Free Republic

I write this from my perspective as a priest responsible for the care of souls; I do not claim to be a medical expert. My pastoral concern is that we as a nation and as a Church have succumbed to excessive fear, which bespeaks a spiritual problem. The medical concerns arising from the pandemic are not without merit, but they are not unprecedented. What is unique today is the collective paralysis brought on by this fear. I write to express my concern and to reiterate the constant biblical cry, “Do not be afraid!”.... .....I cannot avoid concluding that many people...

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Dr. Carl Sagan Dr. Carl Sagan was one of the premier scientists when it came to trying to bridge the gap of hard science with general public understanding. In the process, his personal enthusiasm for the wonder of science became evident to all. He also understood that science could be hijacked and that the highest standards of evidence were required when fantastic claims were being made. In just a few short months, the world has gone from a normal functioning society to one of extreme panic and chaos (maybe The Twilight Zone could not have...

Generals WIN battle with Donald Trump as 82nd Airborne soldiers are REMOVED from D.C. after chairman of joint chiefs publicly slammed president telling troops to 'uphold the Constitution' Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne division of the Army were ordered out of Washington, D.C. and back to Fort Bragg, North Carolina on Thursday night The about 200 active duty troops were kept on standby at bases near the nation's capital and were never called into the city in the midst of riots The move is a clear reversal after Donald Trump faced backlash for calling in the military to serve as...

Along with my good friend Gemma O’Doherty, I have launched a constitutional challenge to Ireland’s COVID-19 lockdown measures, which the Irish government introduced three weeks ago. O’Doherty and I seek a judicial review of the enabling legislation and regulations, and an injunction or declaration to bring it all to an end. In Ireland, as in many countries, we are rapidly discovering that we have been misled, that the COVID-19 pandemic is not remotely as serious as our leaders, with attendant “experts,” have been enjoining us to accept. Yet politicians and experts have cratered the economies of the world, placed the...

Lawmakers were seen wearing bulletproof vests as armed protesters stormed Michigan's Capitol in Lansing just moments before the state's House of Representatives denied Gov Gretchen Whitmer's request to extend her state of emergency. Photos from inside the Michigan House Chamber showed elected officials wearing bulletproof vests while men holding guns stood above them. 'Directly above me, men with rifles yelling at us. Some of my colleagues who own bullet proof vests are wearing them. I have never appreciated our Sergeants-at-Arms more than today,' Sen Dayna Polehanki tweeted Thursday afternoon. In Michigan, guns are permitted inside the state's Capitol as long...

The dictionary defines a conjurer as someone who “practices magic arts” and “performs feats of sleight of hand and illusion.” In plain English, someone like Adam Schiff. The California Democrat takes his magic act public Wednesday as the impeachment hearings burst out of a Capitol Hill dungeon and onto television. Donald Trump’s presidency and the 2020 election likely hang on whether Schiff’s sleight of hand can survive the bright lights of public exposure and cross-examination. Operating in darkness, where he controlled the witness list and leaked snippets of testimony that the Dems’ media echo chamber turned into proof of Trump’s...

The Department of Justice has drafted legislation that would expedite capital punishment for those found guilty of mass killings, according to a top Trump administration official. Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short told reporters Monday that the veep’s policy team has been working with Attorney General William Barr on the death penalty bill, which will likely be part of a larger gun control package the White House will try to sell to Congress amid a wave of shooting massacres, including the latest rampage in Texas that killed seven people.eVice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short...

When the planning board of Bernards Township, New Jersey, turned down a plan to build a mosque, the local Islamic society turned around and sued the town for discrimination. Now, a federal judge has ruled that a parking requirement imposed by the township on the mosque was discriminatory. Adeel Mangi, the Islamic society’s lawyer, praised the decision, saying “this is a landmark ruling…that will have national impact in reaffirming that townships cannot treat applicants differently based on their religion.” Andrew Bieszad, an Islam scholar, has a different take. In an article titled “landmark federal court ruling opens the way for...

In the face of the offensive of radical Islam, Francis’s idea is that “we must soothe the conflict.” And forget Regensburg. With serious harm also to the reformist currents of Islam... It is impossible not to see in this the features of a “war of Islam” pushed to the extreme, fought in the name of Allah. It is illusory to deny the Islamic origin of this unbridled theological violence. This has been published even by the officially supervised “La Civiltà Cattolica,” only to be contradicted afterward by its fearsome director, Antonio Spadaro, the Jesuit who plays the role of Francis's...

A bomb attack on a tourist bus in the Sinai peninsula has killed at least three South Korean tourists and an Egyptian driver, officials have said. A number of South Koreans were also hurt in the attack, which came as the bus was preparing to cross into Israel.

