Free Republic

The RED TIDE is coming soon. I am absolutely convinced that Americans will vote solidly REPUBLICAN on NOV. 6. But, after that, the 'RATS will play dirty, so we will have to get Congress to act fast. Here is my to-do list that, while not complete, would go a LONG way toward re-creating America and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. Here you go, folks! All of this could EASILY get done in 90 days or less. REPEAL: • Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938 • Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act • Federal Reserve Act • Social Security Act •...

Tonight, Donald J. Trump accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for president of the United States. And I am, for the first time since I began covering American politics, genuinely afraid.

The recently refurbished tarmac at Maine’s busiest airport contains the usual mixture of gravel, water and chemical binder, but what gives this asphalt its jet-black color is crude oil supplied by the Islamic State group. The Portland International Jetport’s new pavement isn’t the only blacktop of its kind on American soil. Four hundred miles south, highways outside Philadelphia are lined with the same mixture, as are hundreds of potholes on the streets of New York City. These are but a few of the many places where ISIS’ oil ends up as part of an illicit business that helps fund the...

The Supreme Court said Friday it will hear lawsuits from religious nonprofits who say the government didn’t go far enough when it offered to carve them out of President Obama’s birth-control rules on employers. The justices agreed to take on seven cases brought by faith-based colleges and ministries from across the country, marking the fourth time that a skirmish over all or part of Obamacare has made it to the Supreme Court. It’s also the second time the justices have agreed to referee the so-called “contraception mandate,” an outgrowth of the Affordable Care Act of 2010 that requires employers to...

XLR-11, PB-22, AB-FUBINACA, MAB-CHMINACA, 5F-AMB. These are the cryptic and sometimes unpronounceable names of the most dangerous drugs you’ve never heard of. They are responsible for kidney injury, psychosis, seizures, coma and death. For instance, AB-FUBINACA was responsible for a spate of recent poisonings at Wesleyan University. And MAB-CHMINACA was associated with more than 100 hospitalizations in Baton Rouge. Neither of these drugs were known to the scientific community until late last year. These drugs are synthetic cannabinoids – several of the hundreds that have been identified as new “designer drugs” in the past five years. More than 150 were...

For thousands of refugees fleeing to Europe there is only one goal — to get to Sweden, a country known for its acceptance and tolerance of those escaping war and persecution. But Sweden may not be as welcoming as they had hoped. A recent stabbing at a school in the small industrial city of Trollhattan, which killed a 20-year-old teacher and a 17-year-old student from Somalia, was described by police as an attack against “people with immigrant backgrounds.” There have also been 20 fires at refugee asylum centres. The Scandinavian country has an underbelly of racism and xenophobia that could...

The South China Sea has been a source of friction for decades with China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan, Brunei and Vietnam all asserting claims over various sections. The United States and its regional allies fear that China is now trying to establish effective control over parts of the strategic waterway through landfill and construction projects in the Spratly Islands, a group of contested reefs, islets and atolls. On Tuesday, the U.S. sent a Navy warship into the 12-mile territorial zone claimed by China for artificial islands it is building to assert Washington's position that the archipelago lies within international waters...

In Mauritania, a vast, desert country straddling sub-Saharan Africa and the continent’s Arab north, anywhere from 4 to 20 percent of the population are slaves. There are few statistics, so the exact figures are unclear, but even the lowest estimate makes Mauritania the country with the highest percentage of slaves in the world. While slaves here aren’t physically chained, many remain imprisoned by deep psychological bonds, as well as crippling poverty. Some consider it a sacred duty to serve their masters, tending to the livestock or doing the housework with no pay. Others, like Essatim, grow up knowing nothing else....

Finding a civil rights cause that increasingly brings together conservatives and liberals, the Supreme Court told employers Monday that they had an "affirmative" duty under federal anti-discrimination law to accommodate the religious practices of employees and job applicants. By an 8-1 vote, the justices sided with a 17-year-old Muslim girl who was rejected for a job at Abercrombie & Fitch because she wore a head scarf. The court's liberal justices have long championed religious minorities in discrimination cases. But as Christian conservatives have more frequently been put on the defensive over issues such as abortion and gay rights, the court's...

The temptation for many will be to cave or compromise. The temptation even for the faithful will be to retreat into our churches and cloisters. In 2004, same-sex “marriage” came to Massachusetts. Contrary to the claim that such laws would usher in an age of “tolerance,” the law immediately became a legal club to beat unwilling participants. Catholic charities bravely refused to place orphans in same-sex homes, because it was contrary to their mission. Unfortunately, they stopped doing adoptions in the state. This cannot be our precedent. What they should have done is to say, “We are called to place...

