Free Republic

He says this will include historically black colleges and mosques Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke doubled down on his proposal to revoke the tax-exempt status of religious institutions that do not support same-sex marriage. The former Texas congressman reiterated his support for punitive tax measures against churches or affiliated services that believe marriage is between a man and a woman, a position he introduced at CNN's Equality Town Hall on Thursday evening. NBC host Geoff Bennett asked O'Rourke how he would implement this plan given that the government "can't just dole out punishments on theological grounds." "You are free to...

[Catholic Caucus] Did the Vatican Denounce Scalfari? The column published yesterday by Eugenio Scalfari led to a brief reaction from the Vatican Press Office. Scalfari revealed in the daily La Repubblica that Francis entrusted him, in a personal conversation, with the conviction that Jesus Christ was "not God at all". But how did the Holy See react to this nuclear bomb of atomic bombs?Strictly taciturn. So far, only the new Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni has reacted. He said: "As has been said on other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari ascribed to the Holy Father in conversations with him, are not as a faithful representation of what has actually...

CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter brought on "Legendary Journalist" Sam Donaldson to unload the usual liberal mantras on Sunday. That's how CNN tagged Sam -- "Legendary Journalist" -- not only on screen, but even in the CNN transcript. Donaldson raised eyebrows much smaller than his by claiming that Trump fans are "fixated" on narrowing the country: "They want to return this country to the white Christian country that they believe it should be again. They don't want the diversity." DONALDSON: I'm telling you something, if public opinion is strongly for the impeachment and the conviction of President Trump, he...

Economist Paul Krugman, the longtime defender of global free trade and a member of the failed “Never Trump” movement, now admits that globalization has failed American workers. In a column for Bloomberg titled “What Economists (Including Me) Got Wrong About Globalization,” Krugman admits that the economic consensus for free trade that has prevailed for decades has failed to recognize how globalization has skyrocketed inequality for America’s working and middle class workers. Krugman, though, writes that he and his fellow free trade economists “had no way to know” that globalization of the American economy or a surge in trade deficits “were...

Many airlines are making efforts to be more inclusive. For example, earlier this year we saw airlines for the first time add a non-binary gender option when booking travel, including the option to select “X” as your gender (rather than “M” or “F”). Air Canada is largely a progressive airline, and La Presse reports on an internal memo that has been sent to employees. Currently Air Canada’s flight attendants, gate agents, and pilots, refer to passengers as “ladies and gentlemen” when making announcements, but they’ll soon be updating their phrasing to be more gender neutral.

Three women and two men are dead in a shooting in a condominium building on Chicago’s Northwest Side by a neighbor who was known to have “anger management issues,” police said. A woman who had been in critical condition after a gunman opened fire in two units of a Dunning condo building died Sunday from her injuries, bringing the death toll to five from the Saturday night shooting rampage, police said. Authorities said the man left his condo in the 6700 block of West Irving Park Road in the Dunning neighborhood, went to a neighbor’s home in the same building...

[Catholic Caucus] The Evidence Suggests The Francis-Scalfari Connection is No Accident Since the news broke early this week that the nonegenarian atheist socialist editor of Italy’s La Repubblica, Eugenio Scalfari, claimed that Pope Francis told him during one of their many conversations that he did not believe Jesus was God, the Catholic commentariat has been engaged in a rhetorical battle to the death over who to believe, whether it’s true, and what it all means.For those willing to look objectively at the matter, it becomes clear that the confusion is the result of an intentional strategy on the part of the...

The controversial television host, who revealed earlier today that he’ll be debating whether or not he should be fired from his position on tomorrow’s show, has asked his 6.8million Twitter fanbase to show their support by adding their signatures to a Change.org appeal. ‘BREAKING: There is now a rival petition to save me on @GMB,’ Piers wrote. ‘Thank you Margaret Lowry! Please sign it if you wish to repel the snivelling snowflakes & keep me in my job.’ In another post, he added: ‘Spread the word, my people… Sign, RT, and save me as your voice against the shriekingly illiberal...

Exit polls show that independent law professor Kais Saied has won Tunisia's runoff presidential election against Nabil Karoui, a media tycoon recently freed from jail... Saied secured 72.53% of the vote while media mogul Nabil Karoui got 27.47%, the polling firm Emrhod Consulting says, citing exit polls... Karoui is a 56-year-old media tycoon, who up until Wednesday had been jailed on charges of tax evasion and money laundering, and Saied is a 61-year-old jurist and law professor with no political party but backed by the moderate Islamist party Ennahda. In the first round, Saied took 18.4% and Karoui 15.6% among...

Openly gay Tunisian lawyer and prominent LGBT rights advocate Mounir Baatour wants to become the next president of Muslim-majority Tunisia, where homosexuality is currently punishable by up to three years in prison, several news outlets reported over the weekend. Islam, which forbids homosexuality, is the official state religion in the North African country. Nearly 100 percent of the population is Muslim, according to the CIA World Factbook and other independent sources. The pro-Israel Baatour says he is determined to fight despite a nearly non-existent chance of winning. On Sunday, Deutsche Welle (DW) reported: There’s still quite a bit of time...

