Free Republic

If you’re wondering why Virginia Republicans are willing to fight over the attorney general’s race, it’s because the post has become almost as important as the governorship. Not only could the outcome impact continuing legal issues surrounding the Affordable Care Act, it would likely impact the number of Republicans in the U.S. Congress. Right now, Virginia has eight Republicans and three Democrats in the U.S. House. Prior to the redistricting — which was controlled by a Republican General Assembly and signed by Republican Governor Bob McDonnell — Republicans held just a six-to-five majority. Democrat Mark Herring — should he become...

President Vladimir Putin, in a thinly veiled criticism of the United States, portrayed Russia on Thursday as a force for peace and morality that had no desire to be a global superpower. "We do not aspire to be called some kind of superpower, understanding that as a claim to world or regional hegemony," Putin said in an annual address to parliamentarians and senior national officials. "We do not infringe on anyone's interests, we do not force our patronage on anyone, or try to teach anyone how to live," he said, using phrases that echo his previous criticisms of the United...

Touching story told by Bob Welsh.... Merry Christmas

FRONT ROYAL, VA — Rush Limbaugh is mad as Hell and he’s not gonna take it anymore. But he’s not shooting at his usual targets. Of all things, Rush is mad at the Pope. Pope Francis, the new guy on the block who, for all we know, might be even more popular than Rush. Megadittos, Papa Francesco! It all started last week when Pope Francis published Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), an “Apostolic Exhortation” that commemorates the end of the Year of Faith, which ended with the First Sunday of Advent this week. In the 50,000 word document...

Well that was fun, butt it’s back to work today.Happy, Happy, Happy!I can’t believe that people are still talking about whether Lady M was really mad at Big Guy for his sophomoric antics at the memorial. I’m not going to discuss this any further, because I don’t want to be accused of being a racist. I will, however, direct you to a close up of our return to the Big White.Look closely: that is NOT smoke coming out of her nose/ears.Suffice it to say I spent the evening in the bunker. Butt with so many new issues on deck, we’ll...

Editor’s Note: This article first appeared at Forbes.com and The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. The recent economic statements by Pope Francis in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (EG) read as a call for a “Third Way” economic system ruled by experts and people of good will. Pope Francis writes, “Growth in justice requires more than economic growth, while presupposing such growth: it requires de­cisions, programs, mechanisms and process­es specifically geared to a better distribution of income, the creation of sources of employment and an integral promotion of the poor which goes beyond a simple welfare...

News Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions Tense confrontation: Congressman asks Sebelius for list of ObamaCare plans that don’t cover abortion by Ben Johnson Wed Dec 11, 2013 14:12 EST Tags: chris smith, john shimkus, kathleen sebelius, obamacare WASHINGTON, D.C., December 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Sparks flew on Capitol Hill today as a Republican congressman demanded that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius produce a list of ObamaCare health insurance plans that do not cover abortion. On October 30, Rep. John Shimkus of Illinois asked Sebelius if she could “provide for the committee the list of insurers in the federal...

Christadelphians 1335. I have been asked to join the Christadelphians. Could you give me some information concerning them? The Christadelphian sect was founded in America by a man named John Thomas, who lived from 1805 till 1871. He was a member of an American sect called the "Disciples of Christ" or the"Campbellites," founded by Alexander Campbell, an ex-Presbyterian minister, in 1827. Thomas, reading the Bible with his own peculiar mentality, decided that the whole of Christendom had gone astray, including the Campbellites, and therefore decided to become a freelance Bible teacher. He taught that the doctrine of the Trinity...

John 6 and the Eucharist  In my 2011 debate with Dr. Peter Barnes, a Presbyterian minister and apologist in Australia, the topic was the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and it centered on Jesus’ famous words in John 6:53: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” After about three hours of debate, I could sum up Barnes’s central objection in one sentence—a sentence which just happens to be found in the New Testament:How can this man give us his flesh to eat? (John 6:53)Dr. Barnes...

On Tuesday, conservative news outlets in the United States decided that the best way to commemorate the life of Nelson Mandela, and to report on the memorial services in his honor, was to manufacture a controversy about an AFP photo of President Barack Obama shooting a selfie with Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt. According to Fox News, the “international incident� was so bad that, “The tsk-tisk-ing could be heard across continents.�Liberal news outlets countered with a photograph from former President George W. Bush’s Instagram feed, taken at the same memorial, in which he’s seen posing with pop star Bono.Two things...

