Free Republic

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sent a ritual offering worth about 50,000 Japanese yen to the militarist Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo on Thursday, a move seen as avoiding a personal visit to the shrine. Visits to Yasukuni by previous Japanese prime ministers invariably chilled relations with Korea and China to freezing point since it honors convicted World War II criminals among the country’s war dead. Abe made the offering to mark the shrine's autumn festival, which runs from Thursday until Sunday. He also sent an offering to the shrine during the spring festival in April. Abe had said he felt...

(CBS News) WASHINGTON - For 31 days now, the Obama administration has been telling us that Americans by the millions are visiting the new health insurance website, despite all its problems. But no one in the administration has been willing to tell us how many policies have been purchased, and this may be the reason: CBS News has learned enrollments got off to an incredibly slow start. Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day "war room" meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in...

3 A baby with a keen ear for music has broken hearts this week, crying with a joy as his mum sings Rod Stewart’s My Heart Can’t Tell You No, but in a new YouTube remix it seems he also has a soft spot for Danzig’s How The Gods Kill. The baby giggles with glee as the soft intro to the track begins, before fist pumping as the drums hit (0:42) and promptly bursting into tears. The original video has become an internet sensation in the last few days already attracting over 15 million views, showing the infant crying when...

As zombies, vampires and ghosts prepare to descend on Britain’s streets to celebrate Halloween, one cute child has come up with some fright night costume alternatives. Adorable two-year-old Texan, Katie Kent, has dressed up as all the 11 incarnations of Doctor Who in honour of the show’s 50th anniversary and the scariest night of the year. From the show’s original Time Lord, William Hartnell, to current incumbent, Matt Smith, Katie has been snapped dressed up as them all. Her father Todd Kent, who shared the pictures on his Comic Book Literacy blog, spent months scouring eBay for the different costume...

Welcome To.... 'Amy's Place' welcomes all poets and those who enjoy poetry.'Amy's Place' is more than just about poetry.Come in, relax, and share with fellow FReepersyour thoughts about any of the things on the *Menu*. Enjoy! :) Never Forget! Bad Penny Amy's personal guardian ~ the ever charming, lovable, huggable, LouieWolf Many thanks for stopping by. : )

"We will keep this promise to the American people. If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." — President Barack Obama, touting the Affordable Care Act in a June 15, 2009, speech. This was not true, period. I call that a lie. And look. I admire the president. I support the Affordable Care Act insofar as it was clearly the most ambitious expansion of coverage that could possibly...

ROCK HILL, S.C. -- A month after the Obamacare Web site launched, South Carolina Republicans are speaking out. They say not only is the plan hurting taxpayers, but small business as well. "We're very scared. Just bluntly, we're afraid," said DES Training Chief Instructor DeWayne Saunders. Saunders and his wife run DES Training in Rock Hill. They're a small business that trains civilians and law enforcement in firearms. Now they're the ones firing back against Obamacare and how it's going to hurt their growth. "Instead of expanding in first quarter of 2014, we're holding back. We're just not going to...

Sir Patrick Stewart just rendered your Halloween outfit obsolete (Picture: Twitter/Sir Patrick Stewart) You’ll be seeing a lot of picture-based costumes lists this Halloween, but if you only have time to view one outfit make it Sir Patrick Stewart dressed in a full-length lobster suit raising his claws in a bathtub.The former commanding officer of the Starship Enterprise looks thoroughly pleased with himself as he poses for the camera, writing a simple ‘Happy Halloween.’ alongside the image on Twitter. Sir Patrick has been delighting us all year with his surreal images and videos, previously tweeting a follow-up to his infamous...

THE safety of the EU’s controversial “pet passport” scheme has been seriously questioned after two rabies-infected puppies from eastern Europe were found less than 200 miles from Britain.The latest cases, in Holland, increase the pressure on the Government to urgently review British quarantine laws, which were voluntarily relaxed and brought in line with EU regulations to save pet owners about £7million in kennel fees. Campaigners believe it is only a matter of time before pets carrying rabies are smuggled into Britain from countries where the disease is on the rise. They are urging ministers to “wake up” to the danger,...

At a congressional hearing Wednesday, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a steadfast supporter of the Affordable Care Act, reminded her Republican colleagues that the health care law is here to stay. "You know, I want to say to my colleagues after a three-and-a-half year campaign to repeal, to discredit, to even shut down the government over Obamacare, I want to say: get over it," Schakowsky said during the hearing investigating the botched HealthCare.gov rollout. It's true, as the administration likes to point out, that Obamacare was signed into law three years ago and has survived the Supreme Court and a presidential...

