Free Republic

A blogger in 'poor psychological condition' has been sentenced to death after being found guilty of insulting the Prophet Mohammad on Facebook. According to an 'informed source', speaking to the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, Soheil Arabi, 30, had kept eight Facebook pages under different names and admitted to posting material insulting to the Prophet on these pages. Arabi, who was arrested along with his wife in November last year by agents from the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), is said to have written the "material without thinking and in poor psychological condition". Branch 75 of Tehran's Criminal Court,...

Fresh terror busts in Australia expose a common Achilles’ heel of the West: Indiscriminate refugee policies turn free countries into breeding grounds for jihad. It’s the same game in America. Soldiers of Islam have weaponized our blind generosity against us. In Sydney this week, authorities detained a half-dozen Muslim plotters and arrested a top collaborator in an alleged conspiracy to kidnap and behead a random Australian citizen. The accused mastermind? Mohammad Ali Baryalei, an Afghan refugee turned Aussie Islamic State recruiter. He and his aristocratic family were welcomed Down Under decades ago. Baryalei returned the favor by taking to the...

Luhansk is licking its wounds. After a long summer of bombardment by government forces, it is mourning its dead and slowly coming back to life. But it is a grim, pessimistic place, full of hardship and queues. Under a green tent, a quiet line of grateful citizens waits for a decent plate of food, courtesy of one the few soup kitchens operating across the city. There is still no electricity or water in the city, so thousands of people depend on handouts. Rebellious past I find Anatoly Bukhalov sitting alone in the corner. When he finds out we're from Britain,...

Health Reform: It seems the administration had been exaggerating the number of people enrolled in ObamaCare to the tune of about 700,000. We're shocked! Shocked! At a hearing Thursday, Marilyn Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, finally confessed that 7.3 million were enrolled in ObamaCare plans as of mid-August. In other words, the administration had been inflating the "enrollment" number nearly 10% by counting anyone who had completed the application process, not those who paid their premiums. Now, they say it's no big deal, because everyone expected some attrition. But even this new, lower number is...

House Speaker John Boehner (R) and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) united Wednesday evening to fund the government after September 30 by passing a continuing resolution (CR) that includes the funding of Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, and Obamacare. Republicans needed significant support from Democrats to pass the CR, 319-108. However, 53 Republicans and 55 Democrats voted against it, reports CNSNews.com. The bill will fund the government through December 11th during the “lame duck” session of Congress. Among the Republican members of the House who voted against the resolution were Reps. Louis Gohmert (TX); Michele Bachmann (MN); Trey...

Since the appearance of ISIS, the usual suspects on the left -- those in politics and media in particular  -- have bent over backwards to argue that it has nothing to do Obama, that his silly foreign policy, undergrad strategic considerations, and infinitely collapsible notion of American responsibilities unfolded in a vacuum and could not possibly have had any effect on anything.  No, the fault, of course, is that of George W. Bush and his neocon camarilla.  If it weren’t for Bush, a strong, wise, and humane Saddam Hussein would be present to destroy this Jihadi upsurge, exactly the way...

Flashes of disagreement over how to fight the Islamic State are mounting between President Obama and U.S. military leaders, the latest sign of strain in what often has been an awkward and uneasy relationship. Even as the administration has received congressional backing for its strategy, with the Senate voting Thursday to approve a plan to arm and train Syrian rebels, a series of military leaders have criticized the president’s approach against the Islamic State militant group. Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, who served under Obama until last year, became the latest high-profile skeptic on Thursday, telling the House Intelligence Committee...

Eco-alarmism guru Al Gore experienced some technical difficulties during a speech on global warming, the timing of which could not have been more ironic. Shortly after Gore began quoting Jesus from the book of Luke, his mic went silent – just as he shouted the word “hypocrite.”

Chris Stigall hosted Texas Senator Ted Cruz at the National Constitution Center to discuss the upcoming elections and President Obama’s plan to combat ISIL in Iraq and Syria.(AUDIO-AT-LINK)Cruz said the government shutdown that Republicans forced last fall has led to the American public’s collective rejection of the Affordable Care Act. “As a result of that fight, we elevated the national debate and millions of Americans across this country focused on all the incredible harms, the disaster that is Obamacare, and as a direct consequence of that fight, today President Obama’s approval ratings are at the lowest they’ve ever been…We have...

