Free Republic

Alliance Defending Freedom issued two letters Thursday concerning Planned Parenthood’s involvement in sex education curricula that an Arizona school district has considered in recent weeks–curricula that, if adopted, would likely violate a state law that requires preference to be given to abstinence, childbirth, and adoption, not abortion.  One of the letters exposes falsehoods in a recent Planned Parenthood Arizona e-mail about the pro-abortion group’s involvement in the Tempe Union High School District’s sex education curriculum considerations. The other letter asks the school district to recuse one of its board members from any consideration of the district’s adoption of sex education...

PPP's newest Arizona poll finds that John McCain is unpopular with Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike and has now become the least popular Senator in the country. Only 30% of Arizonans approve of the job McCain is doing to 54% who disapprove. There isn't much variability in his numbers by party- he's at 35/55 with Republicans, 29/53 with Democrats, and 25/55 with independents, suggesting he could be vulnerable to challenges in both the primary and general elections the next time he's up. McCain trails in hypothetical general election match ups with both 2012 nominee Richard Carmona (41/35) and former Congresswoman...

This was the flag of slave holding states in the United States that seceded in 1861, causing Civil War. Today the symbol is used by the Ku Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi groups, and other organizations who are hostile to African-Americans. For the last several decades, protests have continued, demanding that this flag not be displayed in public places. Many people were greatly disturbed to see that the Confederate Flag is now being displayed, not in the United States, but in Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. Larry Holmes, a civil rights activist in New York City, explained why the flag is...

by John Urban | Top Right News The bad news just keeps getting worse for disgraced Sen. John McCain of Arizona.In January his own party stunned McCain by censuring him in a landslide vote in response to his betrayals on everything from illegal alien amnesty, to caving on ObamaCare, to support for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Syria. It was an unprecedented and humiliating political act. And now a new poll reveals McCain is the least popular senator in the country of those surveyed by Public Policy Polling, with low marks from members of his own party, independents and Democrats.

In October of 2008, Sarah Palin was mocked as being too far-fetched by foreign policy media elites for predicting that if Obama won the presidency, Putin’s Russia’s might indeed invade Ukraine. "Saturday Night Live" had fun with Palin by lampooning her statement when she said one could see Russia from Alaska. Yet late last week, Palin got the last laugh when Putin invaded the Ukrainian Crimea, “Yes, I could see this one from Alaska. I'm usually not one to Told-Ya-So, but I did, despite my accurate prediction being derided as ‘an extremely far-fetched scenario’ by the ‘high-brow’ Foreign Policy magazine....

Federal wildlife officials are setting aside nearly 1,200 square miles in the American Southwest as critical habitat for the jaguar... Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties in Arizona and Hidalgo County in New Mexico ... The critical designation means anyone developing federal land in the area needs to consult the service to ensure it will not hurt the jaguar’s habitat

PHOENIX – Calling them a federal “dictate,’’ Sen. Al Melvin persuaded Republican colleagues in the Senate to vote Tuesday to scrap the Common Core education standards the state and schools adopted just four years earlier. The legislation crafted by the Tucson Republican prohibits the state Board of Education from doing anything more to implement the standards that are designed to spell out what students should be learning at all stages of their education. It also means those schools which have put them in place are going to have to dump them. SB 1310 also requires the state to withdraw from...

The sage grouse's potential addition to the endangered species list is a problem of epic economic consequences to states in the West, with Herbert explaining that the impact in lost economic development in Utah tops $41 billion for the oil and gas industry alone. "The negative impacts are not acceptable to me and should not be acceptable to anyone here," Herbert told the crowd. The event at the Utah Department of Natural Resources' auditorium is actually a precursor to a national summit that will be held in Salt Lake City this fall. ... a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision...

Arizonans think Gov. Jan Brewer was right in vetoing controversial legislation seen as anti-gay, according to a new poll, with a plurality in the state also supporting same-sex marriage for the first time. Nearly three in four Arizona voters said they supported Brewer’s decision to veto the bill, with only 18 percent against it, according to a Public Policy Polling poll out Tuesday. A strong majority of each party, including Republicans, were behind her move.

