Free Republic

Civil disobedience is the act of breaking the law and defying the authorities to do anything about it. So is tyranny. The difference between the two lies in which side of the power equation the breaker is on. When the law is broken, two things happen. Either the law is upheld or the authorities back away from a confrontation and find some way to save face. The ObamaCare process involved breaking a long list of rules and laws and then defying the ragged remnants of the system to do anything about it. At every turn the United States was unable...

This column is being written in the midst of a power outage that has reduced many parts of the mid-Atlantic to primitive conditions. I have no right to complain. We installed a small generator after the last big power failure ("Snowmageddon") and at least have been able to sleep in air-conditioned comfort. We sincerely pity the million-plus people in our area and surrounding states who are coping with 95-plus temperatures and no power at all. So while we are definitely among the lucky ones, the "derecho" outage has managed to short-circuit our 21st century lives anyway. Only the bedrooms are...

As the battle over gay marriage heats up in this election year, one evangelical Christian writer is calling for a truce, fearing that the outspoken opposition to gay marriage among some church leaders could alienate an entire generation of religious youth. . . . A 2011 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute shows the generation gap between young Christians and their elders is large, with 44 percent of white evangelicals aged 18-29 in support of marriage equality compared to only 12 percent of those 65 and older. According to the same survey, nearly 70 percent of young Christians also...

As we approach the Fourth of July and contemplate its glorious significance, recent events have brought into sharp relief the precarious condition of America's unique liberty tradition. Our Constitution is the best written guarantor of human liberty in human history, but its safeguards do not make it completely bulletproof against systematic assaults undermining its integrity. In a little more than three years in office, President Obama has distinguished himself as the Great Destroyer of our liberties through a comprehensive set of policies that are at war with the American idea and are succeeding in fundamentally transforming America, in fulfillment of...

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Physicists say they have all but proven that the "God particle" exists. They have a footprint and a shadow, and the only thing left is to see for themselves the elusive subatomic particle believed to give all matter in the universe size and shape. Scientists at the world's biggest atom smasher plan to announce Wednesday that they have nearly confirmed the primary plank of a theory that could restructure the understanding of why matter has mass, which combines with gravity to give an object weight. The focus of the excitement is the Higgs boson, a subatomic particle long sought by...

The 149th Anniversary of Day 3 and Longstreet's Assault. The band Iced Earth wrong a rock song about it (below). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kh6M4jBd1O8

It is an axiom in the insurance business that insurance is not bought but sold. In 1935 Franklin Roosevelt sold Congress and Congress sold the U. S. the Social Security Act, the biggest, most comprehensive, most expensive mass insurance policy ever written. Since then its purchasers, the nation's taxpayers, have had occasion to read their policy carefully and, if they have detected no outright jokers, their reaction has been such that practically every politician in the U. S. from Franklin Roosevelt down has put revision of Social Security at the top of his must list.-  Pie from the Sky Time...

The United States has quietly increased its military presence in the Persian Gulf to deter Tehran from attempting to shut the Strait of Hormuz, according to a New York Times report published Tuesday. Linking the Persian Gulf with the Indian Ocean, the Strait is used to transport about a fifth of the world’s oil on a daily basis, and the popular assessment within the IDF is that Iran – which borders the channel to the north and east – has the ability to shut it down if it so chooses.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Isaiah 46 5. “With whom will you compare me or count me equal? To whom will you liken me that we may be compared? 6. Some pour out gold from their bags and weigh out silver on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it. 7. They lift it to their shoulders and carry it; they set it up in its place, and there it stands. From that spot it cannot move. Even though someone cries out to it, it cannot answer;...

Madison - As Democrats celebrate a recount that reaffirmed state Senate candidate John Lehman's recall victory Monday, the campaign for Republican Sen. Van Wanggaard is considering a court challenge. Republicans hold a 17-16 majority in the Senate, but the Racine County victory will put control in Democrats' hands once Lehman is sworn in. A legal challenge would be unlikely to change the results, but would delay the transfer of power until the court rules. The Wanggaard campaign initially called for the recount after Democratic challenger Lehman netted an 834-vote victory in the 21st Senate District's June 5 recall election. Monday's...

