Free Republic

The United States does not have a living and breathing constitution. So then, how do we build it into one? Earlier today, I posted the full text of Louis Brandeis' address "The Living Law", which is quite an interesting work. On the one hand, Brandeis does accurately capture public feeling regarding mistreatment by their employers. On the other hand, Brandeis' uses this address to stand back, marvel at his own work, and act like an innocent bystander. The big key in the address is the court case "Muller v. Oregon", to which Brandeis had a hand in. He doesn't mention...

The dating website for adulterous affairs is planning to float in London. Here are all the dirty details Ashley Madison. Q: Is that some kind of shoe designer? A sensible guess, but definitely wrong. Ashley Madison is a dating website aimed at people who are already married. The service brands itself as “discreet”, and simply picked two popular American girls’ names as the company name. Q: Wait, so they’re a dating service for adultery? Isn’t that immoral? The company motto is: “Life is short. Have an affair.” The website offers affair guidelines, with advice on how to cover your tracks....

Uber, you will be shocked to learn, does not apply rigorous econometric standards to its public-relations material. That is the complaint from Robert Reich and Alison Griswold, who protest that the firm boasts about the jobs it has created when in fact its drivers are not classified as employees but independent contractors. Professor Reich, a lawyer who sometimes plays an economist on television, says: “They can’t have it both ways. They can’t say they’re creating all these new jobs and then say ‘Oh, we’re not responsible for these jobs because they’re not employees.’ That’s double-booking.” We all eagerly await his...

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s effort to ensure that Catholic schools are Catholic has led one-hundred San Franciscans who describe themselves as “committed Catholics inspired by Vatican II,” to take out a full page ad in the San Francisco Chronicle asking Pope Francis to force Cordileone's resignation and appoint in his place an archbishop committed to “our values and your teachings.” It is worth asking to what extent those “values” and “teachings” align. Francis, who has spoken strongly in the past against gay marriage and transgender ideology, has also called for a church that is “poor and for the poor.”...

In the first week of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton and her team sought to have a "grassroots" effort with a road trip to Iowa, where she focused on small, intimate roundtables with voters. But it takes extensive planning and cloak-and-dagger maneuvering to stage simple events for a former first lady and Democratic front-runner, who has a Secret Service detail and media circus following her every move. Clinton started the final day of her first campaign trail trip on Thursday by having coffee with a group of five local leaders in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Business Insider spoke with most of...

The Landlord's Tale; Paul Revere's Ride Listen, my children, and you shall hear Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five; Hardly a man is now alive Who remembers that famous day and year. He said to his friend, "If the British march By land or sea from the town to-night, Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-- One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every...

Is another shoe about to drop on the Clinton Foundation, and on Hillary Clinton’s problematic rollout? Newsweek’s Rory Ross reported this morning that the largest individual donor to the Clinton family business has conducted trade with Iran, perhaps in breach of US sanctions. Ukrainian energy mogul Victor Pinchuk has connections to the Clintons that go back almost a decade, and financial connections to the regime in Tehran that go much farther: The fourth richest man in Ukraine, Pinchuk owns Interpipe Group, a Cyprus-incorporated manufacturer of seamless pipes used in oil and gas sectors.Newsweek has seen declarations and documents from...

Earlier this week we took a look at the GOP efforts to repeal the death tax, including some of the political pitfalls involved as well as reasons why it’s still a hill worth fighting on. In a rare moment of taking a position on a policy issue, Hillary Clinton has chimed in on the so called estate tax several times over the years. She has referred to it as a “wealth tax”, which works out quite well for her this year if she’s trying to angle her way into a more Elizabeth Warren style position on the subject. So...

I have a sneaky feeling that MSNBC political correspondent Kasie Hunt isn't a registered Republican. Even so, there's little doubt that at least for now Marco Rubio is winning the Kasie Hunt primary. In successive appearances on the Up with Steve Kornacki and Melissa Harris-Perry shows this morning, Hunt made clear that Rubio was her standout in the Republican field assembled this weekend in New Hampshire. On "Up" Hunt called Rubio "the strongest candidate in telling a story . . . really somebody to watch." A bit later on MH-P, Hunt hailed Rubio as the person who "stood out to...

Woo hoo!! Our 2nd quarter FReepathon is well underway!! Please get your donations in early so we can wrap this baby up within 30 days. We need your continuing support to keep FR on the air. FR is funded solely by contributions made by the liberty loving patriots who enjoy and use it. We are beholden to no political party. No advertisers, no outsiders, no sugar daddies, no corporate string pullers. This means no commercial ads. No annoying pop-ups. No ad tracking. No mail campaigns. No spam. No one trying to control us. Definitely no government subsidies or tax breaks....

