rjs330 said:

If the OP is true I am totally opposed to the lowering of standards. There were other police agencies that did that because they couldn't get officers and it didn't go well. So, no, not a fan of doing this in any LE agency.

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I agree.

Mark Quayle said:

Then you are saying that God is not omniscient which also means he is not omnipotent. That is not God. Also, your thinking demonstrates the notion that God is subject to time, and whatever other things you consider 'reality'. In your thinking, God is not the 'inventor' of time and reality.

All things begin with God. Apart from him, there was nothing—no principles, no fact, no reality— until he created. All other things depend on and logically descend from his creating.

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What scripture in your mind proves that he is either of those things? FutureAndAHope provided a scripture. Maybe only one, but there are others. In addition to Genesis 6:6, I would also add:

1 Samuel 15:35
Jeremiah 3:6,7

Of course, there are many that support your viewpoint as well:

Isaiah 44:6
Isaiah 48:12
Revelation 1:8
Revelation 21:6
Revelation 22:13

Whether or not God invented time is something neither of us can prove or disprove. Yes, we can infer from creation that God created "our" reality, but there is nothing that tells us what is in God's reality.

Mark Quayle said:

Can you prove that man has freewill? It seems to be one of the foundations of your theory.

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Can you prove that man does not have free will? Atheists believe that all of reality and our actions is a mere result of billions (or more) of variables that are the almost infinite calculations of every particle in the universe. How would that be any different than having a God that does not give mankind free will? And how do you have free will when God knows what you will do in every second of your life from the time you are created?

If man does not have free will, then all sin and evil (and good as well) is caused by God. That is the logical end result from his creation if God chose to know what our choices would be. Why warn Adam and Eve, if God knew they were going to take the fruit anyway? Why does God question them afterwards? He obviously knew at this point that they took the fruit, but maybe he didn't know if they would have remorse, or blame each other as the text states. Their punishment was only stated after their response, and prophecies in the Bible only began after man sinned.

Why are there so many places in the Bible where Israel, Judah, a specific king or prophet is given a choice? Why is Noah in 2 Peter 2:5 referred to as "a preacher of righteousness"? Why is he preaching at all if God knows already that they will reject him and everyone but Noah's family will die? Why do we as Christians preach, if only certain people are predestined to be called to God anyway?

Much of the Bible makes little sense without free will.

Welcome Emily!

Welcome Marcus!

Welcome to CF!

Welcome Dave!

Welcome!

Welcome!

Aryeh Jay said:

Since the government is back open, the House needs to start the impeachment process on these unelected bishops.

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LOL!

essentialsaltes said:

STOP THE PRESSES!

View attachment 374052

WASHINGTON — It wasn’t the one he had in mind but Donald Trump did finally take home a peace prize.

Trump was the winner of the inaugural "FIFA Peace Prize," which the soccer organization awarded during its World Cup draw in Washington.

"This is truly one of the great honors of my life," Trump said as he accepted the award.

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Lol what a joke.

What next, a press freedom award for MBS?

There's too much going on here to address every point, but one thing came to mind when you mentioned that we might feel (or be?) closer to God if he was created.

Thay might be true, but if God is all that Christianity believes he is, it would be tragic to feel closer to him by deciding he is less than he really is and is more like us.

Say it aint so said:

I am a little older, but schools really need to hone on two things. The first is civics if that is still a thing. Should be mandatory. The second is just straight life schools like money, budgets, home mortgages, appreciation vs depreciation, interest rates specially compound interest rates. The other thing is congress needs to act against predatory lenders. There was a org in place that looked after consumers. Of course that got trashed by the current admin.

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I agree,

I've always tried to engage with people like Jehova's Witnesses when they come by. The last time I did this the elder, despite acknowledging this was extremely serious stuff, got into a hurry to write me off as a waste of time. Just that, in and of itself, speaks volumes I think.

His claims were full of shallow and illogical thinking. He claimed, for example, that God isn't omnipresent because the bible says he's in heaven. When I replied that that doesn't say he can't also be elsewhere, the elder replied again "but the bible says he's in heaven". I tried to point to the circular reasoning but just couldn't get throuugh.

