Free Republic

The House will return to work on Jan. 7 after the Christmas break, giving them seven working days in the new year before government funding runs out again. There are 16 scheduled days left in the current year, but few expect any measure to extend government funding to get rolling before the House departs for Christmas break on December 13. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor released the schedule for 2014 on Thursday, which lists 113 working days. The calendar includes the chamber’s usual August recess and another extended break in October when members traditionally return to their districts to campaign....

Catholic University of America Cuts Ties With Pro-Abortion Group by Matthew Archbold | LifeNews.com | 10/30/13 7:17 PM The Catholic University of AmericaÂ’s school of social work is reportedly cutting ties with a group due to its advocacy of abortion.Will Rainford, who became Dean of the National Catholic School of Social Service (NCSSS) in June of this year, recently announced in an email to students that he was ending relations with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) because of its position that social workers should support access to abortions for clients, according to the Chronicle of Social Change.The NASW...

Full title: Pleading the Fifth: Official Won't Answer Questions About Making Parody Videos While Injured Vets Wait for Benefits Veterans coming back from wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with severe injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder have been left behind by their government as they desperately wait for a response about disability benefits from the Department of Veteran's affairs. Many veterans returning from war have been waiting for over a year. Currently, the VA system has a backlog of approximately 500,000 cases and they're being cleared extremely slowly, causing further long term pain to veterans and their families. Under relentless pressure...

All who call on God in true faith, earnestly from the heart, will certainly be heard, and will receive what they have asked and desired, although not in the hour or in the measure, or the very thing which they ask. Yet they will obtain something greater and more glorious than they had dared to ask. ~ Martin Luther “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s...

Consider it a very small victory for Iran. Forbes’s latest “The World’s Most Powerful People” list places Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei, four spots higher than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Khamenei, who comes in at #23 this year, a spot ahead of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, actually dropped two places from last year, when he ranked #21. Reports that Khamenei’s health is failing don’t seem to have affected his status on the global stage. The supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, having final say on all domestic and foreign policy issues, has seen his country benefit from...

A day after a US Treasury Department report bluntly denounced Germany’s economic model, accusing it of hampering the eurozone recovery and hurting global growth, Germany called the conclusions “incomprehensible” and challenged the US to “analyze its own economic situation.” The Treasury’s semiannual currency report criticized Germany’s over-reliance on exports, a high current-account surplus and weak domestic demand. These factors “have hampered re-balancing at a time when many other euro-area countries have been under severe pressure,” the report concluded, citing budget tightening in the euro periphery. “The net result has been a deflationary bias for the euro area, as well as...

(CNN) -- Tech titans Oracle and Red Hat are joining the effort to "address the problems around HealthCare.gov," the federal website for Obamacare, according to a spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "As part of the 'Tech Surge,' we've added key personnel from the government and private sector, including expert engineers and technology managers. These dozens of people are strengthening and reinforcing the team we have working 24/7 to address the problems around HealthCare.gov," said Julie Bataille. The experts come from Red Hat and Oracle, and include Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer on leave from...

Four Frenchmen held captive for three years by an Al Qaeda affiliate in Niger were reunited with their families yesterday , amid reports that a ransom of at least €20 million ($28 million) had been paid for their release. If this report is true, it is near catastrophic. $28 million can go a very long way to support Jihad.

Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell vowed that President Obama would use executive authority to create more national monuments to protect lands if Congress doesn't pass legislation to do so. "If Congress doesn't step up to act," Jewell said during a speech at the National Press Club in Washington, "then the president will take action." Obama has used the more than century-old Antiquities Act to establish national monuments nine times, with six coming in the last year. The administration has said it would use the law only if local communities can demonstrate there is significant support for such action. Those...

In an act of dhimmitude that would make Sir Winston Churchill roll over in his grave, the increasingly submissive Prime Minister of Great Britain – David Cameron – has decided to embrace Sharia Compliant Finance (SCF). Like a python’s victim, Cameron has just caused his country to exhale a bit more of its breath, after which, the grip tightens. ... Prime Minister David Cameron has announced that the UK will become the first non-Muslim country to issue an Islamic bond. At the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in London, he also announced plans for a new Islamic index on the...

