Free Republic

15 November 2023 Wednesday of week 32 in Ordinary Time St. Albert the Great, Baldwin, PA Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(I).First readingWisdom 6:1-11 ©Kings, your power is a gift to you from the LordListen, kings, and understand;rulers of remotest lands, take warning;hear this, you who have thousands under your rule,who boast of your hordes of subjects.For power is a gift to you from the Lord,sovereignty is from the Most High;he himself will probe your acts and scrutinise your intentions.If, as administrators of his kingdom, you have not governed justlynor observed the law,nor behaved as God would have you...

A massive $124.5 billion worth of bonds are now in default in the entire $175 billion China property dollar bond sector ... Counting October, there is a total of $60.5 billion worth of Chinese property bonds due in the next 6 months, with offshore bonds taking up at least one third of it .... Country Garden's international bondholders are now seeking urgent talks with the company. Strains have also shown in other companies. State-backed Sino-Ocean Group ... Another major developer Gemdale .. seen its bonds slide after the resignation of its chairman sparked fears that it too may be in...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau faced criticism Wednesday from Jewish leaders after he made comments that were perceived as overly critical of Israel and its efforts to destroy Hamas in Gaza. Speaking at an electric vehicle announcement in Maple Ridge, B.C. yesterday, Trudeau said "the world is watching" as Israel pursues its campaign to destroy the group that carried out the deadly Oct. 7 attack. "We're hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who've lost their parents. The world is witnessing this — the killing of women and children, of babies," Trudeau said. "This has to stop. "I have...

While there were almost 300,000 at the gorgeous American Pro-Israel rally, major MSM tried to play it down.. https://www.google.com/search?q="290,000"+pro-israel+rally

CNN's ratings are so deep in the toilet that they now agree with Donald Trump on his desire for televised trials in his federal court cases. Although it is improbable that this would happen, since it is a general rule to not allow cameras into federal courtrooms, they are so desperate for the huge numbers of viewers such televised trials would generate -- O.J. Simpson trial numbers!? -- that they are able to put their loathing aside to agree with Trump on this issue.An example of this thirst for viewers came on Monday when CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig appeared...

Some decisions are so negligent and with consequences so predictably disastrous that only a Big Stupid Government could ever make them. Over the weekend, a massive fire under I-10 at E. 14th Ave. in Los Angeles was severe enough to cause structural damage bad enough to close that section of the freeway "indefinitely." The miracle — thanks to Big Stupid Government — is that it didn't happen sooner. With more than 300,000 vehicles being rerouted each and every day until further notice, frustrated Los Angelenos demanded answers — and, on Tuesday, they got one. "Bad actors" caused the fire, according...

Our cultural decadence and institutional rot can only be remedied by a movement unafraid to assert virtue throughout society.One item stood out at last week’s Republican presidential primary debate: There was not an explicitly nor implicitly identified libertarian candidate. Ron Paul represented the libertarian faction in Republican debates in 2008 and 2012, and his son Rand Paul assumed the mantle in 2016. Prior libertarian-leaning Republican primary candidates include Barry Goldwater in 1964, Jack Kemp in 1988, and Steve Forbes in 1996 and 2000, yet no such candidate can claim the position in this year’s Republican primary. The lack of a...

George Soros and his son have already put their thumbs on the scales for 2024. And if their past activities are any indicator, self-government is in peril.The following is an adapted excerpt from Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life (Sentinel, Nov. 14).In the United States, global financial speculator George Soros has been the single-biggest financier of overtly political causes for decades. In 2022, he poured $178.8 million into federal campaigns, making him by far the biggest campaign contributor in that cycle. Then there are his hidden and comingled political contributions...

Tucker and Glenn Greenwald hit it out of the park... talking about Ukraine and Joe BidenEp. 37 The two defining tragedies of our time — the war in Ukraine and the presidency of Joe Biden — are both finally coming to an end.TIMESTAMPS: (00:17) Glenn Greenwald joins (05:41) Will the Ukraine War Hawks ever apologize? (07:25) Using foreign wars to punish Americans (10:00) Free speech hypocrisy (18:18) Biden’s awful poll numbers (21:31) Liberal media turn on Biden (25:09) 2024 predictions For those of you who prefer to latch on YouTube...https://youtu.be/8bqCRT2ySd0

One of Australia's top doctors has rejected calls for the return of a mask mandate as COVID-19 hospitalisations rise across the country. Dr Nick Coatsworth told Today it was important to remember that vaccination and booster shots remained a strong defence against COVID-19. It follows media reports that Queensland doctors were calling for the return of the mandate at public gatherings and in hospitals, GP surgeries.

