Free Republic

Hundreds of adoptive parents in New York City who've sent their children to live elsewhere continue to get monthly government subsidies of up to $1,700 per child. They can continue receiving the checks until the child turns 21 years old.They gave up on their “hard-to-place" adopted kids — but not on the government check intended for the discarded kids’ care. Hundreds of adoptive parents across the five boroughs who've sent their children to live elsewhere are continuing to pull in monthly checks of up to $1,700 per child while the city, state and feds look the other way, the Daily...

The children of America have gone back to school. And, in nearly every household, there is at least one person who is standing over the kitchen sink in tears, wondering where the years have gone. I understand. Every year at this time, I remember a wonderful essay I heard on NPR the summer before The Lad first went to college. A woman talked about the day she sent her daughter to kindergarten for her first day of school. "My husband told me not to cry," she wrote, "because tomorrow she would still be in kindergarten." "But, he was wrong," the...

My father, Max Prager, died last week. Here are some thoughts on the death of a parent. 1. Longevity Parents who live long are very lucky. Not only for their longevity, and not only because they get to see their children grow into adulthood, and not only because they may see grandchildren, but for all those extra years to reconcile with their children. Had my father died when I was a teenager, we would not have had the decades since then to get closer. 2. Age at death My father was born on July 18, 1918 and died on August...

Political junkies will remember how former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels was being groomed to run for president in 2012 before he made his foolish statement that the next president should "call a truce on the so-called social issues." Americans do not want a leader who is unable or unwilling to articulate and lead on important social issues. Four years after the Daniels misstep, many have failed to learn that lesson. The New York Times has proclaimed the "libertarian moment" has arrived, by which they seem to mean libertarian ideas about marriage and the family. We hear people say the libertarian...

Actress Olivia Wilde is featured on the cover of the September issue of Glamour magazine. Inside the glossy is an article in which Wilde talks about what life is like for her “being a working mom.” An article featuring the vacuous ramblings of the newby mom (“I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself because I was becoming a mother,” she told her interviewer) would be unworthy of comment here were it not for the pictorial that accompanied the article. Or, more specifically, the photo of Wilde sitting in the booth of some Hollywood diner, glammed up in a Roberto Cavalli dress,...

Very few individuals who were not politicians or generals have had a major impact on American political history. Phyllis Schlafly is one of the exceptions. Twice. In 1964, she helped launch the grass-roots conservative movement that flourishes today, transformed by the internet, and in 1972 she inaugurated what came to be called “social conservatism.” More than any other individual, she was responsible for the nomination of Barry Goldwater, and thus, indirectly, Ronald Reagan. And virtually single-handedly, she defeated the so-called Equal Rights Amendment. Schlafly was born 90 years ago today in St. Louis, the daughter of John and Odile Stewart....

Man sends photo to ex-wife saying: ‘Consider your sons as birds in paradise’A Saudi father has confirmed his ex-wife’s accusations that he had smuggled his two little sons to join the war in Syria by sending her a picture of them with their weapons and telling her consider them as “birds in paradise”. The picture, published in Ajel and other Saudi newspapers, showed the bearded man hugging his two sons, aged 10 and 11 years, as they clutched their guns and holding up their finger, indicating they have joined the infamous militant Daesh group. The picture showed one the two...

Family must now exist, function in a country that is no longer a constitutional republic but a crony system of third world banana republic corruption with 100 million Americans unemployed or on the dole I was surprised by the statement made by former Florida governor Jeb Bush at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority conference in 2013. “Immigrants create far more businesses than native-born Americans. Immigrants are more fertile, and they love families, and they have more intact families, and they bring a younger population. Immigrants create an engine of economic prosperity.” (Aaron Blake, Jeb Bush: U.S. Economy...

August has been a challenging month for my family the last few years. Two years ago, while my children, Maggie and Robert, and I were visiting my sister, Kathy, and her husband, Paul, in Key Biscayne, Florida, our mother ended up in the hospital in critical condition. While she recovered temporarily, she ultimately suffered a stroke right when school started in the fall of 2012. She spent the next year in a nursing home close to our home in Atlanta. Our whole family visited frequently -- Kathy, Paul, my husband, Jimmy, Maggie, Robert and even our two dogs, Midnight and...

It’s no stretch to say pit bulls, seemingly more so than any other dogs, are as polarizing as they are popular. Just mentioning them on the news is enough to elicit a strong response from supporters and detractors. But are they truly a dangerous breed as some suggest… or a safe family pet that’s often misunderstood? It’s estimated pit bulls only make up about 6% of the entire dog population here in the US. But last year, despite being regulated in more than 700 US cities – pit bulls were responsible for more bite-related fatalities than any other breed Locally,...

