Free Republic

When my boss assigned me the daunting task of reading The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, a 400-page feminist rant, I pushed back. C’mon, Boss, can’t I read the Affordable Care Act instead? No dice. Reader’s Digest has long published a feature entitled “Laughter Is the Best Medicine.” Laughter is also the appropriate response to The Shriver Report, a hodgepodge of lefty clichés that is being received with great earnestness in Washington’s left wing salons and policy circles. President Obama received his copy directly from the hands of Maria Shriver–Kennedy scion, NBC reporter, and former...

Pro-life Republican candidates can neutralize their Democratic opponents’ “war on women” attacks by fighting back, says Ellen Barrosse, author of a resolution unanimously adopted by the party's Resolutions Committee Wednesday. The resolution was submitted by Barrosse, a committeewoman from Delaware, the same day the Republican National Committee (RNC) officially joined the annual March for Life in Washington for the first time. Barrosse’s resolution states: “Candidates who stay silent on pro-life issues do not identify with key voters, fail to alert voters to Democrats’ extreme pro-abortion stances, and have lost their elections.” …

On the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, CNN’s senior legal analyst smeared the entire pro-life movement in saying on Wednesday’s AC360 Later, “They want women to have no control over their own bodies.” Jeff Toobin was referring to the Texas case where a hospital, claiming that it is following state law, has kept a brain-dead woman on life support against the family’s wishes in order to bring her unborn child to term. Toobin went on a rant against the law: [Video below the break. Audio here.] “This is the logical extension of what the anti-abortion woman – movement wants....

Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen has refused to ratify a bill that seeks to partially criminalize marital rape, calling it “un-Islamic.” The parliament voted 67-2 last month to limit a husband’s right to have non-consensual sex with his wife. The bill says a husband cannot force his wife to have sex if the couple have filed for divorce, dissolution or mutual separation, and if the intent is to transmit a sexual disease. […] The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago of about 330,000 people, claims to have a 100 percent Muslim population. Its constitution states that “no law contrary to any tenet...

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) is reporting that one sector of the U.S./Mexico border has seen a 100% increase in the number of illegal aliens, previously deported for criminal sexual offenses, apprehended while attempting to illegally re-enter the United States. The comparison is between Fiscal Year 2013 and Fiscal Year 2014.The Del Rio Border Patrol sector, one of nine in total that exist along the U.S./Mexico border, is one of the less active sectors, and the CBP did not release information from the more active sectors. The sector, however, has seen eight previously-deported sex offenders in Fiscal Year 2014...

Prosecutors say a former minister at First Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., charged with his wife’s murder, was trying to leave the country prior to his Jan. 1 arrest to marry his boyfriend. The latest twist in a story that has received worldwide media attention came Jan. 16 in a bond hearing for Richard Shahan, 53, who resigned recently as children and families pastor and facilities director at First Baptist, reportedly to head overseas for three years of mission work in Europe and Central Asia. Prosecutors said information gleaned from more than 3,000 of Shahan’s e-mails indicate he was planning...

Saudi Arabia’s feared religious police entered a public park in the Gulf Kingdom and told women to stop using swings, an act that drew applause and criticism by viewers of a picture showing the men warning some women at the swings. The picture went viral on social networks in Saudi Arabia before it was published by newspapers showing two men from the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warning women against using the swings. “Some viewers of the picture supported the move by the Commission members on the grounds women using the swing could encourage men...

Phil Griffin, head of the MSNBC cable television channel, told Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter that he accepts responsibility for recent embarrassments that led Alec Baldwin and Martin Bashir to leave the network and Melissa Harris-Perry to offer a tearful on-air apology. "These were judgment calls made by some of our people. We handled them. We were transparent. That is our philosophy: Be factual, and step up when you make a mistake,” Griffin asserted. “We took responsibility for them and took action. They were unfortunate,” but “I don't think it hurt us in any way.” While known as a...

TEL AVIV, January 16, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Israeli pro-life group Be’ad Chaim slammed the government's recent decision to extend abortion funding to virtually all women, saying the move was a reflection of the country's moral and spiritual degeneration. "The moral fibers of our nation are in shreds," said Sandy Shoshani, national director of Be’ad Chaim (which means "Pro Life" in Hebrew). "You can't bring a curse on your nation and not expect repercussions. We just opened the door wide and made ourselves vulnerable." LifeSiteNews.com reported that the nation's Health Basket Committee, which determines what medical procedures are paid for...

HALIFAX -- Politicians are scrambling to put a brave face on an ugly situation at a Halifax recreation centre. Sonja Power, 17, was on the cusp of earning her black belt in Aikido at a Halifax dojo when a new man joined the class. He refused to be in contact with women or to spar with any of the female students. Power and the other women were told to stay on one side of the room and not to approach the Muslim man to respect his faith. "I felt like a second class citizen, that I was so disgusting and...

