Free Republic

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Monday that President Barack Obama's decision to use his executive authority to enact more gun control laws is "another attempt to divide and distract from his failed policies." "We should also better enforce the laws we have on the books now to keep guns out of the hands of violent criminals. Instead, the president is again targeting law-abiding citizens, intruding further into innocent Americans' lives. At a time when the country wants the president to lead the fight against radical Islamic terror, this is yet another attempt to divide and distract from his failed...

At the start of 2015 President Obama had a goal: use the blunt force of taxation to effectively kill 529 college savings plans. With great pride, Americans from all walks of life rely on 529 accounts to help put their kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews through college. Earnings grow tax-free and distributions are tax-free provided the funds are used for qualified college expenses. But this year Obama decided it was time to tax the earnings in 529s while pushing people toward a government program designed by his administration's best and brightest central planners. It was a spectacular failure. The public...

Virginia GOP'ers returned fire over the state Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring's move to halt recognition of concealed carry permits from 25 different states. Our General Assembly has already identified who can and cannot conceal handguns in Virginia, and we cannot have that decision undermined by recognizing permits from other states with more permissive standards, Herring said when he made the announcement last week. Republican state legislators could strip Virginia Democrat Governor Terry McAuliffe of his protective detail. Virginia Sen. Bill Carrico told The Herald Courier last Tuesday he plans to propose a budget amendment during the State Senate's January...

The December 18 release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens may be the most anticipated in film history. The film will feature the return of characters not seen onscreen since 1983. Among those will be smuggler and scruffy-looking scoundrel Han Solo, portrayed by the legendary Harrison Ford.Promoting the film in an Australian interview, Ford plotted an odd course toward a different sort of fantasy, climate change hysteria. From ABC News Online: The veteran star of the Indiana Jones and Star Wars franchises did not mince words when pointing out his disdain for arguments between leaders and countries. "People think...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Here's Obama right now up on Capitol Hill, this is 150th anniversary of the 13th Amendment. What did the 13th Amendment do? Pop quiz, anybody know? (interruption) Right. So why is Obama celebrating it? The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. It ended slavery. Why is he up there honoring it? You know that he doesn't think that we've gotten rid of slavery. The Black Lives Matter crowd doesn't think we've gotten rid of it. The civil rights coalition still acts like we have slavery in this country. This is blatant hypocrisy what he's doing up here. I'm dead...

Florida Congressman Alan Grayson told radio host Alan Colmes Wednesday that if Ted Cruz is elected president, he “will file that beautiful lawsuit saying that he's unqualified for the job” according to the Constitution.Cruz was born in Canada to a native-born American mother, making the presidential candidate a dual Canadian-American citizen. It was not until a 2013 Dallas Morning News article that Cruz acknowledged his Canadian citizenry publicly. In 2014, the senator renounced his Canadian citizenship altogether.Lamenting the “appalling choices” Republicans have to choose among, Grayson told Colmes the Republican race “resolved itself into this weird reality show.”“It's not ‘The...

In the November 16 Presidential Debate, the Democratic candidates argued about the minimum wage. They all favored raising it, with Hillary Clinton arguing for $12 per hour. What she preaches is not what she practices, when running her own campaign. Recently, her lawyers asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for permission to use unpaid interns during "the spring, summer, or fall at the Campaign's headquarters office in Brooklyn." The lucky students would receive nothing from the Clinton campaign. However, Clinton wants the college to give the interns college credit. She also wants the college to pay the student $3,000. The...

Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings has said that he is more afraid of "white men" than Syrian refugees. Despite his fear of whites, however, the mayor manages to get by living in a ritzy neighborhood that is more than 92 percent white and only 1 percent black. The former CEO of Pizza Hut, Rawlings lives in the prestigious Preston Hollow neighborhood, which D Magazine described as "almost entirely lily white" as part of a feature piece titled "Why are the Best Neighborhoods in Dallas Still Segregated?" The cushy neighborhood, which is home to former President George W. Bush, golfer Jordan Spieth,...

President Obama discussed America's faults Friday with young Asian leaders, saying the U.S. suffers from "pitfalls" such as income inequality, a political system controlled by the wealthy and political parties divided along racial lines. Speaking at a town-hall event in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mr. Obama said the biggest problem in the U.S. is the influence of the wealthy on the government. "It is very important to avoid any political system where money overwhelms ideas," said Mr. Obama, who raised a record $1.1 billion for his reelection campaign in 2012. "And the United States politics process has become so expensive and...

