Free Republic

It has been called the greatest grift in American history: an estimated $280 billion of taxpayer money that was supposed to help needy families and businesses through the COVID pandemic has been stolen. Only about $8 billion has been recovered through Justice Department prosecutions, according to a new congressional letter that is raising serious concern that the government is essentially yawning at a staggering amount of loss in tax dollars. House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer wrote the letter to the Justice Department last week that he believes the vast majority of unrecovered money was stolen by criminal...

It’s certainly not unprecedented. Leftist Maximilien Robespierre, the French Revolution’s main author, was a passionate capital punishment opponent who called the death penalty a “cowardly assassination” — he then went on to execute thousands during his Reign of Terror. Likewise did the liberals of decades ago frown upon punishment, sometimes saying it “doesn’t work” and is “morally wrong.” Boy, has that ever changed. Now, Frenchie Max style, punishment’s effectiveness is not only a self-evident truth to leftists, but it can’t be harsh enough.That is, when it’s the “right people” being punished.A good example is the recent sentencing of “Proud Boy”...

Pope Francis urges Chinese Catholics to be ‘good citizens’As Pope Francis concluded Mass on Sunday in the Hun Theatre in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, he took a moment to invite two Chinese bishops to stand with him at the altar for a moment.The Pope greeted Cardinal John Tong Hon, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, and Cardinal-elect Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, bishop of Hong Kong.As he held up their hands, Pope Francis sent greetings to the “noble people of China” and wished “all the people the best.”He encouraged the people of China to “strive ahead, always advancing.”Turning to the faithful...

My son asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I said the granddaughter he gave me was plenty. The look of joy on my wife’s face every time Poppy’s name is mentioned is the greatest gift I could ever imagine. God is so good.

The peer-reviewed study found a 74 percent reduction in excess deaths in 10 states with the most intensive ivermectin use over a 30-day period following peak deaths during the pandemic. When analyzing data across 25 states in Peru, researchers found these reductions in excess deaths correlated closely to ivermectin use during four months in 2020. There was a fourteenfold reduction in nationwide excess deaths when ivermectin was available without restriction.

A federal trial over Georgia's state legislative district maps is set to kick off next week in Atlanta. In 2021, several Georgia residents and groups, including the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity and the Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, filed suit against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. They argued that the state's legislative maps drafted in 2021 violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The “Nazis” were marching in Florida on Saturday. They had a large following for their rally with every member in new red shirts and face masks. Most of the protesters hid their faces. But a couple of tattooed Nazis left their masks in the car. Who’s this guy? He appears to be one of the only “Nazis” who will show his face. And who is the tattooed guy behind him? He shouldn’t be too hard to identify. These guys are actors. Straight out of central casting. pic.twitter.com/EVjq8MF0IV — Eric Matheny 🎙️ (@ericmmatheny) September 3, 2023 The feds REALLY wanted to...

Police were called to the scene around 5 p.m. Saturday and told two groups of people were engaged in violent activity. When they arrived, they separated the groups and worked to de-escalate the situation, noting “many of those involved were brandishing weapons.” A video of the scene posted online showed men with bats and sticks.... The confrontation may be related to similar Eritrean conflicts that have been occurring in cities around the world, including a recent riot in Edmonton in mid-August. The Edmonton Journal/Edmonton Sun reported that incident was a chaotic scene with few if any parallels in Edmonton’s history:...

Today's Sermon focuses on todays First Reading from Jeremiah. The sermon parallels the issues the prophet had with his people; Citing the hardships of St. Paul in his mission, and how the Gospel evangelization of modern times is met more and more with animus.Woe to Us Christians, if we dont have the Fire in our Heart to preach the Gospel in our own prophetic way. 13 min. YouTube link below:A Fire In The Heart

A gender reveal party held Saturday in Mexico never stopped — even for a plane crash. A couple had decided to hire a plane as part of their gender reveal festivities that took place Saturday in San Pedro, Sinaloa, Mexico, according to the U.K. Daily Mail. The couple waited by a large display sign that read, “Oh Baby.” A video posted to X, formerly called Twitter, showed the plane zooming low, dropping pink smoke over the assembled guests to show that the baby would be a girl. A Piper PA-25-235 Pawnee aircraft (XB-ABM) collapsed its left wing and crashed while...

