Free Republic

Lydia Scrafano, right, lights a candle in St. Bede's Catholic Church in Williamsburg, Va. Catholics are often identified as a major “swing” voting group in American politics.1 In recent presidential elections Catholics have made up roughly a quarter of the electorate, and, indeed, they have been closely divided between the two parties.But a new analysis by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life shows that most subgroups of American Catholics have reliably voted either Republican or Democratic. White Catholics who identify themselves as politically conservative have consistently voted for Republican candidates in recent elections. And white...

Capitalism favors the rich. Socialism helps the poor. These are core beliefs of almost everybody on the left, including our president. Ah, but it turns out that this worldview is completely wrong. Economists associated with the Fraser Institute and the Cato Institute have actually found a way to measure "economic freedom" and investigate what difference it makes in 141 countries around the world. This work has been in progress for several decades now and the evidence is stark. Economies that rely on private property, free markets and free trade, and avoid high taxes, regulation and inflation, grow more rapidly than...

A pastor in Virginia is taking on the Democratic Party's long-time strangle-hold on the black voting bloc, telling fellow black Americans that it is high time for them to end their “slavish devotion to the Democrat Party.” In a nearly four-minute video (see at bottom) produced by the group Americans Taking a Stand, Bishop E.W. Jackson, pastor of Exodus Faith Ministries in Chesapeake, Virginia, nails the Democrats for their support of abortion and homosexual marriage, and for eschewing Christian values, in the process challenging black Christians to make a mass exodus from the party. “They have insulted us, used us,...

A day after some national polls showed President Obama’s edge over Mitt Romney evaporating, he responded first thing on Tuesday with a new commercial featuring Big Bird of “Sesame Street” and Mr. Romney’s debate-night vow to cut financing for PBS. It did not exactly take flight ....

Mervyn M. Dymally, the Trinidad-born former teacher whose ground-breaking if sometimes-controversial political career spanned more than four decades and included a stint as California's only black lieutenant governor, has died. He was 86.

Bombshell: The Obama State Department withdrew a 16 member special forces team from Benghazi one month before the deadly attacks on 9-11. Lt. Col. Andy Wood was the leader of the 16 member special forces team whose job it was to protect US personnel in Libya. His team’s mission ended in August a month before the deadly Al-Qaeda attack on 9-11. A six member mobile security team was also withdrawn around the same time. This was despite the fact that there were over a dozen attacks in the country this year. Lt. Col. Wood was subpoenaed to appear at a...

Obama said, “When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed — that’s slavery. It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world.” And then Obama went ahead for the third time and waived the Child Soldiers Prevention Act signed into law by President Bush and co-sponsored by a bipartisan group of senators, including Obama and Biden. Obama not only waived a law he had co-sponsored, claiming that it was in the national interest, he did it after denouncing the very activity that he waived....

Ok, so I stole this from a poster named Jake and modified it a little: Democrat civility: “If you believe things contrary to what I do, I’ll call you a racist or stupid, just letting you know.” Democrat compromise: “Here’s my deal for you. I’ll tell you what I want, and you will give it to me, or I’ll throw a hissy fit and call you more names” Democrat racial tolerance: “Romney is out of touch because black people don’t understand savings accounts.” Democrat free speech: “The US strongly denounces this despicable video. They had no right to say things...

One way to get rid of a pesky reporter: Throw a bucket of water on him. That's what the wife of a failed candidate embroiled in a campaign scandal did to Miami Local 10 senior political reporter Michael Putney. The TV journalist came away drenched but not any more enlightened than when he knocked on the door. The caught-on-tape moment has made a splash on the Web. But the strangest part of the story is that the soggy reporter isn't even the weirdest part. According to the Miami Herald, failed Democratic congressional candidate Justin Lamar Sternad is reportedly telling the...

