Free Republic

March 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – As the media debate the reason abortions declined over the last few years, pro-life voices say the record number of new laws restricting abortion played a role. The year 2014 is already shaping up to follow the trend of substantial pro-life legislation. Arizona Abortion facilities will no longer receive advance notice of state inspections, if the governor signs a proposed law. The state House of Representatives passed the measure, allowing unannounced health inspections of abortion facilities, by a vote of 34-22. Florida A woman tricked into ingesting an abortion-inducing drug that killed her child wants...

“I call on every man in the Diocese of Arlington to search his heart and renew his commitment to purity. I call on every husband and father to renew his sacred commitment to his wife and children.” - Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde ARLINGTON, VA, March 7, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The growth of pornography use, particularly on the internet, is “a matter of utmost urgency for every son and father today,” Bishop Paul Loverde of the Catholic diocese of Arlington, Virginia said in a letter to his flock released this week. Titled “Bought with a Price: Every Man’s Duty to Protect...

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake occurred off the coast of Eureka in Northern California on Sunday night, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. The temblor hit at 10:18 p.m. 50 miles west of Eureka in Humboldt County. According to the USGS, the earthquake was felt over a large swath of the North Coast as well as other parts of Northern California. …

Chinese group claims responsibility for flight MH370 Staff Reporter 2014-03-10 11:56 (GMT+8) A group that calls itself the Chinese Martyrs' Brigade has claimed responsibility for crashing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370, which has remained missing after losing contact with ground control at 1:20am on Saturday. The previously unheard-of group sent a PDF statement to various journalists in China on March 9, saying, "You kill one of our clan, we will kill 100 of you as pay back." The majority of Chinese media outlets have expressed skepticism over the statement or dismissed it outright, suggesting it is likely a hoax made up...

Rumtopf is one of the best holiday treats; I was surprised at how good it is, and how STRONG. Spring is coming around; that's the time to start another crock of rumtopf; does any freeper have a special recipe? I'm starting HERE!

A few days after John F Kennedy's assassination, Lyndon Johnson sat in his kitchen with his key advisers working his first speech to Congress. It was the evening of Kennedy's funeral – Johnson was now president. The nation was still in grief and Johnson, writes Robert Caro in The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power, was not yet able to move into the White House because Kennedy's effects were still there. He had been a hapless vice-president; now he had to both personify and project the transition from bereavement to business as usual. In the midst of the...

Vice-President Joe Biden has given a stark assessment of the ongoing unrest in Venezuela, accusing President Nicolas Maduro of widespread human rights violations and saying the situation reminded him of Latin America's troubled and violent past. In a written interview with El Mercurio of Chile where Biden arrived on Sunday at the start of his seventh official visit to the region, he called the unstable situation in Venezuela "alarming" and said the Caracas government lacked even basic respect for human rights. "Confronting peaceful protestors with force and in some cases armed militias, limiting freedom of press and assembly...is not in...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) BRENTWOOD - A Suffolk woman says she's the latest victim of the so-called "knockout game," the violent spree of attacks targeting innocent people who are minding their own business. The woman, a 51-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, asked News 12 Long Island to conceal her identity because she says she's scared that her family will be targeted. She spoke with News 12 through a translator. The woman says she was smashed in the face and knocked to the ground Friday by four teenagers as she walked home from the supermarket. She says it happened at the corner of MacArthur Avenue and...

Just had a pretty good one. I'm inland about 30 miles from it and felt strong.

All over the net, simple Google search on the terms "anonymous ukraine email", take your pick: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=anonymous++ukranian+email&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 Strikes me as a bit mysterious, conservatives and republicans are generally aware that our media feeds us a steady diet of unadulterated BS on domestic issues but somehow still believes that what we see about foreign affairs in that same media is perfectly believable, go figure...

For many people, arriving at A&E at death’s door and being told the only way for you to survive was to get blind drunk would count as a result. That’s the situation Maltese terrier Charlie found himself in after being left with hours to live after licking coolant from his owner Jacinta Rosewarne’s garage. Quick-thinking vets deduced that the little dog had ethylene glycol poisoning, which can lead to kidney failure – and the only treatment was to get him as drunk as possible. Because pure alcohol can alter antifreeze chemicals and allow them to be flushed out of an...

