Free Republic

If you live in one of the following 11 states you should be paying close attention to how the program is run in your state and begin questioning whether the federal government has the constitutional authority to pass off a federal program to a non-profit group which effectively eliminates, or nearly eliminates, any state control of how state tax dollars are spent. Do you live in one of these Wilson-Fish states? Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee or Vermont. ***Update*** There are 12 W-F states at this time (Oct. 2015): Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Idaho,...

The country’s first criminal prosecution of Planned Parenthood was left teetering Friday when it was revealed the state of Kansas destroyed abortion records that prosecutors planned to use as evidence. Johnson County prosecutors asked a judge to delay a Monday hearing to decide if there’s enough evidence to try Planned Parenthood on 23 felony counts of falsifying pregnancy termination reports. Prosecutors say the records, which are central to making their case, were shredded sometime in 2005, roughly two years before charges were brought against Planned Parenthood by former Johnson County District Attorney Phill Kline.

In his 1938 book, Mohammed et Charlemagne, Belgian historian Henri Pirenne argued in great detail that the Dark Ages of Europe began rather suddenly in the middle of the seventh century; and that this sudden and catastrophic decline in civilization was due to Islam’s blockade of the Mediterranean. Up to that time, Pirenne showed, there was no evidence of a decline in Classical culture. True, the Western Roman Empire as a political entity had disappeared in 476, but the literate, prosperous and urban civilization which we call “Classical” continued virtually uninterrupted. The Goths and other “Barbarian” peoples who ruled the...

For those who contend Hamas and other militant Arabs in Gaza are seeking a peaceful solution with Israel you'll have a hard time explaining these rocket attacks by them. Hamas will not remove or disavow from it's charter the destruction of Israel as a goal. What is the point of Israel agreeing to a ceasefire with Hamas when it is obvious that the sole purpose is for Hamas to lick their wounds and rebuild their offensive arsenal. Hamas does not want peace with Israel, never has and never will. They use Arabs of Gaza as human shields everyday, abuse their...

Sometimes, the best of intentions can have the worst of consequences. That outcome seems to be the fate of the community organizers of ACORN and their efforts to assist low-income taxpayers file their tax returns. As the result of a sting operation showing ACORN representatives giving false tax information to undercover activists posing as a prostitute and a pimp, the organization risks losing its funding for vital services that it provides to the low-income tax community. Many have written about the scandal involving the video showing ACORN representatives recommending, among other things, that the couple posing as a prostitute and...

Plans are being made to promote a national holiday for Barack Obama, who will become the nation's 44th president when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20. "Yes We Can" planning rallies will be at 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. every Tuesday at the downtown McDonald's restaurant, 1100 Kansas Ave., until Jan. 13. The goals are to secure a national holiday in Obama's honor, to organize celebrations around his inauguration and to celebrate the 200th birthday of President Abraham Lincoln, who was born on Feb. 12 1809. At 7:30 a.m. on Inauguration Day, Obama Cake will be served at...

Teaching for “social justice” is a cruel hoax on disadvantaged kids. In 1980, Bill Ayers and his partner Bernardine Dohrn came up from the underground—the Weather Underground, that is. It had been a wild ride for the Bonnie and Clyde of the sixties New Left. They first went into combat during the 1969 “Days of Rage” in Chicago, smashing storefront windows and assaulting police officers and city officials in the fantasy that they were aiding their Vietnamese allies by “bringing the war back home.” They spent the next few years planting bombs at government buildings around the country, including in...

By Fjordman September 30 2008 The following essay is an amalgam of my previous online essays, among them Who Are We, Who Are Our Enemies — The Cost of Historical Amnesia, Why We Should Oppose an Independent Kosovo, Refuting God’s Crucible and The Truth About Islam in Europe. The Jihad, the Islamic so-called Holy War, has been a fact of life in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Near and Middle East for more than 1300 years, but this is the first history of the Muslim wars in Europe ever to be published. Hundreds of books, however, have appeared on its...

From Atlas Shrugs:Then, as now, I am confounded by the irrational position of those in the blogosphere that point fingers at those fighting the scourge of Islamic imperialism in Europe and America (myself included). In covering the spread of the global jihad, I am steeped in the evil of the hegemony of Islam, sharia law and the stealth jihad. One does not not have to go far to find hatred of the West, anti-semitism,and the careful dismantling of our freedoms everyday. Evil is all around us so it is nonsensical to me to spend unlimited energy trying to find an...

Although not a religious person myself, I am usually in favor of a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. However, I sometimes have my doubts when I see how many, too many, church leaders consistently end up on the wrong side of issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration. Bat Ye'or claims that dhimmitude in the Middle East has often progressed because Christian leaders have sold out their own people, either for short-term personal gains or in the mistaken belief that they have a "shared religious heritage" with Muslims. It is also frequently Christian leaders and bishops in the West who...

