Free Republic

FULL TITLE: Since Michael Brown Died, 981 Black Babies Have Died in Abortion in Missouri, But There are No Riots Riots are taking place across the country in response to a grand jury’s decision not to indict a Ferguson, Missouri police officer for shooting a black teenager. The decision not to bring charges has renewed difficult racial tensions nationwide. Yesterday, LifeNews reported how the Planned Parenthood abortion business fanned the flames of racial divide by aggressively opposing the decision in Ferguson. Though the events in Ferguson have nothing to do with abortion, Planned Parenthood and its pro-abortion CEO Cecile Richards...

MANILA, Philippines – Pope Francis, the Argentine pope known for espousing a simpler Church, also wants the same treatment for his upcoming visit to the Philippines next year. At a press briefing on Thursday, November 20, papal visit media relations sub-committee chair Fr Anton Pascual said the Vatican would prefer a simple papal visit with minimal expenditures. The Vatican also urged for more resources to be spent on helping the victims of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) and the earthquake in Bohol in 2013, according to an article on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) news site. The Pope will...

Food banks across the country are reporting shortages as the holidays approach and the underemployed and the long-term unemployed are utilizing them to stave off hunger. Food bank lines continue to swell despite claims by the federal government that the economy is improving and increased spending on food stamps: Forty-six million Americans, or one in five, are now receiving food stamps. “The need continues to be strong. Even though the state level unemployment percent is low, this does not address the underemployed and long-term unemployed,” said Bruce Wilson, director of operations for the New Hampshire Food Bank. NHFB has already...

Time magazine shows that some things never change with time. The liberal publication’s relentless defense of abortion, no matter the lie, remains unchanged. Writer Katha Pollitt, author of “Reclaiming Abortion Rights”, is on a mission to destigmatize abortion. She wants to recast the act of killing human life via abortion as a “moral right” and “social good.”It apparently doesn’t matter if you have to immorally misrepresent the facts in order to promote this violent “social good.” Her article, “6 Myths About Abortion”, is laced with sloppy research and silly accusations. Others will inevitably dismantle her other five so-called mythbusters; I’ll...

There is a long list of women* who have amassed personal fortunes by divorcing rich husbands — and as far as I can tell, they deserved every penny. This week Sue Ann Hamm joined it when a court ordered her ex-husband, Harold Hamm, the Oklahoma oil man, to pay her some $1 billion in cash and assets, or about $38 million per year of a 26-year marriage. Ms. Hamm plans to appeal on the grounds that the award grossly undervalues her share of the wealth accumulated during the marriage, Reuters reported on Thursday. If Ms. Hamm gets anywhere near half...

Almost half the residents of Florida, including much of the state’s glitzy southern half, are barely getting by, living below the federal poverty level or struggling to pay for food, housing, childcare and other basic needs, according to a United Way study released Tuesday.

Liberalism is for poor people who are content to stay poor. Conservatism is for poor people who want to make a better life for themselves. I tell you that from experience because I have been poor. Once in college, on a trip out of town, I slept in an elevator all night because I couldn’t afford to pay to share a room with friends and I was too proud to crash without paying. On another trip, I slept in my car the whole week-end and ate bags of apples and powdered doughnuts because they were cheap. Later on, I got...

The War on Poverty is 50 years old. Over that time, federal and state governments have spent more than $19 trillion fighting poverty. But what have we really accomplished? Although far from conclusive, the evidence suggests that we have successfully reduced many of the deprivations of material poverty, especially in the early years of the War on Poverty. However, these efforts were more successful among socioeconomically stable groups such as the elderly than low-income groups facing other social problems. Moreover, other factors like the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the expansion of economic opportunities to African Americans and women,...

On October 27, the New Mexico Center for Law and Poverty, the Southwest Organizing Project, and a number of food stamp recipients filed suit to halt work requirements for food stamp recipients which are set to go into effect in November. The Associated Press reports the changes would require "some childless adults [to] work in order to receive food stamps." Other recipients would have to "search for a job or participate in community service or job training."

The Great Recession ended more than 1,900 days ago, and the national unemployment rate is 5.9 percent — but many able-bodied adults in 42 states nevertheless continue to collect long-term food-stamp benefits without working, volunteering, or training for a job. Unless a state has extraordinarily high unemployment or a dearth of jobs, able-bodied adults who are younger than 50 and without a dependent must spend 20 hours a week productively if they wish to continue drawing food-stamp benefits longer than three months — or so says a policy enacted as part of the 1996 welfare reforms. But Congress temporarily suspended...

