Free Republic

In an interview with Portugal-based Radio Renascença aired yesterday, Pope Francis declared that the current refugee crisis in Europe is being caused by a “bad, unjust” socio-economic system that worships “the god of money.” In the interview, where questions were posed in Portuguese and the responses were given by Pope Francis in Spanish, the pontiff said coveting money will bring about both human and ecological ruin: “This is the tip of the iceberg. We see these refugees, these poor people who are escaping from war, escaping from hunger, but that’s the tip of the iceberg. But underlying that is the...

Explosions, multi-alarm fire reported at Texas chemical plant; residents ordered to seek shelter Residents were ordered to seek shelter and turn off their air conditioners after several explosions were reported at a chemical plant near Houston Friday evening. A shelter-in-place order was in effect for about three hours for those within a 2-mile radius of the DrillChem chemical plant in Conroe which burst into flames around 4:44 p.m. local time, fire officials said. While it's not yet clear how the fire started, the company has told authorities that the last employee left about 30 minutes before it erupted and...

Law enforcement and the FBI are investigating three unknown devices found at the Four Corners Power Plant Monday morning. According to investigators, the devices were each 6 inches in length and capped on both ends. They were found around 8 a.m. Farmington police's bomb squad is attempting to determine whether the devices are explosive. All employees have been evacuated. The Four Corners Power Plant is located in Fruitland about 25 miles southwest of Farmington

Jordan and Israel signed an agreement on 26 February to go ahead with a World Bank-sponsored project to build a desalination plant in the Gulf of Aqaba and a pipeline linking the Red Sea with the Dead Sea. The plant will be built in the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba on the Red Sea and will desalinate water to be shared by Israelis and Palestinians. The brine that is a by-product of the process will be sent north in a 180km pipeline to the Dead Sea. The project will cost around $900m (£584.5m, €803m). It will take nearly three years...

Vengeful Obama confidante Valeria Jarrett went through back channels to leak Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server to the press, an explosive new report reveals. The New York Post‘s Edward Klein reports that a source familiar with Bill Clinton said that the former president told him: “The Obamas are out to get us any way they can.” Jarrett blamed the Democratic party’s 2014 midterm losses on the Clintons’ insinuations that Obama’s unpopular policies, including executive amnesty for foreigners gobbling up American jobs, made the president an “albatross” around the reigning party’s neck. Jarrett, Obama, and Obama’s wife greeted...

RUSH: Snerdley, I forget, did you watch this or not? (interruption) You did not. They had this woman up -- they always do, some hero sitting next to Michelle (My Belle), the first lady, or a series of people that are heroic. (interruption) What was that you said? (interruption) No, not the illegal woman. This is a woman who had a hard, tough life, and she just had overcome all kinds of obstacles. It was a testament to the American spirit. I mean, she got an excrement sandwich in her life every which way she turned. In fact, if you...

Sunday's Der Spiegel had a massive expose on the continuing efforts of Bashar al-Assad to build a nuclear weapons plant, which included evidence that Iran is constructing such a plant for Syria in Qusayr, less than two kilometers from Syria's border with Lebanon. The issue came up in the State Department's Monday daily briefing. Disturbingly, spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the United States did not plan to raise the issue in the Iranian nuclear talks, claiming that those talks only deal with Iran's nuclear capabilities and not with Syria's. According to findings of Western intelligence agencies, however, the situation...

No amount of money can get Robert Plant to reunite with his Led Zeppelin bandmates. The 66-year-old singer walked away from a 35-date tour that would have paid the rock group nearly $800 million — ripping up the contract in front of stunned promoters, the Mirror newspaper reported Sunday.

Scientists in the Philippines have discovered a plant that can absorb large amounts of metal without itself being poisoned, a species called the Rinorea niccolifera, that can be used to clean up polluted soils and harvest commercially viable metals. The plant is one of only 450 species, known as hyperaccumulator plants, of 300,000 known vascular plants that can absorb significant amounts of metal though their roots. The lead researcher and author of a new study on the plant, Professor Edwino Fernando, from the University of the Philippines, said the leaves of the Rinorea niccolifera can absorb up to 18,000 parts...

Well, I will do it if no one else will. Beck is imploring us to drop the hate and anger. First, I don't believe it was anger in my heart that made me want to rush to Bundy's side upon learning SWAT teams were terrorizing him and his family. I do believe it was love for my grandchildren and their posterity than made me consider putting my life on the line. I do believe that nonviolence requires several things to work. Ghandi knew his "audience" was the folks back in England who would find violence against him and his abhorrent....

