Free Republic

I wrote in my book, “unPlanned,” about a church that kicked me out when they found out that I worked for Planned Parenthood. I often get questioned about that, whether I still think they made the wrong decision. My answer is a resounding YES. I try not to go down the “what if” road very often. It isn’t fruitful and just makes you feel crummy. But, just for the sake of this article, let’s go there. What if I had been ministered to instead of shunned by that church? How could my life be different? Well, maybe I would have...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) on Monday defended his decision to delay a final vote on the $1.1 trillion spending bill over the weekend, which is helping Senate Democrats confirm nearly two dozen of President Obama's nominations. Cruz’s colleagues have voiced frustration with his actions, suggesting he walked into Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-Nev.) trap. But Cruz cast he and ally Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) as fighters willing to take on the Obama administration and GOP leaders as too willing to go with the flow. “Leadership was angry. They were angry because they did not want to fight this fight...

French taxi drivers have succeeded in persuading the French government to ban rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft. A harsh new law takes effect in January. The move is good for taxi drivers, but will cost consumers money. […] Pierre-Henry Brandet, a spokesperson for the French Ministry of the Interior […] said that as of January 1, the operators of mobile apps like UberPOP that connect non-professional drivers and riders would face punishment of up to two years in prison and a fine of €300,000 if convicted. Those provisions were specified under a new law that had been passed earlier...

People always ask me what it was like to work inside an abortion clinic. They want to know what the atmosphere was like. Was it a sad place? Did people walk around with tears in their eyes? Was it a somber environment? Was it quiet? It was not a sad place. Why would it be? We didn’t think we were doing anything wrong. We didn’t see that there was anything to be sad about. We joked around with the patients. We enjoyed our work. We talked to them about their weekend plans while the doctor performed their abortion. It was...

The Good Land Today's Scripture “For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land — a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills.” (Deuteronomy 8:7, NIV) Today's Word from Joel and Victoria God has a place prepared for you just like He prepared a place for His people in scripture. Notice that in this place God has prepared, there is no shortage — no shortage of resources, no shortage of opportunities, no shortage of creativity, of friendships, of joy and peace. In the good land, you will lack no...

Under Texas Law, retailers and banks must send the money from expired gift cards to the state. The same is true of gift cards that have an expiration date in the future, but have not been used in three years. The State Comptroller's Office supplied a list of the top 20 companies that reported forgotten stored gift cards to the state. The largest chunk of unclaimed gift cards was reported by Men's Wearhouse, with $1.37 million unclaimed. Walmart reported  $1.28 million unclaimed, and U.S. Bank, which issues Visa gift cards, reported more than $750,000. Other reporting funds to the Unclaimed Property...

“Approved to God” " Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. —2 Timothy 2:15 " If you cannot express yourself well on each of your beliefs, work and study until you can. If you don’t, other people may miss out on the blessings that come from knowing the truth. Strive to re-express a truth of God to yourself clearly and understandably, and God will use that same explanation when you share it with someone else. But you must be willing to go through...

A spaceship powered by nuclear bombs secretly launched in the 1960s. A colony ship on 100-year journey to spread humanity to the stars. These central themes of the SyFy Channel's epic "Ascension" miniseries this week sound like pure science fiction, U.S. scientists actually worked to build such a spaceship in the 1960s. In "Ascension," a three-part SyFy miniseries that launches tonight (Dec. 15), 600 people live aboard an Orion-class nuclear spacecraft on a mission to Proxima Centauri. The mission launched in 1963, when the Space Race was in full swing and the Cold War made the threat of global nuclear...

Netanyahu: Islamic extremists to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem. We will not allow this. We will rebuff this forcefully and responsibly. Let there be no doubt, this will be rejected The Obama administration is shamelessly outsourcing the United States’ historic leadership in facilitating negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel of a workable, secure two-state solution to the United Nations and European governments. In putting its trust in these two centers of anti-Israel sentiment, the Obama administration refuses to say categorically that it would veto a UN Security Council resolution setting some sort of deadline...

Hillary Clinton, who is expected to run for president in 2016, has been criticized after saying that America should “empathize” and “show respect” to her enemies. Her speech, focused on the promotion of feminist leadership, was given at Georgetown University in Washington D.C., December 3, 2014. Her feminist approach is for America to use “every possible tool and partner” to advance ‘peace.’ She elaborated that this approach means “showing respect, even for one’s enemies; trying to understand and, insofar as psychologically possible, empathize with their perspective and point of view.” How are we supposed to understand her speech? Who are...

When the depth of corruption, deceit and red tape bureaucracy reach such astronomical levels, it is time for a complete overhaul! Fire them all!! Both the Congress and the Senate passed a 2015 spending bill, in record time, that has been labeled a “Cromnibus.” But where was the fight? Where were our representatives who swore they would not fund amnesty, Obamacare, taxpayer-funded abortion, and more irresponsible spending? No where to be seen! About Obama’s illegal amnesty, “We are going to fight the president tooth and nail if he continues down this path. This is the wrong way to govern. This...