Young New Yorkers who want to light up will soon have to wait for their 21st birthdays before they can buy a pack of smokes after lawmakers in the nation's most populous city voted overwhelmingly to raise the tobacco-purchasing age from 18 to 21. City Council's vote Wednesday makes New York the biggest city to bar cigarette sales to 19- and 20-year-olds, and one of only a few places throughout the United States that have tried to stymie smoking among young people by raising the purchasing age. The age limit also would apply to electronic-vapor cigarettes, The council also approved...

WHEN I awoke this morning, an unexpected and bizarre cloud hung over my soul. I sensed a strong spirit of violence and death in the air all around me. As I drove into town, I took my Rosary out, and invoking the name of Jesus, prayed for God’s protection. It took me about three hours and four cups of coffee to finally figure out what I was experiencing, and why: it’s Halloween today. No, I’m not going to delve into the the history of this strange American “holiday” or wade into the debate on whether to participate in it or...

Here's a compilation of "costumes" liberals have adorned in my "portfolio" over the years...Happy Halloween! Then, of course there's all the stuff I did with Obama...

17-Year-Old Refuses Abortion Clinic’s Pressure to Have an Abortion by Sarah Terzo | LifeNews.com | 10/31/13 12:38 PMI recently read an account from a 17-year-old who was 24 weeks pregnant and was pressured by abortion clinic workers to abort her baby. The testimony appeared in the book Bitter Fruit: Women’s Experiences with Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion, and Adoption. I did not find this book to be biased towards the pro-life position. The author seems to take, as far as is possible, a neutral stand. Nowhere in the book does she condemn abortion or claim that adoption or parenting are better options.When...

(CNN) -- Israeli warplanes struck a military base near the Syrian port city of Latakia on Thursday, an Obama administration official told CNN. An explosion at a missile storage site in the area was widely reported in the Israeli press, but an attack has not been confirmed by the Israeli government. The target, according to the Obama administration official, was missiles and related equipment the Israelis felt might be transferred to the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah. The official declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the information. When asked for comment, an Israel Defense Forces spokeswoman told...

I didn't realize this, but when the Senate voted a couple of weeks ago to raise the debt ceiling, the legislation included a provision that there would be a second vote expressing approval or disapproval of the first vote. That vote was held yesterday:Twenty-seven Republican senators voted with Democrats on Oct. 16 to lift the debt ceiling and avert a catastrophic default. And each one of those 27 senators voted Tuesday to "disapprove" of their own votes. The vote Tuesday was a symbolic "resolution to disapprove" of the debt limit hike. It was mandated by the deal thanks to a...

A senior advisor to the Department of Homeland Security, Mohamed Elibiary, says that America is “an Islamic country” and continues to argue that the Muslim Brotherhood is comparable to Christian evangelicals. Elibiary is a member of the Homeland Security Advisory Council and was promoted in September. He also served on the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism Working Group and the Faith-based Security and Communications Advisory Committee. He is also a long-time Texas Republican Party official and was a delegate for Senator John McCain in 2008. On October 31, Elibiary tweeted that he believes the U.S. “is an Islamic...

Australia's largest Muslim school, Malek Fahd Islamic School, is facing imminent closure after New South Wales Board of Studies inspectors recommended its registration not be renewed in 2014. ABC News has obtained a letter that NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli wrote to the school on Wednesday stating he was "gravely concerned" about the school. He also said that the board had recommended to him the kindergarten to year 12 school's registration not be renewed in 2014. Among the Minister's concerns are questions over attendance, Higher School Certificate curriculum, educational quality, safe environment and buildings. Board of Studies inspectors were at...

Sometimes being a publicly traded company may not seem like it’s worth the hassle. Quarterly earnings reports, disclosure of stock sales by insiders, a raft of government regulations, it’s all a lot of rules dictating how one does business. And, whether public or not, there’s any number of government regulations to follow at the local, state, and federal level. Not to mention local, state, and federal taxes. It’s enough to make one seriously consider taking it all underground. What would it be like? To operate a company without any concerns other than profit and your employees? To keep all of...

The original Monster Mash appeared in 1962. Fifty one years later a classical song is used to describe a classic governmental assault and screw up.