Free Republic

15 November 2024 Friday of week 32 in Ordinary TimeSt Albert the Great Catholic Church – Burbank, IL Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II).First reading2 John 4-9The commandment which you have heard since the beginning is to live a life of loveIt has given me great joy to find that your children have been living the life of truth as we were commanded by the Father. I am writing now, dear lady, not to give you any new commandment, but the one which we were given at the beginning, and to plead: let us love one another. To...

FBI agents raided the Manhattan apartment of Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan early Wednesday — just a week after the election betting platform accurately predicted Donald Trump’s stunning victory, The Post has learned. The 26-year-old entrepreneur was roused from bed in his Soho pad at 6 a.m. by US law enforcement personnel who demanded he turn over his phone and other electronic devices, a source close to the matter told The Post. It’s “grand political theater at its worst,” the source told The Post. “They could have asked his lawyer for any of these things. Instead, they staged a so-called raid...

Donald Trump nominated Representative Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), an unqualified toady, to the nation’s top law-enforcement office. And, in the blink of an eye, Gaetz resigned from the House to, apparently, force the shutdown of an ethics investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use, obstruction, and other unsavory conduct — misconduct allegations over which Gaetz narrowly escaped being indicted by the same Justice Department Trump would have him lead. To be sure, Gaetz was not charged. He has denied any wrongdoing. And allegations, even colorable ones, are not evidence. Nevertheless, the standards of fitness for an office of...

Made one black African woman feel unsafe... The Welsh government has been advised to create dog free spaces in outdoor public areas after an ‘anti-racist’ group asserted it is making black Africans ‘feel unsafe’. Yes, really. The environmental group Climate Cymru BAME has issued a report instructing the government to create “dog-free areas in local green spaces” as part of an “anti-racist” drive to make the country more “inclusive”. The advice was reinforced by another group, the North Wales Africa Society, which complained that “one black African female stated that she feels unsafe with the presence of dogs” during a...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Government Efficiency has wasted no time in identifying 535 government employees residing in the Capitol Building who haven't done any work in years. According to an internal DOGE memo, this particular block of useless lumps drawing government paychecks was surprisingly easy to identify and expose. "This group is, without a doubt, one of the most useless bunches of government excess that one can imagine," Elon Musk noted in a post to X. "Records show that they haven't done a single productive thing in decades. Totally, completely surplus — fat just begging to be trimmed...

A little over a year after my husband and I bought our house, we refinanced our mortgage. Refinancing means paying closing costs again, but we'll break even after just four years. We could pay off our 30-year mortgage in just 23 years with the money we save, but we're putting it in a brokerage account...... The pros and cons of refinancing our mortgage Refinancing has pros and cons, and the decision to do so was one we didn't take lightly. One of the cons is that you typically have to repay closing costs. Anyone who has closed on a home...

The equation we're looking at, I believe is somewhat parallel to the Nixon period. There was no way that a Democrat, a softy on Communists, was going to normalize relations with Mao. It took a determined anti-communist fighter who was known be strict and tough on those people to come and do what what had to be done to establish normal relations so I think it's something similar is in prospect here.

Fierce fighting has raged in the region over the past week, claiming the lives of hundreds of Russian soldiers. Ukrainian forces wiped put a Russian assault group trying to cross a river in Kursk in a brutal attack. -snip- Putin's army sustained heavy losses after attempting to storm the river Psel on Monday. The attack ended in unmitigated disaster for the Russians, as the unit was wiped out during a ferocious artillery barrage. Images shot by a Ukrainian drone show Russian soldiers crossing the river in rubber dinghies. As they reach the shore, they have no time to dig in...

Local news outlets in Colorado Springs received a shocking email in late April of last year: A photo and video of a burning cross and a campaign sign of mayoral candidate Yemi Mobolade, a native of Nigeria, defaced with the N-word in red spray paint. “What has this city come to?!” read the email, signed only by “Citizens of Colorado Springs.” This, according to the email, was “another one of their tactics to keep Yemi out.” The writer then opined on who was likely behind the racist message: supporters of Mobolade’s opponent, center-right Republican Wayne Williams. “Candidate Wayne Williams is...

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President-elect Donald Trump’s cabinet choices — some of which have caused quite a stir — do not represent “retribution,” but “justice,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) said during an interview Thursday on Breitbart News Daily. Host Mike Slater asked Davidson what he personally thinks of Trump choosing now-former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) as his attorney general. snip... “Now they’re like, ‘Oh, this is, this is retribution,’ and it’s like, ‘No, no. It’s justice. You really did do these things,” he said, laying out specifics of what the left has done. “You really did target pro-life Catholics. You really did target parents...

