Free Republic

During Mass this morning priest's homily was about religious freedom. We also prayed for religious freedom and the unborn and at the end of Mass "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was beautifully sung by a baritone.

Is Justin Amash the new face of Republicanism? By George F. Will Published: Saturday, April 20, 2013, 9:00 p.m. Updated: Saturday, April 20, 2013 WASHINGTON America's most interesting development since November is the Republican Party becoming more interesting. Consider the congressman from Grand Rapids, Mich., who occupies the seat once held by Gerald Ford, the embodiment of vanilla Republicanism.

We all know that a palindrome is a word or sentence that reads the same backwards as forward. But what should we call an essay that when read backwards, has the opposite meaning? This video reads the exact opposite backwards as forward. Not only does it read the opposite, the meaning is the exact opposite.

Some of the most terrifying words the parents of a newborn will ever hear are “there is a problem with the baby.” Sometimes the dreadful news comes later after a tragic childhood accident or disease. When such children grow to adulthood they are joined by an even larger number of those who lived perfectly healthy lives as children only to become disabled in some way as adults. Adults with a disability of some kind are many times unable to work or unable to make enough money from working to support themselves or their families, especially during periods of economic downturn...

We have had the “War on Drugs” since the 70’s. In the 80’s, the “War” went from just skirmishes to an all out nuclear war on drugs. Now, thirty years later what have we accomplished? Has the “War on Drugs” become just another epic government failure like the “War on Poverty” with the only thing accomplished being massive government spending and an equally massive erosion of our Constitutional Rights? My perspective on the “War on Drugs” is a little different from most people. I practiced law for 24 years. Ten of those years were as a prosecutor. The rest were...

Does anyone know exactly when it was that the government started cooking the books on unemployment, and counting people who have given up and left the work force, as "no longer being unemployed"? Seems to me that that one change in statistic-keeping set the stage for moving people from work onto welfare, and I think it was made during Clinton's regime? Or was it Carter? It appears to allow them to move people transparently from work to welfare, and the unemployment statistics only look half as bad as they really are. Look at: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm The U3 is the figure that...

War is Peace Freedom is Slavery Ignorance is Strength Published during the Soviet Union's rise as a global superpower, George Orwell's 1984 offers a prescient window into the soul of the propaganda apparatus of a utopia dictatorship. While Barack Obama has yet to transform the United States from a constitutional republic, his effort to redesign Old Glory notwithstanding, enough similarities have arisen during his presidency and his campaign for re-election that it is worth taking notice. When reality is refracted through the prism of the state propaganda machine, we lose sight of who we are as a society. Inhabitants of...

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kurt Bills told Morning in America radio host William Bennett this morning that he's polling about 26 percentage points behind DFL Sen. Amy Klobuchar. Bills touted his background as an economics teacher and said his standing will improve once voters get to know him. "Nobody knows me," Bills said as he referred to the campaign's polling data. "What we find out is that once people understand that I grew up blue collar, I actually have been in a union my whole life though I'm a coauthor on Right to Work, I'm a public school teacher who...

Those who follow Northern Kentucky politics are aware that four-term Republican Congressman Geoff Davis is retiring this year, and two well-known GOP politicians have announced their interest in replacing him. Boone County Judge-executive Gary Moore and state Rep. Alicia Webb-Edgington are part of the Republican establishment in Northern Kentucky and were likely candidates for the job. But there’s another face in the race, a Lewis County businessman and inventor who hails from the eastern edge of the 4th Congressional District. Thomas Massie comes to the primary with strong ties to the Tea Party and the Rand and Ron Paul brand...

Ron Paul might be striking out in his pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination, but the activist energy his campaign unleashed in Minnesota is positioning one of his followers as the party's unlikely favorite to take on U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November. Kurt Bills is a rookie state representative from Rosemount and a high school economics teacher. Until he made a late and unexpected entry into the race in March, Bills was never mentioned as a Republican prospect to challenge Democratic incumbent Klobuchar. But in recent weeks, an increasing number of Republicans have pegged him as the frontrunner to...

Plan on purchasing, owning, transporting and/or operating a firearm in your lifetime? Do not relocate to the state of Illinois. The state has one of the worst gun laws in the country and the Illinois Police and the Illinois Attorney General really need to stop pursuing innocent gun owners, sellers, and users, and pursue those who actually commit crimes that injure or harm others. Stemming from a public safety initiative, Illinois implemented a law in 1968 that says a Firearm Owners Identification (FOID) card must be issued by the Illinois State Police before a resident can possess or purchase firearms...

