Free Republic

You ever get that feeling that no matter who you vote for, it's not going to matter? That no matter who you vote for, your job won't get any better, gas prices will still go up, and life will still be hard? Is it ever annoying to feel that no matter what grand promises are given by a politician, once in office, he or she may or may not do what they so grandiosely promised the voters? That is partially why I believe voting in Democratic elections is like playing Russian Roulette. But before I give an in depth analysis...

ROCKVILLE, Md. - A flyer sent home with some high school students in Montgomery County, Md., is causing consternation among parents. The flyer is from a group called PFOX, Parents And Friends Of Ex-Gays And Gays. In the one-page message, the group tells teenagers that no one is "born gay", and people can choose their sexual orientation. Karen Yount-Merrell, a licensed, clinical social worker, got one of the flyers when her son came home with his report card from Einstein High School. "I don't like it," Yount-Merrell declared. "Everything in this flyer make its sound like the goal is to...

The Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has announced that it will no longer provide funds for breast cancer screenings and prevention to Planned Parenthood. The Foundation has recently been the focus of a campaign by the anti-abortion Life Issues Institute because it also performs abortions and maintains it is one of the largest chain of abortion mills in the US.

Actress Cynthia Nixon refuses to bow to pressure from the gay community to change her opinion that her homosexuality is a “choice,” despite facing criticism for her beliefs. The “Sex and the City” star enjoyed a 15-year romance with her college sweetheart Danny Mozes – the father of her daughter Samantha, 15, and son Charlie, 9 – until their split in 2003. She then fell for Christine Marinoni in 2004, and the couple has been engaged to wed since 2009. Nixon, who also has an 11-month-old son, Max, with Marinoni, is convinced her change in sexual preference was a choice....

On Monday, America officially remembered the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., celebrating the man whose vision of a country in which content of character counts more than skin color marches haltingly forward. And in those remembrances, King's fatal visit to Memphis in April 1968 inevitably comes to mind. King came to Tennessee to support sanitation workers. The workers were on strike, protesting unfair treatment and dangerous work conditions after two black workers had been crushed to death in a trash truck only two months before. The strikers and supporters marched while holding placards that displayed their cry for respect, their...

The taxpayer funded abortion factory Planned Parenthood making millions in profits by preying on women, specifically minorities and teenagers, seems to think a woman seeing her baby before making the ultimate decision to end her pregnancy is an "abhorrent" standard. The classification comes after a federal appeals court upheld a law that requires doctors to give women considering an abortion an ultrasound and full information before performing the procedure. Writing for the court, Chief Judge Edith Jones was frank about the other side’s failure “to demonstrate constitutional flaws with the law,� which requires women to have a sonogram 24 hours...

We have heard of the horrors imposed on the people of China—women who have been forced to have abortions due to China’s demented and barbaric “one-child policy.” Due to that sick mandate, enacted in the late 1970s, a disproportionately large male population has resulted, because Chinese parents have selectively aborted baby girls in the hopes of having a son instead. Back in 2004, China banned sex-selection abortions, and according to current legislation pending in the U.S. House of Representatives, China is enforcing the ban. India and the United Kingdom have also banned sex and race-based abortions, and the United Nations...

Since this is Respect Life Sunday, and the beginning of Respect Life month, I wanted to talk about one woman who did respect life – and her choice has made a difference in the life of virtually every person in this church. Her name is Joanne Schiebel. In 1954, she was a young unmarried college student who discovered that she was pregnant. In the 1950s, her options were limited. She could have had an abortion – but the procedure was both dangerous and illegal. She could have gotten married, but she wasn’t ready and didn’t want to interrupt her education....

According to news reports, a group of public school superintendents from Macomb, Oakland and Wayne counties calling themselves the Tri-County Alliance for Public Education have sent a letter to Gov. Rick Snyder in which they claim: “No quantitative data exists that shows parental choice improves student learning.” This came as a response to proposed legislation that would remove a 1996 cap of 150 on the number of charter public schools that can be authorized by state universities. School employee unions and other conventional public school special interests have made similar claims, all of which have one thing in common: They...

Before the creation of charter public schools in 1994, mere geography determined the education of Michigan’s public school pupils. Much like buying boots in the old Soviet Empire, parental choice was limited to accepting what the bureaucrats in the local education monopoly offered, or fleeing with the family across the border to another district (if you could afford it). Even today, a majority of charters have a wait list, and some must conduct lotteries to determine which parents get a choice over who teaches their kids. For last school year, one such lottery was used because a district had just...

