Free Republic

The House Oversight Committee released another slew of ObamaCare documents Tuesday, calling them an "unvarnished record" of the problems facing the federal enrollment website. The 175-page trove details several meetings among federal health officials in the immediate aftermath of the site's rollout. -snip- The Oversight panel, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), highlighted portions suggesting that federal health officials were learning about some problems with the system through news reports.

I just read this article on the struggles that many conservative Christian pastors are undergoing, with internet pornography: http://www.christianpost.com/news/pornography-and-pastors-103931/ I believe that easy availability of free porn on the internet has lessened the taboos that Americans traditionally had, when taking about perverted sex acts. People who have viewed internet porn, feel hypocritical when they condemn gay marriage. Porn is a form of prostitution, and prostitution is illegal in 49 out of the 50 states. Why does local law enforcement prosecute pimps, hookers and johns, for street prostitution, but leave out the millions of incidents of prostitution taking place in all...

John Finnie, an Independent Member of the Scottish Parliament, has submitted a Private Member’s Bill to ban religious representatives from education committees. Mr Finnie’s Bill must get the support of 18 MSPs in order to be brought before parliament. John Finnie is jumping on the bandwagon of the Edinburgh Secular Society petition to repeal the Local Government Act to ban the Church from local-authority education committees. Father Tom Boyle, assistant general secretary of the Bishops’ Conference of Scotland for the Catholic Church, who also sits on East Renfrewshire’s education committee, dismissed the petition as an attempt to “remove any influence...

President Barack Obama wants to overhaul the immigration system this year and said that while some House Republicans seem reluctant to support changes he wants to make the vote as easy as he can. -snip- Mr. Obama said he recognizes that some Republicans are reluctant to support a comprehensive bill, but pointed to the broad support for overhauling the system from the businesses community, faith leaders and his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.

● NOMINA DEL VESCOVO DI ROCHESTER (U.S.A.) Il Papa ha nominato Vescovo di Rochester (U.S.A.) S.E. Mons. Salvatore Ronald Matano, finora Vescovo di Burlington (U.S.A.). S.E. Mons. Salvatore Ronald MatanoS.E. Mons. Salvatore Ronald Matano è nato il 15 settembre 1946 a Providence (Rhode Island). Ha frequentato la scuola elementare di "Saint Ann" e la secondaria presso la "LaSalle Academy" a Providence. Nel 1964 è entrato nel Seminario "Our Lady of Providence". Alunno del "Pontifical North American College", ha proseguito gli studi di Teologia alla Pontificia Università Gregoriana a Roma (1967-1972), conseguendovi successivamente il Dottorato in Diritto Canonico (1983).È stato ordinato sacerdote, per...

Anybody with half a brain these days knows America is no longer the country of her Founders’ intent. But the question plaguing us all is: How do we stop the destruction taking place? What can we do to regain the limited government propriety we once enjoyed? Is there a means to regain our sanity, or is it all hopeless? Our perspective at AFR (Americans for a Free Republic www.afr.org) has been clear from the beginning. America’s troubles stem from disastrous ideology being taught in the schools and implemented in Washington. Such ideology has created a one-party state to govern us,...

Did Sea Slugs Evolve to Steal Genes? by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Solar-powered sea slugs (sacoglossan molluscs) feed on filamentous algae, a water plant, to capture photosynthetic organelles called chloroplasts and use them for solar energy. Considered kleptoplastic because they "steal" from another organism, sea slugs have been suspected of using horizontal gene transfer (HGT) to accomplish this, a find that many scientists believe would support evolution. To keep the stolen chloroplasts alive and well inside the cells of their pervasive digestive tracts for several months at a time, sea slugs need the help of algal genes that code for...

Unlike the Michigan Education Association, the Detroit Federation of Teachers allows its members to become fee payers at any time. Teachers in the Detroit Federation of Teachers cannot totally leave the union because their contract is in effect until 2016. But they can become fee payers by simply sending a letter to the union at any time during the year. The MEA, by contrast, restricts its members from becoming fee payers or leaving the union as part of the state's right-to-work law to a one-month only window. As part of the state's right-to-work law, teachers can completely opt out of...

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is preparing top-to-bottom changes, including a push to limit the growth of military pay, as it adjusts to steep budget cuts and the winding down of war in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Tuesday. "These cuts are too fast, too abrupt and too irresponsible," he said at a public forum on national security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a centrist think tank.

