Free Republic

EXCLUSIVE: Cardinal Zen criticizes Vatican for ‘despis[ing] the heroes of faith’ in China In a 20-minute discussion, the cardinal lamented the Pope’s silence on China’s abuses of power in Hong Kong and described a dire situation for faithful Chinese Catholics. NEW YORK, February 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – The communist-run Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association “has always been objectively schismatic” and remains that way “but with the blessing from the Holy See,” Cardinal Joseph Zen said today. Cardinal Zen sat down with LifeSite for a one-on-one interview in New York today. In the 20-minute discussion, the cardinal lamented the Pope’s silence on China’s...

The Fifth Estate has learned that police in the Bahamas are investigating allegations made by four women who accuse clothing manufacturer Peter Nygard of raping them when they were younger than 16, the age of consent in the Bahamas. (Annie I. Bang/The Associated Press) Ten women filed a civil class-action lawsuit on Thursday accusing one of Canada's wealthiest businessmen and clothing manufacturers, Peter Nygard, of raping them at his seaside mansion in the Bahamas and operating what they refer to as a "sex trafficking ring." The women are seeking damages for the alleged rapes. Three of the women were 14...

Mike Bloomberg is considering Hillary Clinton as his running mate, source says Polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force to take on Trump in the race for the White House Mike Bloomberg is considering making Hillary Clinton his running mate, a source close to his campaign has told Drudge Report.Polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force to take on Trump in the race for the White House, the source said. Former New York City Mayor and Democratic candidate Bloomberg is said to be considering even changing his official residence from New York to Colorado or Florida -...

[Catholic Caucus] Top cardinal behind Amazon synod: Plan for married priests to be ‘developed and completed’ Cardinal Hummes said that the Pope 'clearly says that the whole Church will strive to put this final document into practice' which calls for married priests. BRASILIA, February 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Brazilian Cardinal Cláudio Hummes stated that ordaining married men to the priesthood “must be developed and completed” following the release this week of Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia [Beloved Amazon], which stalled the liberal push for married priests in the Catholic Church. Known as an ally of Pope Francis, Cardinal Hummes (85)...

She was Juror No. 1261, and her examination by the federal court and counsel before the trial was anything but notable. And that is precisely the problem. Juror 1261, we now know, was Tomeka Hart. Her identity would have remained publicly unknown except for a public statement she made after the Department of Justice (DOJ) rescinded its initial sentencing recommendation for Trump confidant Roger Stone. In the midst of the firestorm of allegations of political interference, Hart disclosed that she was the foreperson on the Stone jury and gave a full-throated defense of the trial prosecutors: “It pains me to...

A US citizen who arrived in Malaysia after disembarking in Cambodia from the MS Westerdam cruise ship has tested positive for the new coronavirus, the Malaysia Health Ministry said on Saturday. The 83-year-old American woman flew to Malaysia on Friday from Cambodia along with 144 others from the ship, said Malaysian health ministry, adding that her 85-year-old husband had tested negative. The MS Westerdam, which had 1,455 passengers and 802 crew on board, had been stranded at sea for two weeks after being turned away from five countries – the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Thailand – over coronavirus...

Roger Stone liked to gleefully call himself a "dirty trickster," but he was no match for the dirty cops of the Department of Justice who railroaded him with a nine-year sentence for three process crimes, including one where his purported victim said no crime happened. Now it looks as though the dirty cops - the four prosecutors who lied to the Department of Justice about Stone's sentencing recommendations, and the far-left judge who allowed a nakedly Trump-hating partisan to serve as Stone's jury forewoman again - might just have been trapped themselves by none other than U.S. Attorney General William...

The "expert" predictions of economic disaster should Donald Trump win the 2016 election did not occur. Under Trump, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq composite have reached historical highs while unemployment for blacks and Hispanics have hit historical lows. In the wake of Trump's undeniable economic success, what is the 2020 Democratic Party argument for why voters should back their candidate over Trump? The morning after Trump's election, Paul Krugman, economics professor and columnist for The New York Times, wrote: "Now comes the mother of all adverse effects -- and what it brings with it is a regime that...

In his 2016 book The Perfect Dictatorship: China in the 21st Century, Norwegian political scientist Stein Ringen described contemporary China as a “controlocracy,” saying that its system of government has been transformed into a new regime radically harder and more ideological than what came before. China’s “controlocracy” now bears primary responsibility for the COVID-19 epidemic that is sweeping across that nation and the world. Over the past eight years, the central leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has taken steps to bolster Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) personal authority, as well as expanding the party’s own powers, at the...

Across the country, Saint Valentine’s Day is thought of as one of the great romantic date nights… unless you grow up as a Chicago Italian, in which case a very different kind of event comes to mind. At 10:30 AM on February 14, 1929, at a usually quiet garage located at 2122 N Clark Street, one of the most memorable and defining dates in Chicago history occurred, when seven mobsters of the North Side Gang were killed by four other mobsters from a rival gang who were impersonating Chicago police officers. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre is remembered as a...

