Free Republic

WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 -- The Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued the following news release: Planned Parenthood Federation of America commends President Obama for taking long overdue executive action addressing key issues in our nation's broken immigration system, and calling on the administration and Congress to work to extend healthcare coverage to these individuals. Statement from Cecile Richards, president, Planned Parenthood Federation of America: "We commend President Obama for extending much needed and long overdue relief to millions of women and families currently living in fear of deportation due to our nation's broken immigration system. This is a bold...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday urged police to show restraint in dealing with any protests that may follow a grand jury's decision on whether to bring charges against the white police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri.

A few years back I worked with a guy who was probably a genius. In fact, he often struggled in life interacting with people because his brain simply performed at a higher level than the average person. I remember asking him what his biggest belief was in making life decisions and he always, without fail, told me “think of the bigger picture.” And while I’ve always tried to be a big picture thinker, knowing him when I did helped me understand it a little better. He always told me the biggest issue he faced when dealing with people was that...

It has been over three months since the horrific death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. It has been over three months since Brown's parents and loved ones began awaiting a semblance of justice and closure on this painful chapter in their lives. And it's been over three months since a community started searching for answers and justice after another one of its children died at the hands of police.

A jump, hop, and a rocket ride away lies Earth's blushing sister: Mars. While apparently lifeless today, some 4 billion years ago, Mars featured rivers, oceans, and potentially even microbial life. The good times obviously didn't last. On Earth, we fear asteroid impacts as harbingers of destruction, but to early Mars, they were cascading gifts of life. The energy and gas they provided helped keep the planet hot and wet. But as the solar system settled down after its turbulent birth, those impacts grew to be few and far between. At the same time, Mars' core was cooling, quieting the...

VATICAN CITY - Retired Pope Benedict XVI said dialogue with other religions is no substitute for spreading the Gospel to non-Christian cultures, and warned against relativistic ideas of religious truth as "lethal to faith." He also said the true motivation for missionary work is not to increase the church's size but to share the joy of knowing Christ. The retired pope's words appeared in written remarks to faculty members and students at Rome's Pontifical Urbanian University, which belongs to the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples. Archbishop Georg Ganswein, prefect of the papal household and personal secretary to retired Pope...

Geoscientists now overwhelmingly agree that a single large asteroid or comet impact, such as Chicxulub in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico, could not have been the sole cause of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction. Instead, new research in both planetary/space science and multiple earth-science specialties reveals that concomitant volcanic activity and the associated climate and environmental changes were significant contributing factors in four of the five major mass extinctions in Earth history.

We managed to repeal the 18th Amendment, which created Prohibition. It is time to repeal the 17th. What? You have no idea what the 17th Amendment is? Well, it is the one that effectively ended federalism by taking the power to appoint U.S. senators from state legislatures and having the citizens directly elect them, as they had always done with the House of Representatives. We may not get better senators, but it is likely they would not try dictating to the states what they should do — as they did when they set the national speed limit at 55 mph...

What is up with the ubiquitous Mitt? He’s flitting about—as would any public office aspirant trying to gain voter interest in their candidacy—making the scene on radio and T.V., while enthusiastically endorsing the go-along-to-get-along hack candidates backed by the Progressive RINO Establishment; champions of crony capitalism, electoral criminality (remember Mississippi), and fraternal loyalty to the ruling class: still neglecting to embrace a concise articulation of the Constitutional Conservatism they rightly view as a threat to their established Inside-Beltway political racket pecking order. The elitist, morally relativistic, self-serving behavior of the establishmentarians illustrates a resistance and incapacity to communicate with their...

“Doing nothing new and simply working with pre-existing [federal bankruptcy] procedures would have been much better than anything we’ve done so far.”–Harvard Professor Jeffrey Miron, “The Case for Doing Nothing,” July 10, 2009I’ve been a big fan of the Austrian school of economics and have written books on the subject, including “The Structure of Production” and the first purely “Austrian” textbook, “Economic Logic.” The ideas and policies of giants like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek have much to offer the world. They are better than other schools in identifying the imbalances in the global economy that can cause trouble...

