Free Republic

In January 2006, Hunter Biden was a lobbyist for William Oldaker, who had served as a campaign counsel and treasurer to Joe Biden. Jim Biden, Joe’s younger brother, called his friend Anthony Lotito for a favor. Hunter needed a new job. Joe was getting ready to run for the Democratic presidential nomination, and his son’s work for a Washington lobbying firm would be a problem. At least that was what Lotito later alleged in court filings. Jim and Hunter denied that a call like that ever took place. One way or another, the three of them decided in early 2006...

Relativism is ‘root of the new moral paradigm proposed by Pope Francis’: Catholic historian A world-renowned Catholic academic and historian has stated that “ethical relativism,” which has so completely undermined marriage and the family, “is at the root of the new moral paradigm proposed by Pope Francis.”  Professor Roberto di Mattei made the comment, at a conference earlier this month, in reference to the ongoing battle in the Church over the family since the publication of Pope Francis’ 2016 exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The Sept. 6-8 conference, organized by Voice of the Family, an initiative of LifeSiteNews and the Society...

On the nature and evils of Narrative

In view of the “paradigm shift” said to be taking place during this pontificate, one that critics say breaks with the Church’s teaching and tradition, how should a concerned Catholic respond? Is it legitimate, for example, to resist Church authority, including perhaps even the Pope, and if so, how? Chilean author José Antonio Ureta offers some answers to these questions in his new book, Pope Francis’ Paradigm Shift: Continuity or Rupture in the Mission of the Church? — An Assessment of his Five-year Pontificate. In this June 23 interview with the Register in Rome on the sidelines of a conference...

Every generation tends to believe that its views on the nature of reality are either true or quite close to the truth. We are no exception to this: although we know that the ideas of earlier generations were each time supplanted by those of a later one, we still believe that this time we got it right. Our ancestors were naïve and superstitious, but we are objective—or so we tell ourselves. We know that matter/energy, outside and independent of mind, is the fundamental stuff of nature, everything else being derived from it—or do we? In fact, studies have shown that...

This letter was written and sent a few days before a diocesan conference centering on "The Legacy of St. Pope John Paul II". Dear Bishop -------- Please allowed me to ask a few questions which are urgent to me and others of the faithful. 1. The Legacy of Pope John Paul II is being replaced by a New Paradigm being taught by such highly-placed teachers at Cardinal Cupich of Chicago. They claim that previous teaching about Faith, Morals, and Sacramental practice are pastorally unhelpful. They deny that there are acts that are intrinsically wrong. They propose that God has given...

A new scientific paper contends the entire foundation of the man-made global-warming theory – the assumption that greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere by trapping heat – is wrong. If confirmed, the study’s findings would crush the entire “climate change” movement to restrict CO2 emissions, the authors assert Some experts contacted by WND criticized the paper, while others advised caution. Still others suggested that the claimed discovery represents a massive leap forward in human understanding – a “new paradigm.” The paper argues that concentrations of CO2 and other supposed “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere have virtually no effect on the earth’s...

There is only one working example of the 'land for peace' paradigm, and that's Israel's treaty with Egypt. Evelyn Gordon writes that if the Camp David treaty is 'reviewed' (or worse), Israel will never take the risk again. Territorial handovers to the Palestinians under the Oslo Accords in the 1990s, for instance, produced not peace, but a massive increase in terror. In the first two and a half years after Oslo was signed in1993, Palestinians killed more Israelis than in the entire preceding decade, while the first four years of the second intifada (2000-2004) produced more terror-related casualties than the...

When center is right, what's left? At the heart of much academic work is the attempt to discover paradigms, models that put together and explain lots of information in a coherent way. Good paradigms make both teaching and research a lot easier, and nothing contributes more to the advancement of learning than the discovery/invention of a particularly useful paradigm - unless, perhaps, it is the refutation of a faulty paradigm or the abandonment of a paradigm that's no longer useful. Of all the academic paradigms, perhaps the most overdue for revision is the widely held view of the left/right political...

The first step in solving a problem is to admit that it – in fact – exists. The churning “self-re-election system” that is our federal government has proven to Americans now that it has fully stopped listening to the people. If that were not bad enough, our two party system is locked up and dysfunctional; virtual collusion is indicated as the minority Senate Republicans continue to grant unlimited “unanimous consent” requests from Democrats on the pending disastrous healthcare package. Why is this epic battle over nationalizing one-sixth of our economy not being fought more vigorously by opposition Republicans? The RedState...