The collapse of the barrier between popular culture and decadence has released a toxic mudslide of vulgarity into the nation’s family rooms—and just about everywhere else. There is almost no remote corner of this culture that is not marked by the toleration of vulgarity, or the outright celebration of depravity. Lee Siegel has seen this reality, and he doesn’t like it. “When did the culture become so coarse?,” he asks, adding: “It’s a question that quickly gets you branded as either an unsophisticated rube or some angry culture warrior.” Siegel wants us all to know that he is neither unsophisticated...

The Liberal Bastion Of San Francisco Suspends A Shocking Number Of Black Kids For 'Willful Defiance' The Center for Public Integrity Susan FerrissDec. 12, 2013, 9:57 AM One of America's most liberal bastions — San Francisco — has cut student suspensions by nearly a third in three years but continues to struggle with grossly disproportionate suspensions of black students. District data obtained by Public Counsel, the country's largest pro bono legal group, and community organizers in San Francisco show that African-American students represented only 8 percent of the city's public high school kids last school year. Yet 50 percent of...

Alabama kicker Cade Foster has received a lot of hate since missing three field goal attempts in his team’s stunning loss to Auburn, but he has at least one fan: former President George W. Bush. The 43rd president reportedly sent Foster a personalized letter encouraging him to press on through life’s challenges. “Dear Cade (#43), life has its setbacks. I know! However, you will be a stronger human with time. I wish you all the best. Sincerely, another 43, George Bush,” the letter reads.

Featured Term (selected at random:TRANSCENDENCE Surpassing excellence, which may be either relative or absolute. It is relative when the excellence surpasses some objects below it, as human nature transcends the irrational creation. It is absolute when the excellence surpasses in being and activity all other beings. Only God is absolutely transcendent; in being because he alone is infinite and perfect Being who cannot change; in activity because he alone has existence of himself as uncreated First Cause on whom all creatures depend for their least operation. All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, ©...

The health director who approved the release of President Obama’s birth certificate has died in a plane crash, Hawaiian officials said Thursday. Loretta Fuddy died after the Cessna Grand Caravan aircraft she was travelling on went down shortly after leaving Kalaupapa Airport at around 3:15 p.m. local time (10:15 a.m. ET) on Wednesday. The other eight people on board were rescued, Richard Schuman, president of Makani Kai Air, told NBC News early Thursday, adding that that there was no indication as to why the plane had crashed. Fuddy hit the headlines two years ago when she approved a waiver request...

Johannesburg (AFP) - The sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela's memorial ceremony denied he was a fraud Thursday, claiming he gesticulated nonsense during the service because he was suffering a schizophrenic episode and hallucinating. Thamsanqa Jantjie has been branded a fraud by members of South Africa's deaf community, who said his signing for US President Barack Obama and other world leaders amounted to little more than "flapping his arms around." Jantjie on Thursday insisted he was a qualified signer, but said his behaviour was down to a sudden attack of schizophrenia, for which he takes medication.

Pope Francis said in the first peace message of his pontificate that huge salaries and bonuses are symptoms of an economy based on greed and inequality and called again for nations to narrow the wealth gap.He attacked the "widening gap between those who have more and those who must be content with the crumbs", calling on governments to implement "effective policies" to guarantee people's fundamental rights, including access to capital, services, educational resources, healthcare and technology.

It is fascinating that the recent debate over poverty, starring Rush Limbaugh and Pope Francis (maybe, translations subject to disagreement) reveals one central dispute: (a) compulsory "charity" by government force, on the left, versus (b) the freedom of each individual to voluntarily donate to charity and make one's own decisions about his or her life, on the right. Forget what either Rush or Francis said. The raging debates that followed are most revealing. Liberals have consistently abused Christian teaching to attack free enterprise and spread socialism. These are not just Catholics, of course. In fact, most -- or all --...

Whether or not they were aware, the leaders of the Western democracies gathered in Pretoria’s stadium were inadvertently taking part in the celebration of “the people’s democracy” and not the democracy. (…) On the day of Mandela's Memorial Service in the Pretoria Stadium, the former deputy general secretary of the South African Communist Party, Solly Mapaila stated in an interview that Mandela was a member of the party but it was denied at the time for “political reasons”. Documents...

