Free Republic

The Great Life " Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled… —John 14:27 " Whenever we experience something difficult in our personal life, we are tempted to blame God. But we are the ones in the wrong, not God. Blaming God is evidence that we are refusing to let go of some disobedience somewhere in our lives. But as soon as we let go, everything becomes as clear as daylight to us. As long as we try to serve...

OPEC won't rush to cut oil production even if prices fall as low as $40 per barrel, one of the cartel's members said Sunday. The energy minister for the United Arab Emirates told Bloomberg at a Dubai conference that the middle eastern oil producers believe "the market will stabilize itself." "We are not going to change our minds because the prices went to $60 or to $40," Suhail Al-Mazrouei said. Even as it has watched prices dip, OPEC declined to cut back on production at its November meeting. Some observers had expected a production cut to boost the price of...

“Who Are You, John?” (John 1:6-8, 19-28) How would you like to be defined in terms of someone else? I mean, who you are, your life and identity--when people think of you, they always compare you to somebody else? Are you like this person? Are you like that person? I suppose it could get old after a while. Why can’t people just take you for who you are, on your own terms? Well, today we’ll meet someone whose life was always being defined in terms of someone else. And you know what? He was okay with it. And so this...

Bill Cosby says he only expects the 'black media' to stay 'neutral' and give him a fair hearing over mounting rape claims. The 77-year-old said that African-American media should be impartial in reporting the allegations that he is a serial rapist. 'Let me say this. I only expect the black media to uphold the standards of excellence in journalism and when you do that you have to go in with a neutral mind,' Cosby told Page Six.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has surveyed what he calls “the Obama-Clinton foreign policy,” and he does not like what he sees. Speaking Wednesday at The Heritage Foundation, Cruz condemned current policy as “appeasement and moral equivalency.” Said Cruz: “One of the sad legacies of the last six years” is that “our friends no longer trust us and our enemies no longer fear us,” and that the United States risks going from “the leader of the free world to a dutiful and obedient member of the international community.” Cruz criticized former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s remarks that we should “respect”...

The passage of Proposition 47 by California voters in November is at least partially to blame for an uptick in Fresno crime figures, Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer said this week. Aggravated assault is up 9.9% in a 28-day period ending Wednesday, although it remains down 3.9% for the year in figures released by police after the department’s monthly Crime View session, in which Dyer and his command staff go over key statistics. Burglary is up by 30.7%, in the period, while it remains down by 12.8% for the year. Auto theft spiked by 12.6% but is still down by...

PYONGYANG, North Korea - North Korea on Sunday presented to the media an American man who says he illegally crossed into the country but has not been put into custody and is seeking asylum in Venezuela. Arturo Pierre Martinez, 29, of El Paso, Texas, said he entered North Korea by crossing the river border with China. Details of how and when he got into the country were not immediately clear. In his comments to reporters, Martinez strongly criticized the U.S. for alleged human rights violations. "The illegal war carried out against the nation of Iraq serves as a perfect example...

Five members of an Israeli family have suffered chemical burns after a substance believed to be acid was thrown over them reportedly by a Palestinian man in the West Bank. Police said the victims included four girls who were sprayed with a corrosive substance by a man who was then shot in the leg by a bystander. The incident took place close to a checkpoint near Beitar Illit, in the southern West Bank. Paramedics who treated the family – including three children aged between about eight and 10 – said the wounds appeared to be acid burns affecting their limbs....

January 21, 2025 Now that Jeb Bush—known widely as Bush 45, or Bush cuarenta y cinco, or, simply, El Jefe Jeb—has completed his two terms in the White House, we can look back and summarize some of the major events of his administration. As we know, America has seen great change during the third Bush presidency, starting with its population, which has grown by some 30 percent these past eight years. Indeed, today, well more than 400 million people live in America—most of them either citizens, or citizens-to-be. And while establishing Spanish as the Second Language of America has not...

He’s the teen wolf of Wall Street. A kid from Queens has made tens of millions of dollars — by trading stocks on his lunch breaks at Stuyvesant High School, New York magazine reports in its Monday issue. Mohammed Islam is only 17 and still months away from graduating — but worth a rumored $72 million. “The high eight figures,” is as specific as the shy and modest teen would get when asked his net worth.

