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[Catholic Caucus] Happy 16th Anniversary of Summorum Pontificum!Sixteen years ago today, Pope Benedict XVI liberated the traditional Latin Mass and made clear that this treasure of the Church must be open to all, priests or laity, without any special permissions, and could never be restricted: "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place." In other words,...

The FBI is broken. No serious person who isn’t operating in bad faith would contest this fact. But it also, at least historically, serves an important purpose: solving high-level national crimes that local and state agencies lack the resources or personnel to solve. That said, following the release of the Durham report and the publication of the “Twitter Files,” it is undeniable that left-wing partisan actors have thoroughly weaponized the nation’s largest intelligence agency against their ideological adversaries. The FBI must not be allowed to continue abusing the public, and in the event that holistically eliminating the institution is not...

Is the Chinese Communist Party ready to export its highly centralized version of Protestant Christianity to the rest of the world?That's the gist of a report from religious liberty and human rights magazine Bitter Winter stating a conference held last month with state-aligned religious leaders declared the CCP's intent to "change the face of world Christianity."According to the report, the "Training Meeting for Key Pastors of the Northeast China Christian Region" held June 27-30 in the northeast Jilin province was the launch of a "grandiose" plan from Chinese President Xi Jinping and the CCP.As part of the nationally-broadcast conference, Pastor...

Another retailer is fleeing Union Square in downtown San Francisco — this time, a century-old haberdashery known for its hats, which is leaving what was once one of the most desirable retail locations in America. The departure of Goorin Bros. from its Union Square location is the latest sign that pandemic lockdowns, the shift to work-from-home in the tech industry; soaring crime in the city; and persistent homelessness are having a devastating effect on the city’s downtown. The San Francisco Chronicle reported Thursday: Goorin Bros. boutique at 111 Geary Street went dark on June 23 amid the city’s struggles to...

The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) recently drew a line in the sand to affirm their complementarian view that pastoral leadership does not belong to a woman. Since then, it’s caused a bit of an uproar among egalitarians, and the question of whether or not women can be pastors continues to be a hot topic of conversation in Christian circles.I’ve previously written on why complementarianism is biblical and why women who call themselves pastors are in rebellion. It’s a very serious matter, and I think, very often, we take too lightly how influential feminism has been within the Church.Whether or not...

Against the backdrop of 1,000,000+ small donors each contributing an average of $34 to President Trump last quarter, Rupert Murdoch’s media outlet quickly jumped to the typeset to proclaim Ron DeSantis, as measured by billionaire contributions, as the richest political candidate in U.S. history.Buried near the end of their article they note this, “A significant portion of Never Back Down’s fundraising was money transferred from funds originally raised to support DeSantis’ 2022 gubernatorial re-election.” [Funny enough, after we mocked them on the Twitter, Fox News stealth edited the article to note the $82 million.]Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis brought in an...

After yesterday’s surprise ADP jobs report, I was expecting a better June jobs report. But alas, today’s job report was a disappointment. Only 209k jobs were added in June. On the other hand, average hourly earnings YoY rose slightly to 4.4%. Too bad core inflation at the last reading was 5.3% YoY. Here is the rest of the story: Silver is up almost 2% this AM!

How do you fix Disney, a company that seems hell-bent on destroying billions of dollars worth of intellectual property from The Little Mermaid to Indiana Jones?Following Walt Disney’s untimely death in 1966, the company bearing his name entered a long creative and quality slump. Disney even lost direction, badly trying to outdo Star Wars with The Black Hole and producing “edgier” fare like The Devil And Max Devlin. By the late ’80s, though, the company got back to Walt’s roots in classic animation with The Little Mermaid, beginning a decade-plus creative renaissance.Then the bean counters took over and cash-flush Disney...

I will be as generous in explanation as brutal honesty permits. This is hopefully the last I will write about the internecine network of California GOPe manipulative politics and the latest episode of republican fraud within in.Fibber Mike Davis (below left) gave an interview {Rumble Segment Here} which now provides some clarity on his character and the issues of his defense of Harmeet Dhillon (below right), in an effort to protect her from the outcome of Dhillon’s own creation. Within the interview Davis notes that in addition to her RNC and California GOP professional relationships, Dhillon also represents the Trump...

If you think the skies were exploding over the long Independence Day weekend, wait until you hear what was going on in the mean streets of mostly blue cities nationwide.FACT-O-RAMA! I use the same mass shooting standards and all relevant info as gunviolencearchive.com. A mass shooting is four people who have been shot, not including the shooter, in a fluid situation.The nation celebrated our freedom from British tyranny with 25 mass shootings from June 30 until the morning of July 5. One-hundred-sixty-one people were ventilated, and 25 gave up the ghost.Chicago (of course) kicked off the summer’s July 4 “Festival...