The ongoing grand jury proceedings may suggest the prosecutor is trying to avoid backlash if Wilson isn't indicted.Officer Darren Wilson testified this week in the grand jury investigation into his shooting of Michael Brown, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper’s scoop was unusual. Unlike most criminal-justice proceedings in the U.S., grand juries are highly secretive. Leaking information about them is a criminal act. But perhaps it should no longer be surprising to see the investigation take an interesting turn. More than a month after Brown’s death in Ferguson, Mo., the grand jury appears to be nowhere near a...

The mother of a teen slain at a Jacksonville gas station after he and his friends refused to turn down their music will be among the panelists at a seminar in Orlando about the controversial Stand Your Ground law. Jordan Davis' mother, Lucia McBath, will be among the experts examining whether there is racial disparity in the application or enforcement of Stand Your Ground laws. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is hosting the forum, which takes place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Oct. 17 in the grand ballroom of the Rosen Centre Hotel on International Drive. The forum...

"I have long believed that a crucial part missing from this national discussion is England. "We have heard the voice of Scotland - and now the millions of voices of England must also be heard. "The question of English votes for English laws - the so-called West Lothian question -requires a decisive answer. "So, just as Scotland will vote separately in the Scottish Parliament on their issues of tax, spending and welfare so too England, as well as Wales and Northern Ireland, should be able to vote on these issues and all this must take place in tandem with, and...

What do you think of an Oceanside gun shop owner naming a gun part "Obama's Blaster?" POLL HERE Current results:

We all now know what happened with the federal healthcare marketplace, Healthcare.gov. The three-year development was complicated by changing specifications, and the government's convoluted procurement process meant entrenched companies were getting contracts over and over. But a wave of government accountability reports, concluded after months of investigations, is bringing new attention to the meltdown. The Government Office of Accountability released a report earlier this week detailing the security flaws in the site, but a report from the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released yesterday is even more damning.

The United States charged seven Japanese executives with price-fixing Thursday in a long-running probe into illegal practices in the auto parts industry. Three executives from Mitsubishi Electric Corp were accused by a federal grand jury of conspiring to set the prices of starter motors, alternators and ignition coils sold to top US manufacturers, and U.S.-based Japanese manufacturers, from at least 2000 through 2010. Another four executives from Hitachi Automotive Systems were similarly charged over price-fixing involving a number of parts sold to US automakers including starter motors, fuel injection systems, and ignition coils. Both groups of executives were alleged to...

WASHINGTON -- Outraged lawmakers and pro-life leaders gathered outside the U.S. Capitol building Thursday to demand Congress put an end to Obamacare's massive funding of health care plans that pay for abortions They pointed out past laws specifically forbid this, but Obamacare is ignoring that legislation and the president's own promises that no taxpayer dollars would subsidize abortion. The speakers at the Capitol Hill news conference were reacting to a new Government Accountability Office report showing massive federal funding of abortion is allowed for under the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare. "One thousand-thirty six plans cover elective abortions and...

It's still summer, yet it has already snowed in the western United States and one of America's premier weather forecasters, Joe Bastardi at Weatherbell Analytics, is warning that for parts of the country, another bad winter is on the way. "It's going to be a major winter for much of the eastern and southern United States," he said. "We think a formidable winter, but the core of the worst cold, relative to averages, instead of being in the northern Plains and Midwest, will be further south and east." Last winter was bad, too -- historically bad. The Great Lakes weren't...

The first results are coming in for the referendum to decide whether Scotland should stay in the UK or become an independent country.

Sen. Ted Cruz tried to get the Senate to consider a measure Thursday providing that any American who joins the fight with terrorist groups such as the Islamic State would immediately renounce their U.S. citizenship, but a Democratic senator objected, saying more time is necessary to weigh the significant constitutional issues it raises. Ahead of the Senate’s scheduled consideration Thursday afternoon of a proposal to arm and train Syrian rebels, part of President Obama’s strategy to combat the terrorist group, the Texas Republican asked for unanimous consent to pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act he introduced earlier this month. The measure...

<p>After last month’s fatal police shooting of an unarmed black teenager, the city of Ferguson, Mo., postponed its August council meeting. Instead of holding the forum, it sent postage-paid comment cards to residents and asked them to mail their feedback.</p>