Free for All Today's Scripture …God does not show favoritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right Acts 10:34-35, NIV. Today's Word from Joel and Victoria Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom—and God’s freedom is free for everyone! It doesn’t matter what your nationality or heritage is, or who your family is. It doesn’t matter how much money you have or don’t have; God wants you free from everything that would hold you back from your relationship with Him! God wants to pour out His abundant blessing on...

The Concentration of Personal Sin "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips . . ." —Isaiah 6:5 When I come into the very presence of God, I do not realize that I am a sinner in an indefinite sense, but I suddenly realize and the focus of my attention is directed toward the concentration of sin in a particular area of my life. A person will easily say, “Oh yes, I know I am a sinner,” but when he comes into the presence of God he cannot get away with such...

Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards test fired several ballistic missiles on Tuesday, including a long-range variety capable of hitting U.S. bases in the region as well as Israel, Iranian media reported. The official IRNA news agency said the surface-to-surface missiles successfully hit their targets, while semi-official Fars said the salvos included the so-called Shahab-3 missile. It quoted a leading officer as saying the missiles travelled distances of up to 1,300 kilometers, or 800 miles. “So far, we have launched missiles from 300 to 1,300 kilometers in the maneuver,” said Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guards’ aerospace division. He hinted...

Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold Obamacare's individual mandate (indictment) to collect more taxes from you and me. President Barack Obama's taxation shell game, which flies in the face of the freedoms we celebrate this week, is just one more reason his presidency and Obamacare need to be overturned this November. Chief Justice John Roberts wasn't kidding when he offered the commentary about the court's ruling: "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." Obamacare is taxation unleashed! Despite the fact that in 2009, Obama repeatedly denied to ABC...

Now that the Supreme Court has given the states more flexibility concerning what parts of the Affordable Care Act they must implement, more Republican governors are confirming they plan to "opt out" of a plan intended to give millions of poor Americans health coverage. Florida Gov. Rick Scott on Sunday announced his state is opting out of an expansion of Medicaid, a joint federal-state health care program, now that the court will allow it to do so. Florida is also choosing not to build an "exchange," the state-based health insurance marketplace every state is expected to establish by 2014. "Floridians...

Explanation: Humanity's robot orbiting Saturn has recorded yet another amazing view. That robot, or course, is the spacecraft Cassini, while the new amazing view includes a bright moon, thin rings, oddly broken clouds, and warped shadows. Titan, Saturn's largest moon, appears above as a featureless tan as it is continually shrouded in thick clouds. The rings of Saturn are seen as a thin line because they are so flat and imaged nearly edge on. Details of Saturn's rings are therefore best visible in the dark ring shadows visible across the giant planet's cloud tops. Since the ring particles orbit in...

No one knew it at the time, but the key moment in the Supreme Court Obamacare case came on March 26, the first day of oral arguments, when few people were paying close attention. Before getting to the heart of the case, the justices first wanted to deal with what seemed to be a side issue: Was the penalty imposed by the individual mandate in Obamacare a tax? If it was, the case would run afoul of a 19th-century law known as the Anti-Injunction Act, which said a tax cannot be challenged in court until someone has actually been forced...

At least 15 governors have indicated they will not participate in the expansion of Medicaid under the healthcare law, striking a blow to President Obama’s promise of broader insurance coverage. Before Thursday’s Supreme Court ruling, states had the option of either increasing their Medicaid rolls or being penalized by the federal government. The high court struck down that offer as unconstitutional. Governors still have a financial incentive to participate in the expansion of coverage for low-income people, since the government will foot most of the bill through 2016. But the decision is also loaded with politics, particularly for Republican governors...