I know a couple of people who are going to be in trouble with the Woke Science Community. Colin M. Wright, an evolutionary biologist at Penn State, and Emma N. Hilton, a developmental biologist at the University of Manchester, have collaborated on an article published in the Wall Street Journal this week. They put forth the revolutionary and highly controversial theory that human beings are born as one of two distinct sexes, male and female. And no amount of philosophical meandering is going to change the incontrovertible medical fact that sex is binary and does not exist on some sort...

In a rebuke to Democrats, the Ukrainian president dismissed the impeachment of Trump as a television soap opera. In a wide-ranging interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky referred to the impeachment of President Donald Trump as a television series, specifically citing the soap operas “Santa Barbara” and “Dallas.” Throwing cold water on what Democrats alleged to be a pressure campaign on Zelensky and his government, the Ukrainian president also said he looks forward to his next conversation with Trump and hopes to visit the White House. Zelensky did bristle when asked about corruption in Ukraine, asking President...

Tuesday, during a trip on Walker’s Dive Charters out of Riviera Beach, Florida, a group of scuba divers encountered a once-in-a-lifetime experience – a great white shark. The encounter took place near a spot known as the Breakers Reef, a mile offshore of the Breakers Hotel on Palm Beach. During the dive, a great white shark about 20 feet long slowly drifted by near the bottom, enabling divers to get photos and brief video. On average, female great white sharks measure 15-16 feet in length, and males grow to 11-13 feet, according to the Smithsonian.snip A team from the Massachusetts...

This is a special episode of the Sara Carter Show. Sara A. Carter spoke with Jennifer Brian of the Southeastern Guide Dog School about the new addition to Sara's family, a new guide dog for her husband. Brian explained to Carter how the special bond between the animal and the owner is created and how the training process begins before the dog is even born.

The Russian Air Force is receiving six more MiG-31BM jet fighters, which apparently means the manufacturer has found and fixed the problems that this latest version of the MiG-31 was having. These are not new aircraft but refurbished and upgrades of existing MiG-31s. Russia wants to keep its elderly (production ended in 1994) MiG-31s in service until at least 2030 but to do that they had to be refurbished and upgraded to the MiG-31BM standard. The upgrade process began in 2010 but was halted in 2016 because of the accidents. Apparently the MiG-3BM upgrades resumed by 2018 but only a...

With just a few months left before the United States Presidential elections, electronic voting machines are back in the news. Sometimes we all wonder how honest patriots in these so-called sanctuary cities can put up with the nonsense that is brought upon them by the liberals. Well, we might have an answer to that question. Smartmatic is a multinational company that specializes in building and implementing electronic voting systems. The company also produces smart cities solutions[buzzword] (including public safety and public transportation), identity management systems for civil registration and authentication products for government applications. Smartmatic itself provided the machines for...

To paraphrase Will Rogers, it’s no trouble being a humorist when you have Joe Biden working for you. “Lying dog-faced pony soldier”??? This is going to go down in the annals of all-time political gaffes. It’s the verbal equivalent of Michael Dukakis riding in a tank, or Gary Hartpence sailing on the “Monkey Business,” or George Romney admitting he had been “brainwashed” over Vietnam. (Funny how that problem seems to run in the family. Gosh.)

Choi, 62, said he was fired a week ago from a hospital in Pyeongtaek, 65 km south of Seoul, where he had worked as a caregiver for a year. Choi is from Jilin Province in northeastern China, where many people of Korean descent live. "I was forced to leave my job just because I am Chinese," said Choi, adding that he has been in South Korea for more than a decade. "I have no idea what to do now." Ahn, meanwhile, said he has no hope of getting a cleaning job at a sauna or a golf course because people...

On this day 200 years ago, a vital leader in the movement for women’s rights was born. Susan B. Anthony was born on Feb. 15, 1820, in Adams, Massachusetts. She grew up in a Quaker household, where they believed that everyone was equal under God. That belief stuck with her throughout her lifetime. While traveling around the country delivering speeches in favor of women’s suffrage, Anthony spoke on the topics of labor rights, equal pay and ending slavery. Anthony worked closely with Elizabeth Cady Stanton. For more than 50 years, they teamed together fighting for women’s rights. Some of their...

“There are facts, and there are beliefs, and there are things you want so badly to believe that they become as facts to you.” And here I thought the science was settled; now this: Scientists say solar system affects Earth’s carbon cycle.What’s up with that? "Our work shows that for the 18 million years or so in between the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction and the Toarcian oceanic anoxic event, Earth's global carbon cycle was in a constant state of change. Periodic changes in the shape of Earth's orbit around the sun impacted on the amount of energy received by Earth...