Free Republic

Maybe it’s just me, but I find it hard to believe liberals believe in liberalism anymore. With the obvious global meltdown of Keynesian economics, how could anyone remotely intelligent support the continued deficit spending that is driving the Western World into bankruptcy? And yet a large proportion of our population still backs Barack Obama for a second term. Yes, some of this is due to the reactionary identity politics the Democratic Party has practiced for so many years and some to the large number of people working for the government and therefore voting their self-interest. Even so, it’s difficult to...

Elizabeth Warren has not proven she has a Native American ancestor, instead saying she based her belief on family lore. US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago. But for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based...

The stunning expansion of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Washington, D.C., area is profiled in a long, interesting and meticulously accurate CNN story that suggests "the nation's capital has become a Mormon stronghold, with Latter-day Saints playing a big and growing role in the Washington establishment."-SNIP-"It's hard to point to federal legislation or a White House initiative that bears distinctly Mormon fingerprints," Gilgoff writes, "while it's easy to do the same for other faiths." He cites as an example a recent White House "compromise" on contraception funding, which he says was "mostly a reaction to...

Political writing tends to be bad writing, noted George Orwell in his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language.” Too often it's a tool for deception and obfuscation rather than clear communication. Orwell criticizes particularly those who rely on political catch phrases devised by others, throwing their minds open and “letting the ready-made phrases come crowding in.” It's an easy way of avoiding the hard work good writing demands, says Orwell. Catch phrases “will construct your sentences for you - even think your thoughts for you, to a certain extent - and at need they will perform the important service...

The news Monday that 43 different Catholic entities across the country are suing the Obama administration, in response to the Health and Human Services' (HHS) rule mandating employer health care coverage of contraception, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization, comes as a blow to the president's strength among Catholics, a demographic that helped carry him to victory in 2008. This news comes on the heels of the the latest CBS News/New York Times poll which finds Mitt Romney now leading President Obama among women, yet another demographic that he previously commanded. If Mr. Obama was hoping to once again rely on Catholics...

Canadian reporter Ezra Levant explains how global warming skeptics are demonized by the left and mainstream media even though surveys show regular citizens aren’t so concerned.

I will try to post the cartoon below. If I am not successful, I urge someone with better skills to do so. Thank you.

Supporters and critics of President Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage agree on one thing: He may not be finished evolving on the subject. Despite his comments that he thinks the matter should be left to the states, many gay rights advocates strongly believe that it must be dealt with nationally — and that Obama is quietly on their side. Conservative critics of the president suspect the same, citing this as one way the president might tack left if reelected. And some Obama supporters who are uncomfortable with same-sex marriage fear that in a second term, he would come under enormous...

The illusion of supposed conservatism, for scholars like Strauss and for politicians like George W. Bush and Mitt Romney, is that the political spectrum in America has shifted so far to the Left that yesterday’s liberals are today’s conservatives says Author and Speaker Jeff Nyquist... Consider the state of America: marriage is no longer an enforceable contract in most states (i.e., no fault divorce); even more telling, homosexual marriage is increasingly acceptentage of the population attending religious services has been falling steadily for years, along with honesty and our nation’s work ethic.....It would seem that conservatives have nothing left to...

Gamal Abd Al-Nasser... Ahmadinejad..., and the Hamas Charter says that they want to annihilate Israel... Israel... left Gaza- and then what happened? They began launching missiles at them from Gaza. I have lived in America for 28 years. I love America and I love freedom. This country has given us a lot of freedom. I get really angry when I hear that some Muslims here curse America.... Do you know what they used to say in the mosques in Egypt? " We want to go to the White House, and turn it into the Islamic House. We want to cancel...

The main goal of the contraception mandate is not to protect women's health. It is a move to conscript religious organizations into a political agenda. This week Catholic bishops are heading to federal courts across the country to defend religious liberty. On Monday they filed 12 lawsuits on behalf of a diverse group of 43 Catholic entities that are challenging the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) sterilization, abortifacient and birth-control insurance mandate. Like most Americans, the bishops have long taken for granted the religious freedom that has enabled this nation's diverse religions to flourish in relative harmony. But...

Michigan Catholic Conference Files Lawsuit Against Federal Government Over HHS Mandate Complaint Cites First Amendment Religious Liberty Violations FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Monday, May 21, 2012 (Lansing, MI)—Michigan Catholic Conference today filed documents in U.S. District Court as a plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging the mandate established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that requires many faith-based employers to provide in their health benefit plans abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and artificial contraception, all of which the Catholic Church finds morally objectionable. The nine-count lawsuit asserts violations of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses, the Administrative Procedures Act,...

