Free Republic

The last of the college applications have been rewritten, tweaked and polished, and at last entrusted to the tender mercies of the U.S. Mail or the Internet. Fretting over deadlines morphs into waiting, and yearning, wishing and praying for coveted letters of acceptance. This is the annual crisis in thousands of homes with ambitious high school seniors -- the high school seniors and their parents who still believe that college is the route to the American Dream. But wait. While they play the conventional game of aspiration, certain scholars and economists, and hundreds of thousands of "concerned citizens" have initiated...

In an unprecedented move, President Barack Obama’s vaunted political organization is being turned into a nonprofit group—funded in part by corporate money—to mobilize support behind the president’s second-term agenda. Democratic officials familiar with the plan said Thursday the tax-exempt organization will be called Organizing for Action and seek to harness the energy of the president’s re-election campaign for future legislative fights. Officials said the group will be separate from the Democratic National Committee and advocate on key policy issues such as gun control and immigration, train future leaders and devote attention to local issues around the nation. … Coming just...

HH: I begin with Columnist To the World, Mark Steyn, from www.steynonline.com. And Mark, probably the most important news of the day is that the Gunnison Sage Groush is probably going to be listed as endangered in Colorado, this shocking people across the Rocky Mountain State. MS: Yes, it’s actually less exclusive getting onto the Endangered Species list than it ought to be. It’s not like, you know putting down your kid for Eton at birth. HH: There are only 4,000 Gunnison Sage Grouses, which is a smaller cousin of the greater sage grouse. But they’re setting aside 1.7 million...

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said on Friday militants who attacked the United States and its citizens will hunted down, in the first comments by a senior U.S. official on a hostage attack by Islamist militants in Algeria. … “Terrorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere. Those who would wantonly attack our country and our people will have no place to hide,” he said. …

According to the US Census Bureau, the poverty rate in the USA soared to 15% by the end of 2011. Poverty, of course, is linked to unemployment and partial employment. Here is a chart of US poverty compared to the U6 measure of unemployment. Perhaps when the Census Bureau updates their poverty survey for 2012, it will have improved. Of course, the poverty numbers suffer from the infamous “devil is in the details” problem. The Heritage Foundation, for example, digs deeper in the causes and measurement of poverty. Poverty can include Section 8 housing, big screen televisions, food stamps and...

In the summer of 2010, mourners lined the streets of Wales's capital city to pay tribute to a seven-year-old boy killed in a house fire. In fact, Yaseen Ali Ege was brutally beaten to death, and then set alight with barbecue fuel. By his mother. For failing to learn the Koran. Over the preceding months, Mom had used a stick, a rolling pin, and a hammer on her son, but, despite these incentives, he had memorized only a couple of pages. And so she killed him, and subsequently declared she felt "100 percent better." This month, at Cardiff Crown Court,...

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction" is Newton's third law of physics. Its counterpart in geopolitics is "blowback," when military action in one sphere produces an unintended and undesirable consequence in another. September 11, 2001, was blowback. George H.W. Bush had sent an army of half a million to hurl Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait, a triumph. He proceeded to impose severe sanctions on the Iraqis and to build U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia. "Infidel" soldiers on sacred Islamic soil and the suffering of the Iraqi people under American sanctions were two of the causes Osama...

3 minute video of a very articulate woman reminding us of the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment.

Nine states survive perfectly well with no state income tax at all. These include large states such as Texas and Florida, medium size states such as Tennessee and Washington, and smaller states, in terms of population, such as New Hampshire, Nevada, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Alaska. Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is now proposing to make his state the 10th in America with no state income tax, phasing out both personal and corporate state income taxes. Experience proves the wisdom of that idea. Art Laffer, Steve Moore, and Jonathon Williams summarize the data in the 2010 volume of Rich States, Poor...

One of the recommendations of Vatican II was that priests be formed in the arts: “During their philosophical and theological studies, clerics are to be taught about the history and development of sacred art, and about the sound principles governing the production of its works. In consequence they will be able to appreciate and preserve the Church’s venerable monuments, and be in a position to aid, by good advice, artists who are engaged in producing works of art” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 129). This is not a bad idea, considering that priests are the caretakers of the Church’s artistic patrimony. Each pastor...

