catching the virus, however, as roughly 90% of the Amish have been infected...

Apressure campaign to get communist China energy executives to pay money. Classified memos improperly stored in an insecure garage, An FBI informant’s allegation of bribery in Ukraine. A false claim of Russian disinformation to sway an election. The swell of scandalous evidence engulfing Joe Biden’s family right now is raising a tantalizing question: if he weren’t president could he still get a security clearance if he applied for a job at the CIA or FBI? The answer, some experts say, is an unequivocal “no.” “I put it this way,” former CIA analyst and National Security Council chief of staff Fred...

Texas became the latest state to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in public schools earlier this month. Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 17 into law, prohibiting DEI offices in Texas public colleges and universities starting in 2024. The new law comes months after the University of Houston’s decision to ban DEI statements in faculty hiring. “The issue is not diversity – the issue is that equity is not equality, and DEI practices conflate the two, Governor Abbott’s spokesman Andrew Mahaleris told Campus Reform. “Some universities and woke professors have been using DEI to advance political agendas and...

A California law approved by voters that promises to get breeding pigs out of narrow cages that prevent them from standing or turning will finally take effect Saturday, after years of delays and warnings that the rules could lead to price spikes and pork shortages. But it will be six months before California grocery shoppers can be sure that pork chops they buy under the new law will be from a pig whose mother wasn’t confined in a so-called gestation crate. That’s because while the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the law, the state recently agreed to allow pork slaughtered before...

2 July 202313th Sunday in Ordinary TimeChapel dedicated to San Bernardino Realino in the right transept of the church of Jesus in Lecce. Under the altar the mortal remains of the saint are kept in an urn.Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(I).First reading2 Kings 4:8-11,13-16 ©This is a holy man of God; let him rest hereOne day as Elisha was on his way to Shunem, a woman of rank who lived there pressed him to stay and eat there. After this he always broke his journey for a meal when he passed that way. She said to her husband,...

The Swedish Parliament announced that it is abandoning its green energy targets. Finance Minister Elisabeth Svantesson explained that "wind and solar power are too unstable to meet the nation's energy requirements. Only a nuclear pathway is viable to remain industrialized and competitive. The goal of a 100% renewable energy supply is infeasible and must be scrapped." Biden's climate envoy John Kerry called this decision "disappointing. By breaking away from a uniform acceptance of the necessary reduced standard of living, Sweden risks reigniting a global quest for prosperity that constitutes the chief threat to our climate goals. This is their second...

The Wagner mutiny of late June is likely one of the more dramatic events of the Russo-Ukrainian war in 2023, and one that caught many observers and the international audience off guard. Despite being closely watched by people around the world - much about the mutiny remains unknown - from its true purpose to the details of how and why it seemed to suddenly end. In this episode I look at what we know so far, ask what prospects the attempt had for success, what observations we can tentatively make, and what the impacts going forward might be.

Though many Americans likely believe that US dollars allocated for Ukraine are spent directly on supplies for the war effort, the lead author of this report, Heather Kaiser, conducted a thorough review of Washington’s budget for the 2022 and 2023 fiscal year and discovered that is far from the case.

Today's Sermon touches on the most difficult teaching of Christ ... One that most Christians fail at, and so discard as unreasonable.Another one of those hard sayings". Hard to acknowledge, 14 min. YouTube link below:You Can't Be Neutral About Christ

The attack happened at 1.30am on Sunday morning. Mr Jeanbrun said that rioters launched a car through the front of his home, set it alight and let the fire rip through his home while his wife and two young daughters aged five and seven were sleeping. The mayor was working at the town hall at the time. The local prosecutor said a plastic bottle was also uncovered at the scene filled with a fire accelerant. Police have launched an investigation into attempted murder.