Free Republic

Abortion numbers, rates, and ratios for 2009 have been released by the government’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC), indicating significantly fewer abortions than found in the previous year’s report. And while the decrease is most welcomed, the abortion industry likes to act as if women no longer died from abortion once it became legal. In fact, CDC reports that twelve more women died in 2008, the most recent year for which the CDC had data, and more than 400 women have died from legal abortion since 1973. The number of abortions reported for 2009 (784,507) is 41,057 fewer than it...

A painting depicting President Obama in a religious pose is now on display at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston, and it’s garnering some protests from those who think it’s blasphemous. Artist Michael D’Antuono originally planned to display the piece in an art installation in New York’s Union Square on the president’s 100th day in office, but so many protesters contacted him about it–he received over 4,000 emails–that he canceled the event. It’s something he says he regrets now. “I always regretted cancelling my exhibit in New York because I feel my First Amendment rights should override someone’s hurt feelings,”...

Weight loss surgery, which in recent years has been seen as an increasingly attractive option for treating Type 2 diabetes, may not be as effective against the disease as it was initially thought to be, according to a new report. The study found that many obese Type 2 diabetics who undergo gastric bypass surgery do not experience a remission of their disease, and of those that do, about a third redevelop diabetes within five years of their operation. The findings contrast with the growing perception that surgery is essentially a cure for Type II diabetes. Earlier this year, two widely...

Egyptian President Muhammed Morsi seems unshaken by the massive protests that shook Cairo on Tuesday night. He has shown no interest in retreating from his recent power grab and the Islamist group Muslim Brotherhood is planning to hold even larger pro-Morsi demonstrations on Friday. … As such, the Muslim Brotherhood seems determined to pursue a course of confrontation. “The opposition thinks that the meaning of Tuesday lies in the number of protesters, 200,000 to 300,000,” one Brotherhood tweet said. “But it should brace itself for the millions who will take to the streets for the new president!” A new date...

Vote counts, comparisons to prior races and other stats? I am helping a college kid with a project and cannot find a good compendium of the recent election. Help!

Veteran Arizona gun rights advocate Alan Korwin, author of several gun law books and a prolific writer, is scrambling to distance himself from what appears to be a rather cleverly concocted fraud that takes something he wrote almost four years ago and makes it look like some brand new sinister scheme he has uncovered. In an unusual step, he has issued an alert that appears on the Ammo Land website, denouncing the first paragraphs of this new missive that has spread across the Internet like a bad case of the flu, under his byline. It purports to identify a new...

This is an image of an aged stem cell after growth factors were added. A new method of growing cardiac tissue is teaching old stem cells new tricks. The discovery, which transforms aged stem cells into cells that function like much younger ones, may one day enable scientists to grow cardiac patches for damaged or diseased hearts from a patient's own stem cells—no matter what age the patient—while avoiding the threat of rejection. Stem cell therapies involving donated bone marrow stem cells run the risk of patient rejection in a portion of the population, argues Milica Radisic, Canada Research Chair...

Sorry, college students. President Obama has cut your access to Pell Grants by 33%; he just forgot to mention it before Election Day. During the recent campaign, President Obama claimed credit for increasing funding to the Pell Grant program, which provides college funds, free from repayment, to millions of students. However, an email sent out Tuesday to some Dallas college students is revealing a detail the President forgot to mention: the time a student can receive a Pell Grant has been cut, by as much as three years. With Pell Grants for the fall semester now dispersed, colleges are informing...

Hey, no bigs. It’s just a 100-year-old company and California’s only surviving cannery, a sustainable, family-owned operation employing 30 people. The Drakes Bay Oyster Company has been in a seven-year fight with the federal government and environmental groups over whether it’s 40-year lease would be renewed this week. The Lunny family, which owns the oyster farm, was among a group of families that sold their ranch lands to the National Parks Service in the 1970s to protect them from developers, with the understanding they would get 40-year-leases renewed in perpetuity. After buying and operating the oyster farm without incident— they...

Check out this jaw-dropping story from EAGnews.org: Just call them the “Real School Employees of Buffalo.” Like the rich folks in the famous television show with the similar name, employees of Buffalo Public Schools routinely spend a great deal of money on extravagant things like plastic surgery, airline travel, expensive hotels and limousines.

