Free Republic

Brad Paisley’s new album Wheelhouse isn’t even in stores yet (it’s set for release tomorrow), but already one of the songs is causing controversy for its lyrics that attempt to address racial tensions in the South. Called “Accidental Racist,” the song appears aimed at helping to bridge misunderstandings. The song starts out with a guy apologizing for the Confederate flag on his T-shirt to a a worker he encountered at the local Starbucks. As his protagonist sings, “when I put on that T-shirt, the only thing I meant to say, is I’m a Skynyrd fan.” “I’m proud of where I’m...

A long-lost gospel that casts Judas as a co-conspirator of Jesus, rather than a betrayer, was ruled most likely authentic in 2006. Now, scientists reveal they couldn't have made the call without a series of far more mundane documents, including Ancient Egyptian marriage licenses and property contracts. The Gospel of Judas is a fragmented Coptic text, traced back to Egypt, which portrays Judas in a far more sympathetic light than did the gospels that made it into the Bible. In this version of the story, Judas turns Jesus over to the authorities for execution upon Jesus' request, as part of...

For the last 700 years, it has been the main place of Christian worship in the Palace of Westminster, aside from brief periods as a wine cellar and a stable for Oliver Cromwell’s horses.But now, it seems, the Government has a new role in mind for the chapel of St Mary Undercroft, which is nestled in a crypt beneath Parliament. Ministers are considering changing the historic Anglican chapel into a multi-faith prayer room – so that it can be used to conduct same-sex weddings. Under the gay marriage legislation currently passing through Parliament, the chapel will not be able to...

BUENOS AIRES, March 18, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The head of a radical homosexual lobby in Argentina has said the election of Pope Francis is not a boon for advocates of same-sex “marriage.” The Argentine LGBT Federation (FALGBT) said the election of the former Cardinal of Buenos Ares, Jorge Bergoglio, as pope, “marks a clear desire of the Vatican to radicalize its position against the recognition of diverse family structures.”

Lego has been accused of racism by the Turkish community over a Star Wars model that supposedly resembles one of Istanbul’s most revered mosques. tria’s Turkish community said the model was based on Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul and that the accompanying figures depicted Asians and Orientals as people with “deceitful and criminal personalities.” The Turkish Cultural Community of Austria released a statement calling for Lego to apologise for affronting religious and cultural feelings. The anger was provoked by “Jabba’s Palace”, a model of the home of Jabba the Hutt from Lego’s Star Wars product range based on the blockbusting...

Today marks the bicentennial of the culminating catastrophe that befell the Grande Armée as it retreated from Russia. This past weekend one of the French Emperor's descendants, Charles Napoleon, traveled to Minsk in Belarus to attend ceremonies commemorating the disaster at the nearby Beresina River crossing, where thousands died -- many by drowning -- in a final, panicked rout in freezing weather. Bonaparte had marched deep into Russia with nearly half a million soldiers; he returned with less than 25,000. Given that Napoleon was the great captain of his time -- perhaps of all time -- and that his armies...

Yesterday we made it very clear why with the Turkey provocation avenue to further Middle East escalation rapidly closing, the one pathway left is Lebanon. Sure enough, today the escalation playbook is firmly in play - from Reuters: "Heavy gunfire erupted in central Beirut on Sunday after protesters tried to storm the offices of Prime Minister Najib Mikati, demanding that he quit over the assasination of a top intelligence official. An official said security forces had fired in the air. Witnesses said at least two protesters had fainted, apparently as a result of tear gas fired by security forces after...

ROME (Reuters) - The former archbishop of Milan and papal candidate Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini said the Catholic Church was "200 years out of date" in his final interview before his death, published on Saturday. Martini, once favored by Vatican progressives to succeed Pope John Paul II and a prominent voice in the church until his death at the age of 85 on Friday, gave a scathing portrayal of a pompous and bureaucratic church failing to move with the times. "Our culture has aged, our churches are big and empty and the church bureaucracy rises up, our rituals and our...

Paul Ryan has bold economic ideas. Or maybe he doesn't. It's really hard to know what Mitt Romney's VP pick thinks, since his budget plan includes Obamacare's $716 billion in Medicare savings over 10 years, but his election plan has him saying he would restore those spending cuts. Romney is accusing president Obama of "robbing" that money from today's beneficiaries. Let's set the confusion aside for a moment and look at where the projected cuts would be made. First off, none of the savings comes from changing eligibility or benefits. The president's health care reforms actually add benefits to Medicare....

AURORA, Colo. – James Holmes, the accused gunman in last Friday's midnight movie massacre in Colorado, mailed a notebook "full of details about how he was going to kill people" to a University of Colorado psychiatrist before the attack, but the parcel sat unopened in a mailroom for as long as a week before its discovery Monday, a law enforcement source told FoxNews.com.

