Free Republic

In a brief, six-minute address to the nation, President Biden on Thursday said that his private-sector COVID-19 vaccine mandate will take effect “soon” to address the “unacceptably high number” of people who don’t want to be vaccinated. But he took no questions from reporters, for a second straight day after a major address, amid nationwide concerns about rising inflation and a supply-chain crisis that has left store shelves bare and threatens the delivery of holiday gifts as prices for most goods go up. On COVID-19, Biden said that “we’re making progress. Nationally, daily cases are down 47 percent and hospitalizations...

Bastille Day marks the beginning of the greatest organized persecution of the Church since the Emperor Diocletian, and the explosion onto the world of ideologies that would poison the next two centuries: socialism and radical nationalism. Between them, those two political movements racked up quite a body count. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who pointed out that the mass murders of Christians in Russia were directly inspired by those in the Vendée. The Bolsheviks, he said, modeled themselves on the French revolutionaries, and pointed to the Vendée massacres as the right way to deal with Christian resistance. Of course, it wasn’t supposed to...

French police on Monday arrested 11 people suspected of helping to arm the Tunisian who killed 86 people by driving his truck into a crowd in Nice, sources close to the investigation said. Ten suspects, including one or more Albanians, were arrested in various parts of Nice and another was detained in the western city of Nantes, the sources said. The arrests come five months after Tunisian extremist Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel drove a 19-tonne truck into a crowd on the Nice seafront, further traumatising a country reeling from a series of terrorist attacks. The victims, from 19 different countries, were...

The city of confusion is broken down: every house is shut up, that no man may come in. There is a crying for wine in the streets; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is gone. In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. When thus it shall be in the midst of the land among the people, there shall be as the shaking of an olive tree, and as the gleaning grapes when the vintage is done.(Isaiah 24:10-13)From the uttermost part of the earth have we heard songs, even glory to the...

In recognition of Bastille Day, I, in this special Monday episode, discuss "the book that caused the French Revolution": Les Liaisons Dangereuses (The Dangerous Liaisons), written by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos. The book -- perhaps somewhat unintentionally -- set off pious sentiment against the Ancien Regime, and its influence carries on today. WATCH ON YOUTUBE(Alternative link, via Vimeo.) Summary:I start off the show with a brief primer on Bastille Day and immediately begin a summary of the characters and events in this novel, breaking down its story of lust and love. I then cite some of its distinctively Catholic elements....

July 14 is the day the French people celebrate the storming of the Bastille. This led to the dethroning and beheading of King Louis XVI and the establishment of the first French Republic, which promised “liberty, equality, and fraternity.” The rest of the story doesn’t go so well. Out of the French Revolution came the Reign of Terror, which saw 16,000-40,000 people guillotined. Within fifteen years, the Republic gave way to the French Empire and the Napoleonic Wars and its millions of deaths.France is hardly alone in the list of nations with revolutions that failed to live up to their...

As the title implies, it appears more and more that our Constitutional Republic is becoming more corrupt by the day through back-room bribes and under-handed dealings regarding the Senate "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" package. Currently, the Senate and the Executive Branch is efforting to force this legislation that will completely negate our system of justice by undermining our legal immigrations system and giving "special treatment" (amnesty) to those who have wait their turn. I have long fought against "illegal immigration" in many ways and for many years. But I never believed that our Fedgov would so actively work to undermine what...

Britain's era of good will with Europe lasted 48 hours - all because of the French. In the wake of the July 7 terrorist attacks in London, Scotland Yard brought together law enforcement and intelligence officials from two dozen European countries and the United States, sharing crucial intelligence and pleading for help in tracking down the bombers. But the continentwide kumbaya was shattered when Christophe Chaboud, France's new antiterrorism coordinator, broke the cardinal rule of the club. He leaked. In an interview with Le Monde that appeared on the newsstands last Monday afternoon - two days after the exceptionally open...

France's struggling economy, labour unrest, street protests and trouble from Corsican separatists yesterday damped President Jacques Chirac's attempts to use Bastille Day celebrations to burnish his profile as an international statesman. Jacques Chirac waves to the crowds during the annual Bastille Day parade The traditional parade on the Champs-Elysées, with low-flying jets trailing red, white and blue smoke above nearly 4,000 troops, was a chance for television cameras to capture M Chirac as he wants to be seen: head of state of a leading military power. A German general, Holger Kammerhoff, led the parade with 120 troops from Eurocorps, the...