Free Republic

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Friday ordered that the Mississippi flag, which carries a Confederate emblem, be replaced by the American flag at a state park that overlooks the Statue of Liberty. Murphy ordered the removal of Mississippi’s flag from a display of each state’s flag at Liberty State Park, a preserve of more than 1,200 acres in Jersey City that overlooks Ellis Island and Lady Liberty. Murphy is a first-term Democrat and a self-styled progressive who regularly cited the Emma Lazarus poem at the statue’s base that invites immigrants to America. New Jersey, he said, is rooted in...

Amid Criticism That He's Too White, Biden Insists He Has A Black Friend WASHINGTON, D.C.—Amid criticism that Joe Biden is too white to win the Democratic nomination, the former vice president turned presidential candidate is insisting that he has one black friend. Many in the Democratic Party aren't sure if Biden is "woke" enough. He's an old, establishment white man. He's not black. He's not even a minority. He's not gay, insisting on only whispering into the ears of cis females. But Biden was able to produce some evidence that he knows at least one black man. "He's a good...

... But significant portions of this work have been flawed or mismanaged, according to records reviewed by The Times and interviews with dozens of people involved in the project. Despite repeated warnings since 2010 about weaknesses in its staffing, the rail authority believed it could reduce overall costs by relying on consultants and avoiding a large permanent workforce. But that strategy has failed to keep project costs from soaring. Ten years after voters approved it, the project is $44 billion over budget and 13 years behind schedule. A reckoning may be coming very soon, however. Gov. Gavin Newsom recently told...

I’m sitting in a small coffee shop near Nokomis trying to think of what to write about. I scroll through my newsfeed on my phone looking at the latest headlines of Democratic candidates calling for policies to “fix” the so-called injustices of capitalism. I put my phone down and continue to look around. I see people talking freely, working on their MacBook’s, ordering food they get in an instant, seeing cars go by outside, and it dawned on me. We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Vehicles, food,...

Some women who joined the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) as fighters, recruiters, and brides are trying to recreate the fallen caliphate from inside prison camps in northern Syria, the Associated Press (AP) reported this week. The females, who appear to miss the now fallen Islamic emirate that once controlled large swathes of Iraq and Syria, continue to express their loyalty as they beg to be allowed back into their home countries. At northern Syria’s al-Hol and Roj camps, overseen by the U.S.-backed Kurdish forces who recently took back the last ISIS-held territory, AP spoke to four women who traveled to the...

The California-based broadcaster's digital acquisitions have turned heads, but the company's revenues primarily come from 116 radio stations in 39 markets. In 2019, with a soft advertising market and a big-tech duopoly that isn't letting up, the digital media landscape is largely bereft of hungry buyers. But in late March, radio giant Salem Media Group quietly disclosed the purchase of a sixth digital media company, PJ Media, for just $100,000. Salem's conservative-leaning digital arm, Townhall Media, which includes right-leaning sites like HotAir and RedState, now reaches more than 15 million unique visitors a month, and is a "nicely profitable business,"...

Australian officials are killing millions of feral cats by airdropping frozen sausages laced with poison across the Outback. The felines die within 15 minutes of ingesting the toxic treats, which are produced at a factory close to Perth. But in a bid to kill as many as possible, officials also trap and shoot the creatures. The sausages are made with kangaroo meat, chicken fat, herbs, spices and the poison, 1080, the New York Times reported.

As Bob Woodward stated, the Steele dossier is full of garbage. “What I found out recently, which was really quite surprising, the dossier, which really has got a lot of garbage in it and Mueller found that to be the case, early in building the intelligence-community assessment on Russian interference, in an early draft, they actually put the dossier on page two in kind of a breakout box,” Woodward said.“I think it was the CIA pushing this. Real intelligence experts looked at this and said ‘No, this is not intelligence, this is garbage,’ and they took it out,” he continued. “But...

Well, we have now lived long enough in these end times to see satanism in general, and the Satanic Temple in particular, rise to the forefront of our culture. They have been given tax-exempt status by the IRS, and officially recognized as a ‘church’. And guess what? Things are only going to continue heating up and getting worse. Why? Because we are the generation who will live to see the Rapture of the Church that will take place just prior to the start of the time of Jacob’s trouble, that’s why. “…but this is your hour, and the power of...

The Hypocrisy Behind Calling Out Notre Dame 'Truthers' After the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers on September 11, there was a group of people — mostly those of the America-hating variety — who did not believe that Muslim terrorists were behind the attacks. Rather, they thought President George W. Bush and the high members of the military-industrial complex, motivated by greed and power, perpetuated a narrative about Muslim terrorists to cover for the truth that it was really they who had directed the attacks. These people became known as "truthers." Writer and editor Cathy Young now assigns...

