Free Republic

Monday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” South Bend, IN Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D-IN) (snip) … said, “You know the Republicans in the Senate changed the numbers of justices on the Supreme Court to eight. Until they took power. Then they changed it back to nine. A lot of what we’re talking about is no less a shattering of norms than what the other side has done. …" He added, “Most Americans don’t want this. Most Americans don’t want the conservative agenda that we are now seeing, the extreme agenda, we are seeing in Washington. In fact, it is precisely...

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Sunday Dreamers, children of immigrants brought into the country illegally, should get legal status. "Well, it's been put in place by President Obama and I believe we have a responsibility to fulfill what is a presidential pledge and commitment. So that's in the past. I would provide legal status for those Dreamers in the country," Romney said on NBC's "Meet the Press," referring to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that shields these individuals from deportation. "That's something the president's put on the table. I think we should get that job done, and hope,...

Children of LGBT parents can now be blessed or baptized in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, church officials declared in a new policy on Thursday, dramatically reversing a 2015 decision that excluded those children from the rituals until they were 18. The church will also update its handbook for leaders, removing the label of “apostasy” for same-sex marriage.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah State Legislature is making sex outside of marriage legal. In a bill cleaning up Utah's criminal code, lawmakers repealed the misdemeanor crime of fornication. The House passed Senate Bill 43 on a 41-32 vote. It previously passed the Utah State Senate and now goes to Governor Gary Herbert for his signature or veto. The legislature previously passed a bill removing adultery and sodomy among consenting adults as crimes in Utah. Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, said court rulings have found the laws are unenforceable and it was time to remove them from the books. The...

President Trump's s decision to declare a national emergency in order to circumvent Congress and secure funds to build a wall on the Mexican border puts him on a collision course with lawmakers from his own party. No Republican senator has said they will break ranks and vote in favor of a resolution of disapproval that Democrats are expected to bring to the floor, but there are reasons to expect some defections. A number of Republicans fear Trump’s move will undermine Congress and embolden a future Democratic president to take similar actions. Here are 10 Republican senators who could vote...

Parents used to worry about “peer pressure” encouraging their kids to experiment with alcohol or drugs, or to have sex. Now, they have to worry that it may encourage their kids (especially daughters) to change sex altogether. If you are a parent of a child or teenager, you owe it to yourself to read World magazine’s latest cover story, which addresses the relatively new but expanding phenomenon of “rapid-onset gender dysphoria,” abbreviated “ROGD.” Advocates for the LGBT movement have long argued that you can diagnose “gender dysphoria” in children who are “consistent, insistent, and persistent” in expressing a discomfort with...

California Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris, speaking during a town hall Monday night, vowed to eliminate all private health care insurance for approximately 150 million Americans if she is elected president. Asked by CNN host Jake Tapper if people who like their current health care insurance could keep it under Harris' "Medicare for All" plan, Harris indicated they could not -- but that, in turn, they would experience health care without any delays. Her statements appeared to be a full-throated call for single-payer health insurance, as opposed to merely expanding Medicare, and a dramatic embrace of the kind of proposals advocated...

Remember these names: – Senator Lamar Alexander – Senator Susan Collins – Senator Corey Gardner – Senator Johnny Isakson – Senator Lisa Murkowski – Senator Mitt Romney They voted today to end the government shutdown without funding the Great Wall. Romney leads the way… While speaking to reporters on Thursday, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) stated that he believes border security should include “a barrier on our southern border.” He added that both parties need to negotiate, and he’ll “vote to open our government and get people back to work.” Romney said, “I believe that a border security program should include,...

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg entered the 2020 race for president on Wednesday, announcing his intentions with a video featuring scenes of him and his husband, Chasten, cooking and playing with their dog, Buddy. Should Buttigieg win his long-shot bid for the Democratic nomination, he will become the first nominee of a major political party who publicly identifies as gay. If he goes on to defeat President Donald Trump, it'd be a historic win.

Former White House political strategist Karl Rove warned Senate Republicans in a meeting this week not to become overly reliant on their conservative base as they head into what could be a tough 2020 presidential election. Rove, who served as former President George W. Bush’s top political strategist, was brought in by Senate GOP leaders to speak to the 22 Republican incumbents up for reelection at an all-day planning session Thursday hosted at Nationals Park in southeast Washington, D.C. GOP lawmakers are getting nervous about next year’s election as polls show President Trump’s approval rating dropping during the 28-day government...

Massachusetts government forces health insurance companies to pay for drug that costs $24,000 a year so gay men won’t have to wear condoms I’m a libertarian. I don’t care what consenting gay adults do in the privacy of their own home.But I do care about spiraling health care costs that, for decades, have been growing substantially faster than the rate of inflation.There’s already a very low cost way for sexually active gay men to substantially reduce their risk of contracting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The Centers for Disease Control states:When used the right way every time, condoms are highly...