In Arizona has come a test of the motto conservative Christians like to invoke: "Hate the sin, love the sinner." Republican Governor Jan Brewer has vetoed the "religious freedom bill" passed by the Republican legislature. While there is no mention in the bill of same-sex marriage, or even homosexuals, most people believe same-sex marriage and homosexuals were the targets of the proposed law. Proponents asserted Senate Bill 1062 was written to protect the "free exercise of religion" for businesses and their employees. U.S. citizens already enjoy that protection under the First Amendment, but the bill's backers believed that further protections...

Conservative backers of Arizona bill SB 1062 had two choices following Gov. Jan Brewer’s veto of the right-to-discriminate bill. They could defend the bill on its merits. Or, they could distort the contents of the bill and attack anyone who disagreed with them as a legal Luddite and hysteric. Sadly, they chose the latter. Conservatives fanned out to claim that the bill was a big nothingburger. Anyone who was upset about it was exaggerating its potential impact. It’s already legal to discriminate against gays in Arizona, so they don’t even need the law, they claimed. Wait. If there is no...

Albert Einstein once said, “Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” He was right. In the aftermath of the Arizona religious freedom skirmish, I have a few questions for those who would presume to compel religious business owners, under penalty of law, to “provide goods and services” to homosexuals in a way that violates that business owner’s conscience. To wit: Should a homosexual baker be forced to make a “God Hates Fags” cake for Westboro Baptist Church, simply because its members claim to be Christian?Should a black printer be forced to develop and print thousands of...

The entire flap over SB 1062 in Arizona has left a lot of people scratching their heads, particularly given the virtual media explosion over the fate of the bill and what it means going forward. As it turns out, there is similar legislation pending in Georgia even as we speak, and even though public clamor has already led to the bill being taken off the calendar, the rampant hyperbole which marked the coverage of Jan Brewer’s decision is not in short supply. One of the leading shots across the bow was penned for CNN by the two person team of...

Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain said on Friday that Russian President Vladimir Putin may have invaded Ukraine because he’s unafraid of a weak White House.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)It took her a few (maddening) days, but Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) did the right thing. She vetoed that horrible bill that would have made it legal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people by claiming that doing so violated their “sincerely held religious beliefs.” But this sensible and just end isn’t the best part of all this. Never before have I seen such full-throated tri-partisan opposition to a piece of anti-gay legislation. By tri-partisan I mean Democrats, Republicans and corporations. That Democrats were against the measure was a no-brainer. That Republicans and businesses joined them...

Led by Manchurian candidate and old warhorse himself Senator John McCain, of course. Calls for immediate actions against Russia (even though admitting Obama, not unlike himself, is incompetent, incapable, impotent and incontinent). http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/03/01/congress-response-to-ukraine-crisis/5926691/

President Obama promised Friday there would be “costs” if Russia moved troops into Ukraine, but he didn’t specify what those costs might be. Sen. John McCain has several suggestions for Obama, including the sanctioning of high-level Russian officials; restarting missile defense plans in Eastern Europe; and bringing Georgia, a former Soviet republic, into NATO. McCain said he plans to push from the Congressional side, he told The Daily Beast in an exclusive interview Saturday evening. McCain wants the administration to expand its threat to pull out of the G8 Summit in Sochi scheduled for June. That limited move is unlikely...

The religious freedom legislation that gelatin-spined Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed wasn't controversial until the Left started lying about it.The state-level civil rights bill that Brewer mothballed Feb. 26 was killed by a media-led propaganda campaign that falsely characterized it as "anti-gay."  To no one's surprise, both of the GOP's last two RINO losers, Mitt Romney and John McCain, urged a veto. As Ed Whelan blogs at National Review, There has been a blizzard of hysterical misinformation about Arizona’s SB 1062.  As anyone who takes the trouble to consult the text of the legislation will readily discover, SB 1062 does...

Dear President Obama, We watched with great interest your recent interview with Bill O'Reilly. Unfortunately, we believe the interview raises more questions than it answers regarding the September 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi that resulted in the death of four Americans. The American people and their representatives in Congress deserve to know the truth regarding what happened before, during, and after the terrorist attack. For that reason, we ask that you help clarify some of the questions raised by your interview.

Biden Tries to Sign Canadian Woman Up for Obamacare Daniel Halper March 1, 2014 2:32 PM Vice President Joe Biden tried to convince a young Canadian woman to sign up for Obamacare: "Vice President Biden moving in close to sell the Affordable Care Act to a young woman outside Butterfield's Pancake House in Scottsdale," says the local reporter. Biden told the young Canadian: "We gotta make sure everybody young person signs up for health care. It's affordable. You can get subsidies to do it. And it's in your interest. And if you don't even want to do it for yourself....