You cannot understand the left if you do not understand that Leftism is a religion. It is not G0d-based (some Left-wing Christians' and Jews' claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in Leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian. One of them is material equality as the preeminent moral goal. Another is the villainy of corporations. The bigger the corporation, the greater the villainy. Thus, instead of the devil, the left has Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, the "military-industrial complex," and...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Kentucky Republicans on Saturday that President Barack Obama was "posing and preening" instead of working to resolve pressing issues facing the country. "He is the most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime," Christie told some 600 Kentucky Republicans at a Lexington hotel. "This is a guy who literally is walking around in a dark room trying to find the light switch of leadership." Christie was in Kentucky to deliver a pep talk to state GOP leaders. The state's presidential primary is Tuesday, though it will have no significant impact. Former Massachusetts...

When a big lie is repeated often enough and becomes “truth,” there can be serious consequences. For reality is like a jigsaw puzzle: If too many pieces (little pictures) are wrong, you’ll never be able to assemble them and see the big picture. The result is dislocation from reality. What follows are 10 big lies that have gained currency — and the actual truth behind them. 1. Pope Pius XII was a Nazi Collaborator According to Rabbi David Dalin in his book The Myth of Hitler’s Pope, Pius saved at least 800,000 Jews from extermination at the hands of the...

Confronted by multiple challenges in the wake of the global financial and economic crisis and having exhausted more traditional central bank levers which left interest rates at near zero, governments adopted a series of policies almost as a matter of course. Whether termed ‘credit easing’, ‘quantitative easing’ or ‘twisting’, these policies all have one thing in common – they increase the money supply... Further complicating the book keeping, some central banks, most significantly the U.S. Federal Reserve, are maintaining the policy of directly monetizing the federal debt. To be clear, debt monetization is not a result of the 2008-2009 crisis;...

What to Tell a Liberal Bully Who Asks Why You Listen to This Program BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Marybeth in Columbia, South Carolina. You're up, and great to have you here. CALLER: Hello. I'm a Rush Baby, so this is awesome. RUSH: Well, good. Thank you very much. CALLER: I just needed some advice and I figured I would just come straight to the source. Twice in this past week I've come across people, not friends, but acquaintances, who have asked me,"Why do you listen to that guy?"I need the most efficient response to give them, because I'm just a...

HONOLULU -- Hawaii's state Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill Wednesday to celebrate "Islam Day" -- over the objections of a few lawmakers who said they didn't want to honor a religion connected to Sept. 11, 2001. The Senate's two Republicans argued that a minority of Islamic extremists have killed many innocents in terrorist attacks. "I recall radical Islamists around the world cheering the horrors of 9/11. That is the day all civilized people of all religions should remember," said Republican Sen. Fred Hemmings to the applause of more than 100 people gathered in the Senate to oppose a separate issue...

Monte Kuligowski column Barack Obama: The original birther Monte Kuligowski May 19, 2012 We've always known that the original birthers were Democrats. Phillip Berg, a disgruntled Hillary supporter filed the first lawsuit demanding that Obama produce his mysterious birth certificate. And now with the blockbuster news from Breitbart.com we learn that Mr. Obama was the very first Obama birther. It turns out that Obama claimed he was Kenya-born before he claimed he was Hawaii-born. "The great thing about irony," writes David Foster Wallace, "is that it splits things apart, gets up above them so we can see the flaws and...

Many now take up the theme of the religious leaders in calling for ethical behaviour based upon transcendent values in the public place and in the market and for government regulations based upon these ancient human values. We frequently hear from secular leaders in all areas of life including a few top scientists, for example, astrophysicist Professor Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society and Master of Trinity College Cambridge, that Payback Time has already begun and it may be too late to change (Rees, 2003). We are on a course of self-destruction. The threats we create come from human...

In the age of instant communication Brietbart.com's revelation that Barack Obama was listed on his agent, Jane Dystel's brochure, as having been "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii" is already old news. This news, however, is simply too hot for the major media to ignore. I would expect Obama spokesman Jay Carney to lay off the "mistake" to some misguided publicist, but that will no longer work. For what this brochure reveals is that, regardless of where Obama was born, he has been manufacturing his biography from the day he hit the mainland. The emergence of this...

