Free Republic

LETTERKENNY, Ireland – Arguing that the Catholic Church in Ireland is under attack from “aggressive secularism” constitutes a “hate crime,” according to a formal complaint made to Irish police. John Colgan, called a “leading humanist” by the Irish Independent, told police this week that Bishop Philip Boyce of the Raphoe diocese in northwestern Ireland was guilty of “incitement to hatred” against secularists when the latter said in a sermon last August that the Church was being “attacked from the outside by the arrows of a secular and godless culture.”

Matt Drudge asked if 2012 is Hillary versus Obama redux, pointing out that Mitt Romney has 280,970 votes and Newt Gingrich has 269,632 votes after voting in 3 states. There are 47 to go. Glenn Reynolds linked to a poll, “Should Santorum drop out before Florida?” Oh piffle. That poll is by a Newt Gingrich supporter. What if a Santorum supporter had asked the same thing a week ago, when Rick was ahead of Newt 52,201 votes to 39,574 and 12 delegates to none? How about we conservatives let the marketplace do its thing? Voters will pick the candidate, in...

Last month, Sen. Rick Santorum schooled CNN’s Candy Crowley on the subject of President Barack Obama’s appeasement of America’s enemies. Today, on NBC’s Meet the Press, it was David Gregory’s turn. Like Crowley, Gregory attempted to “fact-check” Santorum by arguing that it could not possibly be “accurate” or “objective” to describe Obama’s foreign policy as “appeasement.” In particular, he challenged Santorum to distinguish Obama’s policy on Iran from that of his predecessor, George W. Bush. (For several years, Democrats have tried to defend Obama by pointing out that the Bush administration refused to approve military strikes, either by the U.S....

The last Des Moines Register poll before Tuesday's Iowa caucuses was just released. Conducted from Tuesday to Friday, Mitt Romney leads with 24 percent, followed by Ron Paul at 22 percent, and Rick Santorum at 15 percent. Newt Gingrich is at 12 percent, Rick Perry 11 percent, and Michele Bachmann at 7 percent. Consider the last two days of polling separately, however, and it's Romney at 24 percent, Santorum at 21 percent, and Paul in third at 18 percent. "Momentum's name is Rick Santorum," said Register pollster J. Ann Selzer. That said, looking at only the last two days raises...

A team of scholars has discovered what might be the oldest representation of the Tower of Babel of Biblical fame, they report in a newly published book. Carved on a black stone, which has already been dubbed the Tower of Babel stele, the inscription dates to 604-562 BCE. It was found in the collection of Martin Schøyen, a businessman from Norway who owns the largest private manuscript assemblage formed in the 20th century. Consisting of 13,717 manuscript items spanning over‭ ‬5,000‭ ‬years, the collection includes parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Buddhist manuscript rescued from the Taliban, and even...

Pollster Scott Rasmussen has just released a new poll of likely Iowa caucus-goers which shows Mitt Romney and Ron Paul in a virtual tie for first place -- 23 percent and 22 percent, respectively. Rasmussen's poll also supports other polling showing an increase in support for Rick Santorum. In the new survey, Santorum is in third place in Iowa, with 16 percent -- up from ten percent a little more than a week ago. Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry are tied at 13 percent, and Michele Bachmann is at five percent. Jon Huntsman is at three percent.... There was some...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Rep. Ron Paul are neck-and-neck for the lead in Iowa, less than a week before the first in the nation caucuses according to a new CNN/Time/ORC poll, while former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has risen to third place. Romney has the support of 25 percent of likely Iowa caucus-goers, followed by Paul with 22 percent, and Santorum at 16 percent (up from just 5 percent four weeks ago). Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, who led Iowa polls just weeks ago, is down 33 points to just 14 percent, amid unrelenting criticism from...

MASON CITY, Iowa (AP) — Rick Santorum isn't going down without a fight. In fact, that fight might be lifting him up. The Republican presidential candidate who may have logged more miles than any other this year is more likely these days to be grinding it out on the campaign trail than trumpeting the buzz he's stirring among Iowa's conservative voters a week before the Jan. 3 presidential caucuses.... "Rick Santorum could be a real surprise," said former Dallas County GOP Chairman Rob Taylor. In recent days, Santorum's crowds have started growing as he rallies conservatives with a pit bull's...

ABC’s Michael Falcone and Shushannah Walshe report: Presidential candidate Rick Santorum scored more than just the endorsements of two influential Iowa social conservatives on Tuesday. He also won the attention of a Democratic super PAC that’s been keeping a close eye on the top contenders for the Republican nomination. Up until now the super PAC, American Bridge 21st Century, paid little attention to the former Pennsylvania senator, but with two weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, Santorum’s experiencing something of a last-minute bump. And now he’s getting a tracker dispatched by American Bridge. The candidate, who has turned Iowa...