Proverbs 16:18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Just when you thought Harpy had a chance to win the nomination she goes on her three day Iowa Vacation and gives all the other contenders hope. Whoever came up with the Iowa shuffle, let alone the Darth Vader mobile should be fired immediately and never put on another campaign. For a woman who comes across as cold, unapproachable and secretive, why would you choose a black armored car with smoked windows, was the tank booked? The only thing that rolling death machine needed was a breathing...

U.S. military officials are concerned that Iran's support for Houthi rebels in Yemen could spark a confrontation with Saudi Arabia and plunge the region into sectarian war. ADVERTISEMENT Iran is sending an armada of seven to nine ships — some with weapons — toward Yemen in a potential attempt to resupply the Shia Houthi rebels, according to two U.S. defense officials. Officials fear the move could lead to a showdown with the U.S. or other members of a Saudi-led coalition, which is enforcing a naval blockade of Yemen and is conducting its fourth week of airstrikes against the Houthis. Iran...

Around mid-April, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia –who once wrote a letter to Barack Obama beseeching the president to reconsider his foreign policies which enable the persecution of Christians in Syria — spoke again of the threat of Christian extinction in the Mideast during a meeting with Greek Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos. In the Russian Patriarch’s own words: "I regularly get reports of horrible crimes that are committed there against Christians, especially in northern Iraq. I have visited those places and I remember that there were many churches and monasteries there. The city of Mosul alone had 45...

What do you suppose President Obama's endgame will be for the last part of his presidential term?

We might be inclined to laugh off the national demonstrations calling for a $15/hr minimum wage for burger-flippers, as the suggestion should be received as utterly ridiculous in any intelligent economic debate. But the left isn’t laughing. They’re undoubtedly ecstatic at the media legs such demonstrations have maintained against all odds, and they can’t wait to roll out these downtrodden fast-food workers as a reason to increase the federal minimum wage, victims as they are of an evil system of economic organization that dares assign a value to labor performed in the context of supply and demand. That evil is,...

President Barack Obama said on Friday that the deal he and the leaders of five other major powers are trying to cut with the Iranian regime headed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei is a “political agreement” and “not a formal treaty.”As such, he said, Congress should not ordinarily have authority to sign off on this kind of deal.Obama made the statement when discussing legislation sponsored by Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee and approved unanimously by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that would give Congress 60 days to review an Iran nuclear deal made by the administration. During that 60 days,...

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz phoned in on Friday's broadcast of the Adam Carolla Show to discuss his candidacy, the IRS and taxes, big government, his father's America compared to our current America, Jeb Bush and more. ADAM CAROLLA: Thank you so much for calling in and thank you so much for wanting to eliminate the IRS. It's driving me nuts. SEN. TED CRUZ: Well, I tell you April 16th is a day when a whole lot of folks want to move into a simple flat tax and just padlock the IRS. I think that is a powerful populist...

 A Five-Seven pistol was successfully used for self defense in Arkansas on April 13, 2015.  More than 20 rounds were fired, 20 of them being fired by a permit holder armed with what appears to be an FN 5.7 pistol.  The casing on the left is being held by Henry Richards, who witnessed some of the gunfight.  If you look at the casing closely, it is clear that it is a 5.7.  The identifying characteristics are the rimless base shown by the extractor groove on the bottom, and the beginning of the bottleneck shown at the top.  An additional...

Featured Term selected at random:JESUS CHRIST THE CONQUEROR Ancient title of Christ signifying his victory over sin, death, and the evil spirit. It appears in the familiar monogram IC XC NIKA, where I and C are the first and last letters of the Greek word Ihcuc (Jesus); X and C are the first and last letters of Xrictoc (Christ); and nika is the Greek word for "conquers." All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

A parent and a juvenile have been arrested after an attack on a Long Island teacher that a group said left the educator unconscious for several minutes. Authorities say the duo allegedly attacked the female math teacher Wednesday at Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School in Hempstead. […] The parent, Annika McKenzie, pleaded not guilty to assault charges and is being held in lieu of $10,000 bond. McKenzie’s attorney, Don Rollock, told NBC 4 New York that the parent came to the school because the teacher put her hands on her 12-year-old daughter. “Teachers shouldn’t lay their hands on kids,”...