Free Republic

Larry P. Arnn President, Hillsdale College LARRY P. ARNN is the twelfth president of Hillsdale College. He received his B.A. from Arkansas State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in government from the Claremont Graduate School. From 1977 to 1980, he also studied at the London School of Economics and at Worcester College, Oxford University, where he served as director of research for Martin Gilbert, the official biographer of Winston Churchill. From 1985 until his appointment as president of Hillsdale College in 2000, he was president of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy. He is...

IÂ’d just hung the deer by its neck on the swingset for skinning and butchering when..... "Oh Hum-BERTO! Puh-LEAZE!"I looked over and it was our new neighbor Freddie, wailing from his patio door, his face a mask of horror and disgust. "Humberto! How could you?! Why thatÂ’s awful!"Freddie moved to south Louisiana recently from San Francisco. People didnÂ’t skin deer in their backyards there. Freddie used to open his back door, prance to the fence, and discuss the screen and stage with fellow wine sniffers. Now he opens his back door and finds an assassinated deer dangling with its tongue...

(RNS) When Pope Francis recently sought to comfort a distraught boy whose dog had died, the pontiff took the sort of pastoral approach he is famous for — telling the youngster not to worry, that he would one day see his pet in heaven. “Paradise is open to all of God’s creatures,” Francis said reassuringly.Pope Francis greets a crowd on his way to a meeting with cardinals at the Vatican on Feb. 21, 2014. RNS photo by David Gibson It was a sparkling moment on a rainy November day, and the setting in St. Peter’s Square only burnished Francis’ reputation as...

As noted here,Tom Ford, a designer and self-styled "provocateur," has created a penis crucifix for the Christmas season. When one of the world's leading exorcists, Father Gabriele Amorth, was asked how one can tell if someone is possessed, he replied, "By their aversion to the sacrament and all things sacred." One of the clearest signs of demonic possession is a hatred for the Eucharist or the crucifix. And isn't this precisely what we are witnessing today? As our world immerses itself more and more in sin, the numbers if demon-possessed multiply exponentially.

The federal watchdog tasked with keeping tabs on the Internal Revenue Service says the agency needs to do a better job of administering tax credits for low-income people. The reason? Billions of dollars each year are ending up in the wrong hands. A new report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, reveals that nearly a quarter of the $63 billion worth of Earned Income Tax Credits distributed in 2012 were improper payments. That’s about $14.5 billion in erroneous payments that were either given to the wrong people or distributed to the right people in the wrong amount. TIGTA...

Watching "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes" and get the strong sensation that Obama is an agent of Koba. He hates humans. Your thoughts please.

In a bedroom lay a white silk pillow - yellowed with age and emblazoned with the screaming eagle emblem of the Army's 101st Airborne Division. On the walls were pictures and plaques telling the story of a World War II veteran; in another room was an adjustable hospital bed and, on a windowsill, a worn Bible. That October day, Jim Bennett was looking for an investment, a house to buy, rehab, then rent or resell, as he has done with about 500 others over more than 20 years. But Bennett found much more at the modest, two-story rowhouse on Winton...

Bloomberg is title and link only: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-13/senate-push-on-final-spending-bill-thwarted-by-disputes.html

Congress gave itself until Wednesday to pass a government funding bill after the two Republican senators whose efforts led to a government shutdown in 2013 disrupted legislation that would avert a shutdown. Unable to pass a massive spending bill that would keep the government funded for a year, the Senate on Saturday approved a stopgap measure to prevent a shutdown at midnight. The maneuver came during a rare Saturday session after GOP Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee demanded a vote Friday to defund President Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, thwarting Senate leadership's hopes to pass a $1.1 trillion...

Say what you will about the compromises contained in John Boehner’s spending bill, but there is at least one thing about it I love: Nancy Pelosi hates it. At issue are the reform measures the GOP inserted in the bill to get rid of excessive regulation in Dodd-Frank and so-called campaign finance reform. Pelosi expressed enormous disappointment in the White House, which supported Boehner’s bill, would support the roll back of Dodd-Frank and the 1st Amendment violations in the name of campaign finance reform. The thing conservatives should understand about this lame duck Congress is that what they do here...

Their power ebbing, Senate Democrats launched a last-minute drive Saturday to confirm roughly 20 of President Barack Obama's nominees, and several Republicans blamed tea party-backed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for creating an opening for the outgoing majority party to exploit. Lawmakers took a break in their intrigue long enough to send Obama legislation that provides funds for the government to remain open until Wednesday at midnight, easing concerns of a shutdown. A separate, $1.1 trillion long-term funding bill remained in limbo. Republicans tried to slow the nomination proceedings, but several voiced unhappiness with Cruz, a potential presidential candidate in 2016....

