Free Republic

As supporters of former President Donald Trump anxiously await his selection for a vice presidential running mate, online sleuths have unearthed evidence of a website domain that may indicate his choice is already made. Users of X on Thursday located a URL tying the former president to Doug Burgum, the popular governor of North Dakota and former Republican presidential candidate who self-funded his run before it came to an end late last year. The friendly, earnest midwestern governor has won plaudits for packaging the MAGA brand in a style that allies of Trump say will appeal to key voters he...

The relentless decline in global fertility accelerated during Covid-19, pushing humanity closer to failing to achieve a replacement-level birthrate—the point below which a new generation is smaller than the previous one. Though the U.S. for decades had defied a trend that saw several prosperous industrial nations fall short of that benchmark, the so-called birth dearth recently has reached the United States. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that, in 2020, the number of children born per adult woman in the U.S. hit an average low of 1.64. Rather than trending up after Covid, the total fertility rate fell to an all-time...

Can the Vatican Ban the Latin Mass? Catechism Says “No”A canonically-approved catechism, supported by many catechisms of the past, answers whether the Vatican has the authority to shut down the traditional Latin Mass.Lately in Rome, the city where rumors are often reliable news, murmurs have been circulating that the Vatican may soon impose a more rigorous edict of suppression for the Traditional Latin Mass, and perhaps for other rites as well (e.g., the sacraments and divine office). Should such an edict appear, it will once again raise two major questions of “practical theology” for universal debate, namely: (a) Does the...

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday ruled against a couple who challenged the constitutionality of a Trump-era tax provision, handing the government a victory in a case that had huge potential consequences for the federal budget. At issue was a tax enacted in 2017 to pay for President Trump’s massive corporate tax cut and to prevent off-shore tax dodges. It was challenged by Charles And Kathleen Moore, who were required to pay a one-time $15,000 tax on an investment in India that grew in value from $40,000 to over a half million dollars. Backed by conservative anti-regulatory groups, the couple...

The witty phrase “late Soviet America” was coined by the Princeton historian Harold James back in 2020. It has only become more apposite since then as the cold war we’re in—the second one—heats up.I first pointed out that we’re in Cold War II back in 2018. In articles for The New York Times and National Review, I tried to show how the People’s Republic of China now occupies the space vacated by the Soviet Union when it collapsed in 1991. (snip) But it only recently struck me that in this new Cold War, we—and not the Chinese—might be the Soviets....

The world's governments now have around $60 trillion in debt which is then sold to investors as bonds. So who owns this debt? In a note sent out to clients on Friday, Deutsche Bank chief global economist Torsten Sløk broke down who owns various countries' debts. One chart breaks down debt ownership for selected developed markets and the other for emerging market countries. For the US, the largest chunk of government debt is held by US-based non-bank investors followed by the governments of other countries.

The head of the Shiite Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, threatened to expand his war against Israel in a speech on Wednesday, boasting that he allegedly has 100,000 terrorists at his disposal and suggesting war with Cyprus may also be imminent. Hezbollah, one of many Iranian proxy terrorist organizations, has long maintained ties with the Sunni jihadist group Hamas. The group has expanded its attacks on Israel since October 7, when Hamas terrorists launched an unprecedented invasion of Israel that resulted in an estimated 1,200 deaths, the abduction of about 250 people, and widespread torture, rape, and other atrocities....

Dean says goal is to promote ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ An Alabama college is offering $75,000 in scholarships for trade programs – but only to female students. The goal “is to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in Gadsden State’s career technical programs,” according to a news release from the community college. The list of “qualified programs,” include welding, construction technology, and civil engineering. “This scholarship program is an initiative to get more women into manufacturing, construction, and transportation careers in order to help develop the workforce in our area,” Dean Alan Smith stated in the news release. Smith did not...

You may have heard that the 2017 GOP tax cuts blew a giant hole in the federal budget—or so Democrats tell voters. The Congressional Budget Office’s revised 10-year budget forecast out Tuesday offers a reality check. Spending is the real problem, and it’s getting worse. CBO projects that this year’s budget deficit will clock in at roughly $2 trillion, some $400 billion more than it forecast in February and $300 billion larger than last year’s deficit. This is unprecedented when the economy is growing and defense spending is nearly flat. The deficit this fiscal year will be 7% of GDP,...

Time flies. Years race by. But, 2024 has been a stunner in many ways. And many events remind me that the world is running out of time before the last act of a major drama plays out. In other words, the Church Age is winding down. Let me highlight ten events from this current year that have convinced me of this.

