Free Republic

26 June 2025Thursday of week 12 in Ordinary TimeOpus Dei headquarters chapel, RomeReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: C(I).First readingGenesis 16:1-12,15-16Hagar bears Abram a sonAbram’s wife Sarai had borne him no child, but she had an Egyptian maidservant named Hagar. So Sarai said to Abram, ‘Listen, now! Since the Lord has kept me from having children, go to my slave-girl. Perhaps I shall get children through her.’ Abram agreed to what Sarai had said. Thus after Abram had lived in the land of Canaan for ten years Sarai took Hagar her Egyptian slave-girl and gave her to Abram as his...

They’re not against nuclear weapons; they’re for our enemies. The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won a Nobel Peace Prize for its opposition to the existence of nuclear weapons. Its slogan was ‘We must eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us.’ Unless the nukes are in the hands of Islamic terrorists. After Israel launched its campaign to end Iran’s nuclear weapons program, ICAN denied that Iran was developing nuclear weapons and instead condemned Israel for striking Iran’s nukes. International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which helped found ICAN, also condemned Israel and instead urged it to create...

Mandatory pronouns were the whole point of the transgender movement. ... After losing a presidential election and a Supreme Court case, Democrats are looking to detransition from the transgender movement, but they can’t seem to manage to do it. ‘United States v. Skrmett’, the transgender movement’s biggest legal loss, bet everything on the Supreme Court getting comfortable with medically and chemically mutilating children based on dubious claims that it was the best way to reduce suicide rates. In ‘How the Transgender Rights Movement Bet on the Supreme Court and Lost’, a New York Times Magazine article blames the loss on...

Less than 30% even bothered to vote. In my post last night, I noted the implausibility of Mamdani’s election numbers compared to his polling in which he performed poorly with anyone over 50 Black people and Latinos women the working class I said the results either reflected low turnout or tinkering. Probably both.

Once again federal courts have blasted holes in attempts to restrict the Second Amendment “right to keep and bear arms.” On June 20, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in its own summary, “held that California’s ‘one-gun-a-month’ law… facially violates the Second Amendment.” That’s “because the plain text … protects against meaningful constraints on the acquisition of firearms through purchase.” “This is a huge victory,” Sam Paredes told us; he’s the executive director of Gun Owners of California, which filed an amicus brief for the plaintiff in the case, Nguyen v. Bonta; Rob...

When purposeless people have time, they start creating problems where none exist and “solutions” where none are needed. I spend a lot of time talking about how Western civilization, particularly as driven by the United States, is easily the greatest that mankind has yet created. If one looks at it objectively, it’s not even close. The list of things that are part of the everyday life of people around the world is basically a list of things that the West invented or developed. From cars to planes to advanced agriculture to elevators to plastic and mobile phones and computers and...

In baseball there is a rare but beautiful pitch known as the knuckleball. It is difficult to learn and takes a lifetime to perfect. It glides through the air without spin and zigzags from side to side before reaching the plate. Even the best knuckleball pitchers struggle to throw it effectively. Most catchers simply can’t react fast enough to the ball’s late movements to keep it in their mitts. Hall of Fame hitters look silly as they swing two feet away from a ball traveling slowly around their bats. When a knuckleball pitcher is on his game, batters never look...

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Without warning — even to local police — masked federal agents have been captured on video descending on Southern California businesses, getting out of unmarked or lightly marked vehicles and, swiftly, detaining who they suspect are immigrants without legal status. The videos show officers, also wearing T-shirts, jeans and hats with the only indication at times of their law enforcement status an olive green vest with “Police” or “Border Patrol” written in small yellow letters on the back. In Torrance on Sunday, June 22, more than a dozen agents, mostly in plainclothes, arrived at the Bubble Bath Car Wash on...

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued Orange County Registrar of Voters Bob Page for allegedly not providing records related to non-citizens’ removal from voter registration lists. The Justice Department alleged that Page refused to provide full, unredacted records related to the removal of non-citizens from the county’s voter registration lists and did not maintain an accurate voter list in violation of the Help America Vote Act, a 2002 law that made sweeping reforms to the country’s voting process. It said the records Page provided redacted certain personal information, including social security and state ID numbers. The lawsuit alleged that...

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Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart . . . (Eccles. 3:11)

This election confirms what we already know—American universities have become Marxist indoctrination centers. The low income people in New York City voted en masse AGAINST the guy who promised to create government-run grocery stores and “freeze” the rent. This should tell you EVERYTHING. American universities have systematically destroyed the minds of Americans.

New York’s annual parade celebrating Israel has been a standard stop for the state’s politicians for the last 60 years, drawing in governors, senators and every mayor since Robert F. Wagner to pay their respects to the Jewish community. Now, as Israel’s standing in the United States has fallen precipitously since the Gaza war, New York City Democrats appear likely to nominate a mayoral candidate who does not shy away from his record of anti-Israel activism, underlining an extraordinary departure from past mayors and from current Democratic leadership in Washington. Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani’s success in the city with the largest...

With the nation watching, the host on Iranian state television asked the question that so many people in Iran — from the political elite to people on the street — were wondering. “People are very worried about the supreme leader,” the host said to an official from Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s office on Tuesday. “Can you tell us how he is?” He noted that viewers had sent a flood of messages asking the same thing. But the official, Mehdi Fazaeli, the head of Mr. Khamenei’s archives office, did not give a straight answer. Instead, Mr. Fazaeli said that he, too, had...

President Trump’s decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, after earlier denouncing U.S. embroilment in foreign wars, introduces another complication for China’s leaders trying to fathom how he might handle conflict over Taiwan. Chinese officials and experts were already trying to game out Mr. Trump’s approach to Taiwan, the island democracy that Beijing claims as its territory. They will now likely be assessing the Iran strikes for new insights into Mr. Trump, who had opposed military action months earlier while he pursued diplomacy, and then rained missiles and bombs on three key nuclear sites on Sunday. For China, Mr. Trump is...

Arizona Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed two budget proposals Wednesday, calling them partisan and reckless, as legislators near a deadline to reach a deal and avoid a state government shutdown. Her action comes after House Republicans indicated last week that a budget negotiated by the state Senate and Hobbs’ office lacked the needed votes in its chamber. The House instead introduced a budget to keep state operations running beyond June 30 and buy more time for negotiations. The chamber passed a separate budget earlier this month. “It cuts tuition, raises pay for law enforcement, fixes critical roads, and reins in...

The millennials now are the majority of the population. It's no longer the baby boomers. You have to have the ability to get millennials which I have...

Nigel Farage is on course to become Prime Minister with a landslide victory for his party Reform UK according to a new mammoth opinion poll. Reform would win 377 seats if an election was held today, giving them a majority of 50. Labour would win 118 seats, fewer than half as many as Reform, as anger over tax rises and soaring prices turns voters against Sir Keir Starmer's party. It would mean Sir Keir was kicked out of Downing Street. He could continue as leader of the opposition, or Labour could elect a new leader. Liberal Democrats would gain 69...

Russia is increasing production of its Oreshnik missile system as NATO pledges an additional $40 billion to Ukraine. The nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile is a powerful system with the capacity to travel 3,415 miles, effectively enabling Russia to strike anywhere in the West from Europe to the United States. “Serial production of the latest Oreshnik medium-range missile system is under way,” Putin told a graduating class of military cadets in televised comments. The system became operational on November 21, 2024, and used in an attack whereby it carried multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRV) payload and six warheads that were each...