Free Republic

I’d like to offer a simple proposal that, if enacted, could generate a great deal of a most precious resource: moral clarity. It concerns the death penalty. Opponents of capital punishment argue that the state has no right to take a murderer’s life. Apparently, one fact that abolitionists forget or overlook is that the state is acting not only on behalf of society, but also on behalf of the murdered person and the murdered person’s family. In order to make this as clear as possible, here is my proposal: Americans should be able to declare what they want the state...

The media has unleashed the hounds on Rick Santorum. He was last seen a step ahead of the braying pack, trying to explain that he hadn’t accused President Barack Obama of being a crypto-Muslim. The former Pennsylvania senator criticized the president’s environmentalism as representative of a “phony theology.” The press snipped the remark out of the context and played it as Santorum donning his finest Grand Inquisitor garb and reading the president of the United States out of the Christian faith. This followed immediately upon an ill-considered joke by Santorum backer Foster Friess about aspirin as a contraceptive that drove...

[SNIP] ...So all in all, what choice do we have other than to go after the one individual whose horrible vulnerability Orwell pointed out? The one individual upon whom the entire Left-Wing Liberal movement depends, and must depend for its galvanic power -- the liberal intellectual? And what is an intellectual? Well, the dictionary definition is one thing, but what we commonly mean by the term isn't a Ph.D. in physics. And neither do we so call those highly educated in such disciplines such as engineering, math, chemistry, quantum mechanics, metallurgy, and medicine intellectuals. Instead, we usually hang the label...

In my youth, the differences between the Soviet Union and the United States were made abundantly clear to us. We had the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights, and they didn’t. Teens at drive-thru fast food restaurants were iconic of American freedom. The freedom to recreate our culture through music, food, mobility. Our fathers fought despotism in World War II and Korea and told us of the communist menace, always juxtaposed with the freedoms for which they fought. We could only imagine the deprivations endured by our peers who were trapped behind the iron curtain. We’d heard of the...

In an attempt to escape the effects of the wide-ranging sanctions imposed over Iran's illegal nuclear programme, Iran's central bank is using a number of financial institutions in China and Turkey to fund the purchase of vital goods to keep the Iranian economy afloat. According to Western security officials China, which is Iran's largest oil trading partner, is playing a major role in helping Iran to avoid the sanctions. Instead of transferring payments to Iran owed from oil purchases, Chinese banks are using the money to buy goods on behalf of the Iranians and then shipping them to Iran. "It...

The result of this two-party charade is that Americans – and those in most other countries in the Western World – are the victims of a great deception. Voters have been fooled into thinking they are participating in their own political destiny when, in reality, they are being herded into a high-tech feudalism entirely without their consent and, to a large degree, even without their knowledge. This is accomplished by the mirage of a meaningful choice at election time when, in fact, the major parties and their candidates are merely two branches of the same tree of collectivism. Voters today...

... Mitt Romney said he was "not concerned about the very poor" but would fix America's social safety net ... But if he wants to see a welfare system that lets almost no one fall through the cracks while at the same time ensuring that its beneficiaries don't become lifelong dependents, he could look to his own church. (snip) Launched during the Great Depression, the Mormon welfare system was designed by church leaders as a way to match the ... unemployed faithful with ... temporary labor. As storehouse manager ... explains, goods and services were traded so that if a...

Stand by for the backlash from environmentalist groups. One of the mainstays in the green movement and their efforts to derail domestic energy production is the widely touted liberal doctrine that fracking is bad. (For those just joining our program, fracking is the common nickname associated with hydraulic fracturing.) Various political, agenda driven activists like Josh Fox have made a fine living blaming fracking for everything from exploding sinks to earthquakes. (No… seriously.)In the past, when a series of studies have shown the majority of these claims to be nonsense, activists responded by claiming that the institutions performing the studies...

Rick Santorum Questions Obama's Christian Values By STEVE PEOPLES — White House candidate Rick Santorum on Saturday questioned President Barack Obama's Christian values and attacked GOP rival Mitt Romney's Olympics leadership as he courted tea party activists and evangelical voters in Ohio, "ground zero" in the 2012 nomination fight. Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator known for his social conservative policies, said that Obama's agenda is "not about you. It's not about your quality of life. It's not about your jobs. It's about some phony ideal. Some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology." Trailing Romney...