Per the article:


Mangione’s defense is challenging the initial statements Mangione made to the police before receiving his Miranda rights. But this argument is baseless. When the police stop a person reasonably suspected of criminal activity — and there is absolutely no doubt that the police had a reasonable suspicion that the person they confronted might have been the Thompson killer — the police have the right to ask preliminary questions to either confirm or dispel their reasonable suspicion. This practice has been consistently reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court and the New York courts for over 50 years.

Opinion of op-ed law school professor:


Bennett L. Gershman is a distinguished professor at the Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University

Florida judge grants DOJ motion to unseal Epstein grand jury transcripts​

U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith – a Trump appointee – determined that the language of the recently-enacted Epstein Transparency Act "overrides" federal rules prohibiting the public disclosure of grand jury materials.

Smith is one of three federal judges asked by the DOJ to unseal grand jury materials in cases involving Epstein and his convicted co-conspirator, Ghislaine Maxwell. Smith is the first to rule. Two judges in New York are expected to issue their decisions next week.

Landon Caeli said:

Oh, the new analysis says that? Gotcha.

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Again, between 2014 and now a lot of progress has been made, which has lowered the expected warming.
The most accepted analysis is the IPCC roadmap.

essentialsaltes said:

He's certainly not responsible for ALL the problems in Sudan, but he contributed to the humanitarian crisis by folding his arms and doing nothing about it. Food, doctors and medicine are desperately needed? That's why we were sending them some, until you stopped it, shouting AMERICA FIRST!

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And now on the vacuum part:

Sudan offers Russia Red Sea base for 25 years in exchange for arms​

Sudan's government has offered Russia its first naval base in Africa, in exchange for arms, as the military continues to battle the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a renegade militia that Moscow initially supported.

The agreement would see the establishment of a Russian naval base in the Red Sea's Port Sudan, or another facility, that would house 300 personnel and dock up to four naval vessels, including nuclear-powered ones, according to Sudanese officials speaking to The Wall Street Journal.

‘There is no Mamdani effect’: Manhattan luxury home sales surge after mayoral election, undercutting predictions of doom and escape to Florida​

In the aftermath of much well-heeled panic about a potential mass exodus of New York millionaires and billionaires following the election of Zohran Mamdani, the contrary is already happening, and Manhattan luxury apartment buyers are voting with their wallets.

Signed contracts for Manhattan homes costing $4 million or more rose to 176 in November, a 25% increase from October’s 141 deals, according to fresh data from brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraiser Miller Samuel. New signed contracts of more than $4 million increased at more than twice the rate of the overall market, the report noted.

Olshan Realty similarly noted an uptick in Manhattan luxury buyers. In its most recent market report, the firm said the 17 contracts signed in the last week of November for Manhattan homes over $4 million bested its 10-year Thanksgiving week average.

Trump's calls for “remigration,” a form of ethnic cleansing, echo Nick Fuentes' calls to roll back immigration​

On November 27, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries to allow the U.S. system to fully recover,” adding, “Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation.” Trump’s latest comments come after the Department of Homeland Security publicly called for immigrants to “remigrate,” Trump’s State Department announced the opening of an “Office of Remigration” in April [see below], and Trump pledged during his 2024 presidential campaign to “revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”

Fuentes has also celebrated right-wing media figures and politicians who have embraced the idea of an end to all immigration or even remigration, boasting in June that “I've never seen the right wing so angry and so explicitly against mass migration, so close to expressing their disdain in racial terms. ... the groypers have won. It's just not even a question at this point.”

In reaction to Trump's Truth Social post about “reverse migration,” Fuentes said that “this is awesome,” and he also called it a “great post,” saying it’s “funny, hilarious, incisive, witty, direct.”

See also:

essentialsaltes said:

According to a post about the summit on the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism’s website, “Remigration is rooted in the thoroughly de-bunked white supremacist ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory, which purports a planned ‘replacement’ of white people by politicians and other ‘elites.’ Jews are often targeted as driving this ‘plan.’”

They continued: “Remigration is a series of policy proposals, drafted by Austrian Identitarian and former neo-Nazi Martin Sellner, to end the so-called ‘replacement’ by purging the continent of non-white people and eliminating all forms of multiculturalism. The goal is to make countries ‘European again.’”

US State Department set to launch Office of Remigration​

... which will “provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and for intra-agency policy work to advance the President’s immigration agenda.” There will also be offices of International Migration/Repatriation and Refugee Processing.