New Yorkers aren’t letting Whoopi Goldberg’s sourpuss spoil their favorite spot for sweet treats, after she put a local bakery on blast on national TV, alleging they refused to serve her because of her lefty political beliefs. “I think it’s ridiculous. Why would she come all the way to Staten Island for her cupcake? To make an issue? They’ve been here forever,” Deborah Bernaz, 68, said of the comic’s claims against the beloved 145-year old Holtermann’s Bakery on Staten Island. “I don’t think it has anything to do with politics. They’re a little Staten Island bakery. I think it’s bulls–t...

After the disappointing 2022 midterms, most people (including me) gave Donald Trump no chance... Behind the scenes, however, it was Don who started to bring some order to the chaos of Trump world. Until then, he had been the second banana in the family behind Ivanka and Jared. ... Don began with hiring Susie Wiles to run the national campaign. Wiles got her start with Jack Kemp, then worked for Ronald Reagan all eight years. She has a marvelous record of running campaigns. When she became available after a falling out with Ron DeSantis, she was welcomed into the 2020...

Many are dancing an Irish jig – even non-Irishmen whom one would not expect to know such dances – over the prospect of Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy heading up a new “Grace Commission 2.0” of sorts, cheerfully nicknamed a Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. They intend an 18-month project, hopefully to conclude by our nation’s 250th anniversary, in which they will apply standard American manufacturing cost-cutting techniques such as LEAN and Six Sigma tools, to find out how much fat is in every federal department, bureau and agency, and cut it out as fast as possible. ... However,...

The shocked reaction of liberal “elites” in the media and academia to Donald Trump’s election to a second term presents an odd dichotomy. On one hand, liberal spokesmen profess to regard the election outcome as a grave threat to democracy. Repeatedly during the campaign, they hurled the repellent epithet “fascist” at Trump and his supporters. On the other hand, liberals blame the voters themselves for having created this threat. They imply that voters have “selfishly” put bread-and-butter issues like inflation, crime, and unchecked illegal immigration ahead of “justice,” primarily for, in the words of one letter writer to the New...

Dolton “Dictator” Mayor Tiffany Henyard called the Illinois village’s police after she spotted workers taking down welcome banners featuring her image — with her self-described “super mayor” title underneath — as the vendor claims it’s owed nearly $20,000, according to a new report. Footage obtained by NBC 5 Chicago showed the controversial leader asking for charges to be filed against the village administrator and possibly even the workers removing the signage at the behest of the village’s dissenting trustees. “Press charges on him, and they just in the middle of it but if I gotta press charges on them, too,...

Walk through of how Trump won the 7 swing and other states compared to polling, and how this outfit called it. Also which two polling outfits were the best.

Laura Helmuth, the editor-in-chief of Scientific American, has resigned after receiving fierce backlash for her online expletive-filled tirade where she called Trump voters “f–king fascists” on election night. “I’ve decided to leave Scientific American after an exciting 4.5 years as editor in chief,” Helmuth announced on her Bluesky account Thursday. “I’m going to take some time to think about what comes next (and go birdwatching).” The president of the magazine, Kimberly Lau, said that Helmuth decided to step down on her own. She thanked Helmuth for her time leading Scientific American, noting that the magazine “won major science communications awards...

This November 28th, when America counts its blessings, top of my list will be Donald J. Trump, Jr. He is really the guy who made the success of 2024 possible. After the disappointing 2022 midterms, most people (including me) gave Donald Trump no chance. DeSantis even passed by him in the betting odds. Behind the scenes, however, it was Don who started to bring some order to the chaos of Trump world. Don began with hiring Susie Wiles to run the national campaign. Wiles got her start with Jack Kemp, then worked for Ronald Reagan all eight years. She has...

Across hours of podcast and television interviews, Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth has articulated his plan for a "frontal assault" to reform the Department of Defense from the top down, including by purging "woke" generals, limiting women from some combat roles, eliminating diversity goals and utilizing the "real threat of violence" to reassert the United States as a global power. ... Hegseth has proposed a wholesale purge of military officials who have supported DEI policies, urging a "frontal assault right back at what's been done to this military from the top and to the bottom." "The dumbest...