The woman tasked with carrying out the Vatican’s three-year investigation into the health of Religious life in the US admitted she faced resistance and criticism from fellow sisters. Writing in this week’s Tablet Mother Mary Clare Millea said the Vatican allowed her to select her own collaborators to carry out the apostolic investigation of the nearly 400 institutes of women Religious. She said she felt she had “the complete trust of the congregation in Rome” to formulate a strategy for carrying out the investigation. The long-awaited report from the investigation is to be released on Tuesday. Mother Clare, who is...

TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) -- Topeka Police were forced to use deadly force after a 19 year old suspect, involved in several crimes, refused to put down his weapon. Officers were first called to the 400 block of SW Tyler where a suspect had allegedly strangled a female victim and taking a knife and a gun out of the residence.

Chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest), dozens of armed men in camouflage uniforms from Russia's republic of Chechnya train in snow in a camp in the rebel-held east Ukraine. They say their "Death" unit fighting Ukrainian forces has 300 people, mostly former state security troops in the mainly-Muslim region where Moscow waged two wars against Islamic insurgents and which is now run by a Kremlin-backed strongman. Seasoned Chechen fighters, whose combat experience often dates back to the 1994-96 and 1999-2000 wars, fight on both sides in east Ukraine, adding to the complexity of a conflict in which the West says...

A Scottish monk has been arrested for distributing a series of leaflets in the Cambridgeshire area critical of homosexuality, fornication, contraception, euthanasia, abortion, and divorce. Brother Damon Jonah Kelly, head of the Glasgow based charity the Black Hermits, was arrested by Cambridgeshire Police on December 8 on suspicion of a Section 5 (religious/racial) public order offence after he wrote a letter to the homosexual news publication, Pink News, claiming responsibility for the distribution of leaflets in the city of Ely, as well as in Cambridge, King’s Lynn and several other Cambridgeshire towns and cities. Initially police declined to take any...

The key vote on the bill that funds the Obama amnesty and Obamacare as well as the rest of government was the vote on the rule that put it on the floor, and it barely slid through by two votes. Any Congressman who voted for it voted to continue Obamacare and to allow Obama to proceed with his amnesty decree, because this bill funds both with no restrictions. The only North Carolinian to stand up and vote to stop this bill from proceeding was our own Walter Jones. The rest of the NC ''Republican'' congressmen voted for a piece of...

An atheist invited to give the opening prayer at a Lake Worth, Florida, City Commission meeting recently called on the “wisdom of Satan” and declared “if almighty Thor is with us, who can ever be against us,” a perversion of a New Testament verse. It was not altogether surprising as people with nontraditional beliefs increasingly are demanding their place in the public square. But in this case, a number of city commissioners expressed their opinion of the “invocation” – without saying a word. They got up and walked out. See the incident:“Free speech works both ways,” Mayor Pam Triolo told...

Russia has called on the United States to punish those responsible for the use of “inquisition-style” interrogation methods in the “global war on terror”, as revealed in the US Senate report on torture this week. Konstantin Dolgov, the human rights ombudsman of Russia’s foreign ministry, said the results of the “shocking” report were “the latest confirmation of gross, systemic human rights violations by the American authorities”. .... The Senate report showed that “prisoners in secret torture chambers were subjected to inhuman, humiliating treatment” including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and threats against suspects’ families in order to “beat confessions out of often...

Russian President Vladimir Putin is so easy to dislike because he really is a bad guy and there are few things more pleasurable than contemplating his fall from power. It is reasonably clear that might just happen. Even though he continues to be widely popular in his own country, there are several reasons why he could be brought down. The principle ones are the fall in oil prices and the financial crisis brought on by the sanctions imposed by the West. There are many others: a 40 percent decline in the value of Russian currency; an impending recession; the cost...

Sen. Cruz's speech will inspire you. He takes no DC elite prisoners. For instance: "Why are we here today in a lame duck? Why is there a session of congress, the 2nd week of December, with so many members voting, who the American people just said they no longer want to be represented by. Why are there so many members getting ready to land a cushy law firm and lobby interest job, and industry and trade associations? All of our colleagues , whole bunch of them, we’re going to see them again— except, they’ll have more expensive suits, more finely...