Free Republic

From Mass Resistance: Primer: Ten things you need to know about the US Supreme Court “gay marriage” case being heard April 28, 2015 On April 28 the US Supreme Court case will hear oral arguments for the case that will essentially decide whether “gay marriage” is a previously unknown “fundamental right” enshrined in the US Constitution, similar to the Court’s 1973 abortion ruling.  The US Supreme Court building will be ground zero for the latest assault on the nation's culture. What was once a fringe, unthinkable idea is now on the verge of being imposed on the entire nation....

Our Founding Fathers were not given to the factionalism, the constant give and take of partisan politics in which the taking is somehow never equaled by the giving. They did the best they could to rise above the vulgar disdain either side would have for its opponents. Most importantly, they not only wrote the Constitution, they believed in the values upon which the text was based. Theirs was an abiding love of liberty as an inalienable right guaranteed not by men, but by the Creator. There was no need to demonize an opponent and temperance was the only way to...

Thomas Paine famously wrote in The American Crisis, “How easy it is to abuse truth and language, when men, by habitual wickedness, have learned to set justice at defiance”. In condemning the King of England, Paine continued, “amongst the various assumptions of character, which hypocrisy has taught, and men have practiced, there is none that raises a higher relish of disgust, than to see disappointed inveteracy twisting itself, by he most visible falsehoods, into an appearance of piety which it has no pretensions to”. Paine was articulating the stance in which Britain, most notably the King, had claimed to be...

On Thursday, the campaign released a memo from Chris Wilson, Cruz’s Director of Research and Analytics and the CEO of WPA Opinion Research, which details the results from polls conducted over the past few weeks. “The latest round of national and early state polls show Senator Cruz firmly in the top tier of candidates only three weeks after announcing his candidacy and with several more announced candidates in the race,” wrote Wilson.

Judiciary Federal court: no liability for PA judge who made up criminal charge By Rachel MartinPublished April 13, 2015watchdog.org A federal court recently told a Lawrence County woman she’s simply out of luck and can’t sue local officials, including a Common Pleas judge who apparently made up a criminal charge that was used to place her on electronic monitoring. A judge has absolute civil immunity, even if the action “was in error, was done maliciously, or was in excess of his authority,” the three-judge panel ruled in its six-page opinion. Judge Thomas Piccione had ordered Lynn Van Tassel to report...

The United States is an exceptional nation. It has successfully passed what the Founders believed would be its most demanding test—the test of time. For more than 200 years this constitutional republic has offered citizens a measure of liberty unequaled in the world. And generations of those citizens have transformed that gift of liberty into happiness, wealth and power which continue to be the envy of other countries. But liberty carries with it the weight of responsibility. Like all nations, the United States has made mistakes. Indians were treated horrendously and slavery was a sickness that only a war could...

Americans have long complained that the dollar doesn't buy much anymore. Suddenly, the dollar's problem may be that it buys too much — a change that has huge implications across the global economy for consumers, businesses, investors and governments. The U.S. currency's value has surged over the last nine months, reaching levels against some world currencies last seen more than a decade ago. In Europe, it now costs just $1.09 to buy one euro, down from $1.37 a year ago and almost $1.50 four years ago. To put it another way, an American tourist strolling the streets of Paris this...

On April 9, Breitbart News had the opportunity to talk with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) about guns and gun rights, and he told us that the Second Amendment “serves as a fundamental check on government tyranny.” Cruz answered a question about the importance of the Second Amendment: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story described the Second Amendment as the palladium of our liberties. It is foundation to free men and free women being able to defend their homes, their families, their lives and liberty, and it also serves as a fundamental check on government tyranny. As a follow-up to the first...

<p>Of fully 40 different demographic subgroups measured, the only one in which more people think businesses should have that right than shouldn’t is Republicans. And even among Republicans, it’s only a plurality who say so. There were no clear majorities for the right to refuse service on religious grounds among any group tested.</p>

Everything this nation once stood for is being turned on its head. Free speech, religious expression, privacy, due process, bodily integrity, the sanctity of human life, the sovereignty of the family, individuality, the right to self-defense, protection against police abuses, representative government, private property, human rights—the very ideals that once made this nation great—have become casualties of a politically correct, misguided, materialistic, amoral, militaristic culture. Indeed, I’m having a hard time reconciling the America I know and love with the America being depicted in the daily news headlines, where corruption, cronyism and abuse have taken precedence over the rights of...

