Free Republic

Legislators in North Carolina did the right thing in July 2013 when they voted to raise the quality standards for abortion clinics in the state. The hand-wringing response from the abortion industry was entirely predictable, with Planned Parenthood’s vice president for public affairs, Melissa Reed, calling it “the most restrictive access to safe and legal abortions this state has ever seen.” That was then. Inviting the Fox to Guard the Henhouse But now, more than a year an a half later, the North Carolina abortion industry is perfectly fine with the proposed regulations, which were submitted by the state’s Department...

How is it possible that a president can win re-election by a relatively comfortable margin while receiving fewer raw votes than his first election? Enter Mitt Romney. A simple data comparison is very telling. That comparison is the Romney raw vote vs. all votes for congressional Republicans in a given state. Crunching the numbers, Romney significantly underperformed the Republican congressional vote totals in multiple states. In North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin -- all presidential swing states -- Mitt Romney underperformed the total raw votes cast for all Republican congressional candidates by an average of 3 percent. That means that...

RALEIGH, N.C. – Luke Martin Jr., whose father was an ex-slave and Civil War Union soldier, has died — 179 years after his father was born. Martin was 97 when he died Sunday at his home in New Bern, North Carolina.. ..lived in the house where he was born — a house his father built in the 1890s. Martin had little memory of his father, Luke Martin Sr., who died at age 84 in 1920 when the son was just a few years old, according to Martin-Williams. The elder Martin, who was born in 1836, was married twice, the second...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that both Nevada and Tennessee have joined the Lone Star state's challenge of President Obama's executive amnesty, bringing the total number of states fighting Obama's unilateral immigration policies to 26. “Texas is proud to lead a coalition that now includes a majority of the United States standing up against the President’s rogue actions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The momentum against the President's lawlessness continues to build with Tennessee and Nevada joining the effort to protect our states from the economic and public safety implications of illegal amnesty. As President...

Blizzard Warning for NYC and Southern NY State Active for next 1 day, 23 hours · National Weather Service This alert has been updated. Posted 3 hours, 18 minutes ago Crippling and potentially historic blizzard to impact the area from late Monday into Tuesday.Blizzard Warning remains in effect from 1 pm Monday to midnight EST Tuesday night. Locations: New York City and surrounding immediate suburbs. Long Island, and most of southern Connecticut.Hazard types: Heavy snow and blowing snow, with blizzard conditions.Accumulations: snow accumulation of 20 to 30 inches, with locally higher amounts possible. Snowfall rates of 2 to 4...

Four men have been charged, after police say they tried to rob a pizza delivery driver this past weekend. Greenville Police say around 2:30 a.m. Sunday, the Papa Johns driver was trying to make a delivery at the Province Apartment Complex on Boxelder Way. The driver told police that two men approached him in the parking lot and demanded money and the pizza. The driver used pepper spray to stop the robbery. A Province employee saw what happened and tried to help, but police say they were assaulted by one of the suspects while attempting to get the vehicle's license...

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) - Members of the North Carolina Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America showed up at Harris Teeter on Providence Road in Charlotte on Saturday. They cut up their Harris Teeter loyalty cards and handed the destroyed cards to management.

<p>Multiple sources within Bakersfield, North Carolina, & on Capitol Hill tell Gotnews.com that Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and Renee Ellmers (R-NC) have been carrying on a long-running affair since 2011.</p> <p>The affair is something of an open secret in Washington, D.C. Reporters at other publications, lobbyists, congressional staffers of both parties all know about it. One staffer for a congressman describes it as the “biggest open secret” in D.C. A lobbyist describes Ellmers as a “social climber who has ingratiated herself” with McCarthy.</p>

On a usually happy and even triumphant day, pro-life leaders found themselves angry at a vote in the U.S. House that never happened. Much of the talk today at the annual March for Life, that likely brought close to 500,000 mostly young people to Washington DC, was about how House leaders canned a bill that would have banned abortion after the 20th week of gestation, the point at which an unborn child is said to feel pain. Much of the anger was directed at Republican Congresswoman Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, who, as reported by Breitbart News, organized a group...

Two former University of North Carolina student-athletes have filed a lawsuit against the university and the NCAA claiming that neither entity is doing enough to ensure that student-athletes are receiving a proper education. The suit is seeking damages for all student-athletes affected by UNC academic scandal. According to CNN’s Sarah Ganim, the suit was filed by Michael Hausfeld, one of the lawyer’s in the O’Bannon suit against the NCAA. Rashanda McCants, a former women’s basketball player, and Devon Ramsay, a former football player, are named as plaintiffs, though the lawsuit, which was filed Thursday afternoon in Durham County court, is...