In an astonishing column published in the winger-left publication, "The Atlantic," openly "queer woman" (her words) Lindsay Miller says flatly, "In direct opposition to both the mainstream gay movement and Lady Gaga, I would like to state for the record that I was not born this way." Tellingly, she argues that saying people are "born this way" is a form of condescension, and she resents it mightily. "I get frustrated with the veiled condescension of straight people who believe that queers 'can't help it,' and thus should be treated with tolerance and pity." I've got news for Ms. Miller —...

A man is suing a hospital trust over his claims doctors put "do not resuscitate" orders on his wife's medical notes without her consent. [snip] A Department of Health spokeswoman said: "Decisions on Do Not Attempt Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation must be clinically appropriate for the individual involved, weighing up the possible benefits of CPR against any burdens or risks associated with the treatment."

As if the new York Times couldn’t sink any further down the hole of warped and twisted pro-abortion activism, the Gray Lady is out with yet another “news� piece that moves the newspaper further beyond the pale.Ruth Pawder is out today with a new story titled “The Two-Minus-One Pregnancy,� that focuses on “selective reduction� – the euphemistic phrase given to name the destruction of one or more unborn children in a multiple pregnancy situation where a mother has more than one baby resulting from an IVF pregnancy involving the implantation of multiple human embryos.The Times never makes it past the...

In what critics call a classic case of the government working at cross purposes, Washington is forcing residents across the country to install mercury lighting inside their homes while phasing out mercury lighting outside homes to protect the environment. Yes, you read that right. In 2005, Congress passed a law banning mercury vapor streetlights – two years before it banned incandescent light bulbs in favor of mercury vapor compact florescent bulbs. Under the Energy Policy Act, signed by President Bush in August 2005, manufacturers cannot make or import ballasts for mercury vapor lights after Jan. 1, 2008. According to the...

Conservatives have been talking about this particular choice for decades, and the future is now. This isn't hypotheticals wrapped in high-minded rhetoric. California is now forcing online businesses that have any physical presence in the state to collect sales tax from business it does there. Here's why... The legislation was intended to eliminate a perceived business impediment for brick-and-mortar retailers in the state, according to California Democratic Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, who helped develop the bill. State and local sales taxes can total 10 percent in some California cities, and big-box retailers like Wal-Mart complained that tax-free sales on Amazon were...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker today signed into law the largest expansion to the state’s school choice programs in history. The expansion will benefit thousands of children from the state’s low- and middle-income families and sends a strong signal to the nation that educational equality is possible with strong leadership from state legislators and executives. The American Federation for Children, which—along with School Choice Wisconsin, the Wisconsin Council of Religious & Independent Schools, Hispanics for School Choice, and Democrats for Education Reform—has invested significantly in outreach and advocacy efforts designed to expand school choice in the Badger State,...

With a stroke of a pen, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker today signed a 2011-2012 state budget that dramatically expands the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program to include tens of thousands of working class and middle income families. His signature also means that a brand new school choice program will be established in Racine County. The budget had previously passed the Senate and House on June 17 by votes of 19-14 and 60-38, respectively. "This is incredible news that I know would make Milton and Rose Friedman smile," said Robert C. Enlow, President and CEO of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice,...

School Choice Wisconsin fired back against charges the Milwaukee school voucher program discriminates against students with disabilities as alleged in a federal complaint filed yesterday by the American Civil Liberties Union and Disability Rights Wisconsin. In a press release, School Choice Wisconsin argued ACLU and DRW misappropriated public information about student disability enrollment: • Understates dramatically the number of special needs students served by private schools in the [Milwaukee Parental Choice Program]. • Fails to note the disparity in taxpayer support for MPCP pupils and pupils in private schools. • Fails to note that Disability Rights Wisconsin opposed a bill...

Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain told Hotsheet Wednesday that homosexuality is a sin and a choice. "I believe homosexuality is a sin because I'm a Bible-believing Christian, I believe it's a sin," he said. "But I know that some people make that choice. That's their choice." Cain was asked: "So you believe it's a choice?" "I believe it is a choice," he responded. CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW

President Barack Obama has chosen Army Gen. Martin Dempsey as the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to AP sources. Dempsey is a surprising choice because he began a four-year term as Army chief of staff just last month. Service chiefs have rarely, if ever, been promoted to JCS chairman so quickly. Marine Gen. James Cartwright, an Obama favorite, had long been considered the frontrunner for the JCS post. Gen. Cartwright was passed over, government officials said Tuesday, due to an inquiry into anonymous accusations that the general had a relationship with

Sen. Paul Smackdown at meeting of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee this April.

