Free Republic

The treatment for terminal cancer that Annapolis resident Mary Ellen Heibel took at Johns Hopkins Hospital in 2004 and early 2005 worked beyond anyone's wildest hopes, wiping out malignant tumors in her lungs, liver, stomach and chest. Her doctor did not expect it, nor could he explain it. Surely the outcome was remarkable, but was it - in the sense applied by the Roman Catholic Church in such cases - a miracle? In a few weeks, a committee appointed by the Archdiocese of Baltimore will begin exploring that question, examining 11 witnesses, including Heibel, pressing her doctors, nurses and friends...

The older brother of the man who allegedly shot and killed an undercover Houston police officer last week is wanted in a gang-related slaying last year of a South Carolina man, authorities said. Juan Pedroza Carrillo, 40, was one of three men linked to the November 2 fatal shooting of Jorge Alberto Vindel Ramos, 51, in Lexington County, S.C., authorities said. Ramos was shot in the head and chest with a .380 semi-automatic pistol as he was working on his car outside his home, officials said. While the motive for the killing remains under investigation, federal immigration officials confirmed that...

BY JESSE JACKSON New Haven, Conn., is a city in which African Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population; yet, by order of the U.S. Supreme Court, the city must be served --"as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination -- by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions." Today's ruling is deeply flawed and should not be the law of the land. In assessing claims of race discrimination, "context matters." Grutter vs. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 306, 327 (2003). In June 2003, the Supreme...

Predict the next national pol who will confess to cheating and win a prize

The New York Times called it "torture porn." But audiences at the Los Angeles Film Festival had a different take; they named the controversial film "Best Feature" at the gathering. Dennis Prager writing at Townhall has some thoughts about the film and conservative complaints about Hollywood: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yet, now, released as if by Providence the week after the fraudulent elections in Iran and the suppression and murder of Iranian dissidents, is a film about the nature of the radical Muslims who govern Iran. Titled "The Stoning of Soraya M.," the film depicts events based on the true story of a...

Labor unions, environmentalists and liberal advocacy groups are getting behind president-elect Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plans geared toward public works. The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, and the Economic Policy Institute Campaign for America’s Future and People for the American Way Foundation, both backed by financier George Soros, are among groups launching a major lobbying push in favor of Obama’s stimulus spending programs. Soros has been a harsh critic of the Bush administration. The AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union, National Education Association and AFSCME government workers union are the main labor drivers...

NPR today announced the removal from office of President Zelaya of The Republic of Honduras. He was ousted by a vote of the congress of that country according to the rules set forth in their constitution for the removal of a President, somewhat similar to the impeachment process in the USA. Zelaya, with the support of Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Lula, Morales of Bolivia, and other communist and extreme left-wing leaders, was seeking to hold a referendum to allow him to continue in power beyond constitutionally set term limits for the Presidency of The Republic of Honduras. Of late, President...

France, Italy and much of the European Union have much to snicker about these days. No, I’m not referring to the Obama Apology Tour or the stern letters we send off to the dangerously unbalanced (and poorly dressed) North Korean despot, Kim Jong-Il, warning him that the United States would be quite displeased if he sent yet another missile our way. Forget the carnage in the streets of Iran, or the persistent bloodshed in Afghanistan and Iraq. While you’re at it, just ignore the Obama Administration’s blitzkrieg on our personal freedoms, our nation’s economy and the quasi-nationalization of an increasing...

WASHINGTON, DC - President Barack Obama says that while he's dedicated to expanding homosexual rights, many Americans still cling to what he calls "worn arguments and old attitudes." At a White House celebration of Gay Pride Month, Obama said he hopes to persuade all Americans to accept homosexuality. ""There are good and decent people in this country who don't yet fully embrace their gay brothers and sisters -- not yet," said the president. "That's why I've spoken about these issues -- not just in front of you -- but in front of unlikely audiences, in front of African-American church members."...

When I wrote my article “ Why Young People are Leaving the Church” I knew it would generate some response. I was taken to task by a few Young earth Creationists (YEC) because I did not point out the dangers of Old Earth Creationist (OEC) arguments and how they create serious theological problems such as disease and death before the fall. Some OECs have attempted to answer this objection exegetically. YECists can and do disagree with OEC arguments, but they can’t accuse OECists of not appealing to the Bible to make their case (see here). My point, however, was to...