As of this moment, if you look at the RealClearPolitics average for who will win in Iowa, Newt Gingrich leads with Herman Cain and then Mitt Romney close behind. But never was it more important to keep in mind that polls are a snapshot in time that are out of date almost before they can be tabulated and published. Iowa Republicans are unanimous in their view that Cain is losing altitude there, as he is around the country. A plugged-in official in the state Republican Party predicts, “He’ll end up in single digits I think.” Craig Robinson of the Iowa...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Faulkner defeated Union (Ky.) 95-89 in triple overtime in one of the highest scoring games played Saturday — and it was football, not basketball. The 184 combined points set an NAIA record, smashing the previous mark of 141 set in 1994 when Southwestern (Kan.) defeated Sterling (Kan.) 79-62. It was the second-highest-scoring football game all-time behind Georgia Tech’s 222-0 dismantling of Cumberland in 1916, and much more exciting. Faulkner (3-7) also set an NAIA record with 14 touchdowns.

Mike Pence, Mitch Daniels, Paul Ryan, Bobby Jindal, Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush — conservatives all year long have been wishing, yearning, even begging people who aren’t in the presidential race to enter the fray and save them from what seems like a frighteningly uninspiring field of candidates. Yet could it be that the sharpest, most accomplished, most campaign-savvy, and most full-spectrum conservative in a quarter-century of presidential contests has been in the contest all along, working harder than anybody, making at least as much intellectual sense as anybody, never blowing a debate, and never failing to stand on...

<p>DETROIT — A group that considers Islam one of the problems facing the U.S. is planning a 24-hour Christian rally in Detroit.</p> <p>The prayer event, known as TheCall, starts Friday night at city's NFL stadium.</p>

The president who is well on his way toward borrowing more money than any other president — the first president to downgrade the nation’s credit — had a late-night conference call with European leaders to chew them out for not meeting his standards when it comes to managing a nation’s money. From the London Daily Mail: “Barack Obama has read the riot act to the leaders of several European countries — saying more dramatic action is needed to avert a eurozone meltdown. The U.S. President made telephone calls to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Italian President...

Republican presidential candidates Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum participated in the Granite State Patriot’s Constitutional Conversation Thursday night, where the two were not short on criticism of President Obama’s interpretation of the constitution. “What’s the biggest constitutional failing of the Obama administration?” the moderator asked Santorum. The crowd laughed as Santorum scratched his head for a moment with a perplexed look. “This is going to be a much longer debate now,” Gingrich said. “We’ll let Newt go first,” Santorum said. Gingrich paused and said, “Not understanding which country he’s president of.”

DES MOINES -- While the political world obsesses over the problems of Herman Cain, social conservatives here in Iowa are making a quiet effort to unite behind a single candidate to defeat Mitt Romney in the January 3 Republican caucuses. Romney will benefit from a divided field, they believe, and the best way for social conservatives who oppose Romney to assert their influence would be to support a single candidate. In a move that could stun political observers around the country, those conservatives are increasingly focusing on Rick Santorum as that candidate. Nothing is a done deal -- many are...

Rick Santorum has announced his "Faith, Family and Freedom" tour in Iowa. Santorum may be dragging the rear in the line-up of Republican presidential candidates, but I am grateful to him for being the only candidate who insists that the so-called "social issues" remain an integral, explicit part of his agenda. That's not to say that the other conservative candidates disagree with Santorum's take on these issues -- traditional values, abortion, marriage -- but Santorum has been the only one to insist that you cannot consider the economy independent of the way the individual human beings who make up the...

DES MOINES, Iowa — Presidential candidate Rick Santorum plans to pivot from his 99-county tour of Iowa to a series of detailed policy speeches that will span the areas of cultural and social issues, the economy and foreign policy, his campaign told ABC News. Santorum is set to launch a “Faith, Family and Freedom Tour” on Friday in Iowa, a state where he has been campaigning particularly hard. The first of three addresses the former Pennsylvania senator will deliver in connection with the tour is titled “Moral, Cultural Policies for a Santorum White House.” He will deliver the speech Friday...

As Rick Santorum makes his final push to the Iowa caucuses, he’s improbably positioning his campaign to continue deeper into 2012 than some much better-known, better-funded rivals. He’s doing it by quietly working the ground game and loudly attacking any of his rivals who enjoy even a moment in the spotlight. It’s a two-pronged strategy that hasn’t lifted the longtime political tactician and former Pennsylvania senator from the back, and no one expects him to win the GOP nomination. But it’s won him respect in Iowa, the only state that matters to his campaign over the next couple months. Most...

Rick Santorum won the Republican debate last night. That doesn’t mean the former Pennsylvania senator came across as the best candidate, or the one most likely to succeed in the general election. But that’s not the race that he is competing in. Instead, Santorum succeeded in his effort to position himself to win around 20 percent of the vote in the conservative-dominated Iowa caucuses — a showing that might be enough to keep his candidacy going.