Free Republic

I like to make informed decisions about candidates, but sometimes it is difficult to sift through sound bites, propaganda and media bias. What do the individual candidates really stand for, and what is their record? It is especially difficult finding any local information about judicial races. I spent long hours looking for voter’s guides, with specific information to make informed election decisions. One helpful resource is Citizens for Community Values (CCV), http://www.ccv.org/resources/election-information/ .Who is CCV? “Citizens for Community Values (CCV) exists to promote Judeo-Christian moral values, and to reduce destructive behaviors contrary to those values, through education, active community partnership,...

In one traditional form of pornography, from the Victorian “A Man With a Maid” to the more recent “Fifty Shades of Grey,” a young woman is initiated — sometimes uncomfortably — into the mysteries of adult sexuality. In the end she is, at some level at least, grateful for the new horizons that’ve opened up to her. Well, we still have that. But let’s face it — porn has gotten pretty boring. The sex lives of many average Americans today would shock Grandma. And the depiction of sex in popular media has reached the numbing-point. A 2012 issue of Cosmo...

Paul Ryan pulled no punches! When the lone heckler tried his craft--- He was shouted down "USA USA USA" and escorted out. Our next VP is a very intelligent and well-spoken young man...

...Protecting the middle class might be the theme of Obama's campaign ads, but the defining movement of this campaign came when Obama belittled the efforts of Main Street America when he stated that "you didn't build that." Those sneering words about smart, hardworking people revealed the ugly side of Obama's redistributionalist ideology. As in 2008, most of the media accept all the carefully scripted images of Obama as Gospel truth while they busy themselves trying to either hide or spin away all those extemporaneous words and deeds that display Obama's true beliefs and character as being either out of context...

MBTA Transit Police have arrested a man and two women for allegedly beating and kicking a mentally disabled man on the Downtown Crossing Station Orange Line platform early Monday, officials said Tuesday. Authorities said Carlito Rezende, of Dorchester, a 40-year-old man with schizoaffective disorder who has a restricted ability to communicate with people, injected himself into a conversation he overheard, telling a group of people not to use the word “hate.”

JANESVILLE, Wis. - "Hello Janesville, it's good to be home," said Wisconsin congressman and expected Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan. In his hometown of Janesville, Wis. Monday morning, nearly 2,000 supporters showed up to send him off to the Republican National Convention being held in Tampa, Fla. this week. Republicans have officially opened the convention in a shortened session Monday that will culminate with the nomination of Mitt Romney to be president. Tropical Storm Isaac is forcing the GOP to cram four days of speeches and videos into three. Ryan, obviously a much-needed attendee at the RNC, spoke to...

Books about the history of Harlem have long fascinated me — my favorite being "When Harlem Was in Vogue" by David Levering Lewis. However, a more recent book, titled simply "Harlem" by Jonathan Gill, presents a more comprehensive history — going all the way back to the time when the Dutch were the first settlers of New York, and named that area for the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands. Most of us today think of Harlem as a black community, but it was not that for most of its 400-year history. John James Audubon, famed for his studies of...

An 87-year-old World War II veteran was walking from a corner store in West Englewood after buying lottery tickets when he was attacked by three people who smashed his glasses, knocked out his hearing aid and broke his dentures, then went through his pockets and fled with his wallet, according to his family and police.

"Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." -- Thomas Sowell We like to think of children as innocent little angels. Of course, that's only true in the sense that there aren't any three year olds who've stabbed their cousins to death for drug money or set up a stock swindle designed to bilk senior citizens out of their life savings. Children are not naturally good. To the contrary, they begin their lives as selfish, completely self-absorbed little savages whose entire world revolves around meeting...

Mitt Romney today announced the support of five former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See. The Ambassadors wrote the following letter in support of Mitt Romney: “We the undersigned former U.S. Ambassadors to the Holy See...are united in our wholehearted support for the candidacy of Mitt Romney for the Presidency of the United States because of his commitment to and support of the values that we feel are critical in a national leader...We also know that Mitt Romney is a staunch defender of the principle that every human being should be welcomed in life and protected by law from conception...