This is from the Spanish press. It says that AQ is demanding the release of two US prisoners, one of them being the blind sheik, Abdul Rahmann, and the other being a Pakistani named Afiya Sadiqi or something to that effect. I'd trust any foreign press more than ours at this point, unfortunately.

From the You-Tube description: "A brosnachadh - Gaelic - (pronounced roughly brah-znuh-hug) is an incitement to battle. It is an ancient piece of music, a call to courage for warriors prior to battle. It was played on the harp as an accompaniment to the bard whose purpose was to take the men on an exploration of specific emotions in preparation for battle: the crith-gaisge, nervous excitement at gathering together for the battle, and the mir-cath, delight at the coming opportunity to attain valor and victory. The specific music from the harp likely aided the bard's memory as he recited the...

With a bold political announcement, President Barack Obama has completed the trifecta -- de facto coups which bring into his White House the powers and functions of the other two branches, as outlined in our Constitution. That document assigns the legislative function to Congress, but the Executive Branch blithely and routinely co-opts that power by run-arounds and choosing to enforce or not enforce duly passed laws of the Legislature. Notable examples in the scant couple of years The One has been in office include: refusal to enforce voting laws against intimidation at the polls in Chicago, efforts to use the...

The Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, or al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun, is more than a radical network, comparable to al Qaeda; more than an ideological phenomenon, like the followers of Khomeini in the 1979 Iranian Revolution; and more than a political insurgency, similar to Pakistani jihadism. It is an Egyptian Islamist subculture of great depth and influence... But the Brotherhood today is not identical with the paramilitary Arabist-Islamist Ikhwan that functioned in the 1930s through the 1960s. After those decades, the Brotherhood underwent a social and political transformation that was both impressive in its novelty and disturbing in its effect... Beginning under Nasser, the...

Click on the link. Below is from the We Con website: Ahmedido Domingo (aka Ahmadinejad), Erdogano Pavarotti (aka Erdogan) and Assad Carreras (aka Bashar Assad) singing about the benefits of terrorism. full text: Based on Funiculi Funicula Sung by the Three Terrors: Erdogano Pavarotti, Assad Carreras and Ahmedido Domingo Erdogan: I say -- it's time that I restore the Empire Let's get to work (let's get to work!) Because in Europe everybody knows that I'm just a jerk (he's just a jerk!) Assad: And I , the serial killer who should spend all his life in jail (oy vey oy...

An Italian Vatican expert is saying that Bishop Luigi Padovese, Apostolic Vicar of Anatolia and President of the Turkish Bishops’ Conference, canceled his trip to Cyprus because he feared that his driver –who later confessed to killing the bishop- might attempt an attack on Pope Benedict XVI during his stay on the island. Analyst Fr. Fillippo di Giacomo, who writes for publications such as L’Unitá and La Stampa, revealed that “hours before Padovese was killed, the Turkish Government called him to say that his driver, who they themselves had put in his service four years before, had gotten out of...

If nothing else, the Obama eruption in American politics is steadily revealing the stark reality behind the progressive movement - the totalitarian temptation is always there and, for more than a few, possessing the official power to compel sooner or later becomes irresistible. Not everybody on the left, of course. Some of the folks I most admire in this town are liberals whose work on behalf of values like transparency in government and protecting civil liberties is remarkable and essential. Still, that this danger is real and growing becomes more obvious as public opposition grows to the president's across-the-board campaign...

The current national debate about health care reform should concern all of us. There is much at stake in this political struggle, and also much confusion and inaccurate information being thrown around... First and most important, the Church will not accept any legislation that mandates coverage, public or private, for abortion, euthanasia, or embryonic stem-cell research. We refuse to allow our own parish, school, and diocesan health insurance plans to be forced to include these evils...we insist equally on adequate protection of individual rights of conscience for patients and health care providers not to be made complicit in these evils......

Gordon Brown faced fresh questions tonight after it emerged that he discussed with Colonel Gaddafi detailed conditions for the Lockerbie bomber's return nearly six weeks ago, while senior Labour figures warned of an economic backlash from angry Americans "costing our country dear". Downing Street released the text of a cordial letter sent to the Libyan leader on the day that Abdulbaset al-Megrahi was released, asking that the event be kept low key because a "high-profile" ceremony would distress his victims and their families.

The Obama administration and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton can no longer be considered a “neutral broker” in the current state of affairs in Honduras. Here’s why. For the past few days, the Administration and Secretary Clinton have cautiously opted out of the negotiations in Costa Rica. In fact, the State Department hammered the point that “we need to support the Arias mediation effort because it’s the best way to go forward.” Day after day, the message from the State Department has been that we should let the negotiators negotiate and ultimately accept the outcome from the Arias talks. But...