Free Republic

 As I contemplated Shin Dong-hyuk and his escape from North Korea last week, I also happened to be reading Ralph C. Woods’ Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South--an unintentionally apropos pairing. One of Wood’s main theses is that O’Connor--the novelist, short story writer, and devout Catholic--preferred the excesses of fundamentalism, which at least takes God seriously enough to take him literally, to the bland “civil religion” practiced by most Americans, including most Catholics. "O’Connor discerned that something deadly had occurred when national identity had been made to trump religious faith”… “[Her] objection to a blithe indifferentism concerning truth and error,...

It isn’t entirely true that, as Lord Acton said, “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” It’s often the case that power simply allows people the luxury of lowering façades and showing their true colors. A good example is the recent behavior of many on the Left. Commentator Donald Kaul just wrote that he had no problem with guns being pried from their owners’ “cold, dead hands” and that Republican leaders should be dragged around a parking lot with a pick-up truck. A European college professor recommended the execution of “Climate Change Deniers” and the Pope. Closer to home, an...

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- A U.S. soldier who left his family farm in Tennessee to volunteer for the Korean War is finally coming home more than six decades later to be buried next to his mother and father, authorities said on Friday. With the help of DNA samples provided by his siblings in 2004, the U.S. military identified remains recovered in North Korea as Private First Class Glenn Schoenmann, who was 20 when he died in December 1950. Schoenmann was among the nearly 8,000 U.S. troops unaccounted for from the Korean War, which lasted from 1950 until 1953. His remains are...

If we are to preserve our First Amendment rights, judges must refrain from telling plaintiffs challenging the HHS mandate that they’ve got their theology wrong.Are judges more competent to determine what a particular religion requires or forbids than that religion’s own leaders or adherents? Most would think not. Yet that’s what two of the recent rulings related to the Health and Human Services contraception, sterilization, and abortion-drug mandate seem to claim. Recently, in Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. v. Sebelius, federal district judge Joe Heaton of the western district of Oklahoma ruled against the Greens, the devout Christian owners of Hobby...

I have been informed that John Noveske, master of the AR and the founder of Noveske Rifleworks, was killed in an auto accident yesterday in Oregon. Here is a statement released by Noveske Rifleworks, via Soldier Systems: Noveske Rifleworks would ask you to remember the passing of our founder, John Noveske, who died Friday, January 4th 2013 in an automobile accident. John planned for all eventualities, and wanted to ensure any changes would be as seamless as possible for our customers, dealers, suppliers, employees and friends. While this will be a trying time, we do not expect a change in...

The New Year has started with a monstrosity of a budget deal, one that proves that neither political party, Democrats or Republicans, is really serious about controlling the growth of big government. But soap opera dramatics about fiscal "cliffs" and sequestration shouldn’t deflect from where President Obama is really taking this country. Consider this story from the Wall Street Journal a few days before Christmas:

In his first weekly address of the New Year, President Obama touts the "fiscal cliff" compromise as "one more step in the broader effort to grow our economy and shrink our deficits" but warns that another "manufactured crisis" over the debt ceiling could wreak havoc on the economy.

Dieting and exercising are perhaps the most popular New Years Resolutions, but don't worry if you've indulged on a few too many holiday treats this year. Swimsuits are already trickling onto retail shelves and the spotlight is on one-piece swimwear, not bikinis. Yes, that extra inch to pinch around your tummy can potentially remain hidden all year. Every stylish celebrity from the curvier gals like Beyonce, Christina Hendricks, and Kim Kardashian, to the skinny-minnies like Taylor Swift, Kate Moss, and Kirsten Dunst are rocking one-piece bathing suits, or "maillots." As a result, the rest of us are heading directly...

Seven mass shootings rocked the nation in 2012, with the Dec. 14 tragedy in Newtown, Conn. being the second deadliest in United States history. These events have pushed gun issues to the forefront of the media and public attention. Local gun retailers, like many across the nation, are reporting increases in gun and ammunition sales following the Connecticut shootings. Gun retailers are reporting that customers are purchasing new weapons out of a fear of possible new gun control measures. Retailers including Wheeler's, P&M Outdoors and Phillips & Sons Pawnbrokers of Elkins are reporting a significant increase of gun and ammunition...