Although not a religious person myself, I am usually in favor of a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. However, I sometimes have my doubts when I see how many, too many, church leaders consistently end up on the wrong side of issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration. Bat Ye'or claims that dhimmitude in the Middle East has often progressed because Christian leaders have sold out their own people, either for short-term personal gains or in the mistaken belief that they have a "shared religious heritage" with Muslims. It is also frequently Christian leaders and bishops in the West who...

Martin van Creveld is an Israeli military historian and theorist, born in the Netherlands but living in Israel. He is the author of many books on military history and strategy, and has lectured at many strategic institutes around the Western world. I do not always agree with Mr. van Creveld politically. From an Internet search, I noted this quote by him in particular: “Given the balance of forces, it cannot be argued that a nuclear Iran will threaten the United States. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s fulminations to the contrary, the Islamic Republic will not even be a threat to Israel.”...

At the beginning of the 21st century, Europe is being Islamized, while China is being Christianized. This proves that if God exists He must have a sense of humor. Buddhism and Taoism still claim most worshippers in China but the state-sanctioned churches count up to 35 million followers. The underground churches are estimated to have 80 million members or more, about 12 million of them Catholics, the rest Protestants. In a Beijing beauty salon, convert Xun Jinzhen explains why Christianity has become so popular: “We have very few people who believe in communism as a faith, so there’s an emptiness...

During his visit to Germany, Pope Benedict XVI stunned the world on Sept. 12 by issuing a subtle, discreet yet formidable challenge to Islam – a challenge that drew praise from various observers. The pope’s rhetoric, however, contrasts with his failure to confront a more fundamental problem: the Catholic Church’s willingness to concede its own worship space to Muslims, without regard for the consequences. In Europe and the United States, Catholic authorities have encouraged the transformation of Catholic schools and churches into Muslim schools and mosques. One order of friars is helping Italian Muslims build a mosque right next to...

From the desk of Fjordman on Tue, 2006-09-19 20:45 Although not a religious person myself, I am usually in favor of a revitalization of Christianity in Europe. However, I sometimes have my doubts when I see how many, too many, church leaders consistently end up on the wrong side of issues related to Islam and Muslim immigration. Bat Ye’or claims that dhimmitude in the Middle East has often progressed because Christian leaders have sold out their own people, either for short-term personal gains or in the mistaken belief that they have a “shared religious heritage” with Muslims. It is also...

Truman Medical Centers has launched a campaign to help Muslim women patients overcome a cultural barrier to health care. The barrier in this case is the perception among some Muslims that male health providers should not come in close contact with Muslim women patients, even in a life-or-death situation. Lewis Popper, Truman’s general counsel, said the situation reached a dangerous level a year or so ago when Mark Schnee, an OB/GYN at Truman’s Hospital Hill campus, wanted to perform an emergency Caesarean section on a Muslim woman. The baby was in fetal distress and the patient previously had two Caesarean...

Excerpted..... Before we entered World War II in December 1941, most of Europe with the exception of Great Britain had been conquered by Nazi armies, and Russia, then the U.S.S.R., was retreating under attack. In World War II, American casualties totaled 291,577 dead and 671,846 injured. Under the extraordinary leadership of F.D.R., the Allies ultimately won the war, despite losing a number of battles. We would not have prevailed had the British not kept hope alive by continuing the battle when all of the other European nations had either surrendered or been overrun and accepted the Nazi regime. The Russians...

I am not especially saddened to see the brouhaha that is gaining strength over Benedict’s speech. Whether he is “media savvy” or not, Benedict has managed - in his very scholarly fashion - to apply a very hot drawing poultice to the enormous and festing boils of both radical Islamism and rampant secularism. At the very least, it will cause some Muslims to insist that distinctions be made between them and their more extreme co-religionists, and it may rouse the West to examine how cavalierly it has tossed off the “shackles” of Christianity only to open itself up to the...

Professor Moshe Sharon tells counter-terrorism conference Iran's regime is seeking Armageddon, says no peace ever possible with Muslim world The Iranian government is seeking nuclear weapons in order to bring about an apocalypse, Professor Moshe Sharon, a professor of Islamic studies from the Hebrew University, told the annual conference at the Counter-Terrorism Institute in Herzliya Thursday. Iranian president says nuclear standoff with West can be resolved peacefully; adds: ‘there is no need for UN sanctions against his country; US should moderate its language’ Sharon said there was "no possibility of peace between Israel and the Palestinians whatsoever, for ever," since...

During his speech at the opening of the 10th Session of the Islamic Summit Conference on Oct 16, 2003, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia stated that: “We are all Muslims. We are all oppressed. We are all being humiliated.” “1.3 billion Muslims cannot be defeated by a few million Jews. There must be a way.” “Today the Jews rule this world by proxy. They get others to fight and die for them.” “They invented and successfully promoted Socialism, Communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong, so they may enjoy equal rights with...