The Sea Change: For several years, an Orwellian-type fear of being "marginalized" held reporters and pundits back from questioning Barack Obama's eligibility to hold the office of the presidency. To raise an eyebrow at the bizarre secrecy of Obama was off-limits. To question whether the historic definition of "natural born citizen" applied to Obama was taboo. The era of fear, however, is happily winding down. It will take some time for this realization to fully take hold. But make no mistake: the tables have turned. Like it or not, the ground has shifted, and it cannot shift back. The evidence...

FROM BURNING BODIES TO BURNING BOOKS: EGYPT IS BECOMING A "HOUSE OF DUST" By Raymond Stock December 2011 Raymond Stock, former visiting assistant professor of Arabic and Middle East Studies at Drew University (2010-11), lived in Cairo for 20 years before being deported by the regime of Hosni Mubarak in December 2010, apparently due to his 2009 article criticizing then-Culture minister Farouk Hosni’s bid to head UNESCO in Foreign Policy Magazine. He has published widely on the Middle East and translated stories by many Arab writers, including seven books by Egyptian Nobel laureate in literature Naguib Mahfouz, whose biography he...

When choosing a concealed carry holster for your pistol, selecting the best holster you can find will add to your overall total self-defense abilities. A holster/pistol combination is part of your concealed carry defensive system. While looking at a quality holster the one factor you should consider last is the cost. Experience has taught me you get what you pay for. There should be no delays to your reactions caused by inappropriate or inadequately fitting equipment. With your life depending on it, you may never get the chance to tell others you should have picked the higher quality model. Criteria...

[Less than] 200 days away from what will undoubtedly be one of the most important elections in US history, and most of the country still isn't even paying attention yet. Of course, those of you reading this have been paying attention for years, even decades, but that's because you're all freaks and oddballs like me. At least that's what the majority thinks of us. We prefer to think of ourselves as exceptional and concerned – responsible citizens, but they see us as demented political junkies lacking in real life. Any way you want to define us – those of us...

The Culture War rages all around us. One side in this war supports abortion and promotes homosexual marriage. They would lower the age of consent and make divorce as easy as changing your clothes. In fact, they have already succeeded in advancing their agenda in Europe and America...

CASE NOTE: 10-17720 Plans Inc. v. Sacramento City Unified School District[caption id="attachment_4394" align="alignright" width="400" caption="Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals - San Francisco"][/caption] SAN FRANCISCO, CA – MAY 17, 2012 – The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing a case this morning on the issue of whether the Sacramento Unified School District is violating constitutional principles of separation of church and state in awarding Waldorf-method charter public schools tax-based funding. In the case brought by People for Legal and Nonsectarian Schools (PLANS), PLANS argues that Waldorf-method schools should not publicly funded because they are rooted in a spiritual philosophy called...

According to modern dogma, homosexuals are like sprinters: born and not made. Thus, even though psychology’s longstanding nature-nurture debate has concluded that many traits are the result of both factors, it isn’t politically correct to consider even this possibility with respect to homosexuality. But does this biology-is-destiny theory hold water with respect to same-sex attraction? And, if so, what does this say about the behavior’s moral status? Let’s examine the matter. When discussing same-sex attraction’s cause, the first thing usually mentioned is the much touted “homosexual gene” theory. In fact, the idea has been repeated so often that many today...

More than ever, at this make or break time in our history, the Senate needs leaders who are willing to step up and put love of country first, like Bob Kerrey. My friend and former colleague has shown a lot of guts and grit in running once again for the United States Senate from Nebraska. But that's Bob Kerrey -- a decorated Navy veteran who gave part of his right leg in service, and you can see Bob's military experience reflected in his public service -- both as Nebraska's governor and senator -- where he has been fiercely loyal to...

NJ, 9th Congressional Democrat Primary Election Bill Pascrell is a Catholic, pro-abortion, pro-gay-marriage, 18-yr. congressman in NJ. He and Nancy Pelosi are great friends and vote the same way. As a former mayor of Paterson, NJ, he chose the hall of a Catholic Church in Paterson, NJ as the venue for his Campaign Rally. Congressman Bill Pascrell has a 100% NARAL voting record and a 100% Pro-Homosexual Agenda voting record Facebook Event Campaign Page Pascrell also credits himself for writing the obama health-care law. The law that pays for abortion and calls for death panels for senior citizens. Call the...

I saw the Avengers Movie with some family on Mother's Day. I saw "Obama" as the evil one wanting to end freedom for the general population as freedom is bad. The Evil One wanted the Good Guys (Captain America, Hulk, Thor etc) to spend their time fighting each other. When Captain America was looking for his "outfit" he went to a museum and found the Stars and Stripes on display. He got it and said - "This is not as popular as it once was!" When the Good Guys joined to fight evil - they could not be stopped. At...