Seven of the eight people facing felony charges for their alleged actions on Dec.6 at the State Capitol are affiliated with the SEIU Healthcare Michigan union. That's the union that has taken more than $33 million from home-based caregivers in Michigan. One of the people arrested, Joshua Kersting, is the son of SEIU Healthcare Michigan President Marge Faville. Kersting's current status at SEIU Healthcare Michigan is unclear. He previously was employed by the union over which Faville presides, but apparently was transferred to a different Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate a while back after his mother was accused of...

A group called Gun Control = More Crime is planning anti-gun control rallies at state capitol buildings across the nation. The event, being billed "Guns Across America," is scheduled for tomorrow, January 19. "This is going to be a peaceful picketing protest against ANY, AND ALL future gun legislation," writes Eric, the group's founder, in a Facebook post. "This is our chance to reach out to our elected officials, and tell them NO NEW GUN LAWS! 'Guns Across America' is being tailored to happen in every states capital city**, at their capital building. The theory behind doing this event on...

In my latest essays I’ve noted that there cannot be a “social teaching” unless we know what a society is. Pope Leo XIII, in his many social encyclicals, expresses the constant wisdom of the Church when he affirms the reality of society—neither a numerical aggregate nor a collective—and when he sees this reality as rooted in man’s nature, created by God. For it is God, writes Leo in Libertas praestanstissimum (1888), “who has made man for society, and has placed him in the company of others like himself, so that what was wanting to his nature, and beyond his attainment...

A masked assailant threw acid at the artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Theater ballet troupe, an attack that Bolshoi representatives said may cause him to lose his eyesight and appeared to be linked to power struggles at the famed ballet company. “What happened with Sergei Filin was not accidental,” Ratmansky, now an artist-in-residence at the American Ballet Theater, posted on his Facebook page. “The Bolshoi has many ills. It's a disgusting cesspool, of those developing friendships with the artists, the speculators and scalpers, the half-crazy fans, ready to bite the throats of the rivals of their favorites, the cynical hackers,...

President Barack Obama has become an icon across the United States and the world. His likeness can be found all over the globe on T-shirts, banners and even lattes.

Liberals have an uncanny knack for designing solutions that do not address the problem at hand, and they're doing it again in their current effort to use the Sandy Hook shootings as fodder for promoting stringent gun control measures. It's as if President Obama and his fellow travelers lie in wait for the unfolding of big events that they can use to incite the public's passions and thereby gain popular support for otherwise unpopular government action. Liberals aren't just exploiting Sandy Hook to promote their unpopular gun agenda; some are now invoking false charges of racism to aid their...

A Catholic bishop in war-torn Mali whose diocese lies in the path of Islamic insurgents said “people are hiding in their homes, unable to venture out”. Bishop Augustin Traore of Segou, Mali, told the American Catholic News Service by telephone: “Although our churches are still intact, people are becoming afraid to enter them. Our entire Catholic culture will clearly be in danger if this conflict drags on. “Until the havoc caused by the French bombing ends and the hostilities cease, no one will be in a position to know what has happened,” he said after noting that the country’s churches...

SYDNEY, Australia -- It is for Americans and their elected representatives to determine the right response to President Obama’s proposals on gun control. I wouldn’t presume to lecture Americans on the subject. I can, however, describe what I, as prime minister of Australia, did to curb gun violence following a horrific massacre 17 years ago in the hope that it will contribute constructively to the debate in the United States. I was elected prime minister in early 1996, leading a center-right coalition. Virtually every nonurban electoral district in the country — where gun ownership was higher than elsewhere — sent...

HELP SPREAD THE WORD...STOP AGENDA 21 IN NEBRASKA!!!! Senator Bill Kintner from Papillion has submitted a bill modeled after Alabama's state law to ban Agenda 21 in Nebraska! He needs our support to know that the conservatives are behind him - if you haven't yet emailed, called, or written him a personal note, would you please take a minute to do that? He needs to hear from ALL of us by Friday to know that we are out there and are grateful for his interest in this issue! THANKS A BUNCH!!! :) Senator Bill Kintner 402-471-2613 email: wkintner@leg.ne.gov address: State...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In an effort to flex its moral muscle in the professional sports arena, the Vatican has invited top-tier Christian athletes Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin to help bring ethical values back to a scandal-ridden world of sports. The Pontifical Council for Culture is planning to host an international conference on re-instilling values in sports this spring, inviting representatives from top world governing bodies like FIFA (the International Federation of Association Football), the International Cycling Union and the Italian National Olympic Committee. Msgr. Melchor Sanchez de Toca Alameda, head of the council's "Culture and Sport" section, told...