With few exceptions, college and university presidents were slow and ineffective in responding to the protests and encampments on their campuses this spring. Their passivity calls to mind the character Gottlieb Biedermann in Max Frisch’s play The Fire Raisers, who, hearing about a series of local arsons, refuses to believe that the men who manipulated their way into occupying his attic could be the perpetrators. Deceived by feelings of guilt, Biedermann is unwilling to throw the men out or believe that they are dangerous—even when they tell him exactly what they are doing. Remaining in denial to the end, he...

South Korea is reconsidering its policy on providing lethal weapons to Ukraine in response to a recent defense pact between Russia and North Korea. This shift comes after South Korea condemned the agreement between Russia and North Korea, which pledged mutual defense assistance in the event of war. Previously, South Korea had only provided non-lethal aid to Ukraine, but the new development could see South Korea supplying artillery shells and possibly other lethal weapons to support Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

20 June 2024 Thursday of week 11 in Ordinary Time San Silverio Chapel Isola di Palmarola, Italy Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II).First readingEcclesiasticus 48:1-15The spirit of Elijah fills ElishaThe prophet Elijah arose like a fire, his word flaring like a torch.It was he who brought famine on the people, and who decimated them in his zeal.By the word of the Lord, he shut up the heavens, he also, three times, brought down fire.How glorious you were in your miracles, Elijah! Has anyone reason to boast as you have? –rousing a corpse from death, from Sheol by the...

June 20 is the Feast of Pope Saint Silverius, a 6th century martyr who was deposed and starved to death for the sake of political expediency by order of the Christian Roman empress, Theodora. Pope Saint Silverius is truly a saint for our times. Faced with persecution by the Christian Roman imperial government which insisted that he embrace heresy, he nonetheless held courageously to the truth of the Catholic faith, despite lies, corruption, intimidation and threats to his office and his life. Almost no one today knows him, but Silverius is a saint that Catholics should invoke when faced with...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CBS’s “The Late Show,” Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) responded to a question on America’s role in the Israel-Hamas conflict by stating that “We have a foreign policy that pretty much follows the idea of peace through strength, and what that means is we need to have a very strong military so that we can scare other countries into doing what we say. I wish we would use our wealth and our resources and our means to lead with diplomacy.” And we should “build a Palestinian state” with our resources. Host Stephen Colbert asked, “What do you...

EUROSATORY 2024 — Northrop Grumman plans to produce medium caliber ammunition inside Ukraine under a project bankrolled by Ukrainian dollars, a company official said today.Although several European defense firms have committed to large-scale manufacturing programs inside Ukraine’s borders, Northrop’s coproduction agreement is the first publicly acknowledged deal between a US defense prime and the Ukrainian government for a manufacturing project inside Ukraine.

The college is partly blaming the declining numbers on negative press from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and arrests.. Following an enrollment decline, Emerson College, in an email sent to faculty and staff Tuesday, announced that it will lay off staff and not fill some vacant positions in fiscal year 2025, according to The Boston Globe. The college is blaming the enrollment decline in part on “negative press and social media” from the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and subsequent arrests. ... President Jay Bernhardt wrote that he expects the enrollment decline to last only one year, but the effects will ripple through the budget...

Fort Knox Scandal - Chapter 20 Posted: 8:03 PM - Aug 30, 2009 Bill Still CHAPTER 20 The Golden Cover-Up Begins How was the Fort Knox gold drain first discovered? Although the London Gold Pool and gold sales were by no means a secret, the full implication of the gold drain from America was understood by very few people until it hit one of the early tabloids in 1974. What followed was a typical scenario of government stonewalling, half-truths and lies that eventually backed the bureaucrats into a corner, but not without some dedicated work by one determined individual, Ed...

Many years ago, in the 1980s, I went to Brighton Beach, then in its heyday as a district of newly arrived Soviet Jews. It was a grand event, rich in humor and tinged with nostalgia. I asked a middle-aged partygoer for his thoughts on his lost homeland, and his reply has stayed with me: “I hate Russia, for forcing me to leave her.” It was an apt summary of what waves of émigrés from Russia and the Soviet Union since the early 20th century have felt: a sorrowful sense of loss for a motherland — what Russians call “toska po...

How the entire conflict could easily end The reaction to the rescue of four Israeli hostages from Gaza is a microcosm of the past 70 years of this conflict. Every time Palestinians pay the price for acting out in some horrific, irrational, self-destructive, violent way, their defenders want to rewind history to a more convenient moment — this time to Oct. 6, 2023.Sorry, that’s not how life works. Hamas, the chosen political entity of Gaza — the overwhelming choice of Palestinian civilians, in fact — launched this round of the conflict by massacring, sexually torturing and kidnapping Israelis whose only...