A recent study shows more Hawaii public school teens are either experimenting with or using new tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes. According to the Hawaii Youth Tobacco Survey, lifetime e-cigarette use among high school students tripled from 5.1 percent in 2011 to 17.6 percent in 2013, and quadrupled among middle school students, from 1.8 percent to 7.9 percent, during the same time period. “Evidence suggests that e-cigarettes are being used by students who are not cigarette smokers,” said Tonya Lowery St. John, epidemiologist for DOH’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. “More than a third of middle school students and...

You’ve probably heard the news already regarding the corrupt anti-gun government funding bill which passed late last night. In the end, even liberal Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) balked about supporting the bill, known as the Cromnibus. But Boehner was aided by Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who worked the phone tirelessly Thursday, giddy at the prospect that Boehner would agree to fund Obama's illegal executive actions on gun control, immigration and the anti-gun ObamaCare. In the end, the Boehner-Obama-Biden team was able to pass the giant $1.1 trillion anti-gun bill by a vote of 219-206. And 162 House Republicans who...

Staunton, December 13 – Four Russian analysts suggest that the six causes they identify as being behind the collapse of the USSR are again to varying degrees present in Russia today, but what is perhaps more interesting than the causes they do identify is the one that they don’t: the ways in which the six they do helped power a seventh: nationalism Russian and non-Russian. In a 4400-word article in “Russky Reporter” this week, Vladimir Bazhanov, Andrey Veselov, Dmitry Karpets and Aleksandr Pototsky consider to what extent the six causes they say led to the demise of the USSR are...

The Cimbrian flood (or Cymbrian flood) was a large-scale incursion of the North Sea in the region of the Jutland peninsula (Denmark) in the period 120 to 114 BC, resulting in a permanent change of coastline with much land lost. The flood was caused by one or several very strong storm(s). A high number of people living in the affected area of Jutland drowned, and the flooding apparently set off a migration of the Cimbri tribes previously settled there (Lamb 1991)... The Cimbri were a tribe from Northern Europe, who, together with the Proto-Germanic Teutones and the Ambrones threatened the...

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed US Secretary of State John Kerry’s upcoming talks in Rome on Sunday, during opening remarks for his weekly Cabinet meeting. “Tomorrow I will leave for Rome to meet with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and US Secretary of State John Kerry,” he said. “I will tell them that Israel, to a large degree, stands as a solitary island against the waves of Islamic extremism that are washing over the entire Middle East.” “Until now, we have successfully withstood and repelled these attacks and now we also stand against the possibility of a diplomatic assault, i.e....

Major tech companies sparked a discussion this year when they revealed information about the makeup of their workforce, confirming what many had suspected: That Silicon Valley firms, located in one of the most diverse places in the U.S., are mostly staffed by whites and men.

Jeb Bush said Saturday that he plans to release approximately 250,000 emails from his years as Florida's governor, as well as an electronic book. An aide to the governor told Fox News that the emails would be released ahead of the e-book, which is due out early next year. In an interview with Miami's WPLG-TV, Bush said he was releasing the emails for the sake of "transparency" and to "let people make up their mind." He served two terms as the state's governor between 1999 and 2007. The move will likely increase speculation about whether Bush, whose father and brother...

A controversial Obama administration rating system for colleges and universities already is being scrutinized ahead of its late-December rollout by educators who claim the government’s goal of more transparency could come at the expense of schools that don't happen to fit the ivory tower model. The federal government, with its long-awaited rating system, is trying to hold the country’s 7,000 colleges and universities accountable not only to taxpayers, but also to prospective students trying to weigh the pros and cons of different institutions. But it has many in the education community on edge. Several colleges and education associations have launched...

Belgium risks coming to a virtual standstill Monday as the biggest national strike for years grounds all flights, halts public transport and severs international train links in protest at the new government's austerity policies. The strike, which is the climax of a union movement that began last month with a huge march and violent protests in Brussels, will also likely close schools, businesses, factories and government offices. Unions say there is "no choice" but to go ahead with the strike after the right-of-centre government of Prime Minister Charles Michel pushed ahead with plans to save 11 billion euros ($13.7 billion)...

hould anyone have been surprised that Michele Bachmann would go out with a bang, a big bang? On Tuesday, in what the retiring congresswoman from Minnesota figured would be her last White House holiday party, Bachmann used the grip-and-grin moment when she got her picture taken with President Obama to raise a reliably grin-killing topic. “The U.S. needs to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities today,” she informed him. His response? “A condescending smile and laugh,” she tells Politico, making a little pat-on-the-head gesture. “‘Michele, it isn’t that easy, but that’s OK,’” she remembers him telling her. To which the gentlelady...