Free Republic

The imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque appeared to hint at normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia in a sermon delivered on Friday. Following the Israeli accord with the United Arab Emirates last month, speculation has been rampant on whether Saudi Arabia would follow suit. The New Arab, a London-based, Qatari-funded private media outlet, reported over the weekend that Abdul Rahman al-Sudais used his sermon to emphasize tolerance and cooperation between Muslims and non-Muslims. In particular, he cited instances in which the prophet Muhammad had friendly relationships with Jews. “The prophet had mortgaged his shield to a Jew when he died;...

Telephone service between the United Arab Emirates and Israel began working Sunday as the two countries opened diplomatic ties, part of a deal brokered by the U.S. that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex West Bank land sought by the Palestinians for a future state. Emirati officials acknowledged Sunday that Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan had called his Israeli counterpart Gabi Ashkenazi. Israeli Communications Minister Yoaz Handel issued a statement “congratulating the United Arab Emirates on removing the blocks.” “Many economic opportunities will open now, and these trust-building steps are an important step toward...

2020 saved its weirdest twist for August: Jared Kushner’s going to win a Nobel prize.They’ll never give it to Trump, not even if he negotiates world peace. But Jared, the White House’s foremost Democrat, might be acceptable to the committee. His most intriguing comments this morning after normalized relations between Israel and the UAE were announced haven’t been noticed much elsewhere, to my surprise: “There is a good chance that another country could make a deal with Israel in the coming days,” Kushner said at the White House. Speaking to reporters after he unveiled the historic agreement, Trump suggested...

Ford Motor Company Employees have asked the company’s leadership to stop making and selling police vehicles. According to Verge, the internal discussion came as the demands for racial justice raged across the country. In response, Ford CEO Jim Hackett has told employees in a letter that he doesn’t think it’s “controversial that the Ford Police Interceptor helps officers do their job” and that Ford will continue the business. Ford has the market when it comes to making police cars, accounting for two-thirds of the cop cars on the street. Despite Ford’s success in the police car market, employees, including black...

Out, a short film from Pixar Animation Studios streaming on Disney+, features Pixar’s first gay main character. The 9-minute film debuted Friday as one of seven films in the studio’s SparkShorts program. SparkShorts aims to “discover new storytellers, explore new storytelling techniques, and experiment... main character Greg is preparing to move into the city with his boyfriend, Manuel. Greg is gripped by the difficulty of coming out as gay to his parents, who have paid a surprise visit to help him pack for his move.... Pixar films, including the Toy Story franchise and this year’s Onward, have featured minor gay...

Very quietly over the past few years the Social Justice Left has been working and lobbying to change the classification of pedophilia from a deviant mental sickness to a sexual orientation. Here at NTEB we have been warning you about this for some time. And for those of you who think this type of leap is impossible, remember this. Up until 1973, the American Psychiatric Association classified homosexuality as a mental illness, but that was reversed after intense lobbying and social pressure from the Left. In 2018, the World Health Organization announced that they would no longer consider people who...

Dostoevsky once said, "If God didn't exist, everything is possible." There is wisdom in his observation since, without God, there would be nothing to serve as the ultimate reference for human acts. The eternal law that God established in the universe is inscribed on the human heart. Thus, everyone at all times and places knows right and wrong. Take away God, and all will fall into the most barbaric savagery. Modern secular society officially denies that God exists. Thus, society comes to accept the cruelest practices by breaking down the natural repugnance that comes from transgressing God’s law. Abortion and...

You’ve likely seen him on social media, and now, the famous 11-year-old drag queen is gracing the airwaves of popular daytime television show “Good Morning America.” In yet another indication that cross-dressing and the LGBT lifestyle are beyond normalized in our culture, “Desmond is Amazing,” was a guest on the long-running ABC morning show, where he was surprised by some of America’s most famous drag queens. LGBT Nation reports:

"We called the White House and they acted swiftly on the Friday event, which has since been postponed," said a staff member for Republican Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, who complained that the event would have openly undermined President Donald Trump’s agenda on Cuba."The event in question has been postponed," a State Department official confirmed."This (event) was designed to embarrass the president and Pompeo—somebody needs to be held to account," one source said. "The fact that State Department officials were advancing a program that is so slanted and completely at odds with the president's directive on Cuba, I am concerned what...

“Mr Brennan has a history that calls into question his objectivity and credibility.” (President Donald Trump, Aug.15, 2018.) “Cuba is not a threat to the United States…They don’t implicate our national security in any way…The government of Cuba has not provided any support for international terrorism during the preceding six-month period; and the government of Cuba has provided assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future.” (President Obama after meeting with Raul Castro in Panama and recommending that Stalinist Cuba be removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, April 14th, 2015.). Presumably the head of...