Fortunately, the actual voters behind the tea party movement of 2009 did some good before the vultures arrived. Since that movement's peak in 2010, the sentiment of those original voters — a pretty even split of Republicans, Democrats and independents — has been hijacked by every political circus-barker able to buy a domain name that includes such key words as “freedom,” “liberty,” “warrior,” “conservative” or “tea party.” These same political operators have no problem making money from frustrated voters by challenging incumbent Republican officeholders with often untested, unsophisticated but deep-pocketed candidates — with mixed results. People fed up with the...

There’s a musical stramash going on within the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland. In popular parlance it has been described as a battle between the “post-Vatican II hippies and the right-wing traditionalists”. More seriously, it’s about the difference between respecting, protecting and reinterpreting the centuries’ old tradition of people-friendly Gregorian Chant within the context of congregational participation in the liturgical mass, and the banal sentimental dirges that have infested Sunday worship in most Catholic churches since the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s told its churches to open up to the modern world. In Scotland in recent years, the battle...

Tokyo-based Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox lost $400 million worth of bitcoins in February. Its management said the amount was stolen after hackers exploited a transaction bug to divert the funds, but some of Mt. Gox's users are not so sure, suggesting instead that the exchange's owners pocketed the cash. Now, facing silence from those owners about the fate of the money and the methods by which 6 percent of all of the Bitcoin in the world could have been stolen, a group of hackers claims it has broken into the bankrupted Bitcoin exchange's network to get answers.

WASHINGTON, March 9, 2014 — The third and final day of CPAC brought everything full circle. Most of Radio Row leaves after Friday, and the vendors pack up early Saturday afternoon. Yet all is not quiet on the CPAC front. Two events conclude the event, one meaningful and one meaningless. The meaningful event is the keynote speech. In recent years, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have brought the crowd to its feet with rousing closing remarks. This year offered Sarah Palin as the grand finale. The meaningless event is the straw poll, won virtually every year by retired congressman and...

The simple blood test could give early warning within three years The test could speed the search for new drugs that delay or prevent disease Experts are pleased, but it could bring health concerns if no cure is found A simple blood test has been developed that gives healthy elderly people precious early warning they may get Alzheimer’s within the next three years. It is hoped the test, the first to predict accurately who will become ill, could speed the search for new drugs that can delay or even prevent the devastating brain disease. It could eventually lead to widespread...

I have been hearing a commercial featuring Mia Farrow, Laurence Fishburne and others. The ad takes us to Unicef without any information. It's a donate site.

March 10, 2014Monday of the First Week of Lent   Reading 1 Lv 19:1-2, 11-18 The LORD said to Moses,“Speak to the whole assembly of the children of Israel and tell them:Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy. “You shall not steal.You shall not lie or speak falsely to one another.You shall not swear falsely by my name,thus profaning the name of your God.I am the LORD. “You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor.You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer.You shall not curse the deaf,or put a stumbling block in front...

Sarah Palin is being wooed by two news media veterans to join a streaming network, The Post has learned. Jonathan Klein, who ran CNN’s US operations, and Jeff Gaspin, who was most recently chairman of NBC-Universal Entertainment, have already raised enough money from deep-pocketed backers to start the over-the-top network, and have reached out to a few bold-faced names to host a show to make selling subscriptions easier, sources said. And is the former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice-presidential candidate among those the two have approached? You betcha, sources said. Palin seemed interested but has not committed, sources added....

Not long ago the pink house at 1829 Church Street, in the Glen Park neighborhood here, hit the market for $895,000. It sold for $1.425 million — $530,000 over the asking price — in less than two weeks. The story of this fixer-upper, with three bedrooms, two baths, linoleum floors and an Eisenhower-era kitchen, is in some ways the story of the moment in the city, where longtime residents complain that Silicon Valley money is basically ruining the place for everyone else. More wealth is concentrated in the San Francisco Bay Area than just about any other place in the...

As Moldova prepares to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, Russia is stepping up attempts to keep the country in its fold. It has found some willing helpers in the country. If Mihail Formuzal had his way, the revolution in Kiev never would have happened. Then, Moldova would choose Russia instead of Europe, and the planned Association Agreement with the EU would already be history. The 54-year-old Formuzal is president of the autonomous Gagauzia region in Moldova. In early February he carried out a referendum by polling the approximately 155,000 members of the Gagauz Orthodox Christian minority here....