After conservative icon and talk radio host Rush Limbaugh blasted House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for declaring that impeaching Obama was off the table, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin praised Limbaugh for understanding the importance of not emboldening Obama to act even more lawlessly. "Rush is right," she wrote in a Wednesday Facebook post. "The GOP wants to take impeachment off the table? When will you learn liberals won't hate you less if you play nice in these tumultuous times? No matter how polite, complacent, and complicit you are, Obama will continue to harm our Republic and make you impotent....

"The world is less violent than it has ever been. It is healthier than it has ever been. It is more tolerant than it has ever been. It is better fed then it’s ever been. It is more educated than it’s ever been"

"Don't be disappointed," Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said in a research note. "The trend is downwards, signaling faster payroll growth."

Still Soft after Half a Billion Years? by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Original soft tissue fossils are revolutionizing our understanding of how and when fossils formed. Secular researchers have described dozens of them over the years, from mummified skin and hemoglobin to dried up retinas—all in rock layers designated at least tens of millions of years old.1 The science of tissue decay does not permit these long ages, calling into question the "age" of the most recent discovery: original, pliable, marine worm tube tissue found in Pre-Cambrian fossils. ...more at link

'They Show No Respect for Their Caesars'by Gerald A. HonigmanDec 18, '06 / 27 Kislev 5767  E-mail This  Print  Homepage The year was 1887. An Egyptian woman discovered a treasure trove of over three hundred clay cuneiform tablets that would shake the world of religion and the study of ancient history. Named for a local Bedouin tribe, the Tel El-Amarna tablets (which can now be found mostly in the Berlin and British Museums) were mostly the official correspondence between Pharaoh Amenhotep IV - Akhenaten - and his governors and vassals from places such as Canaan, Syria, Babylonia, etc. They date mostly from...

The Jewish people, according to archaeologists, originated in Babylon and Persia between the 4th and 6th centuries BC. The modern-day Jews most closely related to that original population are those in Iran, Iraq and Syria, whose closest non-Jewish relatives are the Druze, Bedouins and Palestinians, the study found. Sometime in that period, the Middle Eastern and European Jews diverged and the European branch began actively proselytizing for converts. At the height of the Roman Empire, about 10% of the empire's population was Jewish, although the bulk of them were converts. Some Khazars were also incorporated during this period. "That explains...

Genesis Science Is Practical, Not Just Academic by James J. S. Johnson, J.D., Th.D. * “It doesn’t really matter, in the real world, what you believe about creation or evolution,” the college student glibly challenged me. “Whether the evolutionists are right or whether Genesis is right makes no practical difference in how science works or in how people live their lives.” With a grin and a wave of his hand, the sophomore dismissed the real-world relevance of biblical creation as if it were no more practical than evolutionary myths. Was he correct? Is the Genesis record of God’s creation (and...

China National Gold Group Corporation General Manager Sun Zhaoxue has come out and told the world media that the US is suppressing the gold price. The reason for America’s manipulation of gold is to ensure US Dollar dominance on the world stage. America has by default ended up with the world’s reserve currency and therefore gets the world to work for them in exchange for an ever increasing supply of printed greenbacks. He also went on with an excellent analysis of America’s war against Europe and the Euro using their investment banks. Another good insight from Sun Zhaoxue is that...

The uncivil war within the GOP will immediately stop if Mitch McConnell can be defeated in the Kentucky primary race. If McConnell can be defeated in 2014 - Then Chris Christie might not be the 2016 candidate for President. Period. If McConnell wins his 2014 primary – Then Chris Christie WILL BE the 2016 candidate for President. Period. If McConnell is defeated in 2014 - The financial donors will recognize their money is *futile* against the will of a committed and conservative electorate.

If New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has any chance of securing the Republican presidential nomination, he just might have to thank such darlings of the tea party movement as Rand Paul and Ted Cruz for an unlikely path to victory. As Mr. Paul’s and Mr. Cruz’s recent filibusters on the Senate floor have shown, the 2016 quest for the White House is well underway. A fierce battle among the new small-government, libertarian stars is already raging. That has left a growing number of conservative activists voicing concerns publicly about a scenario that would let a moderate Republican like Mr....