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<p>Torture is repulsive. Even on the scaffold or in front of a firing squad, a man can meet death with dignity. The torturer sets out to strip his victim of dignity, to break him, to violate not only his body but also his soul. In England, torture was outlawed in 1660, and for most of the past 350 years, that seemed to be a final verdict. Torture had been a barbarous relic of the dark ages. Anyone who suggested that it might still have a role would have been laughed to scorn; no doubt he would also have been in favour of burning witches.</p>

The chairman of a special House committee investigating the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya said Wednesday he is “keenly aware” that many people from both parties believe there is nothing left to investigate after a series of congressional and internal reviews, including a House report that found no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. But Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., said that “some of those very same folks who now tell us to move on did not believe we should have investigated Benghazi in the first place.” […] “We should not move on until there is a complete understanding of how...

God bless Texas. Last year, the Lone Star State passed a bill that allows schools to say things like, “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hanukah” without retribution. Co-authored by Dwayne Bohac (R-Houston) and Richard Raymond (D-Laredo), the bill, “allows students, parents, teachers and administrators the freedom to acknowledge these traditional winter holidays without fear of litigation or punishment and restores common sense by placing Supreme Court precedent into state law,” according to the law’s official website.

F-16's from RNAF (Royal Netherlands Air Force) operating from Malbork airbase in Poland. Read more at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1b2_1418215345#Efxk1rGWZmuVFsAM.99

  Service Birth     Name, state Assoc. Justice Chief Justice Yrs Place Date Died Religion Antonin Scalia, DC 1986–   — N.J. 1936 — Roman Catholic Anthony M. Kennedy, Calif. 1988–   — Calif. 1936 — Roman Catholic Clarence Thomas, DC 1991–   — Ga. 1948 — Roman Catholic Ruth Bader Ginsburg, DC 1993–   — N.Y. 1933 — Jewish Stephen G. Breyer, Mass. 1994–   — Calif. 1938 — Jewish John G. Roberts, DC   2005– — N.Y. 1955 — Roman Catholic Samuel A. Alito, Jr., N.J. 2006–   — N.J. 1950 — Roman Catholic Sonia Sotomayor...

Fear is building that Wisconsin’s Department of Health Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation of Planned Parenthood’s over billing of the state’s Medicaid program for services rendered may endanger the financial health of the organization. For example, Planned Parenthood has been billing the state twice the allowable amount for the abortifacient contraceptive Yaz. Beth Hartung, president of the Wisconsin Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association, called the financial reimbursement rules “unreasonable. The mark-ups we attach to these drugs is what helps subsidize services that the state program doesn’t cover.” One of those uncovered programs is surgical abortions. “Squeezing the profit...

A grisly killing in a small town in Mississippi has local residents on edge and looking for answers. A blond-haired teenager with no known enemies was found walking down a rural road on fire Saturday night. She had been beaten, doused with lighter-fluid and set ablaze. Jessica Chambers Jessica Chambers, 19, of Panola County was found engulfed in flames near the charred shell of her car sitting on the roadside in the town of Courtland. The town has a population of 460. She was flown to a hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, but later died. Preliminary autopsy results reveal Jessica died...

When the Republican Party takes over majority control of Congress in January, it will face a number of battles that must be fought with the Obama administration ranging from its amnesty intentions to the repeal of ObamaCare, but high among the battles is the need to rein in the metastasizing power of the Environmental Protection Agency.

exual dysfunction is not unique to the twenty-first century—nor, certainly, to the West. Japan's "herbivores"—men who shun sex and prefer saving money and going on long walks to riding motorcycles and flirting with girls—have been well documented and are regarded by social scientists as the best example of male sexuality turning in on itself. But although the sexodus, a new retreat into solitude by Western males, has a different flavour to it and dramatically different aetiology from previously observed social crises, many characteristics are identical. And what's troubling about men throwing in the towel in both East and West is...