Conservatives are not shy about highlighting what they perceive as Marxist/communist roots in various aspects of Barack Obama’s policies, vision, and rhetoric. Some of these alleged parallels are a stretch; others are not. Many are merely the common overlap we often see among factions within the broader left of the political spectrum. We could debate and dissect them one by one; either way, they ultimately add up to a man — our president — who is on the far left.Yet while conservatives tend to focus on matters of economics and excessive government growth and intervention, they’re missing crucial aspects of...

WASHINGTON, May 16, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Cardinal Newman Society is sending to Georgetown University President John DiGioia the names of more than 26,000 people who joined an open letter urging Georgetown to cancel an invitation to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to speak at a diploma ceremony this Friday. The petitions are also being shared with Cardinal Donald Wuerl of Washington, D.C., and Pope Benedict XVI’s ambassador to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano. “These signers are students, alumni, Catholic families, pastors and others who can no longer tolerate Georgetown University’s betrayal of our Church and...

A prominent American priest in the Legionaries of Christ, a troubled Catholic order whose founder was denounced by the Vatican for sexual improprieties, has admitted having a sexual relationship with a woman and fathering her child. Father Thomas Williams, who has appeared on CBS and NBC and was interviewed by ABC News for a 2010 report on the Legion, made the acknowledgement after an activist who had sought reform in the order contacted the Vatican with his suspicions. "I am truly sorry to everyone who is hurt by this revelation," said Williams in a statement. He said that he would...

Bush: 'Arab Spring' Is ‘Broadest Challenge to Authoritarian Rule Since Collapse of Soviet Communism’ By Elizabeth Harrington May 15, 2012 (CNSNews.com) – Former President George W. Bush said Tuesday that the Arab Spring is “the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet Communism." “These are extraordinary times in the history of freedom,” Bush said in a speech in Washington, D.C., sponsored by his presidential foundation, the George W. Bush Institute. “In the Arab Spring we have seen the broadest challenge to authoritarian rule since the collapse of Soviet communism," Bush said. "Great change has come to a...

The real cost of a polar bear rug Every year, hunters kill hundreds of polar bears and then sell their parts legally in the international market. Urge the Obama Administration to pursue a worldwide ban on the commercial trade in polar bear parts. I find it truly shocking that in this day and age, hunters are still gunning down polar bears to peddle their skins, teeth, claws and skulls on the international market. If you agree that the world doesn’t have polar bears to spare -- certainly not to end up as rugs -- then please help NRDC end this...

Yvette Vickers, a former Playboy playmate and B-movie star, best known for her role in Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, would have been 83 last August, but nobody knows exactly how old she was when she died. According to the Los Angeles coroner’s report, she lay dead for the better part of a year before a neighbor and fellow actress, a woman named Susan Savage, noticed cobwebs and yellowing letters in her mailbox, reached through a broken window to unlock the door, and pushed her way through the piles of junk mail and mounds of clothing that barricaded the...

A specially equipped P-3 Orion assigned to the "Old Buzzards" of VPU-1 is ready to start its turboprop engines on the Hangar 511 flight line at NAS Jacksonville. The squadron will be disestablished on Friday. A specially equipped P-3 Orion assigned to the "Old Buzzards" of VPU-1 is ready to start its turboprop engines on the Hangar 511 flight line at NAS Jacksonville. The squadron will be disestablished on Friday. Special Projects Patrol Squadron (VPU) 1 will hold its disestablishment ceremony April 27 at 10 a.m. at NAS Jacksonville Hangar 117. The “Old Buzzards” trace their lineage back 40 years...

What’s Behind the Second Underwear Bombing Attempt? The foiling of the second attempt by Yemeni terrorists to blow their underwear and any airplane near them to smithereens has led to praise for an American government that motivated the plot in the first place. Ever since the barbaric attacks of 9/11, the American public, thirsting for revenge, has reflexively approved of any military adventure its government has undertaken to “fight terrorists.” That reaction was somewhat understandable in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 but has unfortunately continued to the present day. Very few in America have ever asked the critical question of...

Very often, people in Israel, Jews, Christians and Moslems ask whether peace is attainable in the Middle East, considering that two peoples- Arab and Jews- are fighting over a very small piece of land in a very large territorial sea of Islam... ...The reason I mention these five wars between Israel and the Arabs is not to try to attempt to give a history of Israel's military history, but to put into perspective certain quotes by Syrian President Hafez Assad, who has gone on record as saying: "These Arabs have lost five wars against Israel. We can afford to loose...

