Free Republic

The co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings plane, Andreas Lubitz, had received treatment for suicidal tendencies years ago, investigators have said, but not in recent doctor visits. Officials in Duesseldorf said that the investigation had so far shown no clue to any motive.

Atheists and homosexual-rights activists in Ireland are threatening protest marches. A local government in the overwhelmingly Catholic country has fined a homosexual baker in the village of Inch (County Clare) for refusing to produce a wedding cake featuring, on its icing, the inscription, “A man shall . . . hold fast to his wife — Gen. 2:24.” The baker, Robert O’Riordan, says that he considers the inscription to be an implicit rebuke of his own domestic living arrangement and an imposition on his right as an atheist to refuse assent to “any material endorsement of religious ceremonies.” Mr. O’Riordan regularly...

As Jesus warned, “If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand” (Mark 3:25). Nothing has borne out this reality in recent decades like that exasperating spectacle called the Republican presidential primary. These last few GOP horse races have been jam-packed with would-be conservative presidents who, after infighting with largely simpatico opponents, have canceled each other out, limped off to lick their wounds and left the perpetually underwhelmed GOP base to stay home and not vote for “imminently electable” establishment paragons like Presidents Dole, McCain and Romney. Divide and conquer. That’s how the “moderate” RINO establishment plays the...

Indiana has adopted a state-level version of the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), thereby imposing a “strict scrutiny” legal standard when the state government or local powers pass laws that interfere with the free exercise of religion. For this, Governor Mike Pence and Indiana’s legislators have been denounced as gay-hating monsters, a claim that was never made about President Bill Clinton, who signed the federal RFRA, or about the people and powers of such liberal states as Connecticut, which is one of the 20 states with a RFRA. Another dozen or so states have constitutional provisions similar to those...

Late last summer, with midterms consuming the attention of the political class, a group of GOP activists spent two days in Des Moines trying to convince their fellow Republicans that change was coming to their party. With eyes on 2016, they attended the Iowa State Fair, talked with newspaper editorial boards, and even ventured onto conservative talk radio. To cap it off, on the last evening, supporters gathered at 801 Chophouse, the upscale watering hole of the city's political elite, as if to announce their movement had gone mainstream. That it couldn't be dismissed as fringe any longer.

Last week (March 21st) the New York Times ran a puff piece on New York City leader, Mayor Bill De Blasio, “reaching out” to faith based organizations and marveled that an avowed secularist has built strong alliances with certain religious groups. The Times opined, “…as the leader of a famously secular city, Mr. De Blasio has been emerging as something unexpected: a champion of religion whose administration has advanced the cause of faith groups in the unlikeliest of public squares.” The story notes that NYC public schools will henceforth close on two Muslim holy days, the city will relax health...

In commemoration of Palm Sunday, dozens of churchgoers marched into a Logan Square McDonald's singing, chanting and demanding a $15 minimum wage for the workers behind the counter. About 80 congregants had gathered at the Logan Square Monument moments earlier to receive communion and to use the example of Jesus riding into Jerusalem a week before Easter to demand what they called a living wage for all low-wage workers. "Jesus was participating in street theater on Palm Sunday. On that day he was riding in on that donkey. He was saying business as usual will not continue here," said Marilyn...

With the recent increases in minimum wage, the Central Michigan University Recreation Department has restricted expenses to remain within its budget. Minimum wage increased from $7.40 per hour in 2013 to $8.15 per hour in 2014-15. While minimum wage has increased, the department's budget hasn't increased to compensate the statewide change. In Michigan, minimum wage is scheduled to increase every January over the next four years. Although the increase in wages has left little room for expenditures, UREC has made no drastic changes to their budget. "There have been no massive cutbacks, just changes to the overall strategy and reprogram,"...

In 1979, the year before Republicans nominated Ronald Reagan as their presidential candidate, the Rev. Jerry Falwell and conservative activist Paul Weyrich founded the Moral Majority. It was at the Christian university in Lynchburg, Virginia, Liberty University, founded by Rev. Falwell, where Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) just announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. Although Cruz made no reference to the Moral Majority in his remarks, his thinking clearly is where Falwell’s and Weyrich’s was when they founded that organization. That getting a widely politically inactive universe of church going evangelical Christians politically engaged can change America. Cruz made...

Vladimir Putin scheduled the war to retake the Baltic States – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – for the first half of the last Final Four college basketball game. He anticipated, correctly, that the President’s focus would be on his brackets instead of Russia’s plan to recapture its former glory. The signs were all there – prior aggression in Georgia, the invasion of Ukraine, the unscheduled “maneuvers” in both Russia and Belarus adjacent to the panicking Baltic States’ borders, the provocative military flights into their airspace and that of nearby Sweden. And the administration, fixated on pushing through its domestic agenda...