It was jarring to read the coverage of the new “anti-gay bill” passed by the Arizona Legislature and then look up the text of the instantly notorious SB 1062. The bill was roughly 998 pages shorter than much of legislation that passes in Washington, so reading it didn’t take much of a commitment. Clocking in at barely two pages, it was easy to scan for disparaging references to homosexuality, for veiled references to homosexuality, for any references to homosexuality at all. They weren’t there. A headline from The Week declared, “There is nothing Christian about Arizona’s anti-gay bill.” It would...

My patriot sister, Tea Party leader and conservative Darla Dawald, is running for Arizona State Representative in LD 8. I met Darla a few years ago when we traveled together on Tea Party Express national bus tours. A featured speaker at the rallies, Darla always inspired the crowds with her message: preserve freedom, constitutional principles, God, family, and country. Darla is a fearless, courageous, and a true patriot, folks. Thus the reason I call her sister.

...who won't bake gay wedding cake I was reading on a facebook page today: Soooo, would I be wrong to send a local KKK chapter a list of black businesses and tell them to demand that the business provide services for their next rally? What a clever question… should the government be allowed to tell business what should and shouldn’t do even if it means doing something that the business considers unethical? Alan Colmes seems to think so and be imprisoned if they don’t obey government edict. Ah, the tolerant left strikes again– Far left crank Alan Colmes argued today...

By the time Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer announced that she was vetoing SB 1062, a bill that would have made it easier for business owners to turn away gay and lesbian customers, the religious right had already lost. ...................................................... There’s no chance that LGBT rights activists will give up that fight. While religious conservatives see the issue of allowing people to act according to their conscience, gay rights supporters see them as essentially demanding state sanction of gays and lesbians as a semi-pariah class against whom discrimination is less objectionable than it is against people on the basis of...

Banner Health says an internal error has caused 50,000 copies of its 'Smart and Healthy' magazine to be delivered with social security numbers printed above the recipient's address. "On the back of it, where the address is, is my name and my social security number for everybody to see." said Barbara Schaer, one of the 50,000 people throughout Maricopa and Pinal Counties that received the magazine. . . . The hospital system says all affected will received an apology letter in the mail which also includes one year of free credit monitoring services. Those letters will be mailed out in...

by Bethany Monk Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed legislation Wednesday evening that would have protected people of faith. Proponents of the bill are deeply disappointed — to say the least. Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy — the primary organization behind the bill — said Brewer’s decision marks a sad day for those “who cherish and understand religious liberty.” Passage of SB 1062 would have amended the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA). It protects people of faith from laws and state actions that burden the free exercise of religion. Gay activists and news outlets, though, propagandized...

As Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer prepared to make a career-defining decision — whether to veto a bill that would free business owners to discriminate on the basis of their religious preferences — a letter arrived at her office early this week with a stern warning from some of the biggest names in the local business community. Signed by the heads of four Arizona business consortiums, with board members including officers of Bank of America, Intel and the Arizona Cardinals football franchise, the letter urged Brewer to strike down the measure known as S.B. 1062. The letter raised the prospect that...

Back in 2012, a full two years before conservatives insisted that religious freedom entailed the right to discriminate against gay people or gay spouses in both private and public workplaces, Republicans in Washington trotted out the same religious liberty line for the arguably narrower purpose of defending religious employers who wanted to be exempt from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. ........................................................ It would be an infringement upon religious liberty to shutter a church that refused to marry interracial couples. But how many conservatives would go to bat for that church if the government rescinded its tax exemption? Would they...

Future historians will likely be flummoxed by the moment we're living in. In what amounts to less than a blink of an eye in the history of Western civilization, homosexuality has gone from a diagnosed mental disorder to something to be celebrated -- or else. Indeed, the rush to mandatory celebration is so intense, refusal is now considered tantamount to a crime. And, in some rare instances, an actual crime if the right constable or bureaucrat concludes that you have uttered "hate speech." Or, if you refuse to bake a gay couple a cake for their wedding. That was the...

