Free Republic

San Francisco is seeking $1.2 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers in federal Bankruptcy Court to recoup unpaid medical costs for Bryan Stow, a Giants fan who was severely beaten by rival fans in the Dodger Stadium parking lot. The city's effort - spelled out in recent court filings - follows the Stow family's lawsuit against the Dodgers in Los Angeles County Superior Court, claiming that lax security and other problems contributed to the March 2011 attack after an Opening Day game. San Francisco has identified the Dodgers as potentially liable for Stow's bills, and is setting itself up as...

Soeren Kern, writing for the Gatestone Institute in his November 16th article, "IslamNeeds a Fair Chance in Germany," reported a significant development in Germany that portends dire consequences for that benighted nation and for all of Europe: the city of Hamburg signed a "treaty" with organizations representing its Islamic population. The "treaty" features a series of concessions, not by the Muslims to secular authority, but by the secular government of Hamburg to the Muslims. The "treaty," which requires ratification by the city's Parliament, grants Muslims "rights" and "privileges" enjoyed by no other religious group there. The November 13 agreement, signed...

Filling in on Rush Limbaugh’s Monday radio show, National Review columnist Mark Steyn said that Republicans lost big on Election Day because less engaged and more uniformed voters turned out in force. “We do very well in off years, in the midterms — 1994, 2002,” Steyn said. “Republicans can have good years then because essentially they’re low-turnout elections — people who are engaged in politics vote. In the presidential years, people voted — a broader pool of voters comes in, and they’re basically people who swim in the broader culture. They’re not people who know the name of their congressmen...

"Man can marry four - why not women marry four?" Question "Islam gives man permission to marry four wives. Why can't a woman have four husbands? Answer Al Hamdulilah, was-salat was-salam ala rasulullah. Allahu 'Alim. (It is Allah who has All Knowledge) Rights and Limits First of all, it is important for us to keep in mind that Islam came to establish two very important fundamentals for human beings: Rights and Limits. Everyone and everything has certain rights given to it by the Creator and Sustainer of the universe (Allah). At the same time, each creation has its own limitations...

Anti-tax promoter Grover Norquist is losing his vice-like grip on the Republican party. The head of Americans for Tax Reform, who as recently as last year counted 238 members of the House and 41 members of the Senate among those who had signed his anti-tax pledge, has seen those numbers decline to 217 in the House, one shy of the 218 needed for a majority, and 39 in the Senate. Both totals represent an all-time low. Last Wednesday, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) disavowed his pledge not to raise taxes, even as he acknowledged doing so could hurt his reelection chances...

Time and time again, anyone reading the mainstream news or reading articles on the Internet will read the claim that President Clinton not only balanced the budget, but had a surplus. This is then used as an argument to further highlight the fiscal irresponsibility of the federal government under the Bush administration. The claim is generally made that Clinton had a surplus of $69 billion in FY1998, $123 billion in FY1999 and $230 billion in FY2000 . In that same link, Clinton claimed that the national debt had been reduced by $360 billion in the last three years, presumably FY1998,...

Free Speech: The U.N. plans to control the tool that tyrants fear most — technology that promotes free speech and intellectual freedom — by imposing a global tax in the name of fairness. Think of net neutrality on steroids. Elections have consequences, and one consequence of President Obama's re-election may be U.S. acquiescence to the administrative control of the Internet to the United Nations and journalist-jailing and Web-censoring regimes from Iran to Venezuela, complete with a global tax on its use. The U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is holding the World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai from Dec. 3...

Warren Buffett, in a New York Times Op-Ed piece Monday, is proposing a minimum tax on high incomes and a higher ceiling of $500,000 on increased taxes on wealthy Americans. "I support President Obama's proposal to eliminate the Bush tax cuts for high-income taxpayers. However, I prefer a cutoff point somewhat above $250,000 - maybe $500,000 or so," the Berkshire Hathaway head wrote. "Additionally, we need Congress, right now, to enact a minimum tax on high incomes. I would suggest 30 percent of taxable income between $1 million and $10 million, and 35 percent on amounts above that."

TORRANCE, Calif. (KABC) -- A Torrance pedestrian was killed after being struck by an allegedly drunk driver, who drove for blocks with the dying man on the hood of the car. Phillip Moreno, 31, had just left a bar around 11:30 p.m. when he was struck Saturday as he crossed the street at Torrance Boulevard and Madrid Avenue. Police said the man ended up on the hood of the car and partly through the windshield. The driver carried him for blocks before stopping near Crenshaw Boulevard and 182nd Street, where witnesses waved the suspect's car down after seeing the body...

