Free Republic

By Dr. John BergsmaThe Fourth Sunday of Advent marks a switch in focus from John the Baptist (on the previous two Sundays) to the events immediately leading up to the birth of Christ. The Readings for this Sunday focus on Jesus’ royalty: his descent from the line of Davidic kings. As we will see, this royal status also accrued to his mother Mary, and this is the basis for the practice of Marian veneration in the Catholic Church. In fact, the first instance of Marian veneration by another human being takes place in this Sunday’s Gospel. 1. Our First Reading...

We aren’t new to the question of “What does goose taste like?” in the poultry community, especially when most of the world eats chicken. Contrary to popular beliefs, goose is popular in different parts of the world. According to GQ, Roast Goose is a daily dinnertime centerpiece in places such as Turkey, Germany, Hong Kong, China, and parts of France like Alsace.

Nassau County cops have gotten the green light to shoot troublesome drones out of the sky — with officials saying they don’t want to wait for something “disastrous” to happen.The order went out Thursday as county officials unveiled a new state-of-the-art drone command center that can track the mysterious flying crafts from miles away, but they need the feds to sign off on high-tech tools to intercept and take down the drones.Instead, they’re taking matters into their own hands.“We don’t want to wait until we have some kind of disastrous event to then say, ‘Well, we could have done this...

Democrats have been caught doing the very thing they’ve been accusing President-elect Donald Trump of doing: Cutting Social Security. On Wednesday, the U.K. Daily Mail reported Senate Democrats are trying to push through a Social Security reform bill they want to see signed by President Joe Biden before Trump takes office. The Social Security Fairness Act aims to repeal provisions that reduce payouts to public sector employees like police officers, firefighters, teachers, and post workers. The Mail cites The Committee for a Responsible Budget in their article, and that group states this would make Social Security insolvent six months earlier...

More than a few people have said that I’m the boy who cries wolf. The reason is my decades-long concern with the ever-growing U.S. government debt. For years — in Congress and as a governor — I have sounded the alarm about our federal government’s corrosive habit of spending more than it takes in and its need to borrow ever more money to plug that gap. Today, the federal government budget deficit is $1.8 trillion, and the outstanding government bonds and other forms of borrowing — the national debt — totals $36 trillion. And yet the republic still stands, I...

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum takes place from 20-24 January in Davos, Switzerland. The meeting convenes under the title Collaboration for the Intelligent Age, accessible to the wider public with livestreamed sessions and an overview of the themes is available on the dedicated event website. Each year, the Annual Meeting welcomes governments, all major international organizations and the Forum’s 1,000 partner companies, civil society leaders, young changemakers, social entrepreneurs and the media – check back here for updates over the coming weeks.

Saturday 21 December 202421 December (optional commemoration of Saint Peter Canisius, Priest, Doctor) St. Petrus Canisius, Friedrichshafen, GermanyReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: C(I).First readingSong of Songs 2:8-14See how my Beloved comes, leaping on the mountainsI hear my Beloved.See how he comesleaping on the mountains,bounding over the hills.My Beloved is like a gazelle,like a young stag.See where he standsbehind our wall.He looks in at the window,he peers through the lattice.My Beloved lifts up his voice,he says to me,‘Come then, my love,my lovely one, come.For see, winter is past,the rains are over and gone.The flowers appear on the earth.The season of...

Explanation: A year in sunsets, from April 2023 to March 2024, track along the western horizon in these stacked panoramic views. The well-planned sequence is constructed of images recorded near the 21st day of the indicated month from the same location overlooking Cairo, Egypt. But for any location on planet Earth the yearly extreme northern (picture right) and southern limits of the setting Sun mark the solstice days. The word solstice is from Latin for "Sun" and "stand still". On the solstice date the seasonal drift of the Sun's daily path through the sky appears to pause and reverse direction...

Malaysia announced on Friday it has agreed to launch a new search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which disappeared 10 years ago in one of aviation's greatest enduring mysteries. The Boeing 777 carrying 239 people disappeared from radar screens on March 8, 2014 while en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. Despite the largest search in aviation history, the plane has never been found. Malaysia's prime minister said 17 days after the plane disappeared that, based on the satellite data, his government had concluded that the plane crashed down in a remote corner of the Indian Ocean, and that there...

If anyone in the future cares enough to write an authentic history of the 2024 presidential campaign, they might begin by noting that American politics exists downstream of American culture, which is a deep and broad river. Like any river, American culture follows a particular path, which has been reconfigured at key moments by new technologies. In turn, these technologies, which redefine both space and time—canals and lakes, the postal system, the telegraph, railroads, radio and later television, the internet, and most recently the networking of billions of people in real time on social media platforms—set the rules by which...