There’s a lot that’s still confusing about the case of Purvi Patel. But one thing is clear: The 33-year-old from South Bend, Indiana, is facing up to 70 years in prison as the first pregnant woman to be convicted under Indiana’s “feticide” law. t’s a case that cheers some anti-abortion advocates but has reproductive rights groups and doctors worried about how laws originally passed to protect pregnant women are now being used against them in court. Patel comes from a family of Hindu immigrants from India. In the mostly Irish-Catholic town of South Bend, they kept to themselves. Patel worked...

A Cincinnati man is suing LA Fitness after he said operators of the gym in Oakley told him he was not allowed to pray in the locker room after his workout. Western Hills High School alumnus Mohamed Fall is a practicing Muslim and a former college basketball star who has used the LA Fitness facility on Marburg Avenue since 2013, according to his lawsuit filed in federal court Monday. Fall claimed in his suit that he was accosted by three LA Fitness employees while he was engaged in quiet prayer in an “empty obscure corner” of an “at the time...

One of the basic truths that was revealed in the oldest of Scriptures is found in Genesis 1:27 where God created a man – Adam – and a woman – Eve. “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them”. Scripture then teaches that “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). This is God’s word. This is God’s truth.Justice Thomas Quote So, how is it that God’s truth can be turned...

General Motors Co (GM.N) said Thursday it will build the Chevrolet Bolt electric car at an assembly plant near Detroit, where it will invest $200 million for the project. The compact Bolt, shown as a concept vehicle at the Detroit auto show last month, is designed to have a range of 200 miles, and will cost about $30,000 apiece after tax breaks. GM's announcement confirms a report last week by Reuters that the Bolt would be produced at the under-used Orion assembly plant in Michigan. The only electric car currently available with a 200-mile range is the Tesla Model S,...

President Obama wants to make community college free to all. But we already have way too many unqualified people going to community colleges. Did you know that the number of students who successfully graduate from publicly-funded community college is only 20%? And that figure is for students who take up to 3 years… to complete a 2 year program! Put another way, 80% of students who go into community college don’t graduate in a reasonable period of time. And community colleges are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer. Why should we subsidize schools where 4 out of 5 students drop out?...

A federal judge in Richmond on Tuesday will sentence Bob McDonnell on public corruption charges that could land the former Virginia governor in prison for more than a decade. Sentencing guidelines stipulate that McDonnell should receive around 10 years in prison after his September conviction on charges he accepted more than $150,000 in gifts from a wealthy businessman in exchange for preferential treatment. But the governor’s defense lawyers have argued that McDonnell should only serve 6,000 hours, or 250 days, of community service. Jeffrey Bellin, a law professor at The College of William and Mary, said judges have wide discretion...

Loretta Lynch, President Barack Obama's choice to replace Eric Holder as Attorney General, would likely sail through confirmation hearings under normal circumstances--i.e. even when Democrats had not gutted the filibuster rule in a cynical act of partisanship, and when the administration had not turned the nation's top law enforcement office into such a politicized and race-obsessed office. She certainly has the right qualifications. Lynch has served twice as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and has a long résumé of high-profile prosecutions. Her most recent headline case has been that of U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY), who...

There they the ones who aren't are exceptions. In fact, John Crudele is one of the exceptions. He had a story in the New York Post detailing how that 7.9% number was entirely made up. He did a column on how it was created, how it was artificially manufactured, and how they massaged it to make it 7.9%. He did a piece on how it was illegitimate, and he had been warning prior to the number how they were gonna do it. So he did a column detailing how they did it and so forth. But my guess is most...

One in seven Americans – more than 46 million people, including 12 million children and 7 million seniors – rely on food pantries and meal service programs to feed themselves and their families, according to a new study from Feeding America, a provider of charitable food assistance to low-income Americans. In what Feeding America says is “the largest and most comprehensive study of people seeking food assistance in the United States ever conducted,” more than 60,000 people confidentially answered questions about their personal circumstances. The study represents findings from 200 Feeding America food banks, which annually provide more than 3...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leading Republicans on Thursday insisted that America's leaders must do more to defend Christian values at home and abroad, blaming President Barack Obama for attacks on religious freedom as they courted social conservatives expected to play a critical role in the next presidential contest. "Those of us inspired by Judeo-Christian values...have an obligation to our country and to our fellow man to use our positions of influence to highlight those values," Florida's Sen. Marco Rubio said at a conference hosted by the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a group led by long-time Christian political activist Ralph Reed.