Obama’s former chief economist Larry Summers thinks that one way to break America’s fall off the over-reported fiscal cliff is to raise taxes to the level they were under Clinton’s administration. Echoing Paul Krugman’s 90% tax rate nostalgia and pointing out that it was conservative icon Ronald Reagan who cut taxes to 50%, he said, “It’s hard to believe that raising the top tax rate to 39.6 percent — where it was under President Clinton — will do grievous damage to the economy.” Of course, Reagan also cut the top tax rate to 28% in his second term, but that’s...

WASHINGTON—States will receive more than $9 in federal money for every $1 they spend to cover low-income residents under President Barack Obama's health care law, according to a nonpartisan analysis released Monday. Expanding Medicaid to cover about 20 million more low-income people will cost over $1 trillion nationally from 2013 to 2022, said the joint report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Urban Institute. But the analysis found that states will pay just $76 billion of that, a combined share of roughly 7 percent. The feds will pay the other $952 billion. Republican governors have resisted the Medicaid expansion,...

Five years ago while driving my son Sam to The University of Kansas, we stopped to get gas off the I-70 in the western part of the state. There was a rather large market adjacent to the gas pumps which we entered to buy some drinks. There was a massive display of Hostess products. The entire family of delicious treats was on there – Twinkies, Cupcakes, Ding-Dongs, Fruits Pies and Snowballs. I knew I was no longer in California as I never see them in health-obsessed Los Angeles. Now they will all be gone unless someone buys them out of...

Intrade, the futures trading website, will no longer be available to residents of the United States as a result of “legal and regulatory pressures,” the Dublin, Ireland-based site announced Monday. The website allows people to buy and sell shares in possible outcomes. For example, before Election Day, users could buy shares that President Barack Obama would be re-elected. Those who did were paid out for those shares when Obama defeated Mitt Romney. Users who held shares in Romney becoming president lost money on those shares. “We are sorry to announce that due to legal and regulatory pressures, Intrade can no...

In the era whose secret he uncovered, a journalist's office would have looked just like the one where Yang Jisheng works now. The tiled floor, the grimy window panes, the desk piled two feet high with papers, envelopes and books. The Mao-era radiators. The cigarette ash and the dust. Under Mao Zedong, Yang's good fortune was to find a job as a reporter with China's state-run Xinhua news agency. His misfortune had been to see his father die of hunger in 1961, at the height of the famine that killed an estimated 36 million people: "When my dad died, I...

Donna Vanzant struggled through flooded streets and downed power lines two days after superstorm Sandy to reach the ravaged marina she owns in Brigantine. … Vanzant has been moved by the many kindnesses she received from friends, family and customers. She heard from countless people after the photograph of her hug with the president was published, including from strangers as far away as Vietnam who wished her well. She said she was honored to meet Obama, but she is also frustrated that she has yet to receive help from either her insurance companies or the government. “The president told me...

CIA Quietly Closes Global Warming UnitCORRUPTION CHRONICLES More than three years—and no doubt a chunk of change—later, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is quietly shutting down its insignificant center dedicated to climate change. That’s right; the scandal-plagued government agency responsible for providing national security intelligence to senior U.S. policymakers operated a special unit that focused on global warming. Known as the Center on Climate Change and National Security, it was an exclusive division led by “senior specialists.” It operated under a cloak of secrecy that rejected all public-records requests, despite President Obama’s promise to run a transparent government. When the...

Here's an image someone posted to Reddit that shows you what all the Bond girls looked like in their respective movies, and then what they look like now. No surprise that some of them have aged quite a bit over the years, but other than a few wrinkles here and there these ladies still look like screen sirens. Check out the image below. Who's your personal favorite Bond girl?

And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord.(Genesis 4:3)Cain believed in God. Furthermore he worshipped him. The account of the first murder in human history, took place in the context of worship. We would do well to consider the theology of Cain, for we are warned in the book of Jude that in the last days many within the church and outside of it would”go in the way of Cain”, plunging on into everlasting destruction. Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way...

Currently in the Liturgies of daily Mass we have been reading the Book of Revelation. It is commonly read at the end of the liturgical year, for it bespeaks the end of, and passing qualities of all things of this world.It is also a book of glory, depicting the ultimate victory of our Lord Jesus Christ, after a great period of conflict between the doomed kingdom of this world, and the victorious Kingdom of Christ. In this context the Book of Revelation is not a mere tour guide to the last days, but is a book of glory reminding us...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush met Monday with a group of his former staffers at the J. W. Marriott hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, just steps from the White House. Bush, a potential 2016 presidential contender, spent an hour in the hotel’s Cannon room, reminiscing and entertaining questions about his political future. In an interview with NRO, Bush did not rule out a presidential run. “I am here to catch up with folks and promote education reform,” he said, smiling. When asked again whether he will issue a Sherman-type statement about his future, Bush remained coy. “We have an alumni group...