Free Republic

What if we didn't have a Constitution? What if the government were elected by custom and tradition, but not by law? What if election procedures and official titles and government responsibilities merely followed those that preceded them, and not because any of this was compelled by law, but because that's what folks came to expect? What if those elected to office, and those appointed to it, as well, took oaths to uphold the Constitution? What if those who took the oaths promised fidelity to the Constitution? What if the Constitution declares itself to be the supreme law of the land?...

EVERYONE HAD a field day with Jeb Bush's mishandling of the Iraq question Megyn Kelly posed during a TV interview last week: "Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?" Over the course of several days, Bush's answer switched from a firm yes ("I would have") to a firm no ("I would not have gone into Iraq"). Other GOP presidential hopefuls, quick to exploit Bush's fumble, quickly declared that in hindsight they wouldn't have gone to war. Obviously there will be no do-over of the Iraq war authorization; the next president can't hop a time machine back...

May 21, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- A December 2014 study alleged that homosexual activists, in a twenty-minute conversation, can change the minds of those who oppose redefining marriage.  Six months later, the data to support the study has been revealed as fraudulent, and the study itself has been retracted.Titled "When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality," the study claimed that homosexual activists canvassing door-to-door in favor of redefining marriage could convert the people they spoke with – and that the interlocutors' epiphanies would not only last for a year, but also inspire members of their...

The president of the Boy Scouts of America on Thursday called for an end to the group’s blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning Scout executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” and that “any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement.” At the same time, religious organizations that sponsor a majority of local Scout troops, including the Mormons and Roman Catholics, should remain free to set their own policies for leaders, said the president, Robert M. Gates, the former director of the...

Employees at Wright's Dairy-Rite restaurant in Staunton, Virginia aren't used to finding treasures when taking out the trash. But after finding a diamond ring in the garbage, they're desperately trying to find its owner.

Joe Moylan Greeley car dealership owner arrested on suspicion of soliciting for child prostitution A Greeley car dealership owner was arrested last week on suspicion of having sex with an underage girl during a larger investigation into child sex trafficking by the Rocky Mountain Innocence Lost Task Force. Fares Al Rashed, 36, who lives in the 1400 block of 60th Avenue and owns Alrashed Auto Sales at 1201 8th Ave., in Greeley, is charged in Weld District Court with one count each of soliciting for child prostitution, pandering of a child, patronizing a child prostitute and contributing to the delinquency...

Adopted 'Father' and 'Son' to Marry Pennsylvania couple Bill Novak and Norman MacArthur are legally adopted father and son, but soon they will marry. The couple of more than 50 years registered as domestic partners in 1994, but were told after moving from New York City to Pennsylvania that “hell would freeze over before Pennsylvania approves same sex marriage.” Since they needed to do estate planning, a lawyer advised them that the only way to become legally related was through adoption. This year, however, a federal district court declared the state’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional, so the couple petitioned to...

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An Arlington strip mall off Lee Highway in the Cherrydale community has everything from restaurants to salons to a frame shop.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – Starting Thursday, the armed security guard at Panera Bread Co. across from Vanderbilt University will no longer be carrying a firearm. According to the manager at the 21st Avenue location, the decision comes after multiple patrons complained to corporate that the armed security agent was violating the company’s own gun policy and making them uncomfortable. One of those who complained was Lillian Hallstrand, a long-time customer of the Panera on 21st. The Director of Stewardship and Vocational Planning at Vanderbilt’s divinity school told news 2 coming to the restaurant in recent months has been unsettling since...

(Doesn’t understand difference between a “stop” and an “arrest”.)This past Monday the office of Prosecutor Marilyn Mosby filed a motion in opposition to an earlier defense motion (oofah, lawyers) requesting that charges against six Baltimore police officers be dismissed, or alternatively, that Mosby recuse herself from the case.We covered the defense motion for dismissal/recusal in detail in a previous post, here: Freddie Gray Case: Detailed Analysis of Motion to Recuse Prosecutor.Mosby’s motion in opposition (embedded at the bottom of this post) is remarkable for a number of reasons, most substantially for it’s epic levels of projection.In the motion’s second...