Editorial Obama's video game mentality when it comes to National Security. It's no big secret the the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue always has the glowingest of things to say about our Armed Forces. You know the real 1 percenters the liberal media seems to forget about on a daily basis. But I digress, Barry-O recently heaped faux tele-zombied praise on our Warriors during the most recent State of the Union Address: "At a time when too many of our institutions have let us down they exceed all expectations." Awww... I dunno 'bout you, but I'm feeling all warm...

Does Nancy Pelosi have any leverage in fiscal cliff talks?By Sargent and Greg Sargent The Washington Post Posted Nov 29, 2012 08:51 PM EST With John Boehner continuing to (publicly) rule out a hike in tax rates for the rich, Nancy Pelosi fired back today by drawing her own hard lines. She told reporters that another round of big spending cuts is unacceptable, and in an interview with NPR, she rebuffed the idea of raising the Medicare eligibility age. Which raises a question: Does Pelosi have any leverage in the talks to begin with? The Beltway chatter holds that she...

Rand Paul – the only one left? Glenn Beck Nov 29, 2012 Glenn interviewed seemingly the only politician with a spine on radio today, Senator Rand Paul. While many Republicans are displaying a readiness to just throw out everything they said they believed in and cave to Obama, Sen. Paul is trying to hold the line. Check out the interview today in the clip above and find out how to get involved.

Gun sales hit an all-time, one-day record one week ago, driving Black Friday retail sales and actually overwhelming the FBI’s background check center twice. What’s causing the gun-buying zeal? The answer is simple – the actions of a man who hates private ownership of guns, Barack Obama. He’s been doing it for a long time. His election in 2008 drove gun sales through the roof. And now it’s happening, again, because he is supporting the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty that requires member states unable to disarm their populaces to be placed under the jurisdiction of the U.N. Office of...

MM: Well, it’s certainly true that they could get what they have claimed for years they wanted to do by doing nothing. They could get a big Defense cut, and they could get a massive tax increase. But of course, they don’t want to get a tax increase on everybody, only on the top two rates. Also, do they really think it would be good for the economy for all of this to kick in? I tell you, I think the fundamental observation I would make about all of this right now, whether it’s this totally unserious proposal from the...

(Reuters) - Al Qaeda fighters are still trying to make inroads into Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday, cautioning that battling the group would be a core U.S. mission there for years to come. Panetta made the comments as the United States weighs how large a military force to keep in Afghanistan when the NATO combat mission ends in 2014, ending a war that, at that point, will have stretched for over 13 years. There are approximately 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the residual force may number less than 10,000. President Barack Obama could decide in...

Many nights as I stroll into the kitchen after work three little ones come at a gallop. My daughters arrive first, bearing hugs, one on each arm. Then my son with a grin so bright and so big it barely fits his face lands a haymaker in the one spot a three year old can hurt you. As many parents can attest, boys and girls differ. Try as the Left may to thwart reality, adult men and women remain different. It’s impossible to comprehend human interactions without recognizing this undeniable certainty. Nevertheless, the American Civil Liberties Union has launched legal...

White House: Obama 'Will Not Sign' a Deal Unless It Increases Taxes By Terence P. Jeffrey November 29, 2012 (CNSNews.com) - White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said today that no matter what else happens President Barack Obama--who is the only modern president other than Franklin Roosevelt to serve in four years when federal spending topped 24 percent of GDP--will not sign a deal to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff that will arrive at the end of this year unless that deal increases taxes. "So the President made clear that he is not wedded to every detail of his plan,"...

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar rejected a proposal to extend the lease of a popular oyster farm at Point Reyes National Seashore on Thursday, effectively ending more than a century of shellfish production on the 1,100 acres where Europeans first stepped foot in California. The decision will allow the National Park Service to turn the picturesque bay where Sir Francis Drake landed more than 400 years ago into California's first federally designated marine wilderness area. Salazar made his decision a day before the 40-year lease allowing Drakes Bay Oyster Co., to harvest shellfish in the estuary expires and one week...