Here’s something your orthodontist is not smiling about: a new tax rule raised the cost of braces this year. Thanks to a change from the Affordable Care Act that places an annual $2,500 contribution cap on flexible spending accounts, which let workers set aside pre-tax dollars to cover medical expenses, some consumers may be spending more on braces, expensive eyewear and other medical supplies they would typically buy with the accounts. Before the new rule, there was no official cap on how much taxpayers could stash into the account, though many companies typically set their own limits of $5,000. For...

Recent jobs data has demonstrated the labor market's resilient return to strength, but the latest initial jobless claims numbers released Thursday paint a different story. Seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased 68,000 to 368,000 for the week ended Dec. 7, 22% higher than a revised figure released a week earlier. The four-week moving average jumped 6,000 to 328,750. The increase in new claims for government unemployment benefits has negated recent declines and is higher than expected. According to analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, new claims were forecast to rise a modest 20,000 to 320,000 over the week.

Most recent is Obama’s trick to spare unions from a fee that section 1341(b)(1)(A) of the Affordable Care unambiguously imposes on all large group health plans. Faithfully executing the law means applying it even-handedly. Dictators do the opposite, playing favorites.

LINK ONLY PER FR POSTING RULES.

Wednesday afternoon the story broke in Baton Rouge media that the Kenilworth Science & Technology School had been raided by the FBI. The FBI indicated that the raid, which evidently was conducted to gather material evidence in the form of documents and computers, was not a matter of public safety. As a result, it probably was not related to a report earlier this year that a teacher at the school was accused of having inappropriate pictures of children on his cell phone. Had those charges stuck, that would have been the second scandal of a sexual nature involving a Gulenist...

In July 1863, just weeks after the twin Union victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, Abraham Lincoln turned his attention to the Rio Grande borderlands of Confederate Texas. On July 31, the president wrote Francis P. Blair Sr., one of his most powerful supporters, “Yesterday I commenced trying to get up an expedition for Texas. I shall do the best I can.” By November, 6,000 Union troops had landed in South Texas. What brought this remote region of the Confederacy to the attention of the American president? The Civil War wasn’t the only conflict on Lincoln’s mind...

It doesn’t look like any GSE (housing finance) reform will be taken up in 2013. Partly because the leading contender, the Corker-Warner housing finance “reform” bill is so flawed. What does Corker-Warner do exactly? It shuts down two enormous mortgage insurance companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) and creates one gargantuan government insurance company (Federal Mortgage Insurance Corporation). Ah, nationalized mortgage insurance. This is particularly bizarre given that the FHA already exists as a national mortgage insurance agency for mortgages. Like single-payer healthcare systems (as in UK’s NHS), you take what the government decrees for you. But Obamacare is really...

Week 15 Thu Dec 12 8:25 pm San Diego Chargers Denver Broncos Sun Dec 15 1:00 pm Arizona Cardinals Tennessee Titans 1:00 pm Buffalo Bills Jacksonville Jaguars 1:00 pm Chicago Bears Cleveland Browns 1:00 pm Houston Texans Indianapolis Colts 1:00 pm New England Patriots Miami Dolphins 1:00 pm New Orleans Saints St. Louis Rams 1:00 pm Philadelphia Eagles Minnesota Vikings 1:00 pm San Francisco 49ers Tampa Bay Buccaneers 1:00 pm Seattle Seahawks New York Giants 1:00 pm Washington Redskins Atlanta Falcons 4:05 pm Kansas City Chiefs Oakland Raiders 4:05 pm New York Jets Carolina Panthers 4:25 pm Green Bay Packers...

To the families of the victims, Ethan Couch was a killer on the road, a drunken teenage driver who caused a crash that left four people dead. To the defense, the youth is himself a victim -- of "affluenza," according to one psychologist -- the product of wealthy, privileged parents who never set limits for the boy.

