Free Republic

// THIS ISN'T MY BLOG, I JUST STUMBLED ACROSS IT // The case of Nathan Haddad should boil the blood of any good American. A twelve-year veteran of the Army, with four deployments, is a decorated combat veteran and now, probably, a felon. His crime: possession of five empty 30-round magazines for an AR-15. The magazines were stowed in the trunk of his car at the time of a traffic stop.

For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.

It's too late for "taking this country back," it's too far gone. There is too large a segment of the population that wants to live under a large welfare state with minimal civil liberties and free abortions for all. We had the Tea Party and it hasn't done a lick of good. That's because it was trying to work within our existing, utterly broken system. Think about these points: --the country has been on a very un-Constitutional path since at least the New Deal --rule of law continues to erode as Obama uses executive orders and openly selectively enforces the...

On the topic of international trade, the views of economists tend to differ from those of the general public. There are three principle differences. First, many noneconomists believe that it is more advantageous to trade with other members of one’s nation or ethnic group than with outsiders. Economists see all forms of trade as equally advantageous. Second, many noneconomists believe that exports are better than imports for the economy. Economists believe that all trade is good for the economy. Third, many noneconomists believe that a country’s balance of trade is governed by the “competitiveness” of its wage rates, tariffs, and...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A Muslim convert accused of killing a soldier in a "political and religious" attack on a military recruiting center pleaded not guilty Tuesday to a capital murder charge and was ordered held without bail. Abdulhakim Muhammad, 23, of Little Rock, was charged in Monday's death of Pvt. William Long, 23, of Conway outside an Army-Navy Career Center in a west Little Rock shopping center. A prosecutor said Muhammad admitted shooting Long and another soldier "because of what they had done to Muslims in the past."

Israel Betancourt is an American of Mexican descent. He was born in the border town of Laredo, Texas, in 1977. And his birth was assisted by a midwife. Those three factors raised a red flag for the U.S. Department of State when the Lincoln resident applied for a passport back in March, a passport he still hopes to obtain so he can vacation in Cancún with his wife and two young daughters. No one informed Betancourt that his American citizenship was in question before – not in all the presidential elections he's voted in, not when he served in the...

Abortion is the supreme moral issue of our time. No other issue in the developed world is bigger, no other issue is as comparatively ignored. While we hem and haw about the economy and terrorism and Israel and health care, literally MILLIONS of unborn babies are being aborted each year. Millions. Probably the biggest obstacle the pro-life side has is convincing people that there is an abortion holocaust going on that makes the Nazis look like amateurs, and the Soviet gulag system look like a slap on the wrist. It is the sheer enormity of the issue, the implications of...

Quickpost this image to Myspace, Digg, Facebook, and others! The crowd was estimated at 7,000 I understand. A co-worker of mine ten floors up could hear the speakers better than I could. The crowd was not at full-size when this picture was snapped. I was stunned by the turnout, considering the weather.

CHICAGO, April 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - On Friday, April 3, 2009, The Thomas More Society filed a Hate Crime charge in an Amended Federal Civil Complaint against an abortion clinic proprietor and ally in Rockford, Illinois as part of an ongoing court battle. On March 29, 2008, Rockford resident Keith A. Sterkeson verbally attacked pro-life advocates Eric Nelson and Kevin Rilott outside a Rockford abortion facility, saying to Nelson, in part, "A Nigger, a Nigger. You are a worthless degenerate Nigger. Oh, you are a Nigger! You are a degenerate and empty skull, thinking Jesus is going to save you....

Over the last decade, Eastern European countries became darlings of the far right by instituting free-market economic policies designed to break convincingly from their Communist past. The so-called Baltic Tigers—Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia—garnered worldwide plaudits for a number of free-market reforms, led by the imposition of a flat-rate income tax, especially from the American right. "The flat tax is making a comeback," trumpeted the conservative National Review. The three nations are "leading a global tax reform revolution," said the right-leaning Heritage Foundation. The idea behind a flat tax is deliciously simple: Charge one uniform rate of income tax for all...

A cousin of mine badly needs prayer for her baby. I'm not a medical person so I don't quite understand it, but she's on the verge of losing the baby. Here is the prayer request email I received with personal info blanked out: "Sat. around 1:00 a.m. began loosing amniotic fluid and was having contractions. She was admitted to The Hospital in . Upon arrival she had only 3 centimeters of fluid left but it began to increase (7.2 centimeters) that afternoon and there was hope that the amniotic fluid bag would repair itself. On Monday a.m. a Level II...

If leadership is defined as recognizing a crisis, addressing its challenges, and setting new directions while remaining true to one's values, then Barack Obama is already demonstrating his strengths as a leader. He has inherited an economic crisis worse than any the nation has experienced since the Great Depression. Within fewer than 50 days in office he has signed a historic stimulus package to bolster demand and create 3.5 million jobs. Governors, business leaders and economists from both the left and the right have applauded the stimulus. Friday's distressing employment numbers indicate that much more may be needed.

Our choice, last fall, was between an angry 73 year old with a legislative record far from consistently conservative, who nominated as his running mate a know-nothing religious extremist; on the other side was an appealing, thoughtful man who--for a brief shining moment--seemed to be more than the sum of his ideological parts. If I had to vote all over again, I'd pull the same lever. Maybe I'm obtuse. Or maybe I just haven't yet entirely given up on the old audacity of hope.

Seventy-five percent (75%) of investors now say the economy is getting worse. That’s an increase from 58% since Lehman Brothers collapsed last September to begin the financial industry meltdown. On the day that President Obama was inaugurated, 63% of investors thought the economy was getting worse.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 39% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-one percent (31%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +8 (see trends).

"I do know libertarians who think Obama is the Antichrist, that he's farther left than John Kerry, much farther left than Bill Clinton, and you'd clearly have to be insane to vote for this guy," said David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "But there are libertarians who say, 'Oh yeah? Do you think Obama will increase spending by $1 trillion, because that's what Republicans did over the past two presidential terms. So really, how much worse can he be?' And there are certainly libertarians who think Obama will be better on the war...

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 38% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty percent (30%) Strongly Disapprove to give Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of +8 (see trends).

The paucity of details to date isn’t surprising. For all the talk about green-job creation, there’s an unavoidable problem with renewable-energy technologies and the policies that promote them: from an economic standpoint, they’re big losers. Renewables can’t produce the large volumes of useful, reliable energy that our economy needs at attractive prices. Government subsidizes renewables because—all things being equal—the free market won’t. In many cases, these subsidies amount to little more than welfare for companies and industries with political connections.

But this average masks some interesting exceptions. George H. W. Bush's 1991 SOTU drove the S&P 500 up 4.39% in the week after the speech during which he announced the wildly successful Desert Storm which was largely won by the end of the week. By contrast, Richard Nixon's first SOTU in 1970 -- where he announced balanced budget and anti-pollution measures -- stripped 5.08% from the S&P 500 within the week.

Report co-author Rachel Benson Gold called the family planning program "smart government at its best," asserting that every dollar spent on it saves taxpayers $4 in costs associated with unintended births to mothers eligible for Medicaid-funded natal care.