Free Republic

Humans are extremely adaptable creatures; so we tend to quickly acclimate ourselves to our circumstances until they become the "new normal." However, sometimes when you have a hole in the bottom of your boat, it's a better idea to try to address it than to just keep bailing water all day long. For example, here in America we seem to believe that... 1) The only religion it's okay to mock is the most popular one, Christianity: Roughly 80% of Americans are Christian; yet which religion is openly mocked by Hollywood and the mainstream media? Is it Judaism? No, that would...

Catholic Relief Services is back in the news, this time for charges related to a sex ed program it implemented for the federal government in Kenya. Since such headlines are no longer surprising, some background may be helpful before considering this most recent case.In trying to understand the ongoing controversy regarding “the official international humanitarian agency of the Catholic community in the United States,” there are two primary ways one might err. The first would be to deny that Catholic Relief Services does an incredible amount of good in bringing aid to the poor around the world. The second...

A popular Illinois congressman once considered a rising star in the Republican party is in deep trouble for reportedly using taxpayer money to fund an extravagant lifestyle that includes stays at luxurious hotels, world travel, expensive cars and private jet rides to concerts and pro sporting events. The lawmaker’s name is Aaron Schock and he’s only 33, but he’s a seasoned politician who should have known better than to use public funds as a personal piggy bank. For six years he’s represented a working-class district in Peoria, Illinois in the U.S. House. One national media report says he had a...

I'm going to comment on the ethics of nuking Japan. This is one of those perennial issues that America-bashers constantly raise. There are two extremes we need to avoid: "my country right or wrong," and "blame America first." For me the war has a personal dimension. My late father was a WWII vet who served in the Pacific theater. He was radio operator in the Air Force. His squadron conducted reconnaissance over Japan. He had some interesting stories to tell: i) He trained on B-17s in Alaska, then flew on B-29s in Florida. ii) Our pilots discovered the jet stream....

Where are you, country? Why can’t I find you? Why have you gone away? Adapting Cindy Lou’s song about the loss of Christmas spirit in Whoville expresses the sadness for what as been lost in my country. When I was a young boy in the small town of Piedmont, Missouri, the local physician, Doc Jones, would come to your house if you were sick. People paid him in cash, or perhaps some other goods. No one imagined they had a “right” to have someone else pay Doc Jones. It was their solemn duty, part of leading a responsible and moral...

In recent days a controversy has arisen over whether parents should be required to vaccinate their children. Some politicians with presidential aspirations were criticized for defending the rights of parents to make that decision. As an internal medicine doctor, I believe strongly in the efficacy of vaccines. I also believe strongly that our vaccines (and all of our medical advances) should be safe and derived in a morally principled fashion.There is an ethical concern about the measles vaccine issue that I do not believe the American public is aware: a component of the current MMR vaccine is derived from an...

recently, came to my attention after filing a police report, whereby the city manager granted special provisions to his insurance carrier whom was in violation of a zoning ordinance. the zoning ordinance is specific and the city manager allowed the zoning ordinance infraction to be overlooked, a multi-vehicle accident whereby serious injuries ensued. The city manager is claiming doing nothing wrong, but the emails claim otherwise

The United States can be quite an incoherent place at times. Here are a few examples. Diversity Sometime in the 1990s the growing contradictions of affirmative action in a multiracial society became problematic. Ethnic ancestry was often neither easily identifiable nor readily commensurate with class status, and so gave way to a more popular term: “diversity.”

After noticing some irregularities in certain legislators’ campaign loans, we took it upon ourselves to examine every sitting State Representative’s and Senator’s campaign and PAC finance reports from their first report until now (prior to January 2015 reports) and audit their loans (more to come from contributions and expenditures at a later date). Very quickly, we noticed that, at the very least, the numbers weren’t reconciling. In some cases, the figures were off by hundreds of thousands of dollars, some by millions.

WASHINGTON — As U.S. Rep. Phil Gingrey heads for the exits, the House Ethics Committee issued a “letter of reproval” Thursday for Gingrey’s actions on behalf of an Ellijay bank.The committee publicly revealed its findings that the Marietta Republican gave “special favors or privileges” to the since-failed Bank of Ellijay by allowing it to meet in January 2009 with top Treasury Department officials, a member of Congress and a high-ranking congressional staffer about its pending application for funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Gingrey helped start the bank and his investment in it was worth as much as $500,000,...

