Free Republic

The story of the modern social conservative movement is all about activism and politics, petitions and court cases, but Father Neuhaus’s great testament was about something grander: through those he inspired, through his writings, through his organizing, and through something as simple as connecting people over lunch who may share nothing in terms of what they can eat on the table but share greatly in what is unseen, Father Neuhaus fundamentally changed religious life in America forever.

John Zeigler wants to America to remember "that the media assassination of [Sarah Palin], her character and her family was one of the greatest public injustices of our time." He's absolutely right, of course.Zeigler did an interview with Palin earlier this week. Here are some excerpts in . . . video . . . and text . . .ON OVERALL MEDIA BIAS AND REPORTS THAT SHE MAY NOT BE THE REAL MOTHER OF HER SON TRIG Governor Palin: “When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers – anonymous bloggers especially? It’s a sad state of affairs in...

A Long Island man's quest to end his messy divorce took a new turn this week as he demanded his estranged wife give back the kidney he donated to her in 2001. It's a touching tale and one that has been met with ridicule from area divorce attorneys. "She ripped out his heart, but he doesn't get to rip out her kidney," says Lisa Bloom, a legal analyst for CBS' The Early Show. Calling this a publicity stunt by the scorned husband, Dr. Richard Batista, Bloom says there is absolutely no chance his soon-to-be ex-wife, Dawnell, will have to give...

By Katie O'MalleyThe College of DuPage (COD) in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, has announced the February speaker for their Living Leadership Program. Based on the desired goals of the series, COD students, parents and the taxpayers of DuPage County should have much to be excited about. The program, according to their website, is based on the following philosophies: “Leadership is a skill, therefore anyone can learn it, practice it, and become better at it. Leadership is not tied to position, title or authority. Leaders use 1) Conscious Decision-Making 2) Active Participation, and 3) Understanding of Multiple Perspectives to impact their...

The U.S. has developed plans for a “surge” in crime fighters if the drug wars in Mexico should spread across the border, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said. Criminal activity in Mexico has killed more than 5,300 people in the past year, including members of warring drug cartels, law enforcement officials and bystanders, many of them slain close to the U.S. border. Over the summer Chertoff called for plans to combat the violence. He told The New York Times that the Homeland Security Department drew up a contingency plan so that if there is a significant spillover of violence across...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., Nov 13, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Cash-strapped consumers are finding bonanzas in their jewelry boxes as they sell their unwanted gold to pay for holiday gifts -- but more and more are complaining some gold dealers aren't ethical or offering fair prices. The biggest offenders, according to a recent tally on the Better Business Bureau's website, BBB.org, are companies advertising heavily to buy unwanted gold jewelry on cable television channels. One company had 177 complaints in the previous 36 months. Another had 96. The complaints range from pricing discrepancies and misleading advertising to customer service issues...

- Catholicism.org - http://catholicism.org - Ten Ways to Make a Delinquent (Guaranteed to Work!) Posted By Sister Maria Philomena, M.I.C.M. On January 7, 2009 @ 11:24 am In Columns, Marriage and Family | No Comments The police department of Houston, Texas, gave the following ten rules for raising delinquent children. 1. Begin with infancy to give the child everything he wants. In this way he will grow up to believe the world owes him a living.2. When he picks up bad words, laugh at him. This will make him think he is cute. It will also encourage him to pick...

The Bush administration has awarded a $61,200 bonus to Border Patrol Chief David V. Aguilar, whose agency has been criticized in the past year by Congress for delays in a $20 million fence project and for an accelerated hiring program that auditors said threatens to reduce qualified field supervisors. The chief also has been criticized by his own rank and file for not supporting two agents sent to prison for shooting a drug smuggler in the buttocks as he fled back to Mexico, and greeted with a unanimous "no confidence" vote by the union representing non-supervisory agents. The presidential merit...

President-elect Barack Obama has yet to relent, but he conceded that he might be losing the battle to keep his independent lifeline to the outside world. “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.” Of all the fights facing Mr. Obama as he prepares for the White House, one of the most maddening for him is the prospect of losing the BlackBerry that has been attached to his belt for years.

Some of Israel’s most blatant critics have written that for every Israeli killed, about a hundred Palestinians were killed. A half-truth is worse than a lie, but this is not even a half truth. This is deception. Because months and years of rockets fired at a civilian population are not a matter for bloody accounts. It is a nuisance that no country, neither Syria nor Sweden, would tolerate. It is a provocation that requires a tough response. And if we are already going for bloody accounts, we should do the overall math. We can suffice with just the accounting in...