They've gotten away with it time and again. With AIDS, SARS, avian flu, swine flu and two past Ebola hysterias The current Ebola outbreak is “the most severe, acute health emergency seen in modern times,” Ian Smith, the World Health Organization’s executive director, announced at a mid-October press conference. Huh? Worse than the “Spanish flu” of 1918-19? Extrapolated to today’s world population, that would mean 60 million to 150 million deaths. Worse than AIDS, with its 35 million deaths? But the media weren’t asking skeptical questions. The next day, reporting on a separate WHO conference, a New York Times headline...

Early this morning the Martin Place siege ended with the death of the lone gunman and tragically, the loss of two hostages – innocent Australians caught up in the horror of yesterday. Five other people – four hostages and a New South Wales police officer – have been injured. State and Commonwealth agencies are investigating. Understandably, there is lot of speculation but it will take time to clarify exactly what happened in Martin Place and why. What we do know is that the perpetrator was well known to State and Commonwealth authorities. He had a long history of violent crime,...

On a third-and-5 early in the fourth quarter, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson couldn't connect with rookie wide receiver Paul Richardson, but a roughing the passer penalty against 49ers linebacker Nick Moody bailed out Seattle. Instead of kicking a field goal to remain ahead by one score, the defending Super Bowl champions received a first down and scored a touchdown to go up 17-7 two plays later.

As we noted previously, counterparty risk concerns (and thus financial system fragility) are starting to rear their ugly heads. In the mid 2000s, it was massive one-way levered bets on "house prices will never go down again." When the cracks started to appear, the mark-to-market losses in derivatives led to forced liquidations and snowballed systemically. In the mid 2010s, it is massively levered one-way asymmetric bets on "commodity prices [oil] will never go down again." Meet WTI-structured-notes... the transmission mechanism for oil-price-shocks blowing up the financial system. Because nothing says exuberant ignorance like limited upside, unlimited downside OTC (illiquid) derivatives...

The late Richard John Neuhaus famously wrote of bioethicists: Thousands of medical ethicists and bioethicists, as they are called, professionally guide the unthinkable on its passage through the debatable on the way to becoming the justifiable until it is finally established as unexceptionable. In my over 20 years engaged in trying to push back against the bioethics movement, I have found that to be an absolutely accurate formula. Take, as one example, dehydrating the cognitively devastated to death–a slow and potentially agonizing death. That was once unthinkable, it became debatable in the 1980s, and is now unexceptional. Allowing infanticide has...

On Vatican II Q. Your Eminence, you grew up before the Second Vatican Council. How do you remember those times? A. I grew up in a very beautiful time in the Church, in which we were carefully instructed in the faith, both at home and in the Catholic school, especially with the Baltimore Catechism. I remember the great beauty of the Sacred Liturgy, even in our little farming town, with beautiful Masses. And then, I'm of course most grateful for my parents who gave me a very sound up-bringing in how to live as a Catholic. So they were beautiful...

. 2014-12-15 Message Alert Communicate this information to fellow Conservatives, Churches, Facebook contacts, Tea Party groups, and your Family, Friends and Neighbors. Free Republic's "National Day of Reckoning" protest against Obama's Illegal Amnesty in EVERY American City Saturday : 3 January 2015 : 9 AM to 1 PM Facebook Link: "Obama Amnesty National Protest : 2015-01-03" Planning Suggestions for your "National Day of Reckoning" protest against Obama's Illegal Amnesty - (Internet Link) Suggested Planning Tasks and Schedule Milestones for your Team 2014-12-06 : Saturday : Identify and Contact your Team Members 2014-12-13 : Saturday : Team Meeting to decide these...

A US judge Monday expressed doubt towards the government's e-book antitrust case against Apple, saying the tech giant was challenging "predatory" pricing from rival Amazon. The comments came as a federal appeals court panel heard arguments in the case, in which Apple was found to have colluded with publishers to raise e-book prices. Apple argues that its entry into the e-book market fostered competition because it challenged Amazon, which had a dominant share in e-books. Apple claims its entry spurred additional publishers to produce e-books, and that prices of e-books generally fell even though it concedes that some prices rose...

It will take some time to scrub anti-Semitism completely out of the substructure of Wellesley College. It’s stubborn stuff, like the admissions quotas on Jewish students during the 1940s, the outright hostility to Jewish scholars in the college’s religion department during the 1960s and ’70s, and the 1990s-era professor whose bigoted diatribes included false accusations against Jews for “monumental culpability” during the transatlantic African slave trade. Last month’s firings of Wellesley College’s Jewish chaplain and director of the Hillel student organization may well turn out — as the college contends — to be part of a broader consolidation effort aimed...