Why do they always look like this?There is an answer, of course: because radical, revolutionary politics, which promises to bring down society's winners and replace them with society's losers, are naturally favored by society's losers.#SorryNotSorry but that's the truth. Marxism is a politics for the ugly, unwanted, uneducated, unhealthy, and insane.

Rickey Henderson, a Baseball Hall of Famer and MLB’s all-time stolen bases leader, has died, The Post has confirmed. He was 65. Henderson, a 10-time All-Star and 1990 American League MVP, was the game’s greatest base stealer, racking up 1,406 stolen bags in his career, an MLB record that still stands. SNIP “I still cannot believe I’ve lost one of my favorite teammates and great friend Rickey Henderson. Rest in peace,” former Yankees teammate Dave Winfield wrote on Instagram.

The government shuts down at midnight, and the only thing on Joe Biden’s schedule is a visit to Children’s National Hospital in Washington. The spending fight centers around the maneuvering of House speaker Mike Johnson, President-elect Donald Trump, the House Freedom Caucus, the Senate, “First Buddy” Elon Musk — nobody’s even asking, “What does Biden think?” We’ve all just accepted that Biden isn’t really running his own White House, that he’s now just a mumbling geriatric who communicates to the country through issued statements, like an announcement that he’s commuted the sentence of “non-violent offenders” that included a Maryland woman...

According to a federal survey of school leaders, 40% of students in the nation’s public schools were behind grade level in one or more subjects at the beginning of the school year. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) announced its findings this week that the percentage of students school leaders estimated to be behind where they should be was down 7% from the 2022-23 school year but still 8% higher than before the pandemic. School leaders told the federal education statistics agency in October that over a third of students were behind entering the 2024-25 school year. NCES data...

President Biden issued his condolences on Saturday over an attack on a Christmas market in Germany that left five dead and injured 200. “No community—and no family—should have to endure such a despicable and dark event, especially just days before a holiday of joy and peace,” Biden wrote. He said his administration would be in close contact with German officials. “We’ve made it clear that the United States stands ready to offer all available resources and assistance if needed. And while this situation remains under investigation, make no mistake: the United States will always stand with our Allies against violent...

It wasn’t long ago when most comedians shared the same game plan as Nate Bargatze. The 45-year-old stand-up veteran—whose latest Netflix special arrives on Christmas Eve, and has a holiday variety show airing tonight on CBS—has dutifully steered clear of every pressure point currently mangling American society. Unlike so many other comedians his age, Bargatze is fundamentally disengaged with the curdled rage over the trans debate, racial justice, or “wokeness” writ large. Nor has he adopted the surly demeanor of the lefties who dominated the scene in the 2000s—guys like Patton Oswalt and David Cross, who managed to shape every...

French authorities have arrested 95 people and seized hundreds of digital devices containing massive amounts of illicit material in what officials are calling a significant breakthrough against an international child exploitation network, Breitbart reported. The National Gendarmerie's operation began in December last year and confiscated 122 computers, 152 smartphones, and 330 other digital devices. The seized equipment contained 375,000 photos and 156,000 videos, totaling 217 terabytes of illegal content. Among those arrested were several individuals in positions of authority, including a youth organization director, a sports instructor, and a deputy mayor, according to Le Figaro. The majority of suspects have...

Britain has become the Western capital for sharia courts, with 85 operating throughout the country. The news hardly bodes well for those who still believe we have a functional integration strategy. Not only are British Muslims increasingly turning to the UK’s sharia courts, but they also serve their co-religionists from mainland Europe and North America. Also known as “councils”, they have existed in the UK since the early 1980s and issue Islam-inspired rulings on family life and matrimonial matters. The Islamic Sharia Council of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, formed in 1982 and based in Leyton, east London, is a...

Fifty-one-year-old Troy Williams has been arrested in connection with allegedly shooting at officers and also shooting a Georgia State Police K-9, WSB-TV reported on Friday. State Troopers pulled Williams over for an “obscured license plate” Wednesday. Williams took off after handing a driver’s license to a trooper and a chase ensued. At some point Williams alleged fired at pursuing officers and then fled into woods on foot. One of Williams’ gunshots allegedly hit K-9 Amor in the leg.

Not soon after the general election, and within two weeks of each other, two major financial institutions have left a United Nations Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA). This is after they joined three years ago, pledging to require environmental social governance standards (ESG) across their platforms, products and systems. According to the "bank-led and UN-convened" NZBA, global banks joined the alliance, pledging to align their lending, investment, and capital markets activities with a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, NZBA explains. Since April 2021, 145 banks in 44 countries with more than $73 trillion in assets have joined NZBA, tripling...