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks If you were browsing news sites yesterday, you may have come across Meryl Streep’s rant about what a racist Nazi anti-semite that Walt Disney was and what an amazing human being Emma Thompson is.It’s easy to take shots at a dead man, but Walt Disney’s character was framed by angry left-wing union members in a town where mildly conservative politics led to cries of “Fascist”.The evidence that Walt Disney ever supported the Third Reich is flimsy and hearsay. There’s far more evidence that his critics supported the USSR.And the evidence for...

Sanaz Nezami was a beautiful, intelligent young woman with a bright future ahead of her. She was 27-years-old and newly married to Nima Nassiri, an Islamic man from Los Angeles. This tragic story broke on January 1st. The AP whitewashed the story. USA Today’s story read “Woman’s Tragic Death Leads Nurses To Bond With Her Family Overseas.” The title is correct, but the truth about what happened to the brilliant young woman, who could speak three languages, is much darker. She died at the hands of her Islamic husband, in what was most obviously an honor killing. Why does the...

Violent crime against women in Afghanistan hit record levels and became increasingly brutal in 2013, the head of its human rights commission said on Saturday, a sign that hard won rights are being rolled back as foreign troops troops prepare to withdraw. Restoring fundamental women's rights after the Taliban were ousted by a U.S.-led coalition of troops in 2001 was cited as one of the main objectives of the war. Under the Taliban, women were forced to wear the head-to-toe covering burqa and barred from leaving their homes without being escorted by a male relative. Schools for girls were shut...

Kolkata: A group of organisations have launched a campaign against a move by UN Women, a United Nations organisation dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women, to decriminalise pimping, buying sex and brothel-keeping. "Such a move will fuel huge sex-trafficking as those who buy and sell women will get off scot free," Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap Women Worldwide, an anti-sex trafficking NGO, told reporters here today. More than 1,000 individuals and organisations representing victims and survivors, women and dalits have signed a petition that the NGO would submit to UN Women in Delhi on January 7. The...

Homaidan al-Turki was convicted in 2006 on charges related to having an underage slave whom he sexually molested. Al-Turki resided in Colorado and his now serving out his prison sentence in that state. Since his conviction, there has been a very strong effort from Saudi Arabia to have him released. ... A judge has now ruled that al-Turki isn’t going anywhere (that is if you don’t count his being moved from a State Correctional facility to a federal one). ... al-Turki has never really been completely cleared in the murder of Executive Director for Colorado’s Department of Corrections. Clements was...

He socked it to her. Eliot Spitzer lusted after violence, a former hooker says in a new tell-all book — revealing in graphic detail how the love gov pinned her to a bed inside a posh, Murray Hill apartment and then gripped her by the neck until she feared for her safety. The violence was scripted by Spitzer, who wanted his hooker to follow a role-play dialogue in which she would pretend she had just taken a self-defense class. The kinky politician would then pretend to test her skills by announcing, “Well, then, let’s see if you learned anything,” and...

He was bullied for his outspoken opinions and didn't care much for Republicans. Karl Pierson, 18, who stormed his Colorado high school brandishing a shotgun and bearing hatred for his debate coach, critically injured a 15-year-old fellow student before shooting himself to death Friday afternoon as he was cornered by heavily armed police. "He had very strong beliefs about gun laws and stuff," said junior Abbey Skoda, who shared a class with Pierson during her freshmen year, The Denver Post reported. "I also heard he was bullied a lot." After undergoing surgery Friday, the injured girl was listed in critical,...

December 13, 2013, 01:42 pm Pelosi: GOP 'disrespects' women By Mike Lillis Republicans in Congress have a general "disrespect" for women that's reflected in their legislative agenda, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi charged Friday, adding that she applauds the prospect of America having its first female president. The California Democrat said the GOP's policy priorities – from reproductive health to the economy to the environment – are evidence they have little concern for the issues women care the most about. "[It's] disrespect," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC's Alex Wagner that aired Friday afternoon. "Whether it's pay equity and...

I hate to say I told you so. That’s usually an empty phrase. Let’s face it: most people love to say “I told you so.” But in this case, I really do hate it—because I successfully predicted that something pretty awful would happen. Back in February of 2012, the Susan G. Komen controversy was at its zenith. You’ll recall that Susan G. Komen announced that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood, which it had been doing to the tune of about $600,000 a year, and use that money for other projects instead. Planned Parenthood responded with an extensive media campaign...

Whoops, there it is: Sarah Palin’s fear of enslavement to the Chinese may actually be true. “Don’t wish for something, you just might get it” is a paraphrase of the often-cited Chinese proverb. The former GOP vice presidential nominee had called on MSNBC to cancel Martin Bashir’s talk show. Bashir was, at the time, serving as the conscience of the network, striking fear into those who defied political correctness. Not since King George has a Brit been so brash. Leaving aside Piers what’s-his-name, perhaps. To no one’s surprise, a few weeks ago. Marty found something Ms. Palin said to be...