Free Republic

Critics say amendment would leave workers vulnerable to union intimidation tactics.. .... House Democrats on Tuesday tucked an amendment into a bill aimed at helping American businesses compete with China that would bolster unionization efforts at manufacturers that receive government grants. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D., Texas), would require private manufacturers to have a unionized workforce to receive grants through the America COMPETES Act. A majority of workers at each manufacturer would be required to sign on to a petition to certify unionization to be eligible. This practice—known as "card check union organizing"—forces employees to publicly...

FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION OF THE LORD MATTHEW 17:1-9 Friends, today we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration. What does this event mean? Thomas Aquinas’ treatment in the Summa theologiae sums up much of the wisdom of the Church Fathers on this matter. Aquinas says that it was fitting for Christ to be manifested in his glory to his select Apostles, because those who walk an arduous path need a clear sense of the goal of their journey. The arduous path is this life, with all of its attendant sufferings, failures, disappointments, and injustices. Beset by all of this negativity,...

President Trump said Wednesday that Iran is planning a "sneak attack" on U.S. troops or "assets" in Iraq, warning the country will pay a "heavy price" if this happens. The president made the abrupt announcement in a tweet Wednesday afternoon, coming amid lingering tensions between the two countries over past confrontations as well as the coronavirus pandemic. "Upon information and belief, Iran or its proxies are planning a sneak attack on U.S. troops and/or assets in Iraq.(snip)

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican doctrine office never saw Amazon Synod draft that ‘opens door’ to married priests What is Pope Francis’ strategy? What twist will he keep for us at the last moment?' ROME, February 5, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – New details have emerged regarding a draft text of Pope Francis’s widely anticipated summary document on the Amazon Synod that is said to “open the door” to abolishing priestly celibacy in the Latin Church.   According to Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, multiple sources have confirmed that neither the Vatican Secretary of State nor the Congregation for the Doctrine of the...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Francis' race against the clock The 82-year-old pope looks increasingly like a man rushing to complete a mission It (Evangelii gaudium) is a rejection of a whole array of non-essential elements that have helped create over many centuries a Church culture and structures that are often more rooted in clerical power and control than the words and example of Jesus Christ.The document and the vision of Church that it embodies have not been universally embraced by the holy People of God. The ordained men – notably priests and bishops – would seem to be, proportionate to...

In the early morning hours of December 7, 1941 the mettle and determination of a generation were challenged when the Imperial Japanese Navy unleashed a sneak attack on the U.S. Navy fleet at anchor in Pearl Harbor. In the face of these attacks the Sailors of the U.S. Navy responded with honor, courage and undying commitment. Heroic actions were embodied by common men who, when suddenly faced with the challenge of battle, responded with the resolve and character that defined the Navy and nation. The personal stories and accounts listed here provide a chance to reflect upon, ponder and understand...

Information, disinformation, truths, half-truths and lies all seem to be jumbled up in the communication strategy of the Holy See. The history of the Church is being written through interviews, improvised discourses, articles on semi-official blogs and media-rumours, leaving the field wide open to all interpretations possible and giving rise to the suspicion that the confusion is deliberate. Two recent examples. The first regards the expulsion of the President of the IOR (the Vatican Bank), Ettore Gotti Tedeschi in 2012. In Benedict XVI’s latest book “Last Conversations” with Peter Seewald, the “Pope Emeritus” takes responsibility himself for Gotti Tedeschi’s dismissal,...

Here is the passage which I find enormously difficult. "A synod without freedom is not a synod. It is a conference. The synod, instead, is a protected space in which the Holy Spirit can work. And for this reason the persons must be free. This is why I will not allow the things that each one says to be published with name and surname. No, it should not be known who has said it. I have no problem with revealing what has been said, but not who has said it, in such a way that one may feel free to...

The lead organizer of the Vatican’s Synod on the Family has revealed that Pope Francis approved the controversial mid-term report from the meeting before it was published. Until now, Pope Francis’ role in the document’s publication has been left to conjecture. The Relatio post disceptationem, as it is called, was intended as a provisional summary of the debate from the Synod’s first week. But after it was released it was strongly criticized by numerous Synod fathers, including Cardinals Raymond Burke, Gerhard Muller, George Pell, and Wilfrid Napier, some publicly and some behind meeting doors. Some critics have even described it...