Governor Jan Brewer (R., Ariz.) was correct to veto SB 1062, but she should have done it for a different reason: It did not go far enough. Brewer faced tremendous pressure to kill this measure, which would have let religious business owners refuse to serve gay patrons. Many Americans understandably had a visceral reaction against this legislation that, fairly or not, was seen as a potential green light for homophobia. The fact that this bill would have allowed enterprises to spurn gay clientele due to religious liberty probably sharpened the burrs beneath the saddles of its foes. However, what Brewer...

For a warrior’s view of the Iraq war, it would be tough to beat the perspective of Brian Kolfage – a retired Air Force senior airman who lost three limbs in a rocket attack. Kolfage’s perspective on President Obama: He looks like an “elitist rich thug,” not the leader of the free world. In an open letter to Obama released on Presidents Day, Kolfage talked about attending public high school in Hawaii, bicycling past Punahou School, which Obama attended on a scholarship two decades earlier. He wrote: Every morning I would ride past Punahou, the exclusive private school you attended...

WASHINGTON -- National Security Advisor Susan Rice appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and said that when she had appeared on several news outlets back in September 2012 to state that the attack on an American diplomatic installation in Benghazi was a "spontaneous reaction" to an American-made film that appeared on YouTube she had used "the best information we [the White House] had at the time." Senator John McCain responded to her statement Sunday that it left him "almost speechless." The Arizona Republican said on CBS's "Face the Nation" that "I'm almost speechless, because it's patently obvious, first of...

Don’t be fooled. Gov. Jan Brewer’s decision late Wednesday to veto Arizona’s controversial S.B. 1062 bill is about money and politics, not an endorsement of equal rights for gay people. Until opposition to the bill picked up steam by winning the backing of big business and the national Republican establishment the governor looked to be ready to support the social agenda of the religious right wing in her state by allowing the bill to become law. The bill passed the state senate last week on a strict party line vote with 17 of the governor’s fellow Republicans defeating 13 Democrats...

The White House wished the Grand Canyon National Park a happy 95th birthday on Thursday the only way they know how—with a picture of President Obama, of course. Happy 95th birthday, @GrandCanyonNPS! http://t.co/Rc9ZYU4a2G pic.twitter.com/bmzVrv8aX2 — The White House (@WhiteHouse) February 26, 2014 From the anniversary of Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat to JFK’s assassination and Nelson Mandela’s death, President Obama always makes the situation ‘all about himself.’

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed SB1062 that would permit merchants to refuse service based on religious beliefs. Of course it was assumed it was generally aimed at businesses that have moral objections to serving gays, particularly in the context of wedding products and services. This has been an issue in the courts of other states previously, and because those cases haven’t turned up in Arizona yet, Brewer offered that as part of the reason why she was vetoing this bill. Free market proponents seem to be split on this issue, some pointing out that businesses shouldn’t be forced by the...

He has held his seat in the House of Representatives since 1991 But today Rep. Ed Pastor announced that he won't seek another term. Pastor, 70, announced his decision on Twitter, saying that it was time for him "to seek out a new endeavor." "After 23 years in Congress serving the people of AZ, I have decided not to seek re-election this year. It has been an honor," he tweeted. "Thank you." A miner's son who began his professional life teaching high school chemistry, Pastor represents a district that includes southern Phoenix and Glendale. The Arizona Republic says there will...

When an important social issue intersected with business in Arizona, Corporate America decided it was time to take a stand. Voicing concern for their employees, customers and bottom lines, prominent companies from American Airlines to Verizon used threats of reduced business to help convince Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer to veto legislation that would have allowed businesses to refuse service to gays based on the owner's religious beliefs. Companies have long spoken out about certain issues they felt threatened their bottom lines, such as taxation and the minimum wage. The strong opposition to the Arizona bill signals an acknowledgement by businesses...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Hispanic National Bar Association on Wednesday said it cancelled its 2015 convention in Phoenix over legislation adding protections for people who assert their religious beliefs in refusing service to gays. The move makes the group one of the first to pull out of Arizona because of the proposed law. President Miguel Alexander Pozo says the group views the controversy as a civil rights issue. "Laws that return us to a darker time in the nation's history simply cannot be tolerated," he said in a news release.

A quarter-century ago, I was a legislative reporter in Arkansas assigned to a ceremony honoring Daisy Bates, the civil rights giant who led the Little Rock school integration effort in 1957. As Gov. Bill Clinton spoke and Bates beamed, a hunched old man limped into the room and leaned against a back wall. "Gov. Faubus?" I asked. ....................................................... Safety was his straw man. Religious liberty, like public safety, is a just cause, except when it's used to justify intolerance.