Billionaire R. Allen Stanford, accused of masterminding a “massive fraud” through his Stanford Group Co., marketed a fund run by members of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s family, according to a Web site. The Paradigm/SCM Core Alternative Fund, a combination of a fund run by the Biden family’s Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Capital Management entity, was marketed by the Stanford Trust Co., another of Stanford’s units, according to the company’s Web site. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported the links between Stanford’s company and the fund overseen by the Bidens. Paradigm Global Advisors is run by Biden’s...

(Reuters) – A fund of hedge funds run by two members of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden's family was marketed exclusively by firms controlled by Texas financier Allen Stanford, charged by regulators with an $8 billion fraud, the Wall Street Journal said. The $50 million fund was jointly branded between the Bidens' Paradigm Global Advisors LLC and a Stanford Financial Group entity, and was known as the Paradigm Stanford Capital Management Core Alternative Fund, the paper said. Stanford-related companies marketed the fund to investors and also invested about $2.7 million of their own money in the fund, the paper said,...

I heard this word used verbally in a sentence...it is not part of the "paradine". I have spelled it as I heard it, but have no idea of the spelling or meaning. I have tried to look it up using online dictionaries using different spellings with no luck. Can someone help?

Unless and until conservatives and Republicans start fighting for their country and culture with the same unyielding vehemence that the Left has pushed for its agenda for the past 40 years, America will continue down the same liberal path leading to socialism at home, weakness abroad, and the end of both the American Dream and the American Century.

"...having spent the past nine years in the intelligence and counter-terrorism community, I am forced to conclude that our increasing failure to effectively combat terrorism is not merely the failure of programs and policies, but rather the fundamental failure of our paradigm. In order to understand and effectively confront terrorism, we must replace the current international paradigm of the Nation-State system with a New Map of our world: globalization and multiculturalism are invalidating the Cartesian geography of the Nation-State system, laying the framework for the coming epochal conflict embodied by the paradigm of hierarchy versus rhizome..." Read the full article...

Bill Clinton is building on Jimmy Carter's example and creating a new paradigm for ex-presidents. They're ba-aack. Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, America's political odd couple, are teaming up for another big roadshow, this time to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina. Last week, they stood shoulder to shoulder with President George W. Bush in the Oval Office, the 59-year-old Clinton now completely gray and looking a bit fragile, and the 81-year-old Bush looking stooped and a bit weary. Later the pair appeared together in Houston, chatting with evacuees at the Astrodome and the Reliant Center Arena....

Who is Air America? Vanity A summary of some of the key persons involved in the Air-A scandals, and their friends, August 19, 2005 Some of you out there probably have located most of this information before. The following is based on a series of emails I sent to Michelle Malkin and Radio Equalizer over the last few days. I am sure others have sent them similar items, as well as posting them at FR. [My comments are in brackets; some key names, dates, places, organizations and links are highlighted in bold letters] [Michelle Malkin and Radio Equalizer (Brian Maloney)...

Papers have been flapping with new headlines about the latest in a long line of alleged dinosaur ancestors of birds. This one is claimed to be a sensational dinosaur with feathers on its hind legs, thus four ‘wings’.1 This was named Microraptor gui—the name is derived from words meaning ‘little plunderer of Gu’ after the paleontologist Gu Zhiwei. Like so many of the alleged feathered dinosaurs, it comes from Liaoning province of northeastern China. It was about 3 feet (1 meter) long from its head to the tip of its long tail, but its body was only about the size...

Technology companies are engaged in paradigm wars. By their very nature, wars are wasteful and destructive. In the 1960s, Thomas Kuhn, an obscure professor of the history of science, wrote a modest volume entitled The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, whose subject was how scientific “knowledge” evolves. The development of physics from Ptolemy to Copernicus to Galileo to Newton to Einstein was one of his many examples. The book had an unexpected, far-reaching impact on numerous disciplines, including business, because Kuhn explained how, at any point in time, there is a prevailing view of things that determines what is accepted as...

Gun used to kill prosecutor is focus of massive search By Steve Miletich Seattle Times staff reporter FBI agents are conducting an unusually sweeping search for a customized gun used in the killing of Seattle federal prosecutor Thomas Wales, according to the owner of a Minnesota arms company and sources familiar with the investigation. The gun, an Eastern European-made semiautomatic pistol called a Makarov, had been fitted with a replacement barrel that leaves telltale marks on bullets. The search, one of the most laborious gun sweeps in FBI history, is taking place in all 50 states, as agents track down...