The first public thing Mitt Romney did in the year 2019 -- on Jan. 1 -- was publish an attack on President Trump in the Washington Post, which, as we know, has not lacked for attacks on Trump. He did not even wait until being sworn in, two days later. I campaigned for Sen. Mitt Romney when he ran for president, including a closed-door meeting with him to raise funds among wealthy Los Angeles Republicans. As it turns out, I worked to elect a somewhat foolish man with few identifiable convictions. (For the record, I would do so again, since...

I try not to be a judgmental person. Especially of late, I typically prefer to leave the obnoxious moralizing, shallow virtue-signaling, and hysterical hand-wringing to the Leftists, who after decades of godlessness finally seem to have what’s ‘moral’ and ‘immoral’ down pat, being high priests and priestesses of their own invented ‘religion,’ after all. But I try to live and let live, respecting other people’s viewpoints and understanding that, though I may see the world through a particular lens, others may see things in an entirely different way. So yeah, I get that the “but” that’s about to come will, in...

Less than two months after he was given prominent op-ed space in the Washington Post, a video has surfaced of Houthi rebel leader Mohammad Ali al-Houthi launching a shoulder-fired missile and then reciting the Houthi slogan, which calls for “Death to America.” The Washington Post contributor chants, “Allah is the greatest. Death to America. Death to Israel. Curse the Jews. Victory to Islam.” He has also taken to his unverified but media– and think tank-cited Twitter account to repeat the infamous Houthi slogan. Ali Shihabi, the founder of the Arabia Foundation, a Washington D.C.-based Middle East think tank, confirmed to...

On the very same day that resigning House Speaker Paul Ryan delivered his farewell address on the floor of Congress, fellow House Rep. Louie Gohmert revealed what may perhaps be the real reason why his relatively young colleague’s career has come to an unexpected end. “Just a few weeks before the [2016] election, we were told by Paul, by our elected leaders that, gee, the only way we can keep the House majority is just all of us start running against the president,” Gohmert claimed during an interview on radio station WMAL “The Larry O’Connor Show.” “Fortunately, we had enough...

“CONSERVATIVE” OPPOSITION TO ENDING OBAMACARE MAKES ME SICK A Howard Kurtz article on Fox News this morning, Why Some Conservatives Don’t Like the Ruling Against Obamacare,” is mis-titled. There should have been quote marks around the word “conservative.” No self-respecting conservative would ever oppose a ruling striking down Obamacare, as has just happened when a federal judge in Texas ruled the law unconstitutional. Think about it—how is it possible for a law MANDATING that you buy a product be Constitutional? Medicine is a product. The practice of medicine is a commercial service. That’s free enterprise. If you force a doctor...

Last Tuesday, unbeknownst to me, my son stuffed his beloved Bible into his bookbag. He was planning on using his class's show-and-tell time to share with his classmates what he was reading in God's Word. Keep in mind, my son is a second-grader in the Arlington County, Va., public school system. One of the most progressively leftist communities in the country, Arlington County has little room for conservative Christianity. Our neighborhood is filled with multi-colored yard signs proclaiming, "Love trumps hate!" or "All Are Welcome Here!" followed by a scolding for those who don't accept that boys can be girls...

Six in 10 U.S. adults say they worry about having to pay higher health insurance premiums, according to a Gallup poll. The poll finds that 61 percent say having their premiums raised is a “major concern,” higher than several other health care-related problems. Democrats focused heavily on health care on the midterm campaign trail and won back the House majority while saying they would preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The poll, though, finds that premiums are an even bigger concern for the public than pre-existing conditions. Forty-two percent of adults said being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition...

Taiwan has rejected same-sex marriages, in a blow to the island's reputation as a rights trailblazer in Asia. The results in referendums come despite a high court ruling in March 2017 in favour of such unions. The court also gave parliament two years to amend laws or pass new ones. It is unclear how Saturday's voting will affect legislation. Meanwhile, President Tsai Ing-wen quit as leader of Taiwan's governing party after defeats in local elections. Her pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is set to lose more than half of the 13 cities and counties it won in 2014, Taiwanese media...

More than 1,600 scientists signed a letter denouncing President Trump administration’s plan to narrow the definition of gender to be strictly biological, according to Buzzfeed. The letter was written in response to a memo reportedly drafted by the Department of Health and Human Services, according to the New York Times. The memo states that any disputes about a person’s sex would be clarified using genetic testing, which scientists who signed the letter called unscientific and unethical. “This proposal is fundamentally inconsistent not only with science, but also with ethical practices, human rights, and basic dignity,” the scientists wrote. Among the...