SB 1062 is not about religious freedom, it's about forced labor.For the last few days, I, like many Americans, have been furious about SB 1062 . . . only I have been angry for a different reason than most. Opponents are angry because they think the bill is "mean" or that it allows discrimination against certain groups of people. Some people are even claiming that it somehow mandates discrimination. Supporters are angry because they don't like the idea that a private citizen can be forced to engage in a transaction that violates his or her religious beliefs. I am angry because I believe...

Federal designation of the Greater Sage-grouse as threatened or endangered could result in the withdrawal of over 17 million acres from mining ... Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service of making an unprecedented attempted to limit multiple use on public lands through use of “the Spotted Owl on Steroids”—the Greater Sage-Grouse. ... BLM and Forest Service’s real purpose “is NOT sage-grouse conservation.” “Rather, the so-called conservation measures are designed to: Find another way to implement the draconian land use restrictions in the aborted Wild Lands Policy and Secretarial Order 3310; Dramatically reduce and even prevent mining, energy...

Arizona governor's veto aimed at own party's right Feb 27, 2014 By BOB CHRISTIE PHOENIX (AP) - Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer slapped down the right wing of her own party, vetoing a bill pushed by social conservatives that would have allowed people with sincerely held religious beliefs to refuse to serve gays.

Perhaps Arizona governor Jan Brewer was sincere when saying that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (SB 1062) she vetoed yesterday could “create more problems than it purports to solve.� After all, observers such as Napp Nazworth at The Christian Post contend that SB 1062 might actually — contrary to all the hysteria — have made it harder for most business owners to refuse service to homosexuals. This analysis may have merit and can be read here, but it’s irrelevant to a larger point: The GOP’s handling of this matter was a good illustration of conservatism’s fatal flaw. Whatever the legal...

It's a "slap in the face" to the black community to compare protests against an Arizona bill, which would let some business owners deny services to gays, to the civil-rights movement, former U.S. Rep. and retired Army Lt. Col. Allen West said Wednesday. In an exclusive interview with "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV, West, whose Allen West Guardian Fund supports and endorses conservative military minority candidates, said comparing the movements is merely "sensationalism." "I want people to stop saying that this is all of a sudden the new civil right because . . . it's a slap in...

Actor Steven Seagal appeared at the Western Conservative Conference in Phoenix on February 22, 2014, where he called for the impeachment of President Obama.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed a bill Wednesday that would have allowed businesses that asserted their religious beliefs the right to deny service to gay and lesbian customers. Opinions have been sharply divided over the politically charged measure, with both sides ramping up pressure on Brewer after the state's Republican-led Legislature approved the bill last week. Brewer said she made the decision she knew was right for Arizona.

Like every other political measure or issue or topic for debate, Arizona Senate Bill 1062 has two sides. One side sees it as permitting blatant and rampant discrimination against gays. The other side regards it as promoting religious freedom by allowing business owners to not do business with those whose lifestyles conflict with the business owners’ beliefs. The NFL’s statement on the topic strongly suggests that pro football views it as an anti-gay law. Major League Baseball has issued an even stronger indictment: “As the sport of Jackie Robinson, Major League Baseball and its 30 Clubs stand united behind the...

http://www.azgovernor.gov/dms/upload/GS_022614_SB1062Remarks.pdf

On Wednesday, a federal judge ruled that Texas’ amendment banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional. While Judge Orlando Garcia stated that same-sex marriage should be legal in the state, he allowed his ruling to be stayed until an appeals court has a chance to review it. Therefore, at this moment, gay and lesbian couples cannot get married in the state of Texas. This is just the latest step in what will surely be the complete toppling of same-sex marriage bans across the country. Currently, gay marriage is legal in 17 states and the District of Columbia. At the same time, there...

Gov. Jan Brewer on Wednesday vetoed a Republican bill that set off a national debate over gay rights, religion and discrimination and subjected Arizona to blistering criticism from major corporations and political leaders from both parties. Brewer's decision defused a national furor over gay rights and religious freedom. The bill backed by Republicans in the Legislature was designed to give added protection from lawsuits to people who assert their religious beliefs in refusing service to gays. But opponents called it an open attack on gays that invited discrimination. The bill thrust Arizona into the national spotlight last week after both...