The Democratic mayor of Washington, D.C., Vincent Gray, distinguished himself last week by getting arrested in an act of "civil disobedience" reminiscent of the '60s. The mayor, six council members and more than 40 other protesters were detained by Capitol police for blocking the street to oppose the congressional budget deal that deprived D.C. of federal funds for abortions. They were also protesting a mandate under the same agreement that revives a popular school choice program, the "Opportunity Scholarship Program," which allows poor children in failing schools an opportunity to attend schools they and their parents believe will give them...

“To choose or not to choose” – That is the choice. How many decisions does a person make each day consciously and unconsciously? Wake or snooze? Oatmeal or cereal? Hat or no hat? Bus or car? Cranky or smiley? Pay bills or wait? Aaarrghgh! So many decisions are processed. In the grand scheme of things, most decisions are relatively simple; however, there are big hairy decisions that are always lurking. From the beginning it has been this way. How long did Adam and Eve go before they ate the fruit? What went through their minds before the decision was made?...

CENTRALIA, Wash. (AP) -- A 25-year-old woman has been arrested for investigation of first-degree murder in the death of a baby boy born prematurely and found decapitated, Centralia police say. Laura Lynn Hickey was arrested Wednesday after a weeklong investigation, which included a post-mortem examination of the baby by a forensic pathologist.

The Great School Choice Debate, hosted by The Independence Hall Tea Party Association on March 6, was a passionate discussion of Senate Bill 1, the school choice bill currently in the state senate. At issue was whether SB 1, a limited-scope bill granting a voucher to low-income families (in which the state subsidy would follow the child, not the school), is the only legislation achievable at this time, or whether a broader, more comprehensive bill can be passed. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the healthy debate that it should have been because Senator Anthony Williams, one of the bill’s prime sponsors and...

February 18, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In a historic vote Friday afternoon, the US House voted to strike all federal funding for the Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Every year the abortion giant receives hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding. The congressional body voted 240-185 in favor of the amendment, introduced by Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), to the 2011 Federal Spending Bill. Immediately after the vote Rep. Pence released a statement saying: “This afternoon’s vote is a victory for taxpayers and a victory for life. By banning federal funding to Planned Parenthood, Congress has taken a stand for millions...

Ann Althouse brings up some great points in this trio of posts responding to another law professor's op-ed today, but none more better than this: Tribe's op-ed, as I wrote in the first post, rests very heavily on misrepresenting the Supreme Court's commerce power doctrine as referring to "commercial choices." In fact, the cases refer to "commercial activities," and a switch from "activity" to "choice" is immensely important in the health care litigation, in which opponents stress that the failure to buy insurance is inactivity, not activity, and therefore beyond even the broadest interpretations the Supreme Court has ever...

Since 1995 the average mathematics score for fourth-graders jumped 11 points. At this rate we catch up with Singapore in a little over 80 years . . . assuming they don’t improve.” – Norman R. Augustine, retired CEO of Lockheed Martin Let’s keep that quote from a recent George Will column in mind as the school choice debate unfolds. ***** Even in a bad housing market, if someone were to initially offer his home at the lowest acceptable price, he would be called an idiot. And rightly so. Likewise, negotiators never come to the table with their bottom line proposal....

Abortionist Kermit Gosnell PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, January 26, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - “Scores� of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell’s victims are coming forward after his arrest last week, says Pennsylvania’s District Attorney.  Many women are detailing the horrid atrocities in the media, with some alleging that he even forced them to abort their child. One woman, Robyn Reid, told ABC News that she had planned to sneak away when her grandmother brought the then-three-month-pregnant 15-year-old to Gosnell’s facility on January 31, 1998.  “When I said no, the doctor got upset and he ended up taking my clothes off, hitting me, my legs were...

Opponents speak out against tuition vouchers Thursday, January 20, 2011 By Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-GazetteHARRISBURG -- In his inaugural speech, Gov. Tom Corbett barely hinted at what is sure to become one of the most hotly debated issues of the spring -- "school choice," also known as "tuition vouchers." It would be a major change in how the state funds education. "Our students compete not only with those from the other 49 states, but with students from around the world," the new chief executive said Tuesday. "So we must embrace innovation, competition and choice in our education system." The measure,...