March 16 is C Day. The Crimean parliament - by 78 votes with 8 abstentions - decided this is the day when Crimean voters will choose between joining the Russian Federation or to remain part of Ukraine as an autonomous region with very strong powers, according to the 1992 constitution. Whatever "diplomatic" tantrums Washington and Brussels will keep pulling, and they will be incandescent, facts on the ground speak for themselves. The city council of Sevastopol - the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea fleet - has already voted to join Russia. And next week the Duma in Moscow will study...

US scientists deplore ‘innovation deficit’ By Nuala Moran Scientists in the US remain the best funded in the world, but they say falling federal investment and cuts due to sequestration, coupled with the enormous resources other countries are lavishing on research, are creating an “innovation deficit�.The consequence, say the presidents of more than 200 US universities, will be fewer US scientific and technological breakthroughs, fewer US patents and fewer US start-ups, products and jobs. Investment in research is not inconsistent with deficit reduction, indeed it is vital to it, they said in an open letter to President Barack Obama...

Daylight Saving Time may have serious health implications for some, making it a difficult, even potentially dangerous change, CBS 2′s Kristine Johnson reported. “It affects my sleep, my whole life schedule. I get crazy,” said Shayla Edwards. “Our body has a natural circadian rhythm which is almost an internal clock that regulates our 24-hour cycle. It regulates our sleep-wake cycle and that can be disturbed fairly easily,” said neuro-psychiatrist Dr. Julia Samton.

The spitfire showdown between Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings and House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa last week underscored two prevalent themes woven through U.S. sociological fabric. First, black men and white men remain polarized, perhaps more than ever. Secondly, black men still feel a need to scream to be heard, and not just because the white guy controlling the panel’s microphone silenced his feed. This United States ship lists in troubled waters. Our most recent disengagement reverts to a national election that raised Barack Hussein Obama into the White House in spite of his inability to gain major support from...

Quinn and Rose are off the air, (temporarily, I hope!) Gone, but DEFINITELY not forgotten! Meanwhile, our friendly group of dedicated FReeper Q&R fans will meet in our usual spot - same time, same station - as we always have! So grab your coffee - or whatever you choose to start your day - and drop in for some political chit-chat, or just to shoot the breeze! We are all coming from - or going to - work, but we all stop in to say ‘hi!’ Feel free to join us!

Blizzards and AK's go together like baseball and hotdogs. Since we're in the middle of another snow storm and given the recent passing of Kalashnikov, I decided to talk about a few of the things that make AK's so unique. The AK featured in this video is a Polytech Legend in 7.62x39 which I bought back in the late 1980's. The bull-pup I affectionately call the "Hebrew Hammer" is a IWI Tavor with a Mepro MOR red-dot sight.

Carly Fiorina, former California GOP senate challenger to Barbara Boxer, emerged at the Conservative Political Action Conference here as the speaker most willing to engage the Republicans' persistent problems with appealing to women. Well, after she spent the first half of her speech denying climate change. Priorities! Fiorina didn't offer a solution, but she did offer some great slogans: "I am a proud pro-life woman. ... I believe science is proving us right everyday!" (Hey, don't knock junk science until you've tried it, right?) She also echoed a feminist line when she said, "All issues are women's issues." I like...

We have a huge problem with ministers of most churches learning intellectually, the bible and the truth, then repeating it to their followers. This is a false and weak representation of God and the very reason we are losing our nation and world!

The White House appeared to double down on its policy of engagement with Iran following Wednesday's dramatic pre-dawn high seas capture of an Iranian missile cache destined for Hamas by Israeli naval commandos. Senior administration officials worked quickly to prevent the raid from undermining public confidence in President Obama's continued belief that Iran is a trustworthy and reliable negotiating partner, even going so far as to claim credit for the raid themselves. Several dozen advanced medium range missiles were found hidden under false bottoms of phony shipping containers on board the Panamanian flagged "Klos-C" frigate seized in a dramatic pre...

What are your thoughts on the final episode? I found the manhunt through Carcosa to be over the top INTENSE!!! I couldn't even sit through it. I had to stand and pace a bit with a lot of fidgeting. Also of great interest was Rust Kohle's new attitude when he had what could be called a near death experience and sensed the presence of his daughter.

