Free Republic

By now these debates are getting boring. We know where all these people stand on every major position, we know their ideas, their weaknesses, etc. Several of them have been around for years. How about a fresh perspective? A way to get insights and even revelations that moderators just can’t dig out with their canned questions? I suggest the next debate be “THE BATTLE OF THE SPOUSES” and the participants will be the candidates’ wives (and/or husbands if applicable). We could ask personal things like: Are you, as his wife, his "moral compass"? Is he really a nice guy? Does...

President Barack Obama is the unlikely star of a new Palestinian media campaign. Part of a speech Obama gave in 2010 to the United Nations General Assembly is featured in an ad aimed to rally support for the Palestinians upcoming bid for statehood at the United Nations on Sept. 20, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 29 -- After experiencing some chest discomfort over the weekend, San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer was taken to the emergency room at Long Beach Memorial Hospital Aug. 28 by Cardinal William Levada, the archdiocese announced. They had been in the final days of their vacation in Southern California. The archbishop was given an angiogram and his doctors recommended he stay overnight at the hospital for observation. This morning, at the recommendation of his cardiologists, the archbishop underwent successful cardiac double bypass surgery. Cardinal Levada has relayed the doctors’ report that Archbishop Niederauer is doing well and is...

ULTIMATUM on BORDERS NECESSARY for PEACE The President of France today announced that he has had a lengthy conversation with President Barack Obama to demand that the United States of America, in the interest of WHIRLED PEAS, return immediately to its 1803 borders. Secret negotiations about the disputed borders have been going on for some years, and the situation has now become so desperate that the French Administration feels the matter must be opened to the World Community. They will be seeking a United Nations Resolution next week. Several points were elaborated as necessitating this move, which is of course...

Dear fellow Catholics, by now you probably know that the USCCB spent a good deal of planning and money to organize a "postcard campaign" to Congress opposing FOCA (the ultra-radical pro-abortion 'Freedom of Choice Act' Obama wants to pass). Every bishop agreed to direct every single parish pastor in every single diocese in this country to devote the next few weeks to this. However, I'm getting feedback from friends across the country that this isn't happening and would love a Freeper Catholic response so we can all get a broad view of how powerful (or weak) the Catholic message to...

They each have ten fingers and ten toes, chubby little legs and a perfectly upturned nose. Snuggling under a blanket and with a woolly hat each to keep them warm, here are Faith and Hope Williams, the Siamese twins who some doctors believed would never be born. Their mother, Laura, had initially been advised to terminate the girls, but last Wednesday, at 9.40am, she made medical history by becoming the world's youngest mother of conjoined twins at just 18 years of age. Now in an exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday, she and her husband, Aled, 28, tell of...

When Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ousted the Air Force’s two top leaders last week, there was more to it than just the service’s reported slip-ups with handling of nuclear weapons, according to Pentagon insiders. The shake-up was a clear message to the Air Force to quit making a direct case for preferred systems and get more “Joint.” It also took from the service its top champions in ongoing roles and missions discussions, decapitating airpower advocacy in the Department of Defense. Gates told reporters at a Pentagon press conference that the nuclear issue was his sole reason for accepting the...

Monday August 25 to Friday, August 29, 2008 - Extraordinary Form of the Mass - 1962 Missale Romanum - "The Most Beautiful Thing this Side of Heaven" The "Workshop for Laity" in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass will provide an in-depth examination and spiritual meditation on the Traditional Latin Mass through the presentation of lectures and tutorials. Participants will also have opportunities for Eucharistic Adoration to extend the worship of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. Devotion to Our Blessed Lady will be fostered by the recitation of the Holy Rosary in Latin. Additionally, sacramental Confession will be offered...

Jennifer Marsh was sick of paying high gas prices and bothered by the abandoned gas station that was an eyesore on the drive to her studio each day. So the aspiring artist and inspired activist came up with an idea — to cover the gas station with a colossal handmade blanket in a way that would bring greater attention to the world's dependency on oil. ''I really tried to find a good balance of art and politics. I don't want it to be just a political statement. And I don't want it to just be a sculpture,'' said the 27-year-old...

April 25, 2008 AFA Members, Congressional Staffers, Civic Leaders, and DOCA members, 2 weeks ago General Dave Petraeus testified before Congress - many times. Much of the testimony was carried on TV, and the press reported widely on his and Ambassador Crocker's words. Like many of you, I was too busy to catch but snippets of the testimony. So I sought additional information to better help me understand what his central messages were. I found the slides that he used to brief Members of Congress - and have put them on our website at: http://www.afa.org/PresidentsCorner/Other/Petraeus.pdf They contain a lot of...

The Empire Strikes Back--at Schwalier: Defense Chief Robert Gates, top Pentagon lawyer Daniel Dell'Orto, and unnamed Justice Department confreres have struck yet another blow at Terryl J. Schwalier, Washington's designated Khobar Towers scapegoat. They have forced USAF to halt and reverse its efforts to restore Schwalier's second star after a 10-year struggle. The new decision was elaborated in a March 28 letter from Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne to the Air Force Review Boards Agency, ordering it to halt implementation of its recent decision to correct "an injustice" and retroactively promote Schwalier to major general. That corrective...

What a time to be a religious leader. Well, make that a black religious leader. Advertisement Last Thursday, Philadelphia's black clergy endorsed Sen. Barack Obama. At the same time, Mr. Obama's pastor of 20 years, Jeremiah Wright, was in the spotlight for preaching his message that blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America" and that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism." You see, it's apparently acceptable not to hold Mr. Wright (sorry - I simply can't refer to him as "Reverend") accountable for his words, because it took until last...

The Supreme Vicar of Christ on earth, Pope Benedict XVI, has recently spoken in a most wonderful way for the spiritual benefit of all the universal church, for the living and the dead, and for the memory of the victories of the Saints who have gone before us. In releasing his Motu proprio, 'Summorum Pontificum,' ...Pope Benedict XVI gave precise rules for the Catholic clergy and the faithful laity's wider access to the Traditional Latin Mass, without fear of stigma or marginalization.

Here follows the complete transcript of Benedict XVI’s response on the Council and its aftermath: "We had such great hopes, but things proved to be more difficult..." by Benedict XVI I, too, lived through Vatican Council II, coming to Saint Peter’s Basilica with great enthusiasm and seeing how new doors were opening. It really seemed to be the new Pentecost, in which the Church would once again be able to convince humanity. After the Church’s withdrawal from the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it seemed that the Church and the world were coming together again, and that there...

Just got off the phone with Cardinal Roger Mahony. Below are my notes from the conversation. (snip) What about the charge that the problem is a lack of discipline and orthodoxy in the seminaries? Well, first of all that's one of the things that we still are studying. As you know, the bishops are conducting a study of causes.... In our case, many of the priests came out of the "good old days" -- Latin-only, cassocks-only.... Most of our cases did not come out of post-Vatican II, they came out of pre-Vatican II. Of course today, our screening process, our...

The Lincoln County School District's Indian Education Program is honoring graduating Indian seniors with an eagle feather at 6:30 p.m. Monday, June 12 at the Siletz Tribal Community Center on Government Hill in Siletz. The feathers are obtained legally from the U.S. Department of Wildlife, through the Siletz Tribal representative, Mike Darcy. Only students registered with the Indian Education Program (now Title VII) and graduating from a Lincoln County school are eligible to receive an eagle feather. The public is invited to the ceremony, no tickets or reservations are necessary.