Free Republic

For years we've been told there are certain issues that are simply too controversial to decide. So what do organizations do? They create a committee. Study it. Delay it. Hope the controversy cools off before anyone has to take a position. That's exactly what happened this week. The only problem? The organization wasn't a Fortune 500 company trying to navigate corporate politics. It wasn't Congress trying to avoid a difficult vote. It was a Christian denomination trying to decide whether its pastors should be... monogamous. Yes, you read that correctly. The Presbyterian Church (USA) postponed debate over a proposal that...

There was a time when history mattered.Today, history is treated like wet clay--something to be molded into whatever shape best serves the political cause of the moment. Statues are toppled. Founding Fathers are recast as villains. National histories are rewritten through ideological lenses.Now, even Jesus Christ isn't off limits.The latest attempt comes from the orbit of New York City's socialist mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Reports indicate that his wife, Rama Duwaji, is co-hosting a luxury spiritual retreat in Corsica where attendees--paying as much as $5,000--will meditate on Mary as a "Palestinian woman giving birth under occupation."It's difficult to know where to...

Police from the 102nd Precinct took a man into custody Thursday morning after he allegedly threw Molotov cocktails at religious buildings in Ozone Park and Woodhaven. In the first incident, the 36-year-old vandal allegedly targeted the Iglesia Bautista El Mesias Baptist Church, located at 97-44 75th St. in Ozone Park, just before midnight on July 8, according to authorities. The vandal threw one of the firebombs at the front door, but it bounced off and exploded on the ground, causing a fire that did no damage to the church, police said. The suspect then walked about a half-mile north into...

Neither Schismatic Nor DisobedientFaced with the profusion of statements, articles and interviews which present the Society of Saint Pius X as responsible for a fracture within the Church, for a very serious disobedience towards the Holy Father, or even for a real schism, it seems appropriate to write a few lines in order to provide some clarification.Our method will always be the same, not impressions, nor "hearsay," nor the lucubrations of the occasional commentator, but Catholic theology, drawn from its sources: the constant Magisterium of the Church and the teaching of the great theologians and canonists.1. The Society of Saint...

Legal counsel for the Little Sisters of the Poor delivered oral arguments to a federal appellate court on July 7 as the Catholic religious society continued its 15-year legal battle over contraception mandates. The dispute goes back to a 2011 federal regulation imposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which requires employers to include coverage of contraception in healthcare plans offered to employees, as part of rules implementing the Affordable Care Act. Although the Little Sisters of the Poor already won two Supreme Court cases — which found the federal government must protect the religious freedom...

More late-stage diagnoses add to higher cancer mortality burden for menKey Takeaways: -Men have a significantly higher likelihood of late-stage cancer diagnosis across 20 different tumor types. -The largest disparities involved tongue, thyroid, and salivary gland cancers. -The reasons for the disparity appear to be multifactorial, involving biological, social, and cultural determinants. Men had a higher likelihood than women for late-stage diagnosis of 20 different types of cancer, data from a national registry network showed. The analysis of 30 nonreproductive organ cancers showed men had higher odds ratios for regional or distant metastasis at diagnosis in two-thirds of the cancer...

A top adviser to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani pushed hard for Maine Democrat Graham Platner in the 2026 Senate race with an eye on a Democratic presidential ticket by 2032, sources told The Post. Morris Katz hyped up Platner as a Bernie Sanders successor who could captivate the progressive base of the Democratic Party — much better than Squad darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who he saw as a losing nominee, two Democratic sources revealed. One reason Katz favored Platner’s chances over AOC was that he’s a man, sources said. Katz had worked for around 10 months with...

A Delaware County man was taken into custody Wednesday after making a verbal threat to commit arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's home, police say. Richard Franklin, 65, is charged with terroristic threats, ethnic intimidation, harassment and disorderly conduct, Pennsylvania State Police said. Police said a new unit formed to address threats of political violence arrested Franklin. The threat was made a year after Cody Balmer — a man who prosecutors said was "harboring hatred" toward the governor — hopped a fence and intentionally set a fire that burned the governor's mansion after the first night of Passover.

A gin brand co-owned by Ryan Reynolds in Portland has closed a bar just four years after it opened. Aviation American Gin's Tasting Room and Visitor Center held its last tasting on June 28. 'Thank you for all the memories, Portland. Stay weird,' a sign hung on the door read, according to Willamette Week. The bar was opened in 2022 to promote Reynolds's gin brand. The actor once called the tasting room a 'Disneyland for adults.' The closure comes amid a sales slump for Diageo, the drinks giant that co-owns the brand with Reynolds. The London-based beverage giant was down...