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.) Well, I want to thank Chris and Wayne. I’m thrilled to be here in Indiana with the men and women of the NRA. You are great American patriots. (Applause.) Chris Cox, Wayne LaPierre, Oliver North — I’ve been following Oliver for a long time. Great guy. Three extraordinary champions for the Second Amendment. And I’m a champion for the Second Amendment and so are you. It’s not going anywhere. (Applause.) It’s under assault. It’s under assault but not when we’re here. Not even close. I also want to thank our tremendous Vice President...

There’s an odious Supreme Court case from 1971, Palmer v. Thompson, that most people don’t remember and that most who do remember wish they could forget. It’s a relic of a bygone era—one of the last pieces of the Jim Crow system that the Supreme Court ever sustained. On our current Supreme Court, Palmer v. Thompson looks to be having a moment. Its reasoning stealthily drove last year’s decision in Trump v. Hawaii, in which the court’s five-justice conservative majority upheld the travel restrictions that the president had planned during the campaign to be a “Muslim ban.” And this week’s...

The website HerpAlert, which tracks, diagnoses and treats herpes, says there has been a spike in the disease after the Coachella Music Festival, which wrapped up its two-weekend run last Sunday. New cases were reported in the communities of the Coachella Valley, in Los Angeles and San Diego. The site says a record 250 herpes cases per day were reported between the two weekends of Coachella.

Vallmoe Shqaire, 51, a Palestinian-born Jordanian, was sentenced Friday in L.A. district court to nine months behind bars after pleaded guilty in January to illegally obtaining U.S. citizenship. Shqaire was given until May 28 to surrender to begin serving his time, but U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services may take him into custody at any time based on the fact that his citizenship was revoked and he is under an immigration hold for deportation, attorneys said at the sentencing hearing. U.S. District Judge John F. Walter made clear that he would prefer that Shqaire — who is free on bond —...

Former Vice President Joe Biden says that he decided to launch his 2020 presidential campaign, in part, because international heads of state called him to “beg” him to run for president and “save the world.” The Democrat hopeful made the claim in a call to supporters after he launched his campaign this week, according to the Daily Mail “I get calls from people all over the world. World leaders are calling me, and they’re almost begging me to do this, to save the country, save the world,” Biden reportedly said. President Donald Trump has been a thorn in the side...

[Catholic Caucus] German cardinals, bishops, priests reject Cdl. Marx’ agenda to revisit celibacy, sexual morality April 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Several German cardinals, bishops, and priests have now independently come out strongly against some of the so-called reform ideas as presented by the German Bishops' Conference under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, especially with regard to the loosening of priestly celibacy and "need for change" of sexual morality.  Cardinals Walter Brandmüller and Paul Josef Cordes, as well as the German-speaking Swiss Bishop Marian Eleganti, have defended priestly celibacy. Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer said he considers it to be a “squandering...

A woman who resigned as Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax's policy director in the days after two women accused him of sexual assault said on Thursday that she felt "brainwashed, betrayed and retraumatized" by the way he has handled the allegations against him. At a Rally Against Rape event in Arlington's Gateway Park Thursday night, Adele McClure spoke for nearly 20 minutes. Her talk was streamed live on Facebook. She recounted how she was sexually assaulted at age 16 by someone she barely knew. Then she "moved on and buried it deep," she said. "I have not thought about that, or...

I’ve always been a fan of Joe Biden. I admire his authorship of the Violence Against Women Act and his longstanding gravitas as a public servant for decades. I even contributed to the Draft Biden PAC back in 2015 in hopes that the straight talker from Scranton would enter the race for the White House. I was, indeed, “Ridin’ With Biden” as they say. I truly believe that 2016 was Joe Biden’s moment to run for president. Yes, he had run unsuccessfully twice before. And, yes, sitting vice presidents are not usually successful in their bid for the top job....

IRS recognizes Satanic Temple as ‘church’, grants tax-exempt status April 26, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has formally recognized the Satanic Temple as a church, according to a celebratory announcement by the organization and as confirmed by the Associated Press. On Thursday, the Satanic Temple announced on Instagram that “for the very [first] time in history, a satanic organization has been recognized by the United States federal government as being a church.” The IRS website confirms that the Satanic Temple is now a tax-exempt organization “eligible to receive tax-deductible charitable contributions,” but gives no further details...

Brazil’s far-right president, the self-declared homophobe Jair Bolsonaro, has been accused of inciting hatred towards LGBT people after declaring the South American country should not become a “gay tourism paradise”. “If you want to come here and have sex with a woman, go for your life,” Bolsonaro reportedly told journalists in the capital, Brasília. “But we can’t let this place become known as a gay tourism paradise. Brazil can’t be a country of the gay world, of gay tourism. We have families,” Bolsonaro added, according to the Brazilian magazine Exame. The comments – made during a breakfast meeting with Brazilian...