Now is the time for all good men and women to put Country above Party. For far to long the RINO Wing of the Republican Party has been in control of losing National Elections. The time has come to cast aside the hold-your-nose clothespins that the RINOs expect us to use when we vote for their tweedle-dumb or tweedle-dumber Candidates. To all Primary voters: List the top 10 demonstrated positive values for each Candidate for all offices, and vote accordingly. If there is no Candidate that meets your values for a given office, then leave that slot blank. This will...

A first time ever telephone poll of what researchers claimed was a representative sampling of Iranians living in Iran shows that the majority of Iranians are in favor of democracy. The questions in the poll were prepared by Israeli researchers, and were presented in a non-political framework, so as not to frighten off participants who fear the country's dictators and clerics. Despite holding conservative beliefs in many areas, the poll showed, a large majority of Iranians – 94% - supported free choice for individuals, while 71% advocated tolerating people of all backgrounds. The results of the poll were compared to...

Washingtion - Mitt Romney focuses on his own family - and not the volatile of gay marriage - in early excerpts of the commencement address he plans to deliver Saturday at the conservative Liberty University.

As expected, North Carolinians voted in large numbers on Tuesday for an amendment that would ban same-sex marriages, partnerships and civil unions, becoming the 30th state in the country and the last in the South to include a prohibition on gay..

Does it break some unwritten rule for a columnist to bring his readers’ attention to his own book? If so, I ask your indulgence. But, after nearly a thousand columns and twelve years since my last book, I hope readers will forgive me for noting that today, April 24, 2012, HarperCollins is publishing the culmination of a lifetime of thinking and years of the most challenging writing of my life. The book is Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph. It is an argument on behalf of the moral superiority — and universal applicability —...

First Lady Michelle Obama tells David Letterman that she and President Obama try to instill the values of south Chicago in their daughters. Michelle Obama: For us, it's the values. The thing that we try to do is make sure -- the residence is on the second and the third floor of the White House. And what we want to have happen is when they get off that elevator and walk in to our residence that it feels like the south side of Chicago, the same values, the same rules, the same sense of responsibility.

Americans seem to have become accustomed to the casual use of the “F” word, with celebrities tracking, proudly, the number of times they “drop the “f” bomb” in public. The frequent use of the “f” word has coarsened our public discourse. But, many of our most emblematic American values, the very characteristics that shape our national character and contribute to American exceptionalism, have been given a bad rep by liberals because they, too, are “F” words. Freedom from an overly intrusive government that thinks that only government knows what is best for Americans. Democrats prefer to support over-expansive government intrusiveness...

Sen. Rick Santorum has no viable path to victory and brings no new issues or ideas to the table. He no longer serves a purpose, or has a justification to remain in the race. Santorum has no viable claim that he is more conservative or more electable than Gingrich. He has no viable claim that he will be better in raising money, in organization, or would do a better job as president. There is simply no path for him. Further — despite winning Iowa, Santorum lost badly in NH and SC, and has no means to complete in FL. It...

The Senate confirmed McFaul as ambassador on December 17, 2011. Transcript below. NPR: Let's say Vladimir Putin wins the election in March and remains in power in Russia. Where are we in these countries, I mean in this evolution towards democracy you describe? MCFAUL: We're, you know, two decades in. I'm not going to give grades about, oh, how democratic or not it is, but most certainly this system is not the totalitarian dictatorship of the Soviet Union. Let's be very clear about that. Individual rights have progressed far. Choice is greater than it was before. And maybe not as...

.....[William]Bennett introduces The Book of Man:Readings on the Path to Manhood with tidings of oy. [snip] JamesFreemanClarke (1810–1888), an American theologian and essayist, limned the distinctions between true and false manliness. His essay is a particularly interesting glimpse of the 19th-century ideal, since 20th-century feminism has worked so hard to persuade us that the “patriarchy” taught men to be tyrants and emotional stiffs. "[Manliness]expresses the qualities which go to make a perfect man — truth, courage, conscience, freedom, energy, self-possession, self-control. But it does not exclude gentleness, tenderness, compassion, modesty. A man is not less manly, but more so, because...