Apparently there are hundreds of hours of hours of J6 footage that the establishment refuses to show. Iirc, McCarthey gave these to FoxNews who never showed anything. So, the big question is, what exactly do these videos show? What do you think?

... In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, 490,000 settlers live among three million Palestinians. Their settlements are considered illegal under international law by the United Nations. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on October 7, the UN's humanitarian agency (OCHA) has recorded an average of more than six incidents per day between settlers and Palestinians, including everything from livestock theft to direct physical violence. Before the war, the average was three a day. "They use the war as a pretext to expel us from our homes and to expropriate our lands," Jaber Dababsi, a 35-year-old farmer...

A senior Victorian Buddhist monk is facing a new allegations of child sexual abuse after media reporting earlier this year. Wearing traditional orange robes, Vijitha Naotunne, 68, appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court via videolink from his lawyer’s office on Friday. Representing Mr Naotunne, Joanne Poole said they intended to fight the allegations, which he denied had occurred. Mr Naotunne, who is the chief monk at the Dhamma Sarana Buddhist Sri Lankan Temple, was charged in August over alleged child sexual abuse of three girls dating back as far as the mid-1990s. In September, Victoria Police revealed two more alleged...

VIDEO After years and years of lame excuses for why San Francisco remained a filthy garbage dump, that city was cleaned up in just three days. Was it suddenly cleaned up because the Democrats who run San Francisco and California suddenly realized it was time to do something for the citizens of that city? No. It was done ONLY because Governor Gavin Newsom wanted to impress Chinese Communist dictator Xi Jinping because he is arriving in San Francisco, along with other world leaders, for an economic summit. And since it is very very important to impress Joe Biden's paymaster, San...

It was over in about a minute. A brief exchange was all it took for convicted sexual predator and faith leader Mohammad Saleem to be granted permission to live within feet of a school — something not normally permitted under Illinois’ sex offender laws. After pleading guilty in August 2016 to sexual assault, Saleem and his lawyer, Donna Rotunno, who represented Harvey Weinstein in his New York criminal sexual assault and rape trials, stood before a judge in January 2017. Rotunno asked the judge to sign an order allowing Saleem to stay at his residence next to the school that...

IDF using robots to enter tunnels and "neutralize" terrorists. Yemen fired long range cruise missiles aimed at Israel. All missiles were detected and destroyed by the Arrow anti-missile system as they were flying over the Red Sea before they reached Israel territory.

For years it’s been said that high levels of immigration are nothing to worry about. After all, we’re reminded, the proportion of the foreign-born population is still lower than it was during the Great Wave Era. The Great Wave Era of Immigration was a period between the 1880s and 1920s when shiploads of immigrants would enter New York Harbor, pass the Statue of Liberty, and go to Ellis Island to be admitted into the country. So don’t worry, the foreign-born proportion of the population is still lower than it was then. That was true, but we are now reaching the...

Pakistan’s recent missile technology advancement, shown by the Ababeel medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) test launch with multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) capabilities, signifies a pivotal development in South Asia’s strategic balance and defense capabilities. The International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) reports that Pakistan last month conducted its second test launch of the Ababeel MRBM designed to carry MIRVs, moving a step closer to achieving the enhanced capability to penetrate India’s nascent missile defenses. IISS says that the recent test at Sakhi Sarwar range in Punjab province followed the 2005 India-Pakistan agreement on pre-notification for ballistic-missile tests, which included...

An Olympic gold medalist long rumoured to be Vladimir Putin’s mistress hasn’t been seen for weeks. Alina Kabaeva, 40, hasn’t made a public appearance since October 22 during a visit to her elite gymnastics school in Sochi, a Russian city on the Black Sea. Just days later a sketchy Telegram blog said the Russian president had died of a cardiac arrest, a claim the Kremlin furiously denied as ‘fake news’ at best. Only a week before, the General SVR account alleged that if the leader were to die, a body double would likely rule in his stead. Kabaeva was last...

Covid and flu shots can be safely given at the same time, and according to a small new study, doing so may even confer benefits. Findings presented Monday at the Vaccines Summit Boston, an annual scientific conference, suggest that giving Covid and flu shots together could produce a stronger antibody response against the coronavirus than administering the vaccines separately. The study measured the antibody levels of 42 health care workers in Massachusetts who were vaccinated last fall. Twelve of the participants received a bivalent Covid booster and seasonal influenza shot on the same day. Another 30 received the shots on...