Social conservatives feel betrayed by the popular culture, and why not? If Hollywood depicts someone with a gun or a Bible, he's a figure of ridicule, entitled to say with Rodney Dangerfield: "I don't get no respect." (But Rodney's was an act, and he got paid for it.) The coastal "sophisticates" mock the rubes, as in an episode on "True Blood," the HBO series with werewolves, vampires and theocratic bloodsuckers, which depicts two rich Republican stereotypes at a Ted Cruz fundraiser at the George W. Bush Presidential Library in Dallas where a massacre follows. What fun. Relief is at hand....

The flood of children coming into the U.S. in the last several months is making national headlines. Nearly 60,000 unaccompanied children entered the U.S. illegally in the past year, most of them from Central America. Several states remain under consideration to house many of them, including Mississippi. (SNIP) He wrote President Obama about it, and explained “We simply do not have the resources, the location in which to house children who come here and do not speak our language, have no relatives in Mississippi.” Congressman Bennie Thompson also wrote the president, saying Bryant doesn’t speak for all Mississippians.

Do you know your family? You may think that’s a silly question. “Of course we know each other,” many parents would reply. “We live under the same roof. We see each other daily. We go on vacations together. How could we not know each other?” Yet, in an important sense, many parents and their children are almost strangers. The time many families spend together is crammed with wall-to-wall activities. Mothers and fathers ferry their kids feverishly about—a play date here, a practice there, not a moment to spare—tethered by cell phones and sustained by meals on the run. You can’t...

Pakistan’s ongoing military operation may be making headway in clearing militant hideouts, but it has shattered the dream of one father of 36 children — to take a fourth wife. Gulzar Khan is one of hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the North Waziristan tribal area since the army moved in to clear longstanding bases of Taliban and other militants. Escaping the military advance meant leaving the 35-room house he shares in the North Waziristan village of Shawa with around 100 family members, including wives, children and grandchildren. The 54-year-old grumbled that paying to transport his brood used...

Strasbourg, France, Jul 18, 2014 / 02:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The European Court of Human Rights ruled that the refusal to recognize same-sex “marriages” does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights. In a July 16 ruling, the human rights court explained that while “some Contracting States have extended marriage to same-sex partners,” European laws establishing the right of men and women to freely marry “cannot be construed as imposing an obligation on the Contracting States to grant access to marriage to same-sex couples.” The applicant to the high European human rights court brought his petition after Finland refused...

The beautiful Palm Aire resort and hotel has an indoor Olympic sized pool and an outdoor pool.  Free Wi-Fi and cable TV are included in the simply decorated guest rooms.The Palm Aire Hotel and Suites is set to be sold to Baptist Child & Family Services (BCFS) operating under a federal contract, pending local government approval, according to reports from Weslaco, Texas where the hotel is located. Weslaco is a few miles north of the Rio Grande in Hidalgo County.The resort hotel for illegal alien children is reportedly the ‘first in the nation’.Now this…Due to backlash the charity received after...

<p>A foul-mouthed Tinley Park man cursed out his children and threatened to lock them in a "hot truck" if they didn't "shut up," then unleashed a stream of profanity at a woman who objected to his language, police said.</p> <p>The man, 33-year-old Mark Pawlak of 17411 Carlyle Court, was carted off by the Orland Park cops and charged with disorderly conduct for his allegedly offensive behavior.</p>

Famed homemaking company Betty Crocker once promoted couples making up over a cake. Now, the 90-year old company says it is adjusting to the times by promoting all relationships -- including homosexual couples and cohabitating couples -- as equal to married couples with children. The change in Betty Crocker's focus became well known in August 2013, when the company – a subsidiary of General Mills, which supports same-sex "marriage” -- released a video promoting same-sex couples. At the same time, it provided cakes to homosexual couples who "married" in Minnesota after the ceremony was allowed. Last month, Betty Crocker...

I discovered someone this week who embodied the practices that I believe would restore our republic to its former heights of glory. He's not a politician -- no surprise there. He's not a television pundit. He hasn't written a book. He's not a household name. He wasn't a war hero, but he did serve in the U.S. military and was a culture and community warrior who bore a few classic American characteristics that our country needs now more than ever. Charles H. (Chuck) Norris, 88, of rural Mason City, Iowa, was born July 23, 1925 -- just four years after...

Everyone bashes Maryland so I wanted to show folks where I live in Maryland and PROVE that it is NOT a communist state. Read every word before you call me a liar.....lol. Arnold is a medium-sized coastal town (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Maryland. With a population of 23,106 people and five constituent neighborhoods, Arnold is the 47th largest community in Maryland. Housing costs in Arnold are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don’t compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in...