Being a believer in all -isms can get hairy at times. Take as an illustration a case reported in the Toronto Sun by Ezra Levant: So a lesbian walks into a Muslim barbershop, and asks for a “businessmen’s haircut”.It sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it really happened, and now a government agency called the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario will hear her complaint.Faith McGregor is the lesbian who doesn’t like the girly cuts that they do at a salon. She wants the boy’s hairdo.Omar Mahrouk is the owner of the Terminal Barber Shop in Toronto. He follows...

During his Sunday morning service, Ulf Ekman announced the he and his wife, Birgitta, are converting to Roman Catholicism.Ekman is the founder of Word of Life, a megachurch in Uppsala, Sweden. News reports and blogs coming out of the nation reveal congregation was “partially stunned” after hearing what was packaged as a “special announcement.” The theme was “follow the Lamb wherever He goes."“For Birgitta and me, this has been a slow process were we have gone from discovering new things, to appreciating what we have discovered, to approach and even learn from our fellow Christians,” Ekman says on his ministry...

Sarah Palin was in rare form tonight at CPAC. The crowd loved her, more than any other speaker. She said if she doesn’t run for President, she loves Ted Cruz and Rand Paul. Though she gave a rousing rendition of a rage-filled Green Eggs and Ham riff, proving that she is still the Queen of mean girl spite, Palin predictably tripped over reality when she was instructing President Obama on foreign policy. “Mr. President,” she spat, “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.” Translation: Nuke Russia now or else...

The second Vatican Council was the most important event of the twentieth century for Catholicism. It has also been the most misunderstood. The Church has seen 21 ecumenical councils; Vatican II was the second to be held in Vatican City. An ecumenical council is a gathering of the bishops, cardinals, abbots, and prelates called by the pope to undertake a solemn exercise of the Church’s teaching authority. Papal cooperation is a sine qua non for the legitimacy of a council; without his assent its teachings have no binding force. Pope Pius IX summoned the First Vatican Council, which met from...

Friends and family are mourning the death of a national hero. William "Wild Bill" Guarnere, a South Philly native and World War II vet who was portrayed on the television miniseries, “Band of Brothers,” died on Saturday at the age of 90. Guarnere's son, William Guarnere Jr., confirmed Sunday that his father died at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. Guarnere was rushed to the hospital early Saturday and died of a ruptured aneurysm early Saturday night. Born in South Philadelphia on April 28, in 1923, Guarnere was a non-commissioned officer with the legendary Easy Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry...

Sen. Ted Cruz said President Obama's "weakness" has embolden Russian President Vladimir Putin to act militarily in Ukraine's Crimea region. "Putin fears no retribution" from the United States, said the Texas Republican in an interview shown Sunday on ABC's "This Week." Cruz, who called Putin a "KGB thug," said the Obama administration's policy has been to "alienate and abandon" U.S. allies and to "coddle and appease our enemies." "You better believe Putin sees in Benghazi [Libya], four Americans are murdered and nothing happens, there's no retribution," he said. "You better believe that Putin sees that in Syria, Obama draws a...

What with all the sweetness and light going on this weekend at CPAC, there really hasn’t been much room set aside for the Hawt Media Topic of the Conservative Civil War. Well, let’s wrap up the weekend with a bit of mudslinging from upper chamber. Doing an interview with the New York Times, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell addressed the issue of three high profile Republican senators who are facing primary challenges from the Right. His conclusion?We’re going to crush you like the worms that you are, peasants. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted the GOP establishment will destroy...

With less than a month left to sign up for private insurance under the federal health care law, California's enrollment numbers are closing in on the magic number of 1 million as 8,000 people sign up every day. If only everyone would pay their premiums. Roughly 15 percent of the Californians who had enrolled by Jan. 31 still haven't sent in their first month's payment, according to four major health insurance companies participating in the Covered California exchange. So those lofty enrollment numbers could soon be dropping substantially.

President and First Lady returned from their vacation at exclusive Florida resort that costs up to $2,500 a night President faced criticism for leaving Washington D.C. while Ukraine crisis looms large President Obama and his family are vacationed at the exclusive Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo A White House spokesman claimed the president would be doing exactly the same thing in Florida as he would do in the White House The White House says Obama squeezed in another round of golf Sunday before he left on Sunday morning After vacationing at the $2,500 a night Ocean Reef Club in...