...news reports were filled with stories concerning the events which occurred in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania involving one Dr. Kermit B. Gosnell. He has been criminally charged for the commission of eight murders. Seven children were killed by this man after they were born. This butcher executed them by utilizing a procedure he referred to as "snipping". He severed their spinal cord with surgical scissors which he inserted into the back of their necks. The eighth charge involved the death of one of the mothers from an apparent overdose of anesthetics administered during one of the executions. ...The truth is what...

Today, January 13th, marks the thirty-eighth anniversary of the the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in the case of Roe v. Wade. And despite of the media's attempt to elevate the anniversary date to red-letter status, the country is still sharply divided over the Court's decision. In fact, the number one question looming over any nominee to sit on the Supreme Court, well, any nominee by a Republican administration, is "how will they rule regarding Roe v. Wade?" So, did the Court rule judiciously in regards to the Constitution, or expeditiously in regards to an agenda? Let's go back and take...

This video, "Peace, Joy, & Choice Meets Caritas, Veritas, & Aequitas," came to us via e-mail from Randall Terry with the following message:"Hello Pro-life Friend. Merry Christmas to you and yours. You may have seen the powerful video of our Pro-life Warriors who recently preached at a "Holiday Party" for child-killers. Well, they did it again at a child-killing fundraiser! This fundraiser was held by a bunch of white people to raise money to kill black and Hispanic babies. It was disgusting. YouTube pulled down the video, so if you didn't get a chance to see it, we re-posted it...

US women's groups Thursday were bracing for a fight over abortion rights and gender equality with the new conservative majority in Congress. "We now face an anti-choice majority and a new speaker of the House who will threaten to roll back hard-fought progress for women," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women (NOW), the largest women's group in the United States. Republicans by Wednesday had picked up 60 seats in the 435-seat House of Representatives, well more than the 39 they needed for a majority. At least 49 of the newcomers to the House are opposed to...

President Barack Obama declared today that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gays in the military “will end and it will end on my watch,” even as his Justice Department was appealing a judge’s ruling that would have allowed homosexuals to serve openly in the military. Speaking at a town hall meeting put on jointly by BET, MTV and Country Music Television, Obama also said a person’s sexuality is not a choice. “I don’t profess to be an expert – this is a lay person’s opinion – but I don’t think it’s a choice,” he said. “People are born...

Dear John Boehner, Ted Poe, and Members of the incoming 112th Congress: If you do only one thing in your time in Washington, and frankly I hope you do only one thing given your propensity to expand government (other than eradicating Obamacare), it is this: SAVE THE LIGHT BULB. People may not realize it, but one of the first acts of the Democratic Congress in 2007, was to ban the light bulb effective in 2014. Seriously. Now, you may say that this is an exaggeration, and it is a bit, but the incandescent light bulb is the light bulb of...

On a recent weekday at Annunciation B.V.M. Church in Havertown, a Mass was celebrated to pray for and honor police officers — both those on the front lines and those who have fallen in the line of duty. It was an emotional service, especially given the number of police who have been brutally slain in the last several years. The thought of a lonely and distraught spouse raising young children — including some unborn who never even glimpsed their father — was so heartbreaking as to be unthinkable. The worst part is that there’s no rational way to explain, let...

One of the first things Barack Obama did as president was repeal the Mexico City Policy, allowing for United States funds to be used to pay for abortions in other countries.

Invited to discuss recent Gallup Poll numbers showing only 11 percent of Americans are confident in Congress, Democratic strategist Dick Morris appeared on Fox News Channel's "On The Record with Greta Van Susteren" last Friday and cited that lack of confidence as a reason for states to take more bold action after possible GOP victories in November. The former Clinton-aide suggested that with 37 governor races up for grabs and polls tending towards a significant GOP victory in the works, school choice initiatives will be suggested as a cost-saving measure for states.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – President Barack Obama on Thursday cast upcoming elections as a choice between the party that caused the economic meltdown and the one that's fixing it, seizing on a populist, sharply partisan theme for the critical November midterms. "We don't have to guess how the other party will govern because we're still living with the results from the last time they governed," Obama said at a fundraiser for Missouri Democratic Senate hopeful Robin Carnahan in Kansas City. "It's a choice between falling backward and moving forward." Helped by recent gaffes by Republicans, Obama has arrived at the...