So Steve Stockman is running for Senate. It’s all over Twitter, it might be all over Facebook depending on what kind of friends you have, and it’s the talk of this town (if you know what I mean). Initial coverage has suggested that the stand-off — between Representative Stockman, the East Texas far-far-right conservative, and Senator John Cornyn, an incumbent whose votes have rankled some Texas tea-party activists — will be another chapter in the nigh-unending saga of tea-party insurrectionists versus the Big Bad Establishment. But it’s actually much more complicated than that. For one thing, it’s hard to imagine...

Looks like someone picked the wrong girl! ***Video @ Link********

Trucking fleet operators in the Northwest are showing growing interest in filling up with natural gas instead of diesel. Two reasons: natural gas is cheaper and burns cleaner than the gasoline or diesel that goes into most vehicles. The problem is there are very few filling stations for natural gas. Cleaner air, lower costs, limited infrastructure Take delivery truck driver Corey Schaller. He has one last stop before he can call it a day. He has to refill the gas tank of the beer truck he drives for Kent, Washington-based Click Wholesale Distributing. But there are just a few places...

A man who was arrested under the Dangerous Dogs Act after a pregnant mother was mauled to death in Leeds has been released on bail. The 33-year-old was arrested yesterday morning after 27-year-old Emma Bennett’s death on Tuesday. Miss Bennett, a mother of four, suffered fatal injuries in an attack by at least one of a pair of dogs - thought to be American pit bulls - at her home on Dawlish Avenue, East End Park, on Monday afternoon. A West Yorkshire Police spokesman said: “The man, who was arrested yesterday following the death of 27-year-old Emma Bennett, was released...

(Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose sharply last week, reversing the prior three weeks declines, but a recent strengthening of the labor market likely remains intact. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits surged 68,000 to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the largest weekly increase since November 2012. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 2,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-time applications to rise to 320,000 last week.

...Expert Warns Southern California Isn’t Ready For Major Quake A leading earthquake expert has issued a dire warning to Californians about the expected impact of a major disruption to the San Andreas fault line. The title of Dr. Lucy Jones’ lecture this week to the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco was “Imagine America without Los Angeles”. As KCAL9′s Dave Bryan reports, Jones, a Science Advisor for Risk Reduction at the U.S. Geological Survey, says when the “Big One” hits Southern California, the damage could be much greater, and could last much longer, than most of us ever imagined

A dog helped save her owner who was badly injured in a car crash just days before Thanksgiving. John Miles was walking his dog Lucy on Neponset Street in Dorchester, as he does every day, when both of them were hit by a car. Lucy saved her owner after they were hit by a car in Dorchester. (WBZ-TV photo) Lucy saved her owner after they were hit by a car in Dorchester. (WBZ-TV photo) John blacked out and doesn’t remember what happened. Lucy, a husky-beagle mix, who was also injured, limped to a nearby dentist’s office and barked until help...

A Southern California city granted a private group a permit Wednesday night to hold a Vietnamese new year’s parade, despite objections over its exclusion of the community’s gay and lesbian residents. Members of a gay and lesbian group pleaded with the Westminster City Council to deny the permit to the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California at a meeting, but the vote to grant it was unanimous. …

Listen To Glenn Beck Now, on The Blaze Radio Network on www.iheart.com . Truth Lives Here Known for his quick wit, candid opinions and engaging personality, Glenn Beck has attracted millions of viewers and listeners throughout the United States with The Glenn Beck Program. His radio show, The Glenn Beck Program, is heard on over 400 stations and is syndicated by Premiere Radio Networks. It is the third highest-rated national radio talk show among adults ages 25 to 54. Looking for audio and video from the radio program? If you’re a TheBlaze TV Subscriber you can access all your...

After the guilty plea and felony conviction of her husband, and anticipating his deportation back to Mexico, Matilde Gayosso-Martinez, 35, on Wednesday (Dec. 11) decried the effects that such immigration enforcement has on families. She asked, while hand-in-hand with her two pastors at First Grace United Methodist Church on Canal Street, for Congress to pass immigration reform. Her husband, Juan Pelcastre-Garrido, 40, pleaded guilty last week in federal court to a felony gun charge after his April arrest in a home in the 2800 block of Pakenham Drive in Chalmette. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval Jr. sentenced Pelcastre to time...