A fraternity at Duke University has been suspended while police investigate charges that a woman was sexually assaulted at an off-campus party, the school announced Wednesday. Alpha Delta Phi has been suspended while Durham, N.C., police investigate what happened at an off-campus house leased by fraternity members. “Duke University is cooperating with the Durham Police Department in the investigation of an alleged sexual assault of a Duke student at an off-campus private residence that is leased to members of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity,” the school said in a statement emailed to reporters. “Pursuant to Duke’s policy, the fraternity has...

A handful of “pro-life” lawmakers have sabotaged a vote House Republican leaders planned for today to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on scientific evidence showing unborn babies feel pain in abortions. As LifeNews reported yesterday, Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina along with Reps. Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania and Jackie Walorski of Indiana — each of whom have pro-life voting records — objected to a vote on the bill on the grounds that the language in the bill did not do enough to allow women who have been victimized by rape to have abortions. Together, they reportedly...

RALEIGH — When the Love My Life rally began five years ago, 300 teens and their parents attended, a group small enough for the Sacred Heart Cathedral in downtown Raleigh to handle. On Saturday, the anti-abortion event, sponsored by the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh, drew roughly five times that number as middle and high school students packed into a huge heated tent on the Halifax Mall in the heart of the state government complex. Those numbers augmented the annual anti-abortion march later that afternoon that ran the length of a city block. The rally featured contemporary Christian music with a...

from Duke University’s chapel tower after all. The university announced that it has reconsidered its decision to allow the call for prayer from the iconic tower on Fridays. The reversal came a day after evangelist Franklin Graham posted a scathing criticism on Facebook asking donors not to give to Duke until the policy was changed.

Charlotte Catholic High School in Charlotte, N.C., recently informed one of its substitute teachers that he could not work at the school following the public announcement of his impending same-sex marriage, according to Catholic News Herald. The school’s decision is yet another instance of Catholic schools around the country taking measures to protect and ensure their Catholic identity. The teacher, Lonnie Billard, worked for 11 years at Charlotte Catholic High School as a dramatics teacher until his retirement in 2012. He was reportedly scheduled to begin substituting in January. But when officials at the high school learned of Billard’s public...

Pro-life leaders are expressing their fury toward Rep. Renée Ellmers (R-NC) for seeking to delay what has been expected to be a relatively easy passage next week of a House bill that would restrict abortions to 20 weeks of pregnancy based on scientific evidence that unborn babies experience pain at 20 weeks of gestation. According to the National Journal, Ellmers is leading a group of moderate Republican congresswomen who appear to have concerns about the political ramifications of the bill – which is to be voted on next week on the 42nd anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision – because it...

s they have almost every Friday for two years, Muslim students gathered at Duke University’s chapel for weekly prayers at midday Friday.. But a university plan to sound the prayer call from the Duke University Chapel’s 210-foot bell tower for the first time was hastily called off Thursday in the face of anti-Islamic tirades on social media and what a school official described as credible concerns about security. Instead, the call to prayer, or adhan, was sounded in Arabic and English on Friday from a small portable speaker set up on the chapel steps. Many among the hundreds of students...

It all started when a University alumnus made a $3 million dollar donation to fund the position of Director of Islamic Studies at Duke University. Bettye Martin Musham, who gifted the Islamic Studies Center with the vast sum of money, said that she was convinced that it was the right thing to do after hearing a lecture on the meaning of jihad. Musham said that she and her husband would later become “hooked with the importance of Islam.” Dr. Omid Safi was appointed to run Islamic Studies at Duke University in July of 2014. He has been the point of...

Duke's Downsized Call to Prayer Draws Hundreds in Support of School's Muslims BY ELISHA FIELDSTADT Hundreds of students of varying religions gathered outside of the chapel on Duke University's campus Friday to take part in a Islamic call to prayer — in support of the school's Muslim population, which had been offered then denied the opportunity to broadcast the call from the chapel's bell tower. "I was out here to show my support and solidarity for the diversity and the religious beliefs for all of Duke's students," said Steven Boyd after the call to prayer, or "adhan," was read in...

HERSHEY, Pa. — A group of female GOP lawmakers is trying to pressure the Republican leadership team to make changes to a 20-week abortion ban the House is set to vote on next week. Led by Rep. Renee Ellmers of North Carolina, the lawmakers are protesting language that requires a rape victim to formally report her assault to police to qualify for an exemption from the legislation’s abortion restrictions. Ellmers raised the concerns during a closed-door meeting at the GOP retreat here, according to sources in the room. Her office did not have a comment on Friday on the discussions...