"In politics, the names of things are more important than what they are." Gustave Le Bon Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist whose speciality was the study of crowd psychology. So powerful were his theories that Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini studied his work. These political leaders understood that controlling the psychology of the masses was critical to their acquisition and maintenance of power. Le Bon articulated what most politicians understand instinctively. It's all about the messaging. If we call a horrendous $787 billion dollar spending bill a Stimulus bill, people will be, if not happy, mollified. If...

Few organizations are as consistently liberal as the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), especially when it comes to matters of church and state. The ADL devotes an entire page on its Web site (www.adl.org) to church-state separation and wants the "wall" between the two to remain as high and impenetrable as possible, believing that to lower it would have a negative effect on both. Which makes it remarkable that the executive committee of ADL's Philadelphia chapter has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution endorsing vouchers that would allow children in underperforming schools in poor neighborhoods to escape to schools that would...

Yesterday President Obama nominated Elena Kagan to fill the fourth Supreme Court vacancy in less than six years. This nomination presents an opportunity for a teaching moment about what the court does, how it affects the lives of ordinary citizens, and how individual justices make a difference in this enterprise. [snip] One can only hope that Ms. Kagan will go off-script. In a 1995 book review published in the University of Chicago Law Review, she lamented that recent confirmation hearings were nothing but "a vapid and hollow charade." She explained that the Senate should view confirmation hearings "as an opportunity...

When the darkness and fog cleared on August 29, 1776, the mud soaked trenches were empty. General George Washington had slipped away during the night, living to fight another day. The Battle of Long Island was a clear British victory, but it was a lesson learned in the pursuit of liberty that the American conservative knows, and a lesson that Americans of every race, color and creed should know. So, on August 27, 1776, General Washington arrived in New York, overseeing the construction of new fortifications in Brooklyn Heights. The men found it hard to warm their food or keep...

(NNPA) Leave it to Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit branch of the NAACP, to organize a panel discussion on the provocative topic: “Is Gay the New Black?” The lively and sometimes passionate discussion was held as part of Freedom Weekend activities in Detroit and mirrored a long-running debate around the country among African- Americans and between Blacks and the lesbian and gay community. The question is premised on whether the LBGT community (lesbian, bisexual, gay and transgender) is discriminated against in the same manner that African- Americans were prior to passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts and,...

Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) insists that the recently enacted Obamacare law “does not require anyone to purchase health insurance. Republicans who say the law forces people to buy insurance are lying for political gain.” “The law gives people several options,” Schultz pointed out. “First, and of course, most recommended, is that they may buy insurance coverage. A second option is that they may pay a fine. And the third option is that they may go to prison. So, those who maintain that we have eliminated choice are just plain wrong.”

Pop Quiz: Which D.C. Politician Wants to Takeover Your Vitamins? A. Barack Obama (D) B. Nancy Pelosi (D) C. John McCain (R?) If you answered C. John McCain, you are sadly correct. Dear Fellow Conservative, Unfortunately, thanks to John McCain, we have to fight the battle to keep the Governments Hands Off Our Healthcare on two fronts. Tell John McCain Hands Off Our Vitamins Click Here to Send $5, $10, $25, $100, or the Max Gift to JD For Senate jdforsenate.com/ctt?cttid=11&redirect=contribute John McCain, my opponent in the Republican Primary this year, has introduced legislation that would allow the FDA to...

SOUTHERN ARIZONA – So-called small government “Maverick” and Arizona Senator John McCain wants to give the federal government more power over the regulation of vitamins and supplements by repealing the classification of these products, currently, as “food”. The Dietary Supplement and Safety Act would increase regulation over the availability of many vitamins and supplements available to consumers in the “free market”. “It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public. And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment,” said JBS.org,...

Go after illegal use of steroids Sen. McCain. But once you enact a bill, one thing always leads to another in Washington. The vitamins and supplements will most definitely be affected. But more importantly, we, the people who depend on them will be affected.

TRENTON -- Legislation that would create a permanent statewide public school choice program will go before an Assembly panel this week. The measure would allow parents to move their children to schools located across district lines. The new program would replace a pilot program that expired in 2005, though many participating districts continue to informally honor previously agreed-to student arrangements. The education committee is due to consider the measure Thursday.