OK, this isn’t for you guys who are operators. If you own your own sub-gun, or your job requires you to handle/use M4s regularly, then just go away. There’s no need for you to stick around and sneer. This essay is for all the schlubs like me who don’t often get a chance to get to play with full-auto toys. Who have thought, “oh, that’s no big deal. It’d be silly to pay the freight for rental sub-machine guns, dropping a couple hundred bucks in almost no time." Well, this is me telling you just do it. Seriously. If you...

A Colorado high school student says he quit the school choir after an Islamic song containing the lyric "there is no truth except Allah" made it into the repertoire. James Harper, a senior at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, put his objection to singing "Zikr," a song written by Indian composer A.R. Rahman, in an email to Mesa County School District 51 officials. When the school stood by choir director Marcia Wieland's selection, Harper said, he quit. "I don’t want to come across as a bigot or a racist, but I really don’t feel it is appropriate for...

I am going to tell you a fairy tale. It is of a woman; let us call her Pomperipossa, which is a good name to call someone in fairy tales. She lived in a land that we call Monismania, for we have to name it something. Pomperipossa loved her county, its forests, mountains, lakes, and green groves, and not only that, she also loved the people living there. And even the wise men that ruled the country, oh, she thought they were so wise, and because of that she voted faithfully for them every time there was an election to...

The leader of the Russian Communist Revolution, Vladmir Lenin, once declared that: "The capitalists will give us the rope, which we shall use to hang them". For most of American history, capitalism has been a force for good, because most of America's leading capitalists were patriotic citizens, who were also devout Christians. So long as American capitalism is in the hands of patriotic Christians, the forces of capitalism can be harnessed to do a lot of good for America and the world. J. D. Rockefeller's fortune built the University of Chicago and other useful projects during his lifetime. American capitalist...

The right of decent private citizens to personally possess, transport, and responsibly use arms without government interference is the ultimate freedom and the main pillar supporting all other liberties. Few cultures have allowed their general population access to weapons, the tools of power, to the same degree as the United States. Instead, most societies have restricted the keeping and bearing of arms to a select few power brokers and their agents, often resulting in oppression on a grand scale. Despite a massive amount of historical evidence to the contrary, there is a substantial body of Americans, many occupying positions of...

European Parliament Member Daniel Hannan told a gathering of conservative activists in Washington Saturday that the Obama administration's "Europeanization" agenda has the U.S. "screeching toward the cliff" of socialism."I have been a member of the European Parliament for 12 years, I am living in your future — or at least the future toward which your present leaders seem intent on taking it," he said at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday in Washington. "Believe me, my friend, you are not going to enjoy it." 

Of all the hubbub rightly surrounding the healthcare mandate handed down from the imperial throne of Barack Obama, one aspect of this issue has not been sufficiently discussed: the disturbing fact that sex has now made its way into nearly all aspects of American life. Many have written of the clash between First Amendment rights and those who would seek to curb them, while others have debated the moral evils of abortion, but few have sought to plumb the cause of it all: our national descent into the sexual gutter. Without doubt or question, sex rules our airwaves, satellites and...

In an interview in 2006, Santorum said: "I vote and have supported birth control because it is not the taking of human life." But Valentines Day in Idaho Santorum said: Rick Santorum told the crowd he'll work to extend the definition of personhood to include unborn fetuses. "I do not believe life begins at conception," he said. "I know life begins at conception. Since many birth control methods are abortifacients, how does this stack up if Santorum is considered pro life?

Israeli library uploads Newton's theological texts February 15, 2012 By ARON HELLER , Associated Press Israeli library uploads Newton's theological texts (AP) Israel's national library, an unlikely owner of a vast trove of Newton's writings, has digitized his theological collection, and put it online. More at the link...

While the GOP is preoccupied with selecting a candidate to oppose incumbent Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama is working hard to erase her image as an "angry Black woman" and promote her husband's re-election campaign along the way. While she is hoping that a series of television appearances will cement the unmarried mom and single women's vote for her husband, she is also obviously trying to re-sculpt her image into that of a pro-America, pro-military and patriotic mom who is fun-loving and pleasant to be around. This last week, she has consistently been smiling and showing a positively treacly...

I had a very pleasant 70-year-old patient in today. He is disabled from multiple sclerosis and bound to a motorized wheelchair. I was evaluating him for hand weakness. He mentioned that his weakness was leading to malfunctions when shooting his Glock 19. I mentioned limp wristing, and he picked up that I was also a shooter. That led to a very pleasant discussion . . . He mentioned that he does not carry a pistol anymore due to his weakness and is considering a Taser. He wears a fanny pack with various essentials front and center and I think it...

