Free Republic

MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin pro-life groups are gearing up for another legislative session, with plans to push for a new ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy and to revive a host of initiatives that went nowhere last time around. The pro-life lobby scored a huge victory last session when the GOP-controlled Legislature passed a law requiring abortion providers to obtain admitting privileges at nearby hospitals. Republicans retained their majorities in the Assembly and Senate in November’s elections, setting the stage for more wins for anti-abortion groups. Republican leaders aren’t publicly committing to anything, but Democrats are already fuming....

“We are disappointed,” Prakash Javadekar a UN delegate from India, told The Guardian. “It is ridiculous. It is ridiculously low.”

Since the night St. Louis Country prosecutor Bob McCullough announced that police officer Darren Wilson would face no charges in the death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown and released thousands of documents in connection to the case, many interested parties have combed through the pages and analyzed them, trying to get a sense of why the grand jury decided not to indict. CNN recently did a comprehensive breakdown of Ferguson witness reports which showed how witnesses on both sides presented conflicting information, changed their stories, and some lied under oath. Some witnesses testimony, like that of Dorian Johnson, the...

The powerful storm lashing Sacramento kept many people home last Thursday, but Rosario Aguilar was not among them. After eight years of living and driving unlawfully in California, the chance to get a legitimate license led him through sheets of rain to an information session held at a community services center tucked behind an Autozone on Fruitridge Road.

The RU 486 abortion pill has been responsible for killing dozens of people — including women in the United States — and injuring thousands more. But the Supreme Court refused to take a case today to protect women from it. Contrary to Food and Drug Administration protocols, Planned Parenthood distributes abortion-inducing drugs to women, oftentimes without requiring an in-person visit, up until two weeks beyond the prescribed 49 days from their last menstrual cycle. Furthermore, the organization sends women home to complete the chemical abortion themselves without a physician present. Planned Parenthood’s instructions have directly led to the deaths of...

A Catholic priest assigned to an east Mesa church is among five men arrested by Mesa police in a sting operation that targeted prostitution involving underaged girls. Mesa police detectives posed as 16-year-old girls and advertised their services on a website known for trading in prostitution. Police say the men came to a Mesa motel at a predetermined time Thursday to rendezvous with the prostitutes for sex.

St. Louis officer faces discipline over Ferguson-related nametag ST. LOUIS - A St. Louis city police officer faces disciplinary action for wearing a tag on his sleeve bearing the last name of the former Ferguson officer who shot and killed Michael Brown. St. Louis Police Chief Sam Dotson told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1uIk2vQ ) he "couldn't be more disappointed" and that he thinks the officer will get "some days off for his actions." The officer, whose name hasn't been released, wore the tag with Darren Wilson's last name on it in a show of solidarity to Wilson while stationed...

JOURNALISTS, SAYS Jorge Ramos, shouldn't make a fetish of accuracy and impartiality. Speaking last month at the International Press Freedom Awards, Univision's influential news anchor told his audience that while he has "nothing against objectivity," journalism is meant to be wielded as "a weapon for a higher purpose: justice." To be sure, he said, it is important to get the facts right — five deaths should be reported as five, not six or seven. But "the best of journalism happens when we, purposely, stop pretending that we are neutral and recognize that we have a moral obligation to tell truth...

Some with Same-Sex Attraction Choose Celibacy – A Reflection on an Article in the Washington Post By: Msgr. Charles PopeA little over a year ago, I wrote an article asking and answering this question: What Does the Catholic Church Offer for those with Same-Sex Attraction? And the answer is, “the truth.” It is the same gift we offer anyone who will give us the gift of attention and presence. The truth, as revealed by God, is what we offer and celebrate along with the Sacraments, the communal life, and prayer.Of course the truth we offer in terms of human sexuality...

They are this year’s must-have Christmas presents for selfie-obsessed Britons. So-called ‘selfie-sticks’ that allow camera phones to be extended up to a metre away for group shots and panoramic images are flying off the shelves. While the selfie might have gone mainstream in 2014, it now appears that simply taking a picture of yourself and others with your smartphone is passe.

I have about 1.5 acres of land in my back yard and I need advice on what/when to plant on it so all the dirt does now wash down to the bottom. Whatever I plant/seed needs to come in thick and fast. My daughter had 2 horses back there and now the land is pretty bare.