Celebrated Christian evangelist Franklin Graham has taken issue with the Democrats’ extreme push of the LGBTQ agenda, saying he will stand with biblical morality. “I will not bow down at the altar of the LGBTQ agenda nor worship their rainbow pride flag,” Rev. Graham said in reaction to Beto O’Rourke’s promise to strip churches of their tax-exempt status if they do not recognize homosexual marriage. “I’m going to stand with the Word of God, the Holy Bible, which is truth from cover to cover,” Graham added in a three-part tweet Friday evening. Rev. Graham, the son of “America’s Pastor,” Billy...

Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party, buoyed by its popular conservative platform and generous social spending, was widely expected to win Sunday’s election, which is regarded as one of the country’s most momentous since the fall of communism 30 years ago. More than 30 million voters were choosing lawmakers in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm, and in the 100-seat Senate. Law and Justice is the first party since the fall of communism to break with the austerity of previous governments, whose free-market policies took a moribund communist economy and transformed it into one of Europe's most dynamic.

Today’s Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends) Goodbye, Sheppie, we hardly knew ye. – Here is the only truly appropriate reaction to the news that the slimy Shep Smith has left Fox News: [gif] In all seriousness, does anyone really care that our TV screens will no longer be graced by this shrill, overwrought hack? In recent years, Smith’s only role at Fox News was to come on air and cause half the cable channel’s regular viewers to tune into OANN. The channel attempted to elevate his role a few years ago by making him the “anchor” for all...

In its quest for every gender on the spectrum, the network couldn’t even find a single top to stuff into the audience. At the top of CNN’s Alphabetapalooza Town Hall on Thursday evening, a survivor of the 2016 Pulse nightclub Islamic terrorist attack asked New Jersey senator Cory Booker what he planned to do to stop violence against LGBT people. Gay icon Booker, a man widely lauded in the Port Authority Bus Terminal men’s toilets who sometimes performs drag under the name Izzy Gaye, had a clear-cut answer. As president, he would create an office dedicated to investigating white supremacy...

Several TV networks have agreed to air an underwear commercial portraying a surreal world where men and boys menstruate. The ad opens with an anguished young teenage boy sheepishly telling his dad, “I think I got my period.” Dad later hugs him and tells him, “It’s just part of growing up.” Many of the nine rapid-fire vignettes in the one-minute, 20-second ad are jarring: a man rolls over in bed, revealing blood-stained sheets; in a public bathroom, a man passes a tampon to another beneath a toilet stall partition; and a man walks through a locker room with a tampon...

I was 16 when I saw the news. Matthew Shepard’s murder taught me and many in this country that homophobia kills. Let us honor his life by channeling pain into purpose and striving to build a country where all belong. https://twitter.com/MattShepardFDN/status/1183008667672698881

Just like he did with far-left CNN, President Trump has just forced the phony, left-wing fact check site Snopes to throw out every standard of professional journalism. In a stunning admission (of what we already knew), Snopes announced Thursday that Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are such a unique threat to world that “experts must find new ways to reach people.” Which means that — get this — Trump and Johnson must be “countered by the shared stories, experiences and emotions of real people and how they are affected by the big global issues.” “Public austerity measures, for...

On September 10, 2019, San Diego MassResistance brought together outraged parents, citizens, pastors, and others to confront the Chula Vista City Council. They were irate over the Council’s refusal to cancel the “Drag Queen Story Hour” which took place in the city’s public library earlier that day – and the possibility of more such events happening. "I never thought I would use the word politician as a pejorative. I am tonight. Because it was clear that this Drag Queen Story Hour is an attempt to use to use children as pawns in an adult political sexual agenda. Children who are...

President Trump’s decision to withdraw our few troops from the Syria-Turkey border area earned him considerable criticism from allies. Senator Lindsey Graham said the decision is “a catastrophe in the making.” Representative Lin Cheney said it’s “a catastrophic mistake.” Former UN Secretary Nikki Haley said, “We must always have the backs of our allies.” President Trump has answered these critics. The Kurds were engaged in a contractual relationship fighting the Islamic State (ISIS). They were well paid and equipped for their fighting, much like any mercenary group. Further, they were given three years to consolidate eastern Syria to feed their...

As poor as CNN’s ratings are in the United States, a rational person would conclude that, at some point, the executives who run the place would figure out what they’re doing wrong and fix it so that they could attract more viewers. But CNN isn’t run by rational people. In fact, we believe everyone who works there is certifiably out of their minds. They’d have to be in order to come up with some of the dumbest, tone-deaf, inappropriate, uninteresting, and pointless BS they put on the air. Like holding a “town hall” meeting with a gay man, hosted by...