Washington, DC -- If anyone had any question about whether Barack Obama would promote the increase or reduction of abortions as president, the abortion advocates he's named to top administration posts confirm his agenda. Now, Obama appears likely to select the FDA chief who oversaw the abortion drug for a second stint.

“Many Saw Evil,” the posters for the new Tom Cruise film Valkyrie proclaim, “But They Dared to Stop It.” Or tried, at any rate. The members of what is known in Germany as the “July 20th” plot failed, of course, to kill Hitler and were unable to seize power. If this slight exaggeration amounts to wishful thinking, however, the suggestion that the would-be assassin, Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, and his co-conspirators “saw evil” in the Nazi regime amounts to an outright distortion of the historical record. In fact, Stauffenberg served the Nazi regime loyally almost to the very end...

Every so often in the history of international affairs, a great transnational turbulence shakes the foundations of the world and brings many of its older structures tumbling to the ground, as we witnessed in 1919, 1945 and 1989. In the confusion and babble that follow, it's difficult to see through the dust and recognize the shape of the altered strategic landscape. Peering through the wreckage of the past year's financial crisis, it seems clear that every nation was a loser in 2008. The world's developed economies have taken a heavy beating, whether measured by their collapsing industrial production, tumbling exports,...

Eighty five year old Carl Djerassi the Austrian chemist who helped invent the contraceptive pill now says that his co-creation has led to a "demographic catastrophe." In an article published by the Vatican this week, the head of the world's Catholic doctors broadened the attack on the pill, claiming it had also brought "devastating ecological effects" by releasing into the environment "tonnes of hormones" that had impaired male fertility, The Taiwan Times says. The assault began with a personal commentary in the Austrian newspaper Der Standard by Carl Djerassi. The Austrian chemist was one of three whose formulation of the...

Uber conservative political commentator and author, Ann Coulter, is drumming up controversy among the masses with her new book Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America. The gist of her book? Liberals "playing victim" when she believes them to be the actual "victimizers." With anything Coulter has her hand in, this latest installment is sure to get tempers flaring, especially among single mothers. Monday night Coulter appeared on Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes. Tuesday morning Coulter made a controversial appearance on NBC's Today Show (after her originally scheduled appearance was cancelled.) In both appearances, Coulter's lastest stabs at...

Company forces employees to attend sexual orientation classes PepsiCo has refused a request by AFA to remain neutral in the culture war. The company indicated that it will continue major financial support of homosexual organizations. AFA wrote Pepsi two times (on October 14 and October 29) requesting a meeting to discuss Pepsi’s neutrality in the culture war. On November 17, AFA received a condescending letter (dated Nov. 7) from Paul Boykas, director, public policy, in which he refused to address Pepsi’s support of the homosexual agenda. In the last two years, Pepsi has given $500,000 to the Human Rights Campaign...

The murder rate among black teenagers has climbed since 2000 even as murders by young whites have scarcely grown or declined in some places, according to a new report. The celebrated reduction in murder rates nationally has concealed a “worrisome divergence,” said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University who wrote the report, to be released Monday, with Marc L. Swatt. And there are signs, they said, that the racial gap will grow without countermeasures like restoring police officers in the streets and creating social programs for poor youths. The main racial difference involves juveniles ages 14...

Start a conversation about guns and for some people logic takes a holiday. Suggest letting teachers have guns in the classroom and not only does logic disappear, but for some people hysteria takes over. I expected a reaction when I said in this column Sunday we should allow teachers with background checks, training and concealed weapons permits to have firearms in the classroom. The word reaction doesn't quite describe what happened. Once again, I forgot about the instantaneous power of the Internet. People started e-mailing the column around the country, bloggers got involved, it was posted on Web sites like...

Virtually all the predictions about the death of old media have assumed a comfortingly long time frame for the end of print . . . But what if the old media dies much more quickly? What if a hurricane comes along and obliterates the dunes entirely? Specifically, what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May? It’s certainly plausible. -- End Times, by Michael Hirschorn, The Atlantic, January/February 2009 [emphasis added] The prospect of the disappearance of the New York Times within a matter of months will bring wildly varying reactions in different quarters. Those gleefully anticipating...

On the video's from people in the crowd you can see Oscar Grant shot by officer Johannes Mehserle. No question. But, you cannot hear the exchange between Oscar Grant and Johannes Mehserle or any other officer. There are 2 more videos from cameras that were mounted at the station platform. What do they show us? We don't know as they are not being released to the public yet.