The Indiana Republican Party just released this video and it does little to suggest Gov. Mitch Daniels won’t seek higher office in 2012. Is this Mitch Daniels’ first campaign ad?

Mr. Obama complains of Republican attempts to attach measures to the budget bill which would have effectively killed parts of his hard-won health care reform program. "I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'" recalled the president of his closed-door negotiations on the bill to fund the federal government until September.

After extended wrangling among lawmakers in both countries, the new START treaty between the U.S. and Russia went into effect Saturday at the global security conference in Munich. "The principles of equality, parity, equal and undivided security lay a solid foundation for the modern Russian-American cooperation in various spheres," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, appearing with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to exchange the treaty documents, said, according to RIA Novosti.

It's been nearly four years since audiences last saw his acrobatic web spinning prowess. And now Spider-Man is back, this time with Andrew Garfield playing the iconic superhero. Colombia Pictures today released the first image of the British actor in the infamous blue and red suit, with a few visible changes. The suit looks a little more high-tech and modern than that worn by Tobey Maguire, who played the iconic character for three hit movies - the last one back in 2007.

Looking for evidence of Obama's past, Fox News contacted 400 Columbia University students from the period when Obama claims to have been there, but none remembered him. Wayne Allyn Root was, like Obama, a political science major at Columbia who also graduated in 1983. In 2008, Root says of Obama, "I don't know a single person at Columbia that knew him, and they all know me. I don't have a classmate who ever knew Barack Obama at Columbia. Ever! Nobody recalls him. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not kidding." Root adds that he was also, like Obama, "Class of '83 political...

The most controversial component of the Senate's Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Reform Act of 2007 is Title V1 euphamistically entitled,"Nonimmigrants in the United States Previously in Unlawful Status." It would create a new "Z" visa exclusively for illegal aliens..... www.heritage.org/Researdh/Immigration/wm1468.cfm

MIAMI (Reuters) - While hundreds of U.S. law enforcement agents intercepted imaginary Cuban migrants during a massive training exercise in south Florida, two boatloads of actual Cubans sneaked ashore on Miami Beach on Thursday. Boaters dropped off 21 Cuban migrants at a popular nudist beach and left 19 others on another beach a few hours later, the Border Patrol said. Both vessels escaped. "It's our belief that they were the result of organized smuggling," Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald said. The Cubans arrived on day two of a training exercise to test "Operation Vigilant Sentry," the U.S. Department of Homeland...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26, 2006 – Lost amid all the discussion over North Korea’s Oct. 9 nuclear test is an issue that Defense Department officials who specialize in that region have studied for decades and continue to study now: the possibility that, as it has before, North Korea could launch a conventional “bolt from the blue” attack on South Korea. At 4 a.m. June 25, 1950, a tremendous artillery barrage disturbed the pre-dawn air over the 38th Parallel dividing North and South Korea. Within minutes, 135,000 North Korean soldiers, supported by hundreds of tanks and artillery pieces, poured over the line,...

AWOL soldier to surrender at Fort Lewis01:43 PM MDT on Friday, August 11, 2006Associated PressFORT LEWIS, Wash. -- An Army sergeant who went AWOL from Fort Bragg out of disgust with the Iraq war says he'll turn himself in Friday at Fort Lewis. Lawyers for 24-year-old Ricky Clousing of Sumner have tried to negotiate a discharge without success. At an anti-war conference Friday morning at the University of Washington, Clousing announced he would turn himself in later at the Army base. Clousing spent six months in Iraq and says he became confused and disenchanted with the U.S. role in Iraq....

MEXICO CITY, July 7 -- Less than 24 hours after being named president-elect in a disputed official count, Felipe Calderón took a firm stance against building a wall along the United States-Mexico border to stem illegal immigration. Echoing his campaign theme, Calderón said the best solution to the immigration crisis was creating jobs in Mexico, "not walls or troops," a reference to President Bush's decision to send National Guard troops to support the U.S. Border Patrol. Calderón's remarks, delivered during his first post-election briefing for the international news media, angered a leading Capitol Hill proponent of increased border security. Rep....