... A charitable reading suggests that ObamaCare's net enrollment stands at about negative four million. That's the estimated four million to five and a half million people who had their individual health plans liquidated as ObamaCare-noncompliant—offset by the 364,682 who have signed up for a plan on a state or federal exchange and the 803,077 who have been found eligible to receive Medicaid. HHS is boasting of enrollment for November that was four times as high as October, yet 62% of the total was in the state exchanges, some of which are marginally less prone to crashing than the federal...

Dec. 12, 2013, 2:39 a.m. EST Google execs got discount on jet fuel, says NASA By Mark Maremont Top Google Inc. executives saved millions of dollars by flying their private jet fleet on discounted fuel purchased from the federal government that they weren’t entitled to buy, according to a new inspector general review released Wednesday. The report, by the inspector general of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the Google executives only were authorized to buy the discounted fuel for government business, but instead for six years also were allowed to purchase it for private flights. Click to Play...

The Sandy Hook massacre was not the first mass shooting in the world, and it won’t be the last. Fortunately, the likelihood that you or your child will be part of such a massacre is extremely remote. Even so, that is no reason not to be prepared. If we fail to be better prepared to stop the next mass murderer, then those precious little 20 children and their six teachers and faculty members at Sandy Hook Elementary died for nothing.

The stars behind the reality show sensation Duck Dynasty already conquered television and the literary world, so it's not a shock to see them outsell some of the biggest names on the music charts. Duck the Halls: A Robertson Family Christmas sold more copies this week than both Britney Spears' latest album Britney Jean and the sinking fast disk from Lady Gaga, ARTPOP.

December 12 marks the 28th anniversary of the crash of Arrow Air Flight 1285, carrying 248 Soldiers of the 101st Airborne and 8 crew members, in Gander, Newfoundland. Returning from peacekeeping duties in the Sinai Desert, all were killed. Above, soldiers fasten flags to caskets in Gander. Dec 1985.

The Mexican Senate approved legislation early Wednesday to overhaul the country's energy industry, a historic move that will open the sector to private investment. Lawmakers must still debate some points in the bill that are being challenged by leftist legislators. The bill, which was backed by the President Enrique Peña Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, was approved on a vote of 95-28, Senate spokesmen said. The bill modifies Articles 25, 27 and 28 of the Mexican Constitution in response to the "historic responsibility of turning the energy sector into the lever...

I’m annoyed that so many Hollywood celebrities hate the system that made them rich. Actor/comedian Russell Brand told the BBC he wants “a socialist, egalitarian system based on the massive redistribution of wealth.” Director George Lucas got rich not just from movies but also by selling Star Wars merchandise. Yet he says he believes in democracy but “not capitalist democracy.” Actor Martin Sheen says, “That’s where the problem lies … It’s corporate America.” And so on. On my TV show, actor/author Kevin Sorbo pointed out that such sentiments make little sense coming from entertainers. “It’s a very entrepreneurial business. You...

At an out-of-town memorial service for my dear friend and mentor, Alan Schonberg -- a business titan known for his warmth, grace and generosity -- I saw "Paul," a man I've known some 30 years. It had been a long, long time. Paul, like me, is a black attorney. Unlike me, he is a Democrat, active in local politics. While introducing me to someone, Paul made some casual crack about my "conservative" politics, something like, "Of course, we don't always agree ... " Usually, I have neither the time nor the energy to unravel the decades of slop in the...

What Mark Levin says in “The Liberty Amendments” in support of an Article V convention is not true.1 On one side of this controversy are those who want to restore our Constitution by requiring federal and State officials to obey the Constitution we have; or by electing ones who will. We show that the Oath of Office at Art. VI, last clause, requires federal 2 and state officials to support the Constitution. This requires them to refuse to submit to – to nullify – acts of the federal government which violate the Constitution. This is how they “support” the Constitution!...

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed. The chess equivalent of Ryan’s deal would be trading a castle for a mere pawn. No wonder conservatives are feeling rooked. One need not...

On Tuesday, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., revealed their budget plan to the world. I would say it was immediately met with complaints, but those complaints started before it was introduced. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But are there other plans? No. Outside groups called for opposing it before they’d read it, Members of Congress said they’d vote against it before they knew what was in it. I’d like to take these people with me to buy lottery tickets since they seem to have some form of clairvoyance. I get the anger of conservatives, I’m right...