A transcript of the Dec. 14, 2020, meeting of the Georgia alternate electors shows the group convened following the advice of President Donald Trump's legal counsel, seeking to emulate then-Vice President Richard Nixon's challenge of the 1960 election results in Hawaii. Alternate electors David Shafer, former chair of the Georgia Republican Party, and Cathy Latham were among the 19 indicted for challenging the 2020 election results in Georgia. Prosecutor Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, Georgia, said these actions constituted a "criminal racketeering enterprise" and conspiracy to defraud citizens of their vote. The 98-page indictment names the electors,...

Former President Donald Trump has no formidable challenger among Republican presidential primary candidates, according to a poll published Saturday.The poll, published by the Wall Street Journal, showed that Trump is the top choice of 59 percent of GOP primary voters — up 11 percentage points since April.“The new survey finds that what was once a two-man race for the nomination has collapsed into a lopsided contest in which Trump, for now, has no formidable challenger,” a WSJ article on the poll said.Trump’s lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has nearly doubled since April to 46 percentage points, the survey showed.Compared...

In a blow to the COVID-19 "silent spreader" narrative that has been used to push for universal masking, including controversially among schoolchildren, a recent study published in The Lancet suggests that people who are non-symptomatic rarely have the ability to infect others. Silent transmission is the idea that those who are infected with COVID-19 but show no symptoms can still spread the virus to other people. While all relevant studies show that presymptomatic and asymptomatic "silent spreaders" account for some proportion of infections in other people, the degree of silent transmission is less clear. A number of early studies—in some...

Security escorted two Air Canada passengers off a plane after refusing to sit in a seat someone had vomited in, according to a woman who says she was seated in the row behind them. In an August 29 Facebook post, passenger Susan Benson said she watched two women and a man " struggle to get seated" on the flight from Las Vegas to Montreal, Canada. Benson wrote in her post that she noticed "a bit of a foul smell" but hadn't yet realized where it was coming from. Soon, though, she said she learned someone had thrown up on the...

Simmons said he has had no contact with Russell since learning the abduction was fake and he doubts he will ever know why she did it. “I’m confused, like what happened? What made you do this? I don’t understand,” Simmons said on the video, which is part of a podcast he and a friend have launched. “If you really wanted to tell me the truth, you could have told me. You could have told me before all this happened, before the police conference came out,” Simmons said. The two went to New York a week or so before she disappeared,...

Nine years ago Leo Beatty was in his early 30s and working for U.S. Steel when president Barack Obama came to the Mon Valley plant. The visit was a post-State of the Union opportunity to sign an executive order authorizing “myRA,” a new retirement savings option for people who lacked an employer-administered account. Mr. Beatty, then a registered Democrat who voted for Obama twice, said it was a thrill: “I really liked him then so it was exciting,” even though his presidency wasn’t always what he had expected. “I still like him. I am just not sure how much he...

Gettysburg is a small Pennsylvania town with a small school district, a small seminary, and a small college surrounded by apple orchards. It is best known for the most important battle of the American Civil War and the location of Abraham Lincoln's most famous speech. ... Decline It is hard to say exactly when or how, but this community, which was built around a seminary, a Bible college, and then a battle, slowly turned secular. ...While the ghost industry was on the rise and the Christmas nativity was in decline, the seminary was in a nosedive. The Gettysburg Seminary, built...

Bowed out for good? Royal biographer Andrew Morton is claiming Prince Harry, 38, and Meghan Markle, 42, won’t return to the UK because she wouldn’t want to curtsy to Kate Middleton, 41, when Prince William, 41, becomes king. On Sky News’ “Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips,” the biographer, who collaborated with Princess Diana on 1992’s “Diana: Her True Story,” was asked about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex coming back to Britain. The couple stepped back as senior members of the royal family in 2020 and decamped to California. “What, and have Meghan Markle curtsying to Kate Middleton?” snarked Morton,...

Russian high school seniors will return to classrooms this week to find history rewritten in the image of President Vladimir Putin. A new textbook — churned out in just four months and touted as the first state effort to unify teaching of the subject since the Soviet era — echoes Kremlin propaganda justifying the war in Ukraine, the latest stage of a drive to shape the worldview of a new generation. The book will be used by history teachers across the country, including in Russian occupied Ukrainian territories, to teach students in their final year of high school about the...

I've been looking for a bike for a while, and seeking a dual-sport to mostly ride around town and on a family friend's forested property. Cars I speak pretty well, but motorcycles are a foreign language to me. I'm seeking advice. Used or new doesn't really matter, but the budget is $5k, and I previously had a 2023 KTM Duke recommended to me. I liked it, and it was small enough for me, which I think is the biggest issue next to some chronic pain in my left arm that might make a clutch and engine vibration painful. I'm 5'2",...