Free Republic

The “lazy river” at Louisiana State University is often held up as an example of wasteful non-academic university spending, a frivolity intended to attract students who aren’t the studying type or who simply pay higher tuition. But it’s also siphoning away money from core academic maintenance, as suggested by a CBS News report on how universities use “lavish perks” to entice students. When “CBS This Morning” co-host Tony Dokoupil visited the taxpayer-funded university, he noted some of the library building “was literally falling apart,” plus water in the basement and “rugs from another generation.”

Posted on October 14, 2019October 14, 2019 by Msgr. Charles Pope A Solemn Warning from St. Paul Within his many letters, St. Paul occasionally gives us a glimpse of early Christian hymns and sayings. While he may have been their author, it is more likely that he is quoting or summarizing others. Here are some of the hymns he includes in his letters: Hymn of Christ and Creation (Colossians 1:15-20)Hymn of the Humbled and Exalted Christ (Philippians 2:5-11)Hymn of Redemption in Christ (Ephesians 1:3-12) St. Paul also refers to “sayings” in some of his letters (e.g., Titus 3:8, 1...

Amid a spiraling economic crisis in Puerto Rico, Congress established a control board to impose outside discipline. The Supreme Court on Tuesday will consider the board’s constitutionality in a case that ostensibly pits Congress’s plenary authority over U.S. territories against the Appointments Clause. Yet there is no real constitutional conflict between the two. Congress in 2016 enacted a law known as Promesa establishing a seven-member board modeled on Washington, D.C.’s financial control board of the 1990s. Promesa allows the board to oversee fiscal decisions and established a bankruptcy-like mechanism that authorized the board to restructure $70 billion in debt and...

On Tuesday morning Herschel Walker posed this important question: America is the greatest country in the world-free to speak and think for yourself! Question ..during Summer Olympics will the @NBA players play for USA or China? Herschel Walker ✔ @HerschelWalker 🇺🇸America is the greatest country in the world-free to speak and think for yourself! Question ..during Summer Olympics will the @NBA players play for USA or China?@Nike @FoxNews @CNN @DonaldJTrumpJr @realDonaldTrump @USATODAY @NBCNews @ESPNNBA @espn @NBAonTNT @nikebasketball 46.6K 5:07 PM - Oct 13, 2019

Slovakia has been shaken by a recording from 2014, which attests that the former Prosecutor General Dobroslav Trnka was corrupt and intimidated by the controversial businessman Marian Kocner. Trnka is still a prosecutor at the Office of the General Prosecutor, while Kocner is being detained over allegations of large-scale financial frauds and the 2018 contract killing of the journalist Jan Kuciak. The recording was released on Monday (14 October) by the daily Dennik N and came allegedly from Kocner’s cell phone confiscated by the police. In the 70-minute conversation, the businessman treats prosecutor Trnka as his subordinate and issued death...

The annual Fireman’s Parade is a big deal in Franklin, New Jersey. But there’s a bit of controversy after volunteer firefighters from Sussex County included a Trump 2020 banner in the Color Guard. The banner included the words, “Keep America Great.” Local Democrats are furious. The Sussex County Watchdog reports that the volunteer firefighters have received death threats. And some citizens are calling for the volunteers to be fired. “Evidently, their loathing of Donald Trump is more dear to them than the safety of their own children,” the Watchdog reported. The New Jersey Herald reports someone filed a complaint with...

Even Democrats aren’t overly thrilled about their party’s presidential debates so far, but one-in-five who’ve followed the debates say they’ve switched candidates since they began. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 79% of Likely Democratic Voters have closely followed the debates among the Democratic presidential candidates, with 43% who have followed Very Closely. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Among Democrats who have followed the debates, 53% still favor the candidate they liked before the debates. But 19% have switched their support to another candidate because of the debates. Twenty-eight percent (28%) remain undecided....

First, the national security implications of getting to the bottom of these incidents are beyond obvious. In addition to posing a serious collision risk, determining the nature of the objects – whether benign, easily-explainable phenomena or potentially threatening – is of critical importance. Indeed, by some accounts, such incidents are occurring with increased frequency. Moreover, advanced, physics-challenging technology would be the Holy Grail for any nation. Given the anti-democratic and authoritarian inclinations of some major world powers, it is imperative that such capabilities fall into the “right” (i.e., democratic) hands. Among other possibilities, a civilian-led quick reaction force could be...

Russia has stationed troops between the Syrian army and Turkish forces in an attempt to prevent fresh clashes in northern Syria. Moscow said its soldiers are now patrolling land outside the flashpoint city of Manbij, which was taken over by Syrian government forces on Tuesday, to prevent an anticipated Turkish attack. Russia, which backs the Syrian government, said 'no one is interested' in fighting between Syrian government troops and Turkish forces and that Moscow 'is not going to allow it.'