BOSTON — Massachusetts Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren said Friday that she didn't reveal until this week that she told past employers about her Native American ancestry because she needed more time to recall actions and events of years ago. In a telephone interview with The Associated Press, the Harvard Law School professor and consumer advocate also addressed in greater detail other questions related to her family heritage, which has not been documented. She spoke on the eve of the Democratic State Convention in Springfield, Mass., where she was expected on Saturday to receive the endorsement of delegates in...

“Is the rich world aware of how four billion of the six billion live? If we were aware, we would want to help out, we’d want to get involved.” – Bill Gates _____________________________ Dear Eduardo Saverin (if I may call you that), You were, as I’m sure you’re aware, born in Brazil to a wealthy family, and were moved to Miami when you were a child. To America, the land of opportunity. And boy, did you ever have a lot of opportunities. Your parents sent you to Harvard, where according to Wikipedia you “took advantage of Brazil’s lax insider trading...

Just when you would think that the far Left Obama booster organization MoveOn.org could not get any more ridiculous, it sinks to ever lower levels of absurdity. The latest example involves MoveOn’s push to render the phrase “illegal aliens” or “illegal immigrants” hate speech. A video posted last week at MoveOn.org’s website charges that calling illegal immigrants “illegal” fits the definition of a hate crime and calls for the word “illegal” to be abolished when describing individuals entering the United States illegally. They would prefer using adjectives such as “undocumented” immigrants or “unauthorized” immigrants.

Quite what the little boy who lives down the lane would make of it is open to conjecture. But parents at one school made their feelings plain when they heard their children reciting “Baa Baa Little Sheep”. They accused the £2,700-a-term ($4,288.68 ATTOW) Park Hill primary school of changing the words from “Baa Baa Black Sheep” for the sake of political correctness. The school, in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, insists this was not the reason, and that the change was merely a way of teaching children to read by adding different words. Adults who attended its Easter concert, however, were...

Manassas, VA, February 11, 2012 -- Although he will not appear on the Virginia Presidential primary ballot on March 6, it did not stop Manassas Tea Party members from selecting Rick Santorum as the overwhelming winner in a straw poll conducted at its monthly meeting of members last evening. In the straw poll which also contained the U.S. Senate Virginia seat and Manassas City Council races, Santorum swept the Presidential poll with 67% of the vote but equally interesting was Mitt Romney received no votes. Newt Gingrich was second in the poll with 27% and Ron Paul last with only...

WASHINGTON — The burst of job growth in January gives President Obama a fresh — but tricky — opportunity to revise the grim economic narrative of his presidency while offering Mitt Romney a choice: embrace a new optimism or campaign against a sinking economy even as it shows signs of turning around. The Labor Department reported on Friday that the unemployment rate had fallen all the way back to the level of President Obama’s first full month in office, to 8.3 percent, from a high of 10 percent in late 2009. Yet unemployment also remains higher than it has been...

In a move that has attracted outrage from many local parents, an overzealous principal has accused a six-year-old of sexual assault. Levina Subrata’s son was playing tag in his Californian school playground when he was accused of touching his best friend’s upper thigh and groin.

We will risk the fairly safe assumption, as this is being written, that Air Force One did not make an appearance at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport sometime Thursday.... You almost have to laugh at this latest chapter in the seemingly endless “birther” saga, because about the only alternatives at this point are tears and/or nausea. It was embarrassing enough when members of the Georgia legislature -- including, to Columbus’ acute humiliation, two members of the local delegation -- drafted a “Presidential Eligibility Assurance Act” in the last legislative session. Now Georgians get to enjoy the added spectacle of their secretary...

The head of the world's biggest food company Nestle said on Friday that rising food prices have created conditions "similar" to 2008 when hunger riots took place in many countries. "The situation is similar (to 2008). This has become the new reality," the Swiss giant's chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe told the Salzburger Nachrichten daily in his native Austria in an interview. "We have reached a level of food prices that is substantially higher than before. It will likely settle down at this level. "If you live in a developing country and spend 80 percent of your income on food then of...

Following his blistering critique in last week’s debate in Iowa, former House speaker Newt Gingrich still thinks the newly established deficit “supercommittee” is one of the worst ideas ever conceived in Washington. In a speech at the Heritage Foundation today, the embattled presidential candidate put forward a host of ideas that he believes will yield far better results. “I’m going to say things that are very bold,” Gingrich warned the audience at the onset. “Boldness is sometimes exactly what we need.” Indeed, Gingrich went after what he described as Washington’s “intellectual” deficiencies, meaning the inability to embrace sweeping changes that...