Secretary of State Mark Ritchie was a vocal opponent of the Voter ID bill throughout the legislative session. But once the Legislature passed the Voter ID amendment and put it on the ballot, he had an obligation to cease his resistance to the measure. As our chief elections official, Ritchie will be responsible for tallying the ballots on the Voter ID amendment this November. His continued advocacy against Voter ID undermines the credibility of his office. Ritchie has gone beyond simply campaigning against Voter ID. He is now actively seeking to dupe voters into voting against Voter ID using false...

BELLEFONTAINE -- Mayor Adam Brannon of Bellefontaine posted on Facebook that his family is receiving food on the W.I.C. program. He was responding to Republican Presidential Candidate Mitch Romney's comment about the 47% of Americans. He tells ABC 6/FOX 28 his salary is under $27,000 and he qualifies for the poverty level help. W.I.C provides milk, cheese, fruits and cereals and is not food stamps. His job as Mayor is part-time, but he feels the people expect him to work full time, so he has given up other jobs. He was just re-elected, so he can't get a raise during...

I think this has been posted before but I couldn't find it. Worth a chuckle.

If you are black and you don’t vote, you do not deserve the color of your skin. That’s at least how Congressional Black Caucus head Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) put it during a recent speech on voting rights. After explaining the struggles blacks had to go through to get the right to vote, Cleaver launched into a tirade against those who decide not to exercise it. “That’s why I become so angry at any African-American who refuses to vote,” he said. “They are not worth the color if they don’t vote. They ought to give us their color back. Their...

LOS ANGELES -- A former state assemblyman was arrested Monday on charges he committed bank fraud while working for the Los Angeles County Probation Department, marking the 39th arrest of a department employee in nine months, authorities said.

This is a great ad by American Crossroads putting in perspective Obama’s true priorities:

Joe Scarborough has blamed Mitt Romney for the MSM's failure to cover the Obama administration's failure to heed intelligence warnings of a planned attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya that resulted in the death of four Americans, including US ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens. Speaking on Morning Joe today, Scarborough said Romney "didn't allow us" in the media to report on the Obama administration's failures because he gave a "horrific, irresponsible press conference" criticizing Obama administration policy. View the video after the jump.

OMAHA, Neb.—State Sen. Brenda Council has apologized for misusing more than $60,000 in campaign donations at casinos and filing false reports to conceal it. Attorney General Jon Bruning says Council agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of filing false campaign reports that omit the casino withdrawals and cash deposits. In a statement, Council says she "made an error in judgment," and that she takes "full responsibility." She says she's receiving professional treatment for a gambling addiction and will not "give up or quit fighting for the issues."

Sandra Fluke's claim to fame, aside from provoking Rush Limbaugh's misogynistic ire, is that she chose to attend Georgetown Law School, knowing full well that the Catholic university's student health plan did not cover birth control, and then demanded that the policy be changed, under force of law, as a matter of "reproductive justice." Although Fluke could have picked a different school, she told The Washington Post last February, "I decided I was absolutely not willing to compromise the quality of my education in exchange for my health care." Fluke's sense of entitlement and her casual resort to the use...

We should not be surprised at the evil idiocy that comes from godless people, although their vile words and twisted ideas can sometimes still be stunning. We saw some of this last week at the Democrat convention. We saw those godless fools scream, wail and shake their fists against God and Jerusalem—three times, in fact. We saw them applaud taxpayer funding for killing pre-born babies. We saw them cheer for sodomy and the destruction of the meaning of marriage. We saw them glorify the lawless illegal alien invasion of our nation. We saw their ugly face in prime time high-definition....

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- Federal agents arrested the mayor of New Jersey's capital city early Monday as part of an ongoing corruption investigation into bribery allegations related to a parking garage project that was concocted as part of an FBI sting operation. Trenton Mayor Tony Mack, his brother, Ralphiel, and convicted sex offender Joseph Giorgianni, a Mack supporter who owns a Trenton sandwich shop, were accused of conspiring to obstruct, delay and affect interstate commerce by extortion under color of official right.