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People pay good money to go to Florida and just sit in the sun. These criminals are just too much.

Michie said:

The commission was created earlier this year by Pope Francis.​

Pope Leo XIV has suppressed a Vatican donations commission less than 10 months after it was established by his predecessor Pope Francis.

The Vatican released Dec. 4 a chirograph, signed Sept. 29 by Pope Leo XIV, suppressing the Commissio de donationibus pro Sancta Sede, or Commission of Donations for the Holy See, which sought to raise much-needed funds for the Vatican.

Pope Francis had signed a document establishing the commission Feb. 11, three days before he was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital and 69 days before his death at the age of 88.

The new chirograph suppressing the commission said that the move came as a recommendation of the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, which “devoted particular attention to studying this issue, reexamining it and consulting with experts in the field.”

The chirograph also announced the creation of a working group “to formulate proposals regarding the general issue of fundraising for the Holy See, along with the definition of an appropriate structure.”

Members of the working group will be proposed to Leo XIV by the Vatican’s Council for the Economy, via the Secretariat of State.

Continued below.

Leo XIV suppresses Vatican donations commission

The commission was created earlier this year by Pope Francis.

www.pillarcatholic.com

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I am beginning to have some hope again in pope Leo now that he is moving to undo some things pope Francis did. If he finally gets around to undo Fiducia supplicans and the like I might even be able to contemplate a donation to Peter's Pence. For now I wait.

While I don't particularly like how he partially undid Traditiones custodes by saying he would grant the exception of any bishop who asks, he did at least make some progress. I have a glimmer of hope there may be more progress if and when he comes into his own, hopefully as a faithful Catholic.

Always in His Presence said:

Here are the Democrats calling for Schumer to be replaced as leader​

Democrats have been pushing back on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) after eight party members voted in favor of a stopgap measure to reopen the government.

The 60-40 vote approving a continuing resolution to fund much of the government until Jan. 30 leaves health care subsidies in limbo, cementing disdain for Schumer, who previously said extending ObamaCare subsidies was a “life or death” provision for Democrats.

In early October, the Senate minority leader said there was “no (obscenity deleted) way” party members would cave on health care demands to reopen the government.

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Well, they get to do it all over again in January.

Judges lash out at Justice Department for still listing Lindsey Halligan on court documents​

One of those judges, Magistrate William Fitzpatrick, said at a criminal case hearing Tuesday that filing criminal charging papers “under Ms. Halligan’s name” at this time “is simply not acceptable,” according to a transcript obtained by CNN.

Both Fitzpatrick and another judge in the district, Michael Nachmanoff, told prosecutors this week they believed the ruling was clear that Halligan wasn’t the US attorney for all cases. They both noted, in separate hearings this week, according to court transcripts, that the Justice Department hadn’t appealed the ruling about Halligan, nor asked any court to pause it for a possible appeal.

The Justice Department’s reasoning for keeping Halligan’s name on criminal filings has been thin, from the perspective of prosecutors appearing in court.

“The Office of Legal Counsel told us to put the name as is as it has been presented on these indictments. That’s what we are going on at this point,” Roberts said in court on Tuesday, according to court records obtained by CNN.

Can the United States Government defraud itself?

essentialsaltes said:

The rise in political menace is even affecting our 51st state.

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Oh, the thread is open to other countries?

Germany: Dozens injured at Berlin pro-Palestinian protest​

Sportswear boss offers his £3billion firm to anyone who can prove Earth is flat​

In a video posted on Columbia Sportswear’s YouTube channel on Tuesday (December 2), the boss, dressed in a casual navy quarter-zip and red and white checked shirt, challenged conspiracy theorists to prove him wrong.

Mr Boyle said: ‘This message is for flat Earthers. You guys claim there’s an end to the Earth?

‘Well just go snap a picture. Send it to us – and you get the assets to the company. All of it.

‘No paperwork, no lawyers, no catches.’

He is then interrupted by a man who appears to be a part of Columbia’s legal team, dressed in a black suit and blue patterned tie, who said: ‘Um, Tim, there is some paperwork.’

Is the Earth flat?​

The first flat Earthers can be traced back to ancient Mesopotamia who thought the earth was disc-shaped and under a dome.

But by about 300 BCE, educated scholars overwhelmingly accepted that the Earth is a sphere