<p>Police stormed a cafe in central Sydney early Tuesday where a gunman held more than a dozen hostages for more than 16 hours, firing automatic weapons and throwing grenades moments after captives were seen fleeing the buidling in terror. A scene of pandemonium erupted in the early morning just minutes after hostages started emerging from the cafe on their own or in small groups. Eleven hostages The dramatic end stage of the siege came as the gunman holding the remaining captives was revealed as a self-proclaimed Islamic cleric Man Haron Monis. Monis is a 49-year-old man living in southwest Sydney, but is originally from Iran and a self-proclaimed sheik, and also sent hate mail to the families of Australian dead soldiers between 2007 and 2009, according to The Daily Telegraph. The seige in the Lindt cafe in Martin Place on Monday follows an unsuccessful attempt to have these charges overturned in the High Court on Friday, The Age reported. Monis received 300 community service hours and a two-year good behaviour bond for the correspondence, which he claims were his version of sympathy cards, sent with the help from his girlfriend Amirah Droudis. Arriving as a refugee in Australia in 1996, the hostage-taker was charged as an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife - who was allegedly stabbed and set on fire on a flight of stairs in her western Sydney apartment block in November 2013. The man's current partner was charged with murder but they both received bail as the case was deemed too weak.</p>

(A few years back, Professor Stephen Oppenheimer wrote a book titled "Eden In The East" where he proposed that our culture flowed from east to west instead of west to east. Here's a rebuttal)Cultural diffusion from East to West? 2014/01/12 Oppenheimer’s theory is that “ … the roots of the great flowering of civilisation in the fertile crescent of the Ancient Near East lay in the sinking shorelines of Southeast Asia. The Sumerians and Egyptians themselves wrote about the skilled wise men from the East, a fact often dismissed as the embellishment of a fertile imagination.” Purely as an aside,...

A giant mystery sea creature is thought to have been spotted in the turquoise waters of one of New Zealand’s most idyllic bays. A huge unexplained wake can be seen in a Google Earth image of Oke Bay, in the Bay of Islands, an area on the east coast of the Far North District of the country's North Island, captured by satellite at about 11.30am on January 30. Engineer Pita Witehira, who spotted the wake while on Google Earth researching for his holiday home, told Daily Mail Australia the wake could have been left by a creature around 12 metres...

I know from personal experience at National Public Radio that white liberals can be very intolerant if they suspect they are dealing with a black person who is not afraid from depart from liberal orthodoxy.

Greeting warmly a delegation led by General André Cox, the Pope said Catholics and Salvationists, together with other Christians, recognise that those in need have a special place in God’s heart – so much so, that the Lord himself became poor for our sake. As a result, the Pope said, Catholics and Salvationists often meet at the same peripheries of society. I pray, he concluded, that all of Christ’s disciples can contribute with the same conviction and dynamism that the Salvation Army demonstrates in its devoted and highly appreciated service. Founded by former Methodist minister William Booth in 1865 as...

CBS's Mark Knoller reports that the lights went out briefly at the White House this morning. "Just had a power outage at the WH. Lasted only a few seconds. Perhaps a premature Govt shutdown," Knoller joked.

“F**k Israel / Free Palestine / Jerusalem is Ours / Al khilafah is coming soon.” Why would they hack into the Little Rock School District’s website with such a message? For the same reason that a Muslim cleric would take hostages in a chocolate cafe in Sydney, Australia: to “strike terror into the hearts of the enemies of Allah” (Qur’an 8:60). “Hackers Target Little Rock School District Website,” by Susanne Brunner, Fox16.com, December 12, 2014 (thanks to Creeping Sharia): “ LITTLE ROCK, AR- If you typed in lrsd.org in the search engine around 7am Friday morning, chances are a hacking...

In response to a Michigan Capitol Confidential article about higher compensation for union executives, the Michigan Education Association sent a letter justifying the salary increases by making false claims to local leaders. The memo, which was sent Dec. 2 to all local presidents and is reprinted on the union’s Facebook page, says: Yesterday we filed our annual LM-2 filing with the US Department of Labor. The Mackinac Center is reporting ‘huge’ pay increases for MEA Executives. As some of you know, the LM-2 lists every person to whom MEA has written a check to over the past year – for...

SENATE REPUBLICANS VOTE TO WAIVE THE CONSTITUTION There is no question that President Obama's executive amnesty violates the Constitution. Even the president acknowledged back in September that he would be "ignoring the law" to carry out such an action. Ted Cruz (R-TX)U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) raised a constitutional point of order against the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending that, if sustained, would have sent the bill back to the House to remove amnesty funding. Unfortunately, a group of Republicans joined the Democrats in voting to reject Cruz's point of order and to ignore the serious constitutional problems with the president's...