MSNBC president Phil Griffin shocked the media elite by telling Eric Deggans of the Tampa Bay Times that you don't need to build a career in journalism to star at MSNBC. "I'm sorry, I don't care about journalists. … I want fair-minded, smart people who understand the world and can interpret it," he said. "If they're journalists, great. This notion that you somehow you have to have done something to earn so-called journalists' credentials? Stop." They seemed to miss the hilarious part of that passage. That MSNBC has been looking for "fair-minded smart people" and then they hired Al Sharpton....

On Tuesday, POLITICO’s Keach Hagey published a story on Fox News’ “course correction” — a Roger Ailes-backed move — that has many conservatives up in arms. This “Fox moves left” theme is nothing new; last month an activist group called for the re-hiring of Glenn Beck after the network brought in Sally Kohn as a contributor. Hagey found a contingent of people at CPAC who felt that Fox News’ perceived move to the center had lessened the enjoyment of their viewing experience. These former devotees have decided to turn instead to the Internet and Roku boxes to get their fill...

I've had it, after 55 years, with the Catholic Church. No more of my money for these people. Every homily is like an Obama campaign speech. Hiding the homosexual scandal, promoting Obama Care........ on & on. Is there a conservative alternative? Orthodox Church maybe? Never been to one but I'm ready to switch.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, February 13, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – As parishioners gathered for Sunday Mass, a radical group of homosexual activists protested outside Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral, calling Francis Cardinal George the city’s “arch-bigot” for defending marriage. Carrying placards and spouting slogans on the sidewalk as worshipers entered the sanctuary, members of the Gay Liberation Network instructed Catholics to “give up hate for Lent.” David E. Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute told LifeSiteNews.com the Gay Liberation Network is “a tiny group of radical activists who are trying to intimidate and name-call religious leaders like Cardinal George to try to...

As the political air hangs heavy with uncertainty about whether the U.S. or Israel might launch an attack against the nuclear facilities of Iran—a nation whose president has pledged to “wipe off this disgraceful blot [Israel] from the face of the Islamic world”—the American “peace” movement is once again doing what it was born to do: condemn the United States and Israel while giving a free pass to the genocidal murderers who seek to annihilate both nations. One of the most noteworthy recent newcomers to this movement is Chicago Mass Action (CMA), an activist group that engages in street demonstrations...

Last week, the other slipper dropped daintily when 69-year-old Mimi Alford, whose dalliance with the leader of the Free World as an intern had been documented earlier by Sally Bedell Smith and Robert Dallek, described in her own words her seduction at 19 by John F. Kennedy. She thereby became one of a circle of "friends" entertained by our hero during a presidency that was doomed to be short, but intense. In this, we learn that she was seduced on her fourth day at work, (and in Jackie's bedroom); that they sometimes played with rubber ducks in a bathtub, and...

The sad passing of Whitney Houston has brought many mentions in the press about her battle with cocaine addiction. It is, also sadly, not a new story; many celebrities have soared to the heights of popularity, only to have their lives end tragically and entwined with drugs. Stories of stars such as Ms. Houston frequently include abuse of both illegal and legal drugs, although, as with Michael Jackson, even the legal drugs are abused in amounts common citizens could not obtain. That said, these two stars, and many others, were exercising their liberties in consuming the drugs -- they were...

Every teacher knows that one can make any group of kids look smart just by altering the content of the test. That is what's behind several studies purporting to show that liberals are smarter than conservatives. Using data from previous studies in Britain, researchers at Brock University in Canada claim to have discovered a relationship between IQ scores and political orientation. The study suggests that persons of lower IQ choose to be conservatives because conservatism opposes change and is thus "safer" for those who are slow to adapt. Not only that, the researchers find that conservatives, being persons of low...

Conventional wisdom has Ohio being vulnerable to a Democratic rollback in 2012 after a GOP sweep in 2010. Approval ratings for Governor John Kasich have been low after his reforms of public-employee unions in a state where Big Labor is thought to have a wide reach. However, a new Quinnipiac poll on a proposed right-to-work reform may indicate that their power is not as broad as first thought: Despite the overwhelming victory by organized labor and its allies in repealing SB 5 in this past election, by 54 – 40 percent Ohio voters favor the idea of passing a “right-to-work�...

TACOMA, Wash. — Republican presidential contender Rick Santorum clashed with Tacoma Occupy protesters Monday night during his first visit to a state he said would be a “momentum changer” heading into Super Tuesday. Minutes into Santorum’s speech, protesters began chanting and shouting. They rarely stopped over the next half-hour. “I think it’s really important to understand what this radical element represents,” Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, told hundreds of supporters gathered outside the Washington Historical Museum. “What they represent is true intolerance.” Police dragged away two protesters in the midst of Santorum’s speech. The event took place next to the...