Lefty journalist Todd Purdum has a hit piece in the new Vanity Fair on Sarah Palin. You don’t have to be a big Palin fan to recognize the article is full of dubious claims, and is dependent on self-serving stories provided on background by some of the people who ran the McCain campaign into the ground. Here’s a highlight of Purdum’s reporting: “More than once in my travels in Alaska, people brought up, without prompting, the question of Palin’s extravagant self-regard. Several told me, independently of one another, that they had consulted the definition of ‘narcissistic personality disorder’ in the...

New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine Monday signed a 2010 budget making his state the latest to squeeze the rich for extra cash.

Before coming to Fordham to teach graduate students full-time, I taught many undergraduate courses over seven years at Boston College and Santa Clara University. During that time, I collected a list of “student bloopers” gathered from their assignments. I did so inspired by the years of laughter provided by the memory of an article I read in the early 1990s by Richard Lederer, then at St. Paul’s School, titled “The World According to Student Bloopers.” (That pre-Web article can now be found everywhere on the Internet.) Early on in my trundle through thousands of undergraduate papers and exams, I realized...

ADELPHI, Md. -- Government experts say the maximum daily dose listed on Tylenol and dozens of other painkillers should be reduced to help curb deadly overdoses. The Food and Drug Administration's panel voted 21-16 to lower the current maximum dose of nonprescription acetaminophen, which is 4 grams, or eight pills per day. Taking more than that can cause potentially fatal liver damage

S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford sent the following e-mail apology Monday evening. I write to apologize and ask for your forgiveness. Well beyond the personal consequences within my own family, I know that at so many different levels my actions have upset, offended and disappointed friends and supporters and for this I am most sorry. As I mentioned in last week's press conference, I've always believed God's laws were there to protect us from ourselves, and what has transpired over this last week vividly illustrates the damage that comes personally, and to those you love and respect, in doing otherwise. So...

Monday, June 29, 2009 The Baucus Plan’s Penalties on Work   [James C. Capretta] Late last week, Sen. Max Baucus, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, tried to jump start the push for a sweeping health-care bill by letting it be known that he has made progress toward a “bipartisan” deal in his committee on a health-care plan. Of course, no one knows for sure what’s in the Baucus plan except for a handful of people. There have been two Congressional Budget Office (CBO) tables provided to the committee indicating how much alternative versions of plan would cost over the coming decade,...

A couple we know got a rude interruption on Saturday night. The two had settled into their seats at the AMC Cupertino Square 16 theater and were enjoying The Taking of Pelham 123, a thriller remake starring John Travolta and Denzel Washington. But Pelham 123 never finished; the theater lost its electrical power. The cause was a rolling brownout, due to a California heat wave and excessive use of air conditioning. Electricity is a good thing. It powers your computer, drives economic growth, transmits images from Tehran streets, keeps preemies alive in hospitals, prevents meat from rotting and enchants and...

Gimme a pack of Baracks. How about a carton of Hope? The newest poster for college students’ rooms across America would show the president posing with a Kool filter stuck in his mouth. Whoa, how cool is Barack, now? Not cool at all. And now that the president has signed into law new federal regulations for tobacco, we can’t let him off the hook. Obama is a cigarette smoker. And if I were a tobacco company executive, I’d market millions of new cigarettes in a colorful package that looks like the campaign colors of change and I’d call them Baracks....

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admitted Tuesday that he saw his Argentine mistress more times than previously disclosed, including what was to be a farewell meeting in New York chaperoned by a spiritual adviser soon after his wife found out about the affair. In a lengthy and emotional interview with The Associated Press in his Statehouse office, the governor described five meetings with Maria Belen Chapur over the past year, including two romantic, multi-night stays with her in New York before they met there again intending to break up. He said he met her two other times - their first...

What might the phrase “natural-born citizen” of the United States imply under the U.S. Constitution? The phrase has always been obscure due to the lack of any single authoritative source to confer in order to understand the condition of citizenship the phrase recognizes. Learning what the phrase might have meant following the Declaration of Independence, and the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, requires detective work. As with all detective work, eliminating the usual suspects from the beginning goes a long way in quickly solving a case. What Natural-Born Citizen Could Not Mean Could a natural-born citizen simply mean citizenship due...