James O’Keefe has filed an ethics complaint with various bar associations against Department of Justice Civil Rights Attorney Karla Dobinski and three others arising out of a prosecution of police officers in New Orleans. PJ Media has covered Karla Dobinski’s ethical misconducthere and here. Dobinski was in charge of the taint team in the prosecution of New Orleans polices officers on civil rights charges in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The taint team was responsible for protecting the Constitutional rights of the accused police officers. It is responsible for ensuring that evidence obtained in the local internal affairs investigation did...

As a former academic, headlines describing what appear to be questionable policies or practices in institutions of higher learning usually get my attention. When the fine print implicates a philosophy department, a subject I used to teach, I take a close look. Now, suppose you are an undergraduate at a large, private Catholic university that is one of the 28 member institutions of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. You decide to enroll in a course given by the philosophy department that will explore the intersection between ethical theories and contemporary controversies -- a course of the sort I...

AUSTIN, Texas -- It has been an up-and-down week for Texas State Representative Ron Reynolds. On Tuesday, Reynolds, an attorney and Democrat representing Missouri Springs, coasted to an easy re-election, winning 66 percent of the vote against his Republican opponent. Wednesday, he was in a Montgomery County courtroom -- not to represent a client, but to face trial for 10 felony counts of "barratry," the illegal solicitation of clients by attorneys commonly referred to as "ambulance chasing." Finally, on Friday, he managed to avoid a felony conviction, but was found guilty of six misdemeanor counts for a lesser charge of...

The Democrat-controlled Senate Select Committee on Ethics said that it never received a complaint pertaining to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid and the Obama administration’s efforts to approve visas for certain investors, according to a government watchdog group, despite previously confirming that it received the complaint — and saying that it opened an investigation. **SNIP** And when The Washington Times wanted comment for a Jan. 21, 2014 report on the complaint, a “spokesman for the ethics committee and Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, California Democrat, said they couldn’t comment on the details of any investigation.”

'Masquerading refers to a person in a given context being unable to tell whether the machine is human', explain the researchers -- this is the very essence of the Turing Test. This type of deception increases "metaphysical entropy," meaning any corruption of entities and impoverishment of being; since this leads to a lack of good in the environment -- or infosphere -- it is regarded as the fundamental evil by Floridi. Following this premise, the team set out to ascertain where 'the locus of moral responsibility and moral accountability' lie in relationships with masquerading machines, and try to establish whether...

Madison -- First lady Michelle Obama will come to Milwaukee next week to campaign on behalf of Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke. Burke's campaign released the news Monday and said it would provide more details in the coming days on the event scheduled for next Monday. A spokeswoman for Burke didn't immediately say whether Obama would raise campaign funds for Burke while in Wisconsin. Burke has taken criticism from conservatives and some liberals for not appearing with Barack Obama during his recent visits to Wisconsin.

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) found that over $33,700 in campaign flights were inappropriately charged to her official account in an internal review of her finances released Friday. The report is sure to draw added scrutiny to her use of charter planes just as her main opponent, Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), is set to introduce a resolution meant to highlight such spending, which he calls a "waste of Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars." The review , which was released four days after her self-imposed deadline of Sept. 8, found that the senator took 43 trips, which amounted to 136 campaign functions, that...

The Los Angeles Ethics Commission voted unanimously last week to ask the City Council to consider "financial incentives, such as a lottery system," to draw voters to the polls. You just know that if the city embraces this new low, then it will spread like a cancer across the land. The City of Angels has a problem. As Ethics Commission President Nathan Hochman put it, campaign "spending is going up, and voter turnout is going down." Last year, 75 percent of registered voters skipped the mayoral race, and less than 10 percent voted in a more recent school board special...

There’s fallout from the July 27 Houston Chronicle exposé of a trip to Azerbaijan by 10 member of the House that violated House rules. The trip was ostensibly sponsored by nonprofit groups but was actually funded by oil companies BP, Conoco Phillips and SOCAR, the national oil company of Azerbaijan. According to the New York Post today: Rep. Gregory Meeks pushed to let an Iran-backed natural-gas project dodge US sanctions — after attending an illicit junket paid for by energy companies. Also from the Post: “Congressman Meeks went on a 2013 Congressional trip to Baku, Azerbaijan, subsidized in part...

A joint investigation by the Washington Examiner and the nonprofit watchdog group Judicial Watch found that former President Clinton gave 215 speeches and earned $48 million while his wife presided over U.S. foreign policy, raising questions about whether the Clintons fulfilled ethics agreements related to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch and released Wednesday in an ongoing Freedom of Information Act case, State Department officials charged with reviewing Bill Clinton's proposed speeches did not object to a single one. Some of the speeches were delivered in global hotspots...