Free Republic

On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that a California church could challenge the state mandate to pay for elective abortion through the church’s health insurance plan. Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented Skyline Wesleyan Church in the San Diego area, reports that the case was returned to the district court after the Ninth Circuit found the case had been improperly dismissed. The opinion issued by the Ninth Circuit states: We hold that Skyline has suffered an injury in fact. Before the Letters were sent, Skyline had insurance that excluded abortion coverage in a way that...

Several Chicago area churches held in-person Sunday services in defiance of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s (D) stay-at-home orders. Pastor Florin Cimpean of the Philadelphia Romanian Church of God in Ravenswood said he expected around 50 to 60 people to attend services, which was about 10 percent of the congregation on a regular Sunday, according to ABC 7. “The church is a spiritual hospital, okay. We help people with their spiritual needs, emotional needs. And this church is much safer than any other open space like Home Depot, Costco, any type of store,” he commented. Cimpean, who grew up in Soviet-controlled...

A paper published on 30 January in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) about the first four people in Germany infected with a novel coronavirus made many headlines because it seemed to confirm what public health experts feared: that someone who has no symptoms from infection with the virus, named 2019-nCoV, can still transmit it to others. That might make controlling the virus much harder. Chinese researchers had previously suggested asymptomatic people might transmit the virus but had not presented clear-cut evidence. “There’s no doubt after reading [the NEJM] paper that asymptomatic transmission is occurring,” Anthony Fauci, director of...

The Butlers buy their Scottish Fold cat family a live catnip plant and watch their reactions. Video, 10 minutes & 15 seconds

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jackie Speier wants you to see her in her pajamas — in the hopes of exposing the “dirty little secret” of members of Congress sleeping in their workplaces. It’s a practice she argues should be banned. The San Mateo Democrat posted a video Monday that features her at first in work attire, showing off her office as a place where she meets with constituents and does the business of her district. But then the video cuts to her wearing tasteful black and white floral pajamas, with the office’s leather couch made up as a bed. She hopes...

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Janette Nesheiwat joined "Your World" Monday to discuss hydroxychloroquine after President Trump disclosed that he is regularly taking the antimalarial drug as a preventative measure against contracting the coronavirus. (Please see link for full article)

He [Judge Royce Lamberth] held that an ICE detainer is merely a request that did not give the U.S. Marshals Service authority to continue to detain or to arrest an alien who had been released by a D.C. magistrate.

(CNN) — Starting today, undocumented immigrants in California can begin applying for financial assistance to support them during the coronavirus pandemic — in the first relief fund of its kind.

[Catholic Caucus] Chicago Catholic group: Cupich’s plan to re-open churches is ‘betrayal of Christ’ Cardinal Cupich's plan has 'yielded the authority of the Church and subjugated the primacy of her worship to laws of man,' they say. CHICAGO, Illinois, May 18, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A group of Chicago Catholics has issued a statement strongly criticizing Cardinal Blase Cupich’s government-approved plan to re-open Catholic churches in his archdiocese. The St. Charles Borromeo Society, founded just weeks ago, refers to his directives as “insidious” and a “betrayal of Christ.”Prayerful protestors outside Holy Name Cathedral, Chicago, Illinois. Cupich issued his plan to re-open churches earlier...

SAVANNAH, Ga. (WTGS) — A judge from outside the coastal Georgia community where Ahmaud Arbery was fatally shot has been appointed to preside over trial proceedings of the two men charged with Arbery's murder, including one defendant with close ties to law enforcement. Court documents filed in Glynn County show that Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley was appointed to the case after all five judges in the legal circuit where Arbery was killed recused themselves. Walmsley is based in Savannah, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) north of where the slaying occurred just outside the port city of Brunswick.

On April 21st the Washington Post savaged Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s decision to begin opening his state after locking down for weeks. “Georgia leads the race to become America’s No. 1 Death Destination,” sneered the headline. The author, liberal pundit Dana Milbank, actually found the possibility of Georgians dying to be hilarious, suggesting that, “as a promotion, Georgia could offer ventilators to the first 100 hotel guests to register.” Milbank, who is obviously still getting paid while millions are out of work, sees his job as pushing the mainstream narrative that we must remain in fear and never question what...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced Monday evening that his panel will vote June 4 on a subpoena authorization to review documents and communications and solicit testimony from an array of senior Obama-era officials, including former FBI Director James Comey. Graham announced in a press release that the subpoena vote will take place as part of his panel’s investigation into “FISA abuse” and the FBI probe “Crossfire Hurricane,” which investigated contacts between Trump advisers and Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election. The subpoenas will cover “documents, communications and testimony from witnesses” including Comey, former FBI deputy director...