An 800-pound gorilla in a room otherwise full of Tea Party types needs to be pointed out: people who prefer smaller government tend not to especially like government. Human nature being what it is, we tend to avoid that which we don't like. Which is okay except for the equal and opposite other gorilla: the political left actually likes government and, thereby, governing. It amounts to a built-in default, as if one football team suited up eleven players and the other just ten. If the typical Tea Party affiliate ignored a building mess as long as she could, dusted off...

For years we have been told that homosexuality is something people are born with - like the color of one's skin - and that it can't be changed. Gay-rights activists insist this is so, because, they say, if people don't choose to be gay, it would be wrong to discriminate against them in things like marriage, adoption, and legal benefits. And heaven help those who disagree. Just ask actress Cynthia Nixon, who in a recent New York Times Magazine article, had the gall to admit that she chose to be gay. Nixon, who played one of the characters on the...

Time for Clarity: Russia and China are not our friends Posted by Herman Cain on 02/13 Share By Herman Cain / February 12, 2012 There are many theories about why Russia and China last week vetoed a United Nations resolution endorsing an Arab League plan to transfer power from Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Some say Vladimir Putin doesn’t want to go against a fellow strongman because a lot of them have been losing power lately, and he doesn’t want to be next. China has tended to follow Russia’s lead on this issue – also joining in a two-party veto in...

You have to hand it to Barack Obama. He has unmasked in the most thoroughgoing way the despotic propensities of the administrative entitlements state and of the Democratic Party. And now he has done something similar to the hierarchy of the American Catholic Church. At the prospect that institutions associated with the Catholic Church would be required to offer to their employees health insurance covering contraception and abortifacients, the bishops, priests, and nuns scream bloody murder. But they raise no objection at all to the fact that Catholic employers and corporations, large and small, owned wholly or partially by Roman...

“Constitution 101: The Meaning and History of the Constitution” is a 10-week online course presented by Hillsdale College. Featuring an expanded format from the “Introduction to the Constitution” lecture series with Hillsdale College President Dr. Larry Arnn, Constitution 101 follows closely the one-semester course required of all Hillsdale College undergraduate students. In this course, you can: watch lectures from the same Hillsdale faculty who teach on campus; study the same readings taught in the College course; submit questions for weekly Q&A sessions with the faculty; access a course study guide; test your knowledge through weekly quizzes; and upon completion of...

Here’s an aspect of the HHS preventive-services mandate and the “compromise” announced on Friday that has gone unnoticed: It will soon be impossible, because it would be illegal, to be a faithful Catholic in America running a health-insurance company. Friday’s announcement — that health-insurance companies will be required to provide free coverage of contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and abortifacients — entails that citizens cannot operate a health-insurance company in accord with their moral values, if those moral values happen to align with historic Christianity rather than Obama.

We are all susceptible to the occasional knee-jerk reaction. We hear something and immediately jump to a position of opposition or support with little or no evidence to support the position. Sometimes such gut responses are correct and are subsequently validated by additional information, but often they are completely off base. As a Second Amendment advocate I run into a lot of jerking knees and gut feelings that can be very difficult to overcome. They usually hit me as questions – like “why should anyone be allowed to have a gun like that,” or “why should anyone be allowed to...

It is common knowledge that more books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, our 16th President, than any other figure except Jesus Christ. With so much archeological attention directed toward him it is unlikely that much new factual material will surface about Mr. Lincoln. When taken as a whole, the in-depth forensic examinations of his writings, relationships, lineage, marriage, religion (or supposed lack thereof), evidence a complex and brilliant identity. An interesting phenomenon of the last twenty years, however, has been to place a contemporary lens over Lincoln. In recent writings, Lincoln has been gay, depressed, and now even a...

This article appeared in Washington Times on February 9, 2012. Every so often, a local news story about a victim of crime goes national. Most recently, it was Sarah McKinley, 18, home alone with her 3-month-old son, a few days after Sarah’s husband had died of lung cancer. Two men apparently looking to steal pain medicine prescribed for the husband broke in. Sarah grabbed a shotgun and a pistol and killed Justin Martin as he forced entry into her home. How often do such incidents happen? While the results from studies vary, the numbers are large. The National Crime Victimization...

If you want to hear from someone who unmistakably understands the profound impact of America’s founding and believes there is still time for its citizens to take hold of its bureaucratic laden government and return it back to the will of it’s founding, then you must hear this speech from Daniel Hannan. You’ll appreciate America all the more afterwards, I assure you.