When President Obama hugged a tearful New Jersey business owner after Hurricane Sandy ravaged her home and livelihood, it was the image of compassion, promise and hope. But the victim in the photo, Donna Vanzant, has now revealed that the president's promises to pour aid into the area were empty - and that, after the hug, she merely received a form letter from him. Obama visited the destroyed marina Ms Vanzant owns in Brigantine, New Jersey on October 31 and promised her 'immediate' aid. Soon after, Ms Vanzant wrote him an email. 'Many days later, I got a response back,'...

A gunman killed three people before police shot him dead Saturday in a shooting at a house in the Colorado town of Aurora, the same town that played host to a massacre at a cinema last year, police said. NBC television's local affiliate KUSA cited police as saying that one survivor escaped from the house, where an "armed and dangerous" man had earlier barricaded himself inside with hostages, AFP reported. "The barricade situation is resolved. The suspect is dead. There were also three other victims found dead inside," the Aurora Police Department announced on its official Twitter account. Aurora made...

Shocked guards at the northeast Brazil prison 'detained' the feline, which was afterwards taken to a vet for medical treatment All 263 inmates are considered suspect in the plot...

Only seven companies have offered corporate cash to help fund President Barack Obama’s upcoming inaugural festivities. In 2009, Obama banned corporate donors from paying for his inauguration, but he was still able to raise $53 million from private donors. However, this month’s inauguration is being held after the most expensive presidential campaign in history, and even with the corporate donations will be a scaled-down event. This year, fewer people are expected to attend the inauguration and there are only two official balls planned. … According to the Inauguration Committee’s website, more than 400 people have donated toward the events. So...

LOGANVILLE, Ga. — A woman hiding in her attic with children shot an intruder multiple times before fleeing to safety Friday. The incident happened at a home on Henderson Ridge Lane in Loganville around 1 p.m. The woman was working in an upstairs office when she spotted a strange man outside a window, according to Walton County Sheriff Joe Chapman. He said she took her 9-year-old twins to a crawlspace before the man broke in using a crowbar. But the man eventually found the family. "The perpetrator opens that door. Of course, at that time he's staring at her, her...

A federal court has ruled that South Carolina was the prevailing party in the unnecessary Voter ID litigation, and therefore the Justice Department is liable for paying the state’s costs. South Carolina spent $3,500,000 to obtain federal court approval of the state’s Voter ID law as non-discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act. The lawsuit was made necessary only because of the political and ideological radicalism of Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez and his deputy Matthew Colangelo. AAG Tom Perez PJ Media had this exclusive report detailing that career Voting Section employees, including Voting Section Chief Chris Herren, recommended that the...

He set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved. You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. But at your rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; they flowed over the mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth. (Psalm 104:5-9)

When Chancellor Angela Merkel hosted a recent reception for military families, she greeted parents, wives and children whose loved ones were spending their holidays in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Kosovo and off the Horn of Africa. German deployments overseas, Ms. Merkel said, “will soon encompass the entire globe.” On that same wintry afternoon, members of Parliament debated whether to add to the nearly 6,000 German troops currently serving abroad by sending up to 400 soldiers to Turkey, where they would operate two Patriot missile batteries to help protect their NATO ally from a potential escalation of the civil war across the border...

Freeport, Ill. — Attorneys for those arrested during a Sensata plant protest and the City of Freeport spoke via conference call with Judge Jack Joyce on Wednesday to begin ironing out details for an upcoming trial date. “We’re looking at trial dates,” said City Attorney John Mitchell. “The conference that we held with the opposing counsel was to discuss three or four dates that are open over the next few months.” Lawyers are working towards a trial because the 11 protesters facing criminal trespassing charges lobbied for a trial by jury rather than agreeing to pay any fines during their...

Pastor Scott Lively, a well-known pro-family writer and speaker who also runs Redemption Gate Ministry and the Holy Grounds Coffee House in Springfield, Mass., is being sued by a George Soros-funded New York-based pro-homosexual "civil rights" group for so-called "crimes against humanity" which they claim include his alleged inciting of murder, torture, and other crimes in Uganda! Homosexual activists are making the outlandish claim that his conversations and speeches caused the Uganda Parliament to introduce a harsh anti-homosexuality bill. Though the bill was never passed, they claim that its introduction led to attacks on the homosexual community in Uganda. Thus,...