Sharyl: Camps largely divided along political lines. Many right-leaning media figures sided with hydroxychloroquine while the left-leaning press backed remdesivir. Each accusing the other of ignoring real science. Dr. William O’Neill: I've never seen science politicized in 40 years of practice. Sharyl: Cardiologist Dr. William O’Neill is a medical director at the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan where they’re studying both remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine. Some people in the media are treating hydroxychloroquine as if it's something that's being pitched by charlatans, it's dangerous, and that's been debunked and discredited. What do you make of that? Dr. O’Neill: I...

José Rodrigo 'Chino Ántrax' Arechiga Gamboa was found executed with his sister, Ada Jimena Arechiga Gamboa, and her husband, Juan García Espinoza Two of the bodies were located Saturday morning inside a BMW SUV and the third was lying next to it on a road in the Culiacán municipality of Arroyo Seco Chino Ántrax was reported missing May 9 by a probation officer who visited a California home where he was staying after he was released from jail March 3 The 40-year-old co-founded Los Ántrax, a hit squad tied to Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's old Sinaloa Cartel Chino Ántrax was...

The Treasury Department said Monday that it is starting to deliver nearly 4 million coronavirus relief payments to taxpayers via prepaid debit card, rather than by paper check. The announcement comes after Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had indicated that the department planned to get some people their payments by sending them debit cards, in an effort to help get people their payments faster. "Prepaid debit cards are secure, easy to use, and allow us to deliver Americans their money quickly,” Mnuchin said in a news release Monday. “Recipients can immediately activate and use the cards safely.” Legislation President Trump signed...

Five years ago Sunday nine died and 18 were injured after a shootout erupted between rival motorcycle groups at Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The shootout was the deadliest and most high-profile event in the Waco area since the Waco siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. The bikers said the agenda at the regional meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (COC&I), a statewide biker group coalition based in Tyler, involved political issues regarding the rights of motorcyclists. But trouble was brewing between the Bandidos and the Cossacks. Eighteen Waco police officers and four state troopers...

Orozco was arrested last week for “DUI-drugs and driving the wrong way on the road,” according to a post on the Salinas Police Department’s Facebook page. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, California has effectively guaranteed the freedom of most who commit a misdemeanor and lower-level felonies, setting cash bail at $0 in order to keep the number of people behind bars low to stop the spread of the virus. . . . “Not more than 10 minutes later Orozco forced a female out of her car in the parking lot of Natividad Medical Center. The female refused to give up...

The man accused of stabbing an 80-year-old woman to death on Saturday was out on bond at the time of the murder. Bond for Randy Lewis, 38, was waived back on April 30 for a charge of assaulting a public servant from two years ago. A charging document stated he struck someone who was transferring him to the county jail. Court records indicate he was found temporarily incompetent after a mental exam in October 2019 and was committed to a mental facility. In March, his stay was extended by a judge for 60 days after a request from the head...

It comes after a resident launched an effort to open a community garden. The City of Falcon Heights has imposed a temporary ban on front yard vegetable planting after efforts by a local resident to create a community vegetable garden for the summer. Quentin Nguyen was shocked last week when a letter arrived advising him that the city council had passed a temporary ordinance prohibiting vegetable gardens from being placed in front yards of residential homes. Nguyen had launched his effort to create a community vegetable garden on the front yard of his family home in April, creating a GoFundMe...

California’s governor and San Francisco’s mayor worked together to act early in confronting the COVID threat. For Andrew Cuomo and Bill de Blasio, it was a different story, and 27,000 New Yorkers have died so far. By March 14, London Breed, the mayor of San Francisco, had seen enough. For weeks, she and her health officials had looked at data showing the evolving threat of COVID-19. In response, she’d issued a series of orders limiting the size of public gatherings, each one feeling more arbitrary than the last. She’d been persuaded that her city’s considerable and highly regarded health care...