Drudge posted an article (from a banned source) which stated that very low levels of Fukushima radiation will likely reach the West Coast next month. Incredibly, the article states that there is no federal agency which currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation. I find it disturbing that: 1. There is money being spent for many frivolous activities, yet three is no monitoring for radiation on the West Coast? 2. The EPA is monitoring puddles on people's private property, yet there is no monitoring of radiation on the West Coast!

http://en.ria.ru/vote/20140306/188148240.html

KELLER, Texas (AP) — The brothers of a North Texas man who was aboard the Malaysia Airlines flight that went missing over the South China Sea said Sunday their family is leaning on faith and holding out hope for good news about the man they last saw about a week ago. Philip Wood, an IBM executive who had been working in Beijing over the past two years, had recently returned home from Asia before his next assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Wood came back to Texas to visit his family before relocating to the Malaysian capital, his brother, James Wood...

Russia has deliberately sunk three of its own ships to block Ukrainian navy vessels entering a lake off the Black Sea, officers say, highlighting Moscow's determination to wear down the morale of Kiev's forces in Crimea. The Ochakov -- a Soviet-era warship decommissioned in 2011 and set to be sold for scrap -- was towed to the entrance to Lake Donuzlav on Crimea's western coast from the Russian base at Sevastopol on Thursday and blown up. It capsized and, along with two smaller Russian vessels, is now blocking the narrow gap between two spits of land, its hull beaten by...

Copper Is Getting Smoked After Bad Chinese Data Mamta BadkarMarch 9, 2014, 7:56 PM  Copper futures are down 2.5% in early trading, to $3.0060 per pound. Copper has been taking a beating recently and it is likely that the recent decline in Chinese exports weighed on the data. Chinese exports were down 18.1% on the year in February, after rising 10.6% the previous month. Imports however were up 10.1%. While economists have warned about reading too much into Chinese data in the Jan-Feb period because of the impact of the Lunar New Year holiday, this has raised concerns about...

Same Ukraine Snipers Shot Cops and Protesters, EU Call Suggests 09 March 2014 During a hacked phone call that sparked an uproar and confusion worldwide after being leaked to the media, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet told European Union foreign policy boss Catherine Ashton that evidence suggests that the same snipers, allegedly hired by opposition forces, may have shot dead both police and protesters amid the Maidan uprising. An estimated 100 people were killed amid the turmoil, with close to 1,000 wounded. While Paet has confirmed that his conversation with the senior EU official was genuine, numerous crucial questions...

The College Board is once again altering the SAT. According to the Washington Post, the SAT’s writers appear to be doing two things: changing what they test and making the test easier. To me, it sounds as if the SAT will be made easier largely by changing what it tests. For example, the Post says that students will no longer be expected to know “difficult, lesser-used vocabulary words” and “advanced mathematical concepts will disappear from the exam” (my understanding is that truly advanced mathematical concepts do not appear on the current exam). --snip-- No one who has been paying attention...

President Obama has announced today that he will issue an Executive Order because Congress has again failed to follow his directives. The Bill by Senator Gillibrand to remove command functions from commanders failed today. The bill was a ruse to remove all command functions from commanders and place them with political JAG Officers. Although the bill only specified sex prosecutions it was the first step in eroding all commander functions and subjecting all command decisions to political review. Many pundits were surprised that even the addled Juan Mc Cain spotted the ruse and voted against it. President Obama stated that...

Pro-Russian activists with clubs and whips clashed with pro-Kiev supporters Sunday as tens of thousands rallied across Ukraine in rival protests... Kiev got crucial backing as US President Barack Obama invited interim Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to the White House on Wednesday to show support.

That Saturday was my first at Wayne Nelson Automotive. I was fresh out of college—and when I say fresh out of college, I don’t mean I was a college graduate. I mean that I was fresh out of money. My parents hadn’t been able to give me much help for college, so I had been forced to “take a break,” as I called it, just after my twentieth birthday. The job market for under-experienced kids wasn’t so hot, so I answered an ad on a jobs board for a “New Car Consultant” at Wayne Nelson, which was the biggest dealer...