<p>Pedophilia is considered to be the most taboo issue in the world. For obvious reasons, those who are known pedophiles live with a huge stigma attached to them. Many of them struggle with pedophilic impulses but don’t act on them - and they have been the subject of much media attention, scientific attention, and psychiatric attention as well.</p>

Executive Summary The Iranian nuclear deal is a full capitulation to Iran’s terrorist mastermind Mullahs, and the latest in a series of betrayals of the American people and allies by the Obama administration. At the highest level of the administration, Barack Obama’s Senior Advisor, the Iranian-born Valerie Jarrett, prioritized rapprochement with the terror state. Throughout the process and negotiations, she had the backing of billionaire investor (and Obama-backer) George Soros, and his multi-headed network of tax-exempt foundations. Their efforts were driven by deep-rooted anti-Semitism and personal greed. Meanwhile, since the mid-1990s, a small but very connected Iranian lobby (funded, in...

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini arrives in Cuba today (23 March) in a bid to spur sensitive talks aimed at normalizing ties with the Communist island state. The visit comes as previously icy relations between Cuba and the West are thawing, following the dramatic rapprochement between Havana and Washington over the last few months. […] In 2014, the EU launched its normalization process with the Americas’ only communist nation to encourage the country to pursue reforms allowing for private initiatives without having to change the one-party political system. The negotiating sessions earlier this month, initially scheduled for January, had...

PepsiCo wants in. So do Caterpillar and Marriott International. Within hours of President Obama’s historic move to restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba, companies in the United States were already developing strategies to introduce their products and services to a market they have not been in for the better part of 50 years — if ever. “Cuba is a potential market for John Deere products and services,” Ken Golden, a spokesman for Deere & Company, a leading maker of farm and construction equipment based in Illinois, said by email. But while there may be robust opportunities for some companies, especially...

Okay, everyone. Calm down. There are a lot of reasons to be worried about the president’s decision to normalize relations with Cuba. Not least among them is that this is the least-adept foreign policy team in post-Cold War history (yes, I include the Carter and Bush 43 White Houses in that evaluation), and after six years of being taken to the cleaners by bad regimes, it feels like it’s happening again. It also looks too much like a quid pro quo for the release of an imprisoned American. And it’s being rationalized by the president himself in terms that show...

A long time ago, on an island not too far away, a pair of brothers was ejected from a good Jesuit school. The one was reportedly a better student, the other less impressive, but together, they preferred other things – politics, rabble-rousing, war. When the brothers grew up, they fell in with a bad crowd – the worst of crowds, in fact. Far across the oceans, Chinese communists were consolidating their power, Soviet communists were drawing an iron curtain down the center of Europe, Korean communists were settling in for the long haul in Pyongyang, Vietnamese communists were revolting against...

The Vatican played a significant role in healing relations between arch foes Cuba and the United States, officials said Wednesday. Pope Francis was personally involved in secret negotiations between the longtime enemies, sources said Wednesday, as the historic announcement was made in Washington D.C. The pontiff sent private letters to President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro over the summer, urging them to turn their swords into ploughshares. The Pope expressed "warm congratulations for the historic decision" to resume relations, the Vatican said in a statement Wednesday. The Vatican and an undisclosed Canadian location served as top-secret areas for negotiations...

Cubans in Miami’s Little Havana reacted with anger and dismay to President Barack Obama’s dramatic bid Wednesday to end a half-century Cold War with the communist-ruled island. “It is a betrayal. The talks are only going to benefit Cuba,” said Carlos Munoz Fontanil in Calle Ocho, the heart of an exile community that has long pined for the fall of the Castro regime in Havana. […] An equally outraged Felix Tirse, who arrived from Cuba 53 years ago, said Obama’s announcement showed “a lack of respect.” “He is more communist than others,” he said. …

More and more companies are going “gay” while at the same time denigrating anybody who has an issue with same-sex, alternate sex, slice and dice sex (transgenderism), and take-your-pick sex. When it was found out that Mozilla CEO Brendan Eich opposed same-sex marriage, so much pressure was put on him because of his anti-same sex marriage views (he donated to Proposition 8) that he believed that he couldn’t do anything but resign. The Gaystapo would have made it unbearable for him and the company for Eich if he had remain as CEO. There is a long trail of persecution from...

The chief editor of a Sudanese newspaper was attacked and beaten by an angry mob late Saturday just days after a televised appearance in which he called for “normalized ties” with Israel. AFP is reporting that Osman Mirghani, editor in chief of Sudan’s Al-Tayar daily newspaper, was taken to Al-Zaytouna Hospital after the mob stormed the paper’s offices Saturday night. …