Lessons from Nowa Huta: A nation of the children of God Today marks the day that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, the future Pope John Paul II, dedicated a church at Nowa Huta despite opposition from the erstwhile Communist government and its Soviet masters. President Obama should take heed. Tuesday, May 15, 2012 By James Thunder Thirty-five years ago today, May 15, 1977, a young Catholic cardinal, three days shy of his 57th birthday, dedicated a new church. A welcome, but fairly routine event for a Catholic cardinal or bishop. But in this instance the country was Communist Poland. The struggle to...

Summary: Blacks receive inferior treatment for traumatic injuries (esp. gun shots wounds) than those of other races. They're survival rate and post-trauma care is inferior. However, causes for this racist medical outcome are unclear.

If you believe that all political ideologies, all religions and cultures are equal in their adherence to human rights and civil liberties and thus they are all beyond criticism, then there is no need for education to distinguish or be critical. And you will probably not like this article. The definition of jihad in mainstream Sharia books is : “to war against non-Muslims, derived from the word mujahada, signifying warfare, to establish the religion.”(law # o9.0 p 599). In Al Azhar Islamic University it is defined as “A permanent war institution against Jews, Christians and Pagans.” When the word jihad...

Friend, We've seen all the headlines: JP Morgan Chase took risky bets and lost two billion dollars in a matter of weeks. CEO Jamie Dimon called the bets "poorly reviewed" and even "sloppy." He added, "We will learn from it, we will fix it, and we will move on." Frankly, I don't think we should just trust Wall Street banks to regulate themselves. Because as we learned during the 2008 financial crisis, they are not just taking risks with their own money -- they are taking risks with the whole economy. That's why today, with the Progressive Change Campaign Committee,...

The Obama Administration is considering a management plan for the Western Arctic Reserve that would protect vital habitat for caribou, polar bears, beluga whales and millions of migratory birds. Help save this natural treasure from oil and gas drilling! We have a rare opportunity right now to save a vast Arctic wilderness from rampant oil development -- forever. For the first time ever, the Obama Administration is considering a comprehensive management plan for Alaska’s Western Arctic Reserve that would protect key wildlife habitat from destructive oil and gas development. Tell the Bureau of Land Management to safeguard the Reserve’s most...

UN Seeking Global “Mental Health” Plan Written by Alex Newman On January 20, the WHO Executive Board released a resolution entitled “Global Burden of Mental Disorders and the need for a comprehensive, coordinated response at the country level.” The document calls for, among other measures, collaboration between national governments and the global health body in developing a “comprehensive mental health action plan” for the world. The resolution asks the WHO Director-General to draft a “comprehensive” plan which includes model legislation and policy measures for member states. The program would encompass everything from education and human rights to health-care delivery and...

Romney Campaign Adopts Key Advisor’s Tactics Written by Bob Adelmann Eric Fehrnstrom joined Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2002 when he was running for governor of Massachusetts. Today he is not only the most experienced member of Romney’s current staff, he is also the one closest to the candidate. Fehrnstrom is usually referred to as a “Romney spokesman” or “strategist” while Romney himself refers to him as his “communications director,” but those close to the campaign call him Romney’s “consigliere” — an intimate counselor or advisor — whose job is not only to give advice and counsel to...

Edgy filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait is sick of the dumbing-down of America thanks to reality television, and has brought to life the dark comedy “God Bless America” to serve as a wake-up call regarding the downward spiral of our culture. “The tipping point was that I was in London and they had a ‘My Super Sweet 16’ marathon on and there I was watching teenage girls throwing fits because their parents bought them the wrong BMW. I was aghast, then a ringtone commercial about an elephant breaking wind. I was offended,” Goldthwait told FOX411’s Pop Tarts column. “So this is a...

Western states are no longer able to repay its debt. Overwhelmingly, the debt burden of a number of stakeholders is predicated on the existence of large-scale and long-term commitments that are at the core of the overall social contract prevalent in the Western world and beyond. The policy approaches employed thus far, whether ‘quantitative easing’ or ‘twisting’ have not helped lower the debt waters — indeed, they have made matters worse. Instead of ‘quantitative lowering’ of these waters, at least in the United States, private banks and corporations are using their excess liquidity to re-leverage at a feverish pace, thereby...

"...the social thought and political economy program (STPEC)... with its emphasis on theory and practice and ethnic, gender, and race studies, is unique in the country... it has 150 majors and approximately 1,000 alumni. Core courses and electives are designed to prepare students to be change agents..."