Child poverty in America is at its highest point in 20 years, putting millions of children at increased risk of injuries, infant mortality, and premature death, according to a policy analysis published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. As the U.S. emerges from the worst recession since the Great Depression, 25% of children don’t have enough food to eat and 7 million kids still don’t have health insurance, the analysis says. Even worse: Five children die daily by firearms, and one dies every seven hours from abuse or neglect. “It shouldn’t be this hard for kids to grow and thrive

CULLMAN, Ala. — The love seat and sofa that Jamie Abbott can’t quite afford ended up in her double-wide trailer because of the day earlier this year when she and her family walked into a new store called Buddy’s. Abbott had no access to credit, no bank account and little cash, but here was a place that catered to exactly those kinds of customers. Anything could be hers. The possibilities — and the prices — were dizzying. At Buddy’s, a used 32-gigabyte, early model iPad costs $1,439.28, paid over 72 weeks. An Acer laptop: $1,943.28, in 72 weekly installments. A...

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared “War on Poverty.” It sounded great to me. I was taught at Princeton, “We’re a rich country. All we have to do is tax the rich, and then use that money to create programs that will lift the poor out of poverty.” Government created job-training programs for the strong and expanded social security for the weak.... Johnson’s War brought further progress, but progress then stopped. It stopped because government is not good at making a distinction between needy and lazy. It taught moms not to marry the father of their kids because that...

Crapitalism author Jason Mattera wanted to ask Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) a simple question: How did Reid, who was born in poverty, become so rich while working for the government? So he caught up with Reid recently to ask him about it. Reid refused to answer at all. Suddenly, one of Reid’s bodyguards took it upon himself to stop the questioning. He attacked Mattera while Reid just kept silently walking on. Take a look. (Video at source) By the way, Jason has accepted Bob Beckel’s challenge to fight, after Mattera targeted IRS targeting scandal honcho Lois Lerner.

Fifty years ago, President Lyndon Johnson declared "War on Poverty." It sounded great to me. I was taught at Princeton, "We're a rich country. All we have to do is tax the rich, and then use that money to create programs that will lift the poor out of poverty." Government created job-training programs for the strong and expanded social security for the weak. It seemed to work. The poverty rate dropped from 17 percent to 12 percent in the programs' first decade. Unfortunately, few people noticed that during the half-decade before the "War," the rate dropped from 22 percent to...

CNSNews.com) - The number of Americans on food stamps has topped 46,000,000 for 35 straight months, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). From September 2011 through July 2014, the latest month for which data is available, the number of persons participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) has exceeded 46 million. As of July 2014, there were 46,486,434 beneficiaries of the SNAP program. Excerpt - - - Graphs at the source

The government's newly released food stamp enrollment figures reveal that the number of individuals in America on food stamps has topped 46 million for 35 consecutive months. According to the Department of Agriculture, the number of individuals in July (the most recent month figures are available) who received food stamps was 46,486,434. The last time food stamp enrollments fell below 46 million was July 2011.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK) Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins personally escorted the family of Ebola carrier Thomas Duncan to a 4 bedroom spacious home in a gated community Friday. It’s where they will live, miles away from their cramped apartment in Dallas while under quarantine. “I’m wearing the same shirt I was when I was in the car for 45 minutes today with that family,” said Jenkins about the car ride. “If there was any risk, I wouldn’t expose myself or my family,” he said during Friday’s press conference where city and county leaders called the move necessary. “Where they were living was...

Linda Tirado photographed by Scott Suchman near her home in Washington DC for the Observer New Review. Why do so many poor people eat junk food, fail to budget properly, show no ambition? Linda Tirado knew exactly why… because she was one of them. Here, in an extract from her book, Hand to Mouth, she tells her story in her own words •Q&A with Linda Tirado In the autumn of 2013 I was in my first term of school in a decade. I had two jobs; my husband, Tom, was working full-time; and we were raising our two small girls....

I read over Kathy Shaidle’s piece on the ways in which one can stay out of poverty. While a lot of the poor lifestyle decisions she points out make sense for avoiding poverty, such as finishing high school or not having numerous kids while a teenager, or even avoiding smoking, my experience as a therapist has taught me that education on how not to be poor is an important component for helping people to avoid poverty. Let me explain.Most books like Peter Thiel’s Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future tell one how to get...