Free Republic

The U.S. Senate has some arcane procedural rules, and as ordinary Americans our eyes glaze over trying to decipher them. But it’s important for us to understand that Sen. Ted Cruz’s efforts to defund Obamacare are worthwhile and doable. We shouldn’t preemptively surrender the fight to those who rammed through this outrageously burdensome and unaffordable ploy for government control of health care even though some are trying to convince us that the fight is futile. Just because a fight isn’t easy, doesn’t mean it’s not worth fighting. This defund movement boils down to a very simple request. As Andrew McCarthy...

The father of one of the 25 Navy SEALs killed in August 2011 when their Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in Afghanistan, told talk-host Michael Savage he believes the U.S. government sent his son and his colleagues to their deaths. After Vice President Joe Biden revealed that SEAL Team 6 carried out the operation that killed Osama bin Laden in May 2011, Strange said the members of his son’s team gave startling indications to their families they were about to meet their demise. Charles Strange, the father of slain SEAL Michael Strange, told Savage Wednesday night that...

The U.S. government has demanded that major Internet companies divulge users' stored passwords, according to two industry sources familiar with these orders, which represent an escalation in surveillance techniques that has not previously been disclosed. If the government is able to determine a person's password, which is typically stored in encrypted form, the credential could be used to log in to an account to peruse confidential correspondence or even impersonate the user. Obtaining it also would aid in deciphering encrypted devices in situations where passwords are reused. "I've certainly seen them ask for passwords," said one Internet industry source who...

Police are investigating after a well-known businessman was allegedly savagely beaten by a group of teenagers in New Haven. The street shows no sign of the attack, but folks who saw it can't forget it. "Bleeding everywhere," said New Haven resident Rhea Brown, "he had blood all over him and it was like everyone just came to his aid." It was 49-year-old Brooks Macquarrie lying in the street, part of family-owned New Haven Power Sports. He was test driving a motor scooter he had just fixed, at the corner of Goffe and Orchard, when five to six teens apparently pulled...

A top Republican joined President Barack Obama's call to review so-called "Stand Your Ground" laws in the aftermath of the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the 2012 shooting of black teen Trayvon Martin. Sen. John McCain, Ariz., a prominent Republican who's been known to break ranks with fellow members of the GOP at times, urged state legislatures to review Stand Your Ground laws in the wake of the Zimmerman trial, which became a national flashpoint for race relations in America. "I can also see that Stand Your Ground laws may be something that needs to be reviewed by the Florida...

An online radio host is sounding the alarm over a brand-new law he claims grants the federal government massive new powers to saturate Americans with domestic propaganda at U.S. taxpayer expense. “This law allows the federal government to have sweeping power to push television, radio, newspaper and social-media propaganda onto the U.S. public,” warns Michael Evans of America’s Voice Now. “It removes protection for Americans from the ideological diarrhea that will pour forth from this administration like ejected vomit.” Evans is referring to the Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012, sponsored by Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, and Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash.,...

July 18,2013 IRS Political Targeting Scandal: Democrats, Media Desperate to Shut It Down as Links to White House Emerge by Graham Noble A damning indictment of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) continues to emerge Thursday, during a Congressional investigation into the agency’s targeting of Conservative organizations. Congressional Democrats and their friends in the mainstream media are desperate to shut this investigation down as details linking the IRS strategy to the White House emerge. The Democrats are arguing that delays in processing applications for tax-exempt status from TEA Party and other ‘patriot’ groups – plus the extra scrutiny that these groups...

Share your opinion here...

The Zimmerman Verdict is to be announced shortly --

If you go to the D-Day Memorial in Bedford, Virginia, you will see a moving tableau, a series of statues of the brave young Americans who stormed ashore on June 6, 1944 to liberate a continent from the grip of Adolf Hitler. One of these statues is called “Death on the Shore.” It shows a soldier who was cut down as he left his landing craft. His Bible is seen falling out of his rucksack. That Bible included an endorsement from President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The body of this young man, one of the many from the little Southwest Virginia...