When will John Boehner learn that a bill is bad news if Nancy Pelosi supports it, President Obama wants to sign it, and the press sings its praises? That’s precisely what he had on his hands with H.R. 2, the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act, a.k.a. the “Doc Fix.” Yet today we find him basking in the approbation of the Beltway establishment for getting this bill passed. This “fix” will add billions to the federal deficit, replace an unworkable price control system with a worse scheme that will dictate how doctors practice medicine and place financial burdens on seniors....

The 'gay cake' controversy could have implications for shop owners with religious beliefs, a court has heard. A barrister for County Antrim firm Ashers Baking Company said if they lost the discrimination case there would be wide-reaching consequences. He said it would mean a Muslim printer could not refuse to print a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad. The case has been taken by a gay rights activist, Gareth Lee. He placed the order for the cake with Ashers. The barrister for Mr Lee said that businesses needed to make clear in advance what they would and would not do. He...

A selfie-obsessed tourist apologized Sunday for posting an online pic of herself grinning at the site of the deadly East Village inferno. After The Post exposed her with a front-page story headlined “Village Idiots,” Christina Freundlich said she was “deeply sorry for my careless and distasteful post.” “It was inconsiderate to those hurt in the crash and to the city of New York,” she said in an e-mail to The Des Moines Register. “What happened last week in the East Village is not to be taken lightly and I regret my course of action.” Freundlich, who worked on both of...

The White House Doesn’t Like Indiana’s Religious-Liberty Law, but Won’t Say Why It’s Different from the One Obama Supported by PATRICK BRENNAN March 29, 2015 When Indiana governor Mike Pence signed a religious-liberty-protection statute into law this past week, he probably didn’t expect the activist backlash and accusations that he’d just endorsed or legalized discrimination. In part, that would be due to the fact that dozens of states and the federal government have had similar laws for years and there’s been no epidemic of discrimination against gays and lesbians. Now, Indiana’s law is not quite identical to the federal law...

Tim Cook: Apple Will Oppose Bills Like Indiana's 'Religious Freedom' Law Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on Sunday broadened his criticism of a new law in Indiana, which opponents say could be used to discriminate against gay people, to other states that he says have similar laws. Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law Thursday, sparking an outcry from those, including Cook, who say it could be used to protect businesses that refuse to serve gay people. The law's supporters say it will prevent the government from forcing business owners from providing services that go...

(Newser) – Things haven't gone too well for the former CFO who criticized Chick-fil-A in a video he posted on YouTube. Unable to find lasting work, 37-year-old Adam Smith is living on food stamps with his wife and four kids in the RV they call home, he tells ABC News. "I think people are scared," Smith says of potential employers. "I think people are scared that it could happen again." Back in the summer of 2012, as thousands of people were opposing Chick-fil-A's stance on gays, Smith rolled into a Chick-fil-A drive-thru for a free glass of water and slammed...

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is promoting a giant full-body exhibit for kids to walk through to promote healthy eating habits.While encouraging schools to apply for nearly $6 million in grants to help them comply with the First Lady Michelle Obama-promoted Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act new lunch standards, the USDA highlighted efforts by the Kansas State Department of Education.“Body Venture, a traveling health education exhibit sponsored by Kansas State Department of Education travels to schools to teach students about nutrition and physical activity,” the USDA said in a blog post Friday.Body Venture is a 45-foot by 50-foot exhibit that starts...

Two black women who said their hairstyles made them targets for airport security pat-downs said on Thursday the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had agreed to stop singling out women for screening based solely on their "sisterlocks." Malaika Singleton, a neuroscientist based in Sacramento, said she was on her way to London last year for an academic conference on dementia when a TSA agent at Los Angeles International Airport began pulling and squeezing her hair. "I was going through the screening procedures like we all do, and after I stepped out of the full body scanner, the agent said, 'OK, now...

As we have discovered since he jetted from the starting blocks as 2016’s first declared presidential candidate, Ted Cruz seems to be a lot of things: scholar, radical (or patriot), genius (or know-it-all), upstart, loner, throwback (or traditionalist) and all-around lightning rod. Unproven, however, is that Cruz, a devoutly conservative Republican, is not qualified to seek the presidency, which was the position staked out by feather-trigger snipers even as Liberty University students showered his announcement with standing ovations. (Yes, they sort of had to be there, but they didn’t have to be enthusiastic about it.) Cruz, 44, is a first-term...

As he continues the process of “considering” running for President, Mike Huckabee is rolling out some of the golden oldies of political bones to chew. Such was the case this week when he trotted out the time honored proposal of putting limits on the terms of Supreme Court justices. Prospective presidential candidate Mike Huckabee called Saturday for the imposition of term limits on U.S. Supreme Court justices, saying that the nation’s founders never intended to create lifetime, irrevocable posts.“Nobody should be in an unelected position for life,” the former Arkansas governor said in an interview, expanding upon remarks he...