As he pulls together his expected presidential campaign in Iowa and New Hampshire, Sen. Rand Paul is confronted by defections from an unexpected quarter: the die-hard idealists whose energy powered his father’s campaigns. That network of committed supporters was expected to convey to Paul, the natural successor to Ron Paul’s libertarian movement, providing him with a plug-and-play ground organization in the make-or-break early voting states. But instead of embracing the Kentucky senator, many of those grass-roots activists are turning their backs on him, disillusioned by the younger Paul’s concessions to mainstream politics. Story Continued Below One of the most prominent...

Editor’s note: Amid the discussion about the religious liberty laws in Indiana and Arkansas this week, there’s been a lot of misinformation—and a lot of thoughtful concerns about what religious freedom laws actually allow and what they ban. We talked to Heritage Foundation’s William E. Simon Fellow Dr. Ryan T. Anderson to get the facts—and to find out whether, as your liberal relatives will likely argue as the political discussions happen this holiday, the original Indiana religious freedom law would have allowed discrimination.What’s religious liberty all about?Religious liberty is about protecting people’s fundamental natural rights. People have rights—including the...

Indiana lawmakers announced Thursday morning that they had reached a deal to update the state's controversial religious freedom law so that it states the law cannot be used to discriminate against anyone, including gay and lesbian customers...... language in the legislation states that the law does not, "Authorize a provider to refuse to offer or provide services, facilities, use of public accommodations, goods, employment, or housing [based on] sexual orientation, gender identity, or United States military service." The references to "sexual orientation" or "gender identity" are the first to appear in an Indiana law.

Seen on social media--this should go viral, it is a great explanation with real world examples of the law in action.

PHILADELPHIA — Following a court ruling that said SEPTA must accept some anti-Muslim advertisements, those ads may begin running on dozens of buses as early as tomorrow. Today, leaders of several faiths came together to counter the ad’s hate message with a little love. Scores of Christians, Jews, and Muslims today joined Philadelphia elected officials for a rally in Love Park designed to protest the incendiary bus ads, which link Adolf Hitler to Islam. “We have to speak out against hate,” said Bilal Qayyum, who converted to Islam more than 45 years ago. “It does nothing to help the city...

As I watched "Good Morning America" today, I saw a segment where the media was bringing pressure to bear on the Indiana legislature and governor. George Stephanopolous was questioning governor Pence: George Stephanopolis:Final question, final yes-or-no question, Governor. Do you think it should be legal, in the state of Indiana, to discriminate against gays or lesbians? And this is how they characterize the debate. They portray one side (theirs) as heroic, and the other side (ours) as evil. Governor Pence was not prepared for this ambush. His response was scatter shot and muddled. Among the things he could have said...

Indiana's Republican legislative leaders said Monday they're working on adding language to a new state law to make it clear that it doesn't allow discrimination against gays and lesbians.... Supporters of the law insist the law will keep the government from compelling people to provide services they find objectionable on religious grounds. Arkansas is poised to follow in Indiana's footsteps, as Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson has said he'll sign a measure moving through the state's Legislature.

.....San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee on Thursday placed a travel ban on city-funded trips to Indiana, saying, “San Francisco taxpayers will not subsidize legally-sanctioned discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people by the State of Indiana.”

Here is a short pop quiz. When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed Congress earlier this month about the parameters of the secret negotiations between the United States and Iran over nuclear weapons and economic sanctions, how did he know what the negotiators were considering? Israel is not a party to those negotiations, yet the prime minister presented them in detail. When Hillary Clinton learned that a committee of the U.S. House of Representatives had subpoenaed her emails as secretary of state and she promptly destroyed half of them -- about 33,000 -- how did she know she could get...

On Monday, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz taught the Republican Party a lesson it desperately needs to learn. Mr. Cruz taught the GOP something about winning. The Republican Party, at least at the national level, is pretty pathetic. The Republicans have lost four of the last six presidential elections. Republicans have actually lost the popular vote in five of the last six presidential elections. Even the two races that George W. Bush won were close. The 2000 election was not decided until weeks after Election Day and even in 2004, Democrat John Kerry kept it close enough that he did not...