Senator Bernie Sanders has repeatedly denounced campaigns that he says are built around their candidates attending fund-raisers. He has insisted he will not “go out hustling money from the wealthiest people in the country,” and declared at the first Democratic debate that he is “not raising money from millionaires and billionaires.” Yet Mr. Sanders was cheered at a fancy campaign fund-raiser at the Hollywood home of Syd Leibovitch, a high-end real estate agent, and his wife, Linda, on Wednesday night. Tickets for the event sold for a minimum of $250. Those who spent the maximum, $2,700, or who raised $10,000,...

ED. NOTE: As this article is posted, Pope Francis begins his visit to the United States. In his encyclical released in June of this year, the pope singled out air conditioning as being a "harmful habit" that is a symbol of rampant capitalism that is blind to the plight of the poor and disadvantaged. These comments by Matt Michel, CEO of Service Roundtable, serve as a timely response. ————— Since becoming pontiff, Pope Francis has repeatedly made the news for his criticism and condemnation of capitalism and free markets. Worse, in his encyclical, he singled out air conditioning as particularly...

Jumping into the issues of the day, Pope Francis opened his visit to the United States with a strong call Wednesday for action to combat climate change, calling it a problem that “can no longer be left to a future generation.” President Barack Obama, in turn, hailed the pontiff as a moral force who is “shaking us out of our complacency” with reminders to care for the poor and the planet. The White House mustered all the pageantry it had to offer as the pope arrived at the White House before an adoring crowd of thousands and a nation that...

I've been a Roman Catholic since 1954. I have great respect for Pope Francis. When it comes to matters of faith and morals, what he says, goes. But when it comes to politics and economics, the pope is about as far from infallible as anyone can get. For example, he was in Cuba earlier this week, meeting informally with Fidel Castro and touring the island to say Masses and meet with priests. Apparently the pope was having such a good time he forgot that for more than half a century Cuba has been a rotten communist prison camp and his...

In a 3,404-word address, he used only 75 words on the two topics. Pope Francis touched on many topics in his speech to Congress, but conservatives may have expected him to say more about abortion and same-sex marriage. During his historic speech at a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Pope Francis hit upon a variety of issues that have defined the Catholic church: protecting the environment, helping the poor, addressing the plight of immigrants, abolishing the death penalty and taking a stand against the proliferation of the weapons trade, to name a few. Yet, while the pope had strong...

Mr. Vice-President, Mr. Speaker, Honorable Members of Congress, Dear Friends, I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in "the land of the free and the home of the brave". I would like to think that the reason for this is that I too am a son of this great continent, from which we have all received so much and toward which we share a common responsibility. Each son or daughter of a given country has a mission, a personal and social responsibility. Your own responsibility as members of Congress is to enable this...

While delivering the first address from a pontiff to a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, Pope Francis touched on topics ranging from the plight of immigrants to climate change and the death penalty. Many of his comments were lightly delivered and unlikely to elicit much controversy, though the reaction might be different if they were given by another world leader. Case in point: Toward the beginning of his address, Francis alluded to religious extremism, noting that "no religion is immune" from it. His full quote as prepared for delivery: "Our world is increasingly a place of violent conflict, hatred...

Believe it or not, the one line he devoted to abortion was one line more than he devoted to the subject of Jesus, who wasn’t mentioned at all in this morning’s speech according to the transcript. Maybe that was a deliberate choice made by Francis, to stick to politics and universal principles before a domestic television audience with many millions of non-Christians. (He did mention Moses.) Or maybe he just had more important things that he wanted to talk about, like the environment.This is exactly right: The Holy Father's politics, as w/his predecessors, defy easy right-left categorization. Not sure...

Pope Francis was not afraid to critique Congress in his historic address on Capitol Hill, calling on the body to do better in several areas of political debate. In a speech of about 40 minutes made in front of a joint meeting of Congress on Thursday, the pope commended positions supported by both parties. He nodded to the plight of immigrants and refugees, also noting the sanctity of human life "at every stage of its development" and hinting that Congress should take action to address these problems. And, as he did on Wednesday from the White House, he explicitly called...

Pope Francis on Thursday urged the U.S. Congress to reject a "mindset of hostility" on immigration and to recognize people who wish to move to the United States as people who are trying to improve their lives and those of their families.

IN HIS visit to the United States beginning Tuesday, Pope Francis will meet not just President Obama and Congress but also those marginalized by our society: homeless people, immigrants, refugees and even the inmates of a jail. He’s expected to raise topics that many Americans will find challenging, such as his harsh critique of capitalism. His supporters say it’s all part of the role the pope has embraced as an advocate for the powerless, one that has earned him admiration from both Catholics and some outside the church. How, then, to explain Pope Francis’s behavior in Cuba? The pope is...