Former President Donald J. Trump holds a nearly 50-point lead over Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the Republican primary in Tennessee and comfortably leads President Joe Biden in a hypothetical general election match-up, according to a poll. The Beacon/Targoz poll released Thursday shows Trump running away from the rest of the field at 61 percent of support among likely primary voters. DeSantis, his closest competitor, has just 12 percent support, while former Vice President Mike Pence sits within striking distance of DeSantis with eight percent. Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Vivek Ramaswamy tie for fourth place with one percent each....

The US Department of Agriculture has begun accepting applications for financial relief of up to $500,000 for farmers who have faced discrimination in its lending programs. Opening the application process is a step forward in the department’s effort to remedy decades of discrimination felt by farmers of color after a previous push by the Biden administration to provide payouts faced legal hurdles. Applications are being accepted through October 31, and will be reviewed in November and December, with payments reaching those eligible “soon” after, according to the USDA. Any farmer, forest landowner or rancher who experienced discrimination by the department...

Since opposing power in our modern times is futile, we must adapt to the demands it makes on us. This is especially true of the long running character in the fictional James Bond series.“Oh, the things I do for England,” Sean Connery once said in You Only Live Twice.Long gone are the days of carefree innocence and naiveté when we would watch a movie as a child or a teenager and think it wasn’t propaganda. It just reflected what human beings are. Sadly, or perhaps wonderfully, as we grow up, our experiences change how we see the world. Some of...

The sandwich franchise Subway responded after one of its restaurants received backlash for a tasteless joke about the Titan submersible tragedy. On July 5, a spokesperson for Subway gave a statement to the “Today” show and confirmed it was aware of the sign. “We have been in contact with the franchise about this matter and made it clear that this kind of comment has no place in our business,” the spokesperson said. “The sign has since been removed.” On July 2, Timothy Mauck, based in Georgia, posted a photo to his Facebook page showing a sign outside of a local...

The US is planning to send Ukraine a cluster munitions package to help in its counteroffensive against Russia, US media reports. Ukraine has been asking for the weapons for months amid an ammunition shortage. Cluster munitions - which are banned by dozens of countries - are a class of weapons that contain multiple explosive bomblets called submunitions. The Biden administration is expected to announce the package on Friday, the BBC's US partner CBS News reports. US officials had reportedly been hesitant to supply Ukraine with cluster munitions because of their potential to harm civilians. The US has a stockpile of...

VIDEOHA! HA! HA! HO! HO! HO! Watch as Steve Lookner of Agenda-Free TV channels an angry laughing Santa Claus irked by Elon Musk limiting the number of posts Twitter users can read each day.HA! HA! HA! HO! HO! HO!But I want to KNOW! KNOW! KNOW! when Agenda-Free TV will do a SHOW! SHOW! SHOW! about the White House SNOW! SNOW! SNOW! and BLOW! BLOW! BLOW! Perhaps we would find out more about Hunter's HO! HO! HOs!

UPS isn’t just another large shipping company. It carries 6% of America’s gross domestic product in its trucks. It also plays a central role in the smooth movement of goods the economy depends upon, feeding supply chains that are only recently recovering from disruptions that drove that drove up prices in the past couple years. That’s why there is so much at stake in contract negotiations between UPS and the Teamsters union. Without a deal, 340,000 Teamsters are preparing to go on strike at the nation’s largest trucking company starting August 1. “This strike is a serious threat to the...

Happy birthday to Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) who was born on this day in 1940 and turns 83 today. Ringo is one of the two surviving members of what we used to call “The Fab Four.“ The band stopped recording 50-plus years ago and we are still talking about it. I guess that's impressive.Ringo will probably go down in history as one of the luckiest men ever born. Talk about “being in the right place at the right time” or winning the biggest lottery of all time. "The luck of Ringo" or something like that.In the summer of 1962, The...

(Last Updated On: June 28, 2023) NATIONAL STRAWBERRY SUNDAE DAY | JULY 7 On July 7th, it is time to indulge on National Strawberry Sundae Day. Each year on this day, Americans combine vanilla or strawberry ice cream, strawberry sauce, fresh strawberries, and whipped cream. Make several strawberry sundaes, and enjoy this delicious treat with friends and family. #StrawberrySundaeDay While the oldest known record of an ice cream sundae is an Ithaca, NY advertisement, the originator of the dessert is cooly debated. The October 5, 1892 ad in the Ithaca Daily Journal spelled the ice cream treat with the conventional...

The planet’s temperature soared again on Thursday to levels not seen in the modern record-keeping era, marking the fourth straight day of record temperatures. These alarming new records are likely the highest temperatures in “at least 100,000 years,” one scientist told CNN. The global average daily temperature climbed to 17.23 degrees Celsius (63.01 degrees Fahrenheit) on Thursday, according to the University of Maine’s Climate Reanalyzer, which uses data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction. It’s been a week of record-breaking temperatures. On Monday, the average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest in the...