A freshman state legislator joined a Republican field seeking a U.S. Senate seat Thursday, setting his sights on a robust Minnesota network for presidential candidate Ron Paul as a possible route to the party nomination. State Rep. Kurt Bills announced his campaign on a busy intersection in Rosemount, just up the street from a high school where he teaches an early morning economics course before heading to the state Capitol each day. The former city council member said he'd make the nation's debt and deficit the focus of his campaign, though he wouldn't offer hints of how he'd solve it....

John Hanson Story John Hanson (1721-1783) When we think of the President of the United States, many people do not realize that we are actually referring to presidents elected under the U.S. Constitution. Everybody knows that the first president in that sense was George Washington. But in fact the Articles of Confederation, the predecessor to the Constitution, also called for a president– albeit one with greatly diminished powers. Eight men were appointed to serve one-year terms as president under the Articles of Confederation. The first was John Hanson, in 1781. His exact title was the “President of the United States...

Recent momentous events at Cato have drudged up some age-old questions about libertarianism and politics: how should libertarians interact with politics and political candidates? Should libertarians compromise “full freedom” by promoting half-measures in the form of less-than-perfect candidates who are better than the alternatives on some matters but perhaps worse on others? Many of the most long-standing divisions within libertarianism are partially a result of different answers to these questions. Some regard all interactions with politics and politicians as inherently corrupting and a tacit endorsement of governmental oppression. Others feel that a refusal to engage in politics is a one-way-ticket...

VIDEO: In this red-hot 16 minute debate, libertarian Wayne Allyn Root, obliterates a pitiful, whiny, parasitic, anti-freedom socialist. It's interesting and noteworthy how the broadcaster seems to label those rightfully afraid of socialism as being afraid of the "big, bad, wolf". Watch how quickly the socialist pulls out the race card (and how Wayne Allyn Root dismantles it). This is universally done by the left, regardless of whether the debate is with a democrat, socialist, or communist. Along with class warfare, it's the only tool they have. It's laudable how Root maintains his composure and pleasant disposition, even in the...

Washington (CNN) -- Briefly back in Congress doing his day job, Ron Paul met with high school students outside his office. True to form, he signed copies of the Constitution and wryly told them with a chuckle, "No one around here reads it very much. I'd like to get everybody to read it." [...] What Paul did not do was attend a closed-door gathering of House Republicans. In fact, the GOP presidential contender is known to never attend these meetings. But Paul's Republican colleagues who did go had no shortage of opinions about his strong showing in the presidential race...

Rep. Ron Paul will drop off the campaign trail in South Carolina on Wednesday and fly back to Washington to cast a vote against raising the debt ceiling, his campaign said Tuesday. ... Mr. Obama said late last month the federal government was once again close to breaching the legal limit on how much it can borrow, and he requested Congress raise the ceiling again. Opponents would need to pass a resolution disapproving of the increase and have it signed into law, or else override a presidential veto, to bloc the increase — which is highly unlikely. But returning to...

He has a solid, unshakeable base. His poll numbers are rising, not sinking. He hasn’t had to go negative. He hasn’t had to deliver a speech to get past his newsletter-induced Reverend Wright moment. Oh, and one other thing: he’s in this race ’til the finish line. His name is Ron Paul, and you have the establishment to thank for his shocking march from the margins to something almost mainstream. In retrospect, at least, there’s really nothing shocking about it. At every step, he has been boosted up and pushed forward by the horrendous failure of the establishment to remove...

S.C. Sen. Tom Davis – the leading fiscal conservative in South Carolina state government and one of the most coveted endorsements of the 2012 “First in the South” presidential primary – will announce his support for U.S. Rep. Ron Paul on Sunday. Davis will endorse Paul’s candidacy at a campaign event Sunday evening in Myrtle Beach, S.C. – confirming a report published earlier this week on Buzzfeed. Paul’s campaign has described Davis’ forthcoming endorsement as “consequential” and “game-changing.” Why? Click here. A first-term State Senator, Davis wields a disproportionate impact given his stellar fiscal voting record and his advocacy on...

Ron Paul Is More Conservative Than Rick Santorum. By Joe Deaux 01/11/12 - 04:02 PM EST NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- During a Republican presidential debate Saturday, Texas Rep. Ron Paul and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum had a spat about who was more conservative as each clawed for blocks of Republican voters needed to topple front-runner Mitt Romney. According to a study done back in 2004 though, Paul was the more conservative of the two by a fairly healthy margin. A list put together at voteview.com found that out of the 3,320 individuals (1 being the most liberal and 3,320...