<p>Three men have been charged with killing 24 year old Jacqueline Gardner and taking the tip money she earned from her restaurant job on May 19th.</p> <p>One of the three men, Stephen Lee Henderson, 25, of Gary, is still at large and considered armed and dangerous, Schererville police said Wednesday.</p>

<p>The legal watchdog Judicial Watch released an audio recording Thursday of a Department of Justice staffer urging Sanford, Fla., city officials and the minority advocacy group Dream Defenders to seek justice for Trayvon Martin, because “if a community perceives that there’s something wrong in the black community, there’s something wrong.”</p>

[ . . . ] ". . . But I’m even more concerned for what this means for the church in America. Dr. Russell Moore made a statementthat bears repeating: In another sense, though, the marginalization of conjugal marriage in American culture has profound implications for our gospel witness. First of all, marriage isn’t incidental to gospel preaching. There’s a reason why persons don’t split apart like amoebas. We were all conceived in the union between a man and a woman. Beyond the natural reality, the gospel tells us there’s a cosmic mystery (Eph. 5:32). God designed the one-flesh union...

A 13-year-old boy who police say was doused with gasoline and lit on fire last week while walking home from school is recovering from first-degree burns to his face and head. The boy was just two blocks from his home in Kansas City Tuesday when two teenagers began to follow him and then attacked him, his mother, Melissa Coon, said. Police have described the suspects as black 16-year-olds, while the victim is white. "We were told it's a hate crime," Coon told KTLA. "They rushed him on the porch as he tried to get the door open," Coon told KMBC....

Watch lifestyles, attitudes and behaviors... Odd working hours or unexplained travel... Monitor co-workers stress, divorce and financial problems... Track online activities... Those failing to report face penalties, criminal charges... OBAMA ORDERS FED WORKERS: SPY ON EACH OTHER http://www.drudgereport.com/ http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/07/09/196211/linchpin-for-obamas-plan-to-predict.html#.UdyvNRbd50N

Here is what Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution had to say about Egypt's coup in a New York Times op-ed: "Now supporters of the Brotherhood will ask, with good reason, whether democracy still has anything to offer them." As much as I loathe the Muslim Brotherhood and the whole Islamist enterprise, it is difficult to imagine any other response among Islamists than this: Our votes don't count. They were voted into office; many Egyptians and the army didn't like the results, so the vote was overthrown. With some important differences -- and not all of them to the credit...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Monday said enhancements in border security must be “in place” before the process of granting legal status to 11 million illegal immigrants begins, laying down a new marker in the debate over immigration reform. “The House is going to do its own job on developing an immigration bill,” Boehner said Monday after an event on the Capitol steps on student loans. “But it’s real clear, from everything that I’ve seen and read over the last couple of weeks, that the American people expect that we’ll have strong border security in place before we begin the...

Conservative Group To Launch Ad Supporting Senate Immigration Bill Immigrant students hold a vigil outside the West Los Angeles Federal Building last month calling on Congress to pass the immigration overhaul. (Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press / June 27, 2013) By Lisa Mascaro July 7, 2013 WASHINGTON -- As an overhaul of immigration laws shifts to the House, a right-leaning group is launching a new television ad campaign Monday that will call on House lawmakers -- and, implicitly, resistant Republicans -- to support the Senate-passed “border surge” as part of “conservative immigration reform." The ad seeks to influence rank-and-file lawmakers...

The offices of a Dallas law firm representing a high-profile State Department whistleblower were broken into last weekend. Burglars stole three computers and broke into the firm's file cabinets. But silver bars, video equipment and other valuables were left untouched, according to local Fox affiliate KDFW, which aired security camera footage of the suspected burglars entering and leaving the offices around the time of the incident. The firm Schulman & Mathias represents Aurelia Fedenisn, a former investigator at the State Department's Office of the Inspector General. In recent weeks, she raised a slew of explosive allegations against the department and...

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said, “Obama told me he is still a Muslim, who supports the Muslim agenda.” Aboul Gheit made this statement on Nile-TV. Here is a report on the incident by Israeli Today, an Egyptian magazine: Aboul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, where the US President told him that He was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the step son of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda. Aboul Gheit claimed Obama told the Arabs to show...