Someone sent me an email Wednesday evening with some details on the Paul Krugman response to James Montier, which I discussed here. I had previously stated that the Krugman response was lacking meat. But it's actually worse than that. It's actually highly misleading and appears intentionally so. In the post, Dr. Krugman tries to show how much interest rates matter by comparing the Fed Funds Rate with Housing Starts. He shows a chart and declares that there appears to be a strong correlation. Except, as this emailer notes, he appears to have shifted the chart to make it appear as...

A top contender for the Republican presidential nomination cashed out his retirement savings to pay some nagging bills for a broken refrigerator, air-conditioning unit, and his kids' private-school tuition. According to The Washington Post, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) sold $68,241 worth of retirement funds in September after bills began piling up at home. It's a risky move since it incurs a significant tax penalty. “It means that he is probably on some level living above his means, because he is borrowing against his future,” Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff told The Post. When asked about his finances on Fox News,...

Billionaire investor George Soros said flatly that he’s concerned about the possibility of another world war “If there is conflict between China and a military ally of the United States, like Japan, then it is not an exaggeration to say that we are on the threshold of a third world war,” Soros said. Military spending is on the rise in Russia and China, he said. To avoid this scenario, Soros called on the U.S. to make a “major concession” and allow China’s currency to join the International Monetary Fund’s basket of currencies. This would make the yuan a potential rival...

A study that purported to show gay marriage opponents can easily be convinced to change their minds if they talk to gays was retracted after finding it used fake data. The study, "When contact changes minds: An experiment on transmission of support for gay equality," was published in the December 2014, issue of the journal Science. It was widely reported in the media and cited as evidence that support for gay marriage is inevitable. Donald P. Green, professor of political science at Columbia University, retracted the study after learning that his co-author, Michael LaCour, a UCLA graduate student, had used...

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued new protections for businesses that refuse to serve same-sex marriages, embracing the "religious freedom" cause dear to conservative Christians even though it's stung other Republican politicians. Jindal, a prospect for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, issued an executive order on Tuesday after saying he was disappointed that a Statehouse committee had earlier in the day voted down a bill that would have accomplished the same goal. That panel's concern: that Louisiana would look much like Indiana, where concerns that a new "religious freedom" law would lead to discrimination against gays and lesbians triggered such a...

Oregon became the third state in the United States to ban gay conversion therapy, a practice that has attracted much debate. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed the bill into law earlier this week, though an ex-gay group has protested and called the bill "child abuse." CNN reported on Wednesday that the bill signed by Brown, the first openly bisexual governor in the U.S., will block therapist from offering conversion or reparative therapy on individuals who are younger than 18. Laws against the practice have also been made in California, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. While the American Psychological Association has...

I’m a Ted Cruz fan. At the same time, I find myself increasingly intrigued by Carly Fiorina. She speaks like no one else in the field. Perhaps, in part, because she’s not a politician. At the outset of many of her speeches, she tells a personal story about being a little girl in Sunday school when her mother said: “What you are, is God’s gift to you. What you make of yourself, is your gift to God.” After that, she often shares the following: I started my career as a secretary in a little nine person real estate firm....

Last month’s protests in Baltimore are still fresh in the minds of Americans. They evoked images of similar, often violent demonstrations that took place last August in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police shooting death of Michael Brown. Well, there are still protests happening today in Ferguson – but they’re a little bit different. Here’s the first part of a statement released this week by the Millennial Activists United: “On May 14, 2015 many individuals and organizations of the protest movement that began in Ferguson, Missouri organized a sit-in in the office of Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment (MORE). The...

WASHINGTON—The number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits rose last week, but remained at a historically low level consistent with an improving labor market. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the economy, increased by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 274,000 in the week ended May 16, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected 271,000 new claims. “U.S. labor market momentum remains solid in mid-May,” Barclays economist Jesse Hurwitz said in a note to clients. The prior week’s claims were left unrevised at 264,000. The Labor Department said no special factors...