A Virginia judge informed state officials in a Tuesday letter that a newly passed ban on modern semiautomatic firearms was blocked across the state, citing the potential for a “treacherous patchwork” within Virginia. Shortly after Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the ban on so-called “assault weapons,” SB 749, into law on May 14, pro-Second Amendment organizations, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America (GOA), Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed lawsuits seeking to have the ban invalidated on Second Amendment grounds. The letter from Washington County...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A federal appeals court rejected an effort to revive the Texas Dream Act on Thursday, leaving in place a ruling that ended in-state tuition for undocumented students at Texas public colleges and universities. The ruling continues to block the Texas Dream Act, which for nearly 25 years allowed eligible undocumented students to qualify for resident tuition rates if they: Had resided in Texas for at least three years; Graduated from a Texas high school; and Signed an affidavit stating their intent to become a lawful permanent resident as soon as possible. In a 2-1 decision, the 5th...

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump's suggestion that Israel could withdraw from southern Lebanon. He said Israel does not need anyone's approval to maintain its military presence there. "We didn't ask for anyone's approval to enter Lebanon, and we don't need approval to stay in Lebanon," Katz said in a statement, according to The Washington Examiner. "It is our right and duty to defend the residents of the Galilee and Israeli citizens from the threats of the jihadist terror group Hezbollah, which aims to destroy the State of Israel." Katz said Israel would continue to...

I opened up duckduckgo which said my available space on my computer was low. My C drive is 459 GB. This A.M. it was 5.41 GB free of 459 GB. Now it's 2.59 GB free of 459 GB. Something's going on. I have and use CCleaner 7 and Malwarebytes. Windows Defender also. This computer never even reaches half full of the 459. I've also used disc cleanup. Ideas? thnx

The Maine Democratic Party’s state committee voted Wednesday to hold a nominating convention to select a replacement for U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, according to a party statement and an account of the meeting shared with the Bangor Daily News. More than 100 state committee members attended the meeting and voted in favor of the convention process, the party said in a statement. The convention would include 500 delegates elected proportionally by county committees, along with the entire state committee, according to the account of the meeting.

Planned Parenthood is investing a near-record $47 million into the November midterm elections aiming to unseat the Republicans who voted to cut off the organization from federal funding last year. The “We Decide” campaign from Planned Parenthood Votes — an independent Super PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood — will target ads and voter outreach in battleground House races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The funding will also go toward key Senate races in Michigan, where Democrats are likely running against former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine, even though Sen. Susan Collins (R)...

An investigation is underway for the eight Apache helicopter pilots who flew during Saturday’s Salute from the Shore event, a tradition that drew thousands to South Carolina’s beaches, ABC affiliate WPDE reported on Thursday. Military aircraft flew along the coast on Saturday, July 4, from Cherry Grove to Beaufort, and for the first time, Apache helicopters dazzled crowds. There weren’t any details — no specific reason why they were being investigated, just that they were under investigation," the source said. The pilots are part of the South Carolina Army National Guard, Alpha Company. Leading up to the event, WPDE interviewed...

Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that her government is looking into taking legal action against agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the latest shooting incident in Texas. “We cannot allow the mistreatment of our brothers who are in the United States,” Sheinbaum said during her morning news conference, referring to a case on Tuesday in Houston. As Breitbart Texas reported, U.S. federal agents from ICE were trying to arrest Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national illegally present in the United States, when, according to an agency statement, the man resisted arrest, allegedly used his vehicle to ram an...

State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, raised a staggering $30 million from April through June, his campaign announced Wednesday — more than triple the amount brought in by his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. The haul is a record total for a U.S. Senate candidate in the second quarter of an election year, Talarico’s campaign said, noting he has now raised more than $70 million from over 1.5 million donations, including 780,000 individual contributors, since launching his bid in September. “I’m honored to stand alongside more than 780,000 neighbors who are tired of being divided into...

For over a century, post-modern critics have insisted that literature must be liberated from the stifling realm of moralism in order to become truly authentic in its artistic approach. The various platitudes in this vein have been prolific: “Morality ruins creativity,” “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or the proposition of “art for art’s sake,” which all seem less as genuine insights into the faculty of human creativity and more as rhetorical shields against difficult questions relating to the nature of truth. In our own contemporary age, the argument has at least partially mutated, but it has never...

2026 Inside Elections House Ratings 🔴 Republicans: 215 🔵 Democrats: 206 🟡 Tossup: 14 2026 Inside Elections Senate Ratings 🔴 Republicans: 52 🔵 Democrats: 45 🟡 Tossup: 3 Swing States: Maine: 🔴 Tilt R Ohio: 🔴 Tilt R Michigan: 🟡 Tossup North Carolina: 🟡 Tossup Georgia: 🟡 Tossup New Hampshire: 🔵 Tilt D