Americans who sign up for Obamacare will be getting a big surprise if they expect to access premium health care that may have been previously covered under their personal policies. Most of the top hospitals will accept insurance from just one or two companies operating under Obamacare… Regulations driven by the Obama White House have indeed made insurance more affordable – if, like Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, you’re looking only at price. But responding to Obamacare caps on premiums, many insurers will, in turn, simply offer top-tier doctors and hospitals far less cash for services rendered…

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 31, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – This week saw two same-sex “weddings” performed within the walls of the United States Supreme Court, presided over by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, respectively. While same-sex “marriage” has been legal in Washington, D.C., since 2009, the federal DOMA law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman prohibited such ceremonies from being performed on federal property. Ginsburg voted to strike down a provision of DOMA in June. Justice Ginsburg, 80, officiated the first of the two ceremonies last weekend, presiding over the “marriage” of one...

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly told PJ Media that the American public should give President Obama a break, adding that “nitpicking the president” does not do the country any good. “President Obama’s got three years left in office. I think he’s going to try to make Obamacare work, that’s his legacy. I think he’ll devote most of his time to that but you’ve got to give the guy a break. He’s under tremendous pressure every day with some new crazy thing in this world,” O’Reilly said at the world premiere of Killing Kennedy in Washington on Monday night. …

Next, starting college is often difficult- moving away from home for the first time. But what if you could stay at home and learn? Chinese Nobel laureate Mo Yan has taken a job as honorary principal of a new online university which was founded on Wednesday. Let’s find out more. China’s ever-expanding group of online writers are getting more attention, including that of Nobel laureate Mo Yan. Writers and senior editors from major literary websites have been invited to join this newly established online university.  Mo Yan, Author, said, "When the Internet started to thrive, I thought I would...

Pray For Our American Heroes and Our Nation There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:4-6 (NIV) ----

South Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz came to the Borinquen Health Care Center in Midtown Miami to share Affordable Care Act success stories Thursday. "Right here at Borinquen they've helped educate 2,600 people in the last four weeks about the health care plans that are available in the marketplace," announced the congresswoman. However, in the last month navigators here have only been able to enroll seven people. Miriam Romero was the very first. "She found a plan for $136 a month and now she's going to have the coverage that she needs," Wasserman Schultz said when she called the 61-year-old...

The best warfare strategy is to attack the enemy's plans, next is to attack alliances. - Sun Tzu, The Art of War A growing chorus of nations is decrying Washington's unrestrained cyber espionage. However, there is only one country with both the means and motivation for using mounting international resentment to challenge American hegemony. The NSA surveillance of America's allies has opened up two vital fronts in which China can erode American global dominance. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying has claimed the rhetorical high ground, calling cyber security "a matter of sovereignty". She said Beijing is eager to address...

A House Intelligence subcommittee will hear from CIA security officers who are expected to tell a much more detailed story about the terror attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans last year, CNN has learned. The men, described by sources as former Navy SEALs, former Army Special Forces and former Marines, were under contract to guard CIA agents on the ground there. The security officers were among those who responded when Stevens' compound was attacked on the night of September 11, 2012. They will appear before lawmakers behind closed doors during the week of...

Oct 31 (Reuters) - Indonesia is looking to build a new 300,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) state-owned refinery to reduce its dependence on imported fuels, a government official said on Thursday. Indonesia now has about 1 million bpd of refining capacity that meets about two-thirds of its demand, meaning it has to import more than 500,000 bpd of fuel products to fill the gap. The country is conducting a feasibility study it hopes to complete by next year on the new refinery, said Yusef Kartiwa Caryana, deputy director of the oil and gas storage and business development division at Indonesia's energy and mineral...

Why couldn’t Deval Patrick tell the truth last April about why Muslim terrorists on welfare bombed the Boston Marathon? Remember, Deval was so eager to suppress the truth that at midweek after the genocidal attack he sternly warned everyone not to jump to the obvious conclusion that Muslim terrorists had bombed the marathon, even though of course they had. So the cops nab the punk terrorist — the Joker — on Friday night, in the boat in Watertown. He had penned a testament, and supposedly the local cops had their cellphones confiscated so they couldn’t take a photo of the...