While I don't know whether the show raised Morgan's ratings or not, I do know one thing: Nugent put on a clinic for anyone wondering how best to take down a weak-minded, egalitarian European who doesn't know Natural Law from Natural Light. In all honesty folks, as I watched the interview I almost felt sorry for Morgan a couple times: Nugent was at his best and Morgan was at his usual. [Video at source] contains typical Nuge language

Few things make this conservative happier than when progressives drop their holier-than-thou facade and reveal their true intentions. A column written by NY Times columnist Adam Liptak entitled “‘We the People’ Loses Appeal With People Around the World” is a textbook example. Essentially Mr. Liptak, and no doubt many of his progressive soul-mates, are ready to kick the Constitution of the United States to the curb because they consider it an “obsolete” document. Yet in explaining why, Liptak inadvertently reveals something else along the way: progressivism is an utterly bankrupt ideology. Why is the Constitution “obsolete?” “There are lots of...

Washington, DC -- It wasn't speeches by Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich that generated the most enthusiasm at CPAC 2012. That honor would go to former Alaska governor and Republican vice president nominee Sarah Palin, who stole the conservative summit with a rousing speech on Saturday. Palin mania was palpable throughout the Marriott Wardman Park hotel. Earlier in the day hundreds of attendees swarmed Palin for photographs and an opportunity to get a glimpse at one of the most famous conservative women in the United States. Elsewhere thousands of CPACers waited in line to try...

Cardinal-designate Timothy Dolan WASHINGTON, February 10, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Responses from Catholic leaders ranged from concerned to outraged following the Obama administration’s latest rewording of the birth control mandate in an effort to stem criticism over its impact on religious freedom. U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops president Timothy Dolan gave a cautious response in a statement Friday, saying that the conference “sees initial opportunities� in preserving religious freedom after the announcement, but “continues to express concerns.� “Today’s decision to revise how individuals obtain services that are morally objectionable to religious entities and people of faith is a first step in...

Rick Santorum’s is a familiar face at CPAC. He’s been here in years when he was little more than a sidenote in the programming, and he’s been here in years, like this one, when his is the face attendees crowd to see. But, year in and year out, what he has stood for has not changed. That consistency was especially evident in his speech today, in which he expounded on his — and, indeed, Americans’ — long-held conviction that men are endowed with rights by their Creator — not given those rights by the government. “We know there’s a lot...

Two other lopsided results in the latest Fox News poll: By a 67-25 percent margin, voters support building the Keystone XL pipeline. That includes: 87 percent of Republicans, 69 percent of independents and 50 percent of Democrats say build it.Fox News PollShould Keystone XL Pipeline Be Built?Yes      67%No       25% February 6-9, 2012 Registered Voters ± 3%–The poll asked about the Obama administration requiring all employer health plans to provide birth control coverage as part of preventative services for women. (This includes Catholic and other religious-affiliated hospitals and universities that oppose doing so because it violates their religious rights.) A majority...

If you aren’t creeped out by the No Birth Control Left Behind rhetoric of the White House and Planned Parenthood, you aren’t listening closely enough. The anesthetic of progressive benevolence always dulls the senses. Wake up. When a bunch of wealthy white women and elite Washington bureaucrats defend the trampling of religious liberties in the name of “increased access” to “reproductive services” for “poor” women, the ghost of Margaret Sanger is cackling. As she wrote in her autobiography, Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916 “to stop the multiplication of the unfit.” This, she boasted, would be “the most important and...

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Catholic author Russell Shaw warned in November that the persecution of religion in the United States “will be a tight-lipped campaign of secularist inspiration in which the coercive power of the state is brought to bear on church-related institutions to act against conscience or go out of business.�[1] Shaw’s prediction quickly came to pass with the Contraception Mandate now threatened by the Obama Administration. In late January, Obama signed off on a Health and Human Services ruling that is a direct affront to Catholics. Under his new Health Care program, Catholic institutions – including charities, hospitals and schools – will...

TAMPA -- Two Democratic U.S. senators on Friday accused Florida's Republican-led Legislature of plotting to deny citizens their most basic and inalienable right: the right to vote. Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin rendered that verdict after listening to two hours of testimony at Tampa's George E. Edgecomb Courthouse. Durbin came to town as chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights to investigate whether the state law denies voters their constitutional rights. Republican legislators passed the law last year, saying it would prevent voter fraud and save county election supervisors...