My wife and were talking the other day and were wondering if there is a formal term for dates that are made up of consecutive numbers like this Saturday, i.e. 12/13/14, or dates such as the upcoming 1/5/15 or 1515. I have scoured the search engine and got nothing, so I thought I would run it be the brightest, most diverse group of scholars I know, Freepers. What ya got? Thanks

With all the recent race clanging on MSNBC and other cable news networks, now’s probably a good time to remind everyone that America is among the least racist countries in the world. I know this statement will be shocking news to regular viewers of “PoliticsNation,” but it also has the quality of being true. From 2010 to 2014, the World Values Survey asked residents in over 50 countries who they would not want as neighbors. Just over five percent of respondents in the United States said “people of a difference race.” That’s far more tolerant a response than citizens of...

A historic number of America's youth – 2.5 million children – are homeless according to a report recently released by the National Center on Family Homelessness. These children, the report shows, are victims of a number of variables that contribute to homelessness including single motherhood, racial disparities and low household incomes. The report, based on data compiled from the U.S. Department of Education and the Census Bureau, reveals that many of the nation's homeless children are on the verge of losing their housing, don't have a fixed residence, are living in places not designated for human beings, or are living...

President Barack Obama said many police officers have a "subconscious fear" of people "who look different," which is a "national problem that will require national solutions." In an interview with BET about race relations, Ferguson and Eric Garner's death in which Obama said that racism and bias are "deeply rooted" in America, Obama said "consequences can be deadly" when people are not being treated fairly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DHJ-CbOGQABen Shapiro explains why establishment Republicans aren't using the power of the purse to stop Barack Obama's executive amnesty: They don't want to stop it. TRANSCRIPT: There is the only one way to explain the new proposal by Speaker of the House John Boehner and other top Republicans for stopping President Obama’s executive amnesty: they don’t want to stop it at all. Here’s the story. Republicans have two options: the smart option and the stupid option. The smart option would be for Republicans to pass a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government through January. That would allow Republicans to...

An Army chaplain was punished for discussing matters of faith and quoting from the Bible during a suicide prevention training session with the 5th Ranger Training Battalion -- leading to outrage from religious liberty groups and a Georgia congressman. Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn was issued a Letter of Concern that accused him of advocating for Christianity and “using Christian scripture and solutions” during a Nov. 20th training session held at the University of North Georgia. “You provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a biblical approach to handling depression on the other side,” Col. David Fivecoat,...

Top Gear, In the Night Garden and Doctor Who could all feature in a new £2billion theme park alongside characters from Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. The BBC has signed a deal to allow some of its programmes to feature in the new multi-billion pound resort in Kent. Plans are still being drafted for how the theme park will work, but BBC shows and characters could feature in specific lands, games and rides at the London Paramount Entertainment Resort.

After Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011, top CIA officials secretly told lawmakers that information gleaned from brutal interrogations played a key role in what was one of the spy agency's greatest successes. Then-CIA Director Leon Panetta repeated that assertion in public, and it found its way into a critically acclaimed movie about the operation, "Zero Dark Thirty," which depicts a detainee offering up the identity of bin Laden's courier, Abu Ahmad al-Kuwaiti, after being tortured at a secret CIA interrogation site. As it turned out, bin Laden was living in al-Kuwaiti's walled family compound,...

The release of the already discredited Senate “torture report” has left liberals in a state of gleeful pearl clutching as they pretended to be shocked by the shocking revelation that enhanced interrogation can mean sleep deprivation and assorted mind games.Meanwhile here’s a little reminder of what real torture looks like as perpetrated by the Taliban. I was one of the Taliban’s torturers: I crucified peopleInstead of just searching for criminals, the night patrols were instructed to seek out people watching videos, playing cards or, bizarrely, keeping caged birds. Men without long enough beards were to be arrested, as was any...

In the early 1980s the New York City Police Department received a number of civilian complaints about the conduct of its officers. Among those complaints was one that had to be the most infuriating, embarrassing and heartbreaking even the toughest street cops had ever heard. The complaint came from a woman who said that while she was pregnant she felt faint and collapsed to the sidewalk in the streets of New York’s Greenwich Village, then subsequently became unconscious. This brought attention from a police officer who was on foot patrol nearby. From there the story was picked up by a...