Free Republic

We definitely live in dark times. Increasingly, Catholic dogma is coming under attack even within the Church. Just recently, Bill Tammeus, a Presbyterian elder and former columnist for The Kansas City Star, writng for the National Catholic Reporter online, complained that, "Ultimately, truth in Christianity is not a doctrine, not a dogma, not a creed, not a papal bull, not what's said in a sermon, not even the words in the Bible. Rather, truth in Christianity is a person, Christ Jesus." Yes, it is true that faith is primarily in God and not in a set of truths. But because...

A buxom bandit is on the run after holding up a petrol station on Queensland's Gold Coast in the early hours of this morning. However, it's likely that she won't evade capture for long. The curvaceous blonde, who is believed to be in her 20s, made a series of schoolgirl blunders.

One woman says: “I was born and grew up here in Florida. I have voted since I was 18.” A man says: “I became US citizen in 1994. I have voted for the last 12 years.” Woman: “However, some Latino citizens have been getting letters saying that they have 30 days to prove they are US citizens, otherwise their names will be deleted from the electoral lists”. Man: “With the exclusion, Latinos are the most affected and if Latinos don’t vote….” Woman: “Mitt Romney wins. This purge, besides illegal, it is racist. Ask Romney to stop the racist purge now.”

MADISON — Van Wanggaard has five business days to decide whether he wants to continue fighting. The incumbent Republican senator of the 21st Senate District remained 819 votes behind Democratic challenger John Lehman early Monday afternoon, when an extensive recount wrapped up. If Wanggaard concedes, Lehman returns to the seat he held before Wanggaard defeated him in November 2010, giving Democrats, at least for now, a 17-16 majority in the state Senate. “As with my decision to pursue the recount, I will spend the next couple of days reviewing the evidence, speaking with voters, supporters, and my family before deciding...

That’s unknowable, yet the headline in the Houston Chronicle would have you think Texas’ 2007 law is stirring up more business for the state’s county morgues. It says: Texas justifiable homicides rise with ‘Castle Doctrine’ It might be a useful story except for that detour it has your mind take with the verbal gymnastics. See, there’s a difference between homicides rising “with” the Castle Doctrine and “because” of the Castle Doctrine law that Texas lawmakers passed in 2007 to clarify a person’s duty to retreat when fearing danger. The story’s lead anecdote was about a thief who was shot dead...

July 3, 2012 Romney Campaign Declaring Cease Fire on Health Care Posted by Staff In the aftermath of the Supreme Court health care ruling, the early conventional wisdom was that an unfavorable health care ruling at the court would be good for Republicans politically, even as it was a serious policy setback for conservatives. But that's not shaping up to be the case. Mitt Romney, after giving a brief statement decrying the decision, has been virtually silent on criticizing the health care law. He's been on vacation and his campaign has been giving off clear signals that it doesn't want...

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled ObamaCare's individual mandate constitutional, the direction of American health policy is in the hands of voters. So how do we get from here to "repeal and replace"? Step one is electing Mitt Romney as president, along with Republican House and Senate majorities. Without a Republican sweep, the law will remain in place. But a President Romney does not need 60 Republican senators to repeal core elements of ObamaCare. Democrats lost their 60th senate vote in early 2010 after Scott Brown took Edward Kennedy's seat. To bypass a Senate GOP filibuster and enact portions...

A House Democrat says she voted mistakenly to override Gov. Beverly Perdue's veto of a bill that authorizes fracking in North Carolina but was told she couldn't change it because the outcome would have changed.