Ken Cuccinelli is a friend and I am sorry he lost. In 2009, the Republican National Committee spent $9 million to win Virginia by a big margin. For the past 48 hours, the party bosses have been screaming to everyone about how much money they poured in this time in Virginia. We’ve had a few diarists at RedState document it and suck it up as gospel truth that the RNC did all it could this time. The RNC spent $9 million in 2009 to win and spent $3 million this time, pulling money out of Virginia, to lose by a...

Randy Burbach, who concluded a successful season at Corbett Middle School near Portland, will not be invited back to coach next year after he refused to change his team's victory party location despite complaints from parents, the school district's athletic director said.

Isaiah Smith is no stranger to crusades. He’s spoken out on gay rights before, last year appearing before the Keller City Council on the need for an anti-discrimination ordinance. But when the 18-year-old Birdville High School senior spoke out for gay rights in class this week after he said he was bullied — ripping apart his Bible to make a point — it earned him a three-day suspension. Smith said the suspension is unfair and that he intends to sue the district to remove the disciplinary action from his record. An attorney from the American Humanist Association has taken on...

By winning Tuesday night in a landslide election for his second term as governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie moved so far to the left, it may be difficult for him to win the Republican nomination for president come 2016. The GOP governor won in one of the bluest states, where President Barack Obama beat Republican Mitt Romney by 18 points in 2012. To win, Christie had to morph close to not only blue-state values and views, but become close to Obama himself — and he did just that.

Gov. Chris Christie said today that former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called him immediately after details of a new book about last year's vice presidential vetting process became public Thursday. -snip- The book also found Christie was on the short-list to be Romney's vice presidential running mate, but that during vetting the former Massachusetts governor's people were "stunned by the garish controversies” lurking in the shadows of his record, which was "littered with potential land mines." Those obstacles included his decision to steer hefty contracts to donors and political allies, a Justice Department report ripping his spending on travel...

Suddenly, congressional Democrats are catching Hillary Clinton fever. It’s still three years until the next presidential election, but already her endorsements from party leaders are piling up. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) delivered a speech in Iowa over the weekend urging Clinton to run in 2016, and other Democrats are touting her potential candidacy. Democratic strategists say it makes sense for lawmakers to line up behind Clinton — even before she’s announced her candidacy — because she is virtually assured of winning the party’s nomination.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) on Tuesday expressed deep disappointment that details of his vice presidential vetting were leaked to the authors of a new book about the 2012 election. "It's very disappointing," Christie told CNN. "I think it's a complete violation of trust of me and the spirit within which I entered that process." -snip- According to the book, "Double Down: Game Change 2012," by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, Romney advisers had major reservations about Christie's weight and physical health, along with concerns about Christie having been investigated by the Justice Department for exceeding travel reimbursement rates...

In a dramatic move prior to the release of the final report on Medjugorje, The Papal Nuncio to the U.S. on behalf of the prefect of the CDF Archbishop Müller has issued instructions that no cleric or faithful may participate in any meetings, conferences, or public celebrations in which the authenticity of the apparitions are taken for granted. This has come as a shock to many in the Medjugorje support community as there was an operating assumption that until final confirmation of inauthenticity, participation as if it were true was allowed by the faithful. Undoubtedly, some future debate will center...

When President Obama first ran for the White House in 2008, it was with the promise to turn the page on the presidency of George W. Bush. But for all their political differences, it turns out the American public pretty much view the two men in the same light, according to new polling data. In the first week of November in the fifth year of their presidencies, Obama and Bush have nearly identical approval numbers, according to the latest Gallup polling. The Gallup daily tracking poll for November 5th 2013 puts Obama’s approval at 39 percent, with 53 percent disapproving...

Email received: Bloody dangerous place, Canada!... the bears are huge and very curious... see what happens when a huge brown bear decides to take a closer look at a film shoot for a washing machine... Bear surprises crew on Ecobubbles photo shoot

Well, here are the results from my election day wish list:Cuccinelli lost, thanks to the “Libertarian” (made by an Obama bundler) running against him (and being outspent 10:1 by the McAuliffe, i.e. Democratic, fund raising machine).Fausta lost, thanks to the Democrats’ war on Republican women.And in Detroit, as Dewey pointed out yesterday: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” (For the record, the white guy won, in what was undoubtedly the first case of electoral black guilt.)Don’t worry, I’ll just pick up the pieces and soldier on.CGI Image (“computer generated image” - not Healthcare.gov contractor)Butt that’s all ancient history:...