The UK will not join other European countries such as France, Germany, the Netherlands and Finland in halting selling arms to Turkey after its invasion in Syria, the Independent reports. The UK was initially also against an EU condemnation of Turkey's military attack, but later agreed to the EU's unanimous position. Because of the UK's refusal to a European arms ban, the EU agreed on stopping arms sales unilaterally.

<p>DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES - Russian President Vladimir Putin visited the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, as part of a Mideast tour aimed at strengthening ties between Moscow and this longtime U.S. ally amid tensions in the wider Persian Gulf.</p>

The last of the Louisiana state election numbers are in and it's not pretty for the Democrats. Not only does its moderate Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, face a runoff as noted here, the state Senate has taken a supermajority. And a whole bunch of key state offices went squarely to Republicans. Funny how the press isn't covering this much. But Guy Benson at Townhall is, and he found a Democratic Party "decimated": Among statewide office-holders, the incumbent GOP Lieutenant Governor (68 percent), Attorney General (66 percent), Treasurer (60 percent, and Agricultural Commissioner (58 percent) were all re-elected without the...

The “Spirit of Assisi” vs. Saint Francis of Assisi Editor’s Note: Last week Friday, on the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi (Oct. 4, 2019), a “prayer ceremony” took place in the Vatican Gardens during which “a tree from Assisi was planted as a symbol of integral ecology, to consecrate the Synod on Amazonia to Saint Francis,” according to the official Vatican statement on the event. During this ceremony, as Catholic News Agency reported, “A group of people, including Amazonians in ritual dress, as well [as] people in lay clothes and a Franciscan brother, knelt and bowed in a circle...

Hunter Biden, son of former Vice President and 2020 Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, gave an exclusive interview to ABC’s Amy Robach Tuesday, excerpts of which were shown on Good Morning America. Robach surprisingly held Biden’s feet to the fire over his cushy job with a Ukranian gas company while his father was Vice President, for a large part of the interview. However, that dissolved into a gooey sympathy piece about how mean President Trump was hurting Biden’s sobriety, finally culminating with Biden crying on camera about how much he loved America.

Dear Mr. Brin: Fifty years ago this week, when I was a 21-year-old college senior, I was in the Soviet Union, sent by the government of Israel to smuggle in Jewish religious items and smuggle out names of Jews who wanted to escape the Soviet Union and could then be issued a formal invitation to Israel. I was chosen because I was a committed Jew and because I knew Hebrew and Russian. I was no hero, but the trip did entail risk. The Soviets did not appreciate people smuggling out names of Soviet citizens who sought to emigrate, information the...

As India’s space agency prepares to make history by landing on the Moon later this week, many of the country’s citizens have been left in stitches after footage of an apparent moonwalk went viral. Just days before India’s lunar mission Chandrayaan-2 touches down on the Moon’s south pole on September 7, Baadal Nanjundaswamy, a famous Indian street artist, stole all the headlines with a wry takedown of the city council in Bengaluru. Nanjundaswamy enlisted the help of theater actor and film star, Poornachandra Mysore, who helped stage a tongue-in-cheek ‘moonwalk’ to highlight the pockmarked pavement plaguing the city’s streets. At...

The crop of Democrats currently vying for the party's nomination have nothing, apparently, on former first lady Michelle Obama, who would become the immediate frontrunner if she entered the race, a New Hampshire poll found.The Boston Herald-Franklin Pierce University survey, which was released on Monday, shows Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and former Vice President Joe Biden at the top in New Hampshire, with 25 percent support, 22 percent, and 24 percent, respectively.  Franklin Pierce University/Boston Herald poll of New Hampshire (Oct 9-13, +/- 4.8 MOE). 25% Warren24% Biden22% Sanders9% Buttigieg5% Harris2% Klobuchar2% Booker [others ≤ 1%]https://t.co/IwCs3c22wr— wideofthepost (@wideofthepost)...

Note: Due to personal circumstances, I have not been able to post puzzes for the past two days. My apologies for any inconvenience.Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Victor Hugo. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Victor Hugo was an extraordinary novelist and political wit. His common sense views on life was temperate compared to the revolutionaries of his time. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in...

Creation astronomy from a rocket scientist by David Coppedge Posted on 10-14-19 Readers may remember our 2015 interview with Dr Henry Richter,1 the development manager of Explorer 1, America’s first satellite. 90 years of age, Dr Richter recently drove from his home 120 miles away to deliver a speech at the 60th anniversary of Explorer 1 at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). On that day in January 2018, he shared his unique insider’s perspective about the mission that launched America into the space race. Most employees at JPL working on missions today now have no memory of the early days...

Given America’s history with slavery, black people should be the biggest advocates for the Second Amendment. Guns equal freedom! Despite the mantra from the left, there’s no such thing as an “assault rifle.” It’s a term they invented to make guns sound scary, and it works. I prefer to call semi-automatic rifles, such as the AR-15 by their proper names: “anti-dictator rifles,” “self-defense rifles” and sporting rifles. They’re available for purchase to all law-abiding citizens of age, as they should be. Blacks should be skeptical of any smooth-talking politician that claims he or she wants to keep us “safe” by...