This year on the Fourth of July, Americans will have a hard time celebrating their independence, as so much of the celebration is consumed by government. Between traveling over the extended weekend and stocking up on food and drinks for cookouts, Americans will spend a minimum of $2.6 billion. However, make sure there’s room for Uncle Sam on your picnic blanket: this year, 34.77 percent of the cost of celebrating the Fourth of July is made up of government taxes and fees. Fourth of July spending is subject to income taxes, payroll taxes, corporate income taxes and other taxes on...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

It’s heating up out there. The number of people shot in the city last week jumped nearly 50 percent compared with the same period last year — and a deadly mix of hotter temperatures and fewer stop-and-frisks is to blame, cops said yesterday. Sixty people were shot in the five boroughs last week — a 46 percent increase over last year’s 41 victims, police said. And that could just be the beginning, warned one law-enforcement source.

Syrian helicopters bombarded a Damascus suburb on Monday and Turkey scrambled warplanes near the border in the north, as the UN human rights chief warned that arms supplied to both the government and rebels were deepening the 16-month conflict. Fighting has come to the gates of the capital in recent weeks and is also raging throughout the country as the battle to unseat President Bashar al-Assad increasingly takes on the character of an all-out civil war, fuelled by sectarian hatred. Syrian government forces have launched an assault on Douma, a city on the edge of Damascus where they stormed a...

Exxon Mobil Corp. told Afghanistan's Ministry of Mines it is interested in bidding on the right to explore for oil and gas in the country. A spokesman for the Irving, Texas-based energy giant said Monday a unit of the company, Esso Exploration International Ltd., filed an "expression of interest" in the Afghan-Tajik Basin over the weekend.

Actor Andy Griffith, who won the hearts of 1960s TV viewers with his role as gentle Sheriff Andy Taylor in “The Andy Griffith Show,” then returned as a 1980s country lawyer in “Matlock,” died Tuesday at 86, according to WITN-TV. The news was reported to the North Carolina television station by Bill Friday, former president of the University of North Carolina and a Griffith friend. Dare County Sheriff Doug Doughtie had confirmed to WITN earlier that am ambulance was sent to Griffith's home.

(snip) (Obama) ...If Congress does not get this done in a week, the average student with federal student loans will rack up an additional $1,000 in debt over the coming year. If Congress fails to act, more than 7 million students will suddenly be hit with the equivalent of a $1,000 tax hike. And that’s not something that you can afford right now. (snip) Politico actually did the math, and suggests that Obama might have engaged in a little, er, “hyperbole”: That was a bit of hyperbole. According to the Department of Education, if rates double, the borrower paying back...

The big hits of 1963…. Difficult to believe that all these came out almost half a century ago (when I had just started out as a teacher) but each of them still gives me a buzz today, not just as a stroll down memory lane but because they are also still damn good songs.

Barclays Plc Chief Executive Bob Diamond quit on Tuesday under fire from politicians and regulators, the highest-profile casualty of an interest rate-rigging scandal spanning more than a dozen big banks across the world. "The external pressure placed on Barclays has reached a level that risks damaging the franchise - I cannot let that happen," said Diamond, 61. The terms of his severance were not announced.

Actor Andy Griffith has died at age 86, according to media reports. Multiple reports say the actor died Tuesday morning at his home in North Carolina. We'll post more details when they become available

Two county clerks from downstate Illinois are asking a judge for permission to defend the state's gay marriage ban. Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan have said they won't defend the state against a lawsuit filed by 25 gay and lesbian couples because they too believe the ban is unconstitutional. But Effingham County Clerk Kerry Hirtzel and Tazewell County Clerk Christie Webb want to defend the law. The Thomas More Society filed a request late Friday on their behalf, seeking permission to intervene in the case.

Like so many teenagers, Jonathan Krohn says he cringes when he thinks of some of the deeply uncool things he said when he was 13. Unlike most teenagers, Krohn said those things on camera in a speech at the 2009 Conservative Political Action Conference, making him a YouTube sensation. Now? Krohn tells Politico's Patrick Gavin he's not a conservative anymore. He likes gay marriage and Obamacare. He's going to New York University in the fall. He name drops German philosophers. But his old fans can't accept that he's changed. "Come on, I was thirteen," he told Politico. "I was thirteen."