The journalists at ABC's World News on Sunday enthusiastically touted a fawning question from a Democratic activist to Hillary Clinton. After anchor David Muir insisted that "it didn't take long for a student there to ask a pointed question," college student Vrinda Agrawal wondered, "If you don't represent women in politics in America as a future president, who will?" [MP3 audio here.] This is a tough question? The event was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel and held at Yale Law School. Agrawal followed-up by enthusing, "I will proudly run your campaign." At no time did Muir or reporter Susan Saulny inform...

Sometimes words reveal more than they are meant to. When I read the testimonials from the charitable organization Plants for Patients (P4P) I sense a ghostly sadness. P4P hands out plants to abortion patients, succulents because they are “incredibly adaptable” and “come in a vast array of colors and shapes” like the women who experience abortion. The succulent plants are growing in tiny hand-made planters made specially by a ceramic artist. The organization is neither pro-life nor pro-choice, but pro-compassion, offering gifts to women after abortion to show “love and empathy” not “shame and hate.” Why plants? Because scientific research...

When organizers placed Ju Hong in a prominent position flanking President Barack Obama on Monday, they probably did not realize they were handing a high-profile lectern to one of the Bay Area's gutsiest immigration reform activists. Invited to the Chinatown speech as a member of the "Dreamer" movement of young people brought to the country illegally as children, Hong said he "was there just to listen" but ended up being asked by a friend to stand in a group behind Obama. He grew annoyed as he heard the president blaming Congress for stalling immigration reform. "Usually we're supposed to be...

HOUSTON – The Federal Emergency Management Agency is refusing to provide money to help rebuild the small Texas town where a deadly fertilizer plant explosion leveled numerous homes and a school, and killed 15 people. According to a letter obtained by The Associated Press, FEMA said it reviewed the state's appeal to help West but decided that the explosion "is not of the severity and magnitude that warrants a major disaster declaration." The blast killed 10 first responders and brought national attention to the agricultural community. President Barack Obama traveled to the area to attend a memorial service for the...

Will Rogers, the great humorist, once said, “If you ever injected truth into politics, you would have no politics.” If you injected truth into the teleprompter during one of Obama’s speeches, there would be nothing left but an empty chair. Fourteen days after the September 11, 2012 attacks, Obama appeared at the United Nations to deliver a eulogy for the man he had not troubled to save and to declare that the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Obama denounced the “crude and disgusting video” that had “sparked outrage throughout the Muslim world” and...

LED Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has taken out a restraining order against a crazed fan after she bombarded him with threatening messages, it is reported. The rock legend, 64, is even said to have hired a security team in the wake of intensifying harassment from the deluded groupie.

Emergency crews were responding Wednesday night after a report of a major explosion at a burning fertilizer plant in West north of Waco. West firefighters were dispatched to the plant earlier in the evening after an earlier fire rekindled. The explosion was reported at around 7:50 p.m. in a frantic radio call from the scene of the fire at West Fertilizer at 1471 Jerry Mashek Dr. just off Interstate 35. Numerous injuries were reported and multiple ambulances were requested. Several buildings were reported destroyed and a nearby nursing home was damaged.

Andrea Mitchell isn't about to let a good hurricane go to waste in her push for economy-wrecking climate change regulations. On her MSNBC show today, Andrea Mitchell claimed that recent weather events including Superstorm Sandy have "taught us if nothing else, that we have a real climate problem and that we have to deal with this here even if the rest of the world isn't going to deal with it in China and elsewhere." View the video here.

An Israeli intelligence source has confirmed Iran’s Fordow underground nuclear uranium enrichment facility sustained major damage in a “mega explosion” that occurred last week. Fordow, which contains at least 2,700 centrifuges for uranium enrichment, is located deep beneath a mountain near the Iranian city of Qom. Some 200 workers were trapped inside the facility at the time, according to a report published Monday by The Times, a UK-based newspaper.

Could Chuck Hagel, the man President Obama wants to become Secretary of Defense, secretly be a pawn of George Soros? It is a question that liberals would not bear hearing, and one that many conservatives, no doubt, would not bear going unanswered. And indeed, evidence has come to light suggesting that the answer to this question may incline toward the positive. Specifically, a recent report by Aaron Klein of KleinOnline suggests the following about the would-be defense secretary: Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Obama’s nominee for defense secretary, serves on the board of a George Soros-funded group that advocates a...