Free Republic

Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo, CA is closing its doors today. The Bay Area facility has been serving the community for 50 years, but has been losing approximately $18 Million a year for the past several years. The West Contra Costa Healthcare District board voted in March to begin the closing process, which included selling off land and nearby buildings that were part of the campus. The city, of course, picked up that tab. The reason for the closure? 80-90% of the patients are on the dole. More specifically, Medicare and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. As the bureaucracies...

Fleeing East Africa for Italy in a rickety rescue boat, 15 Christian asylum seekers were thrown to their deaths last week by fellow refugees because they weren’t praying to Allah. We’re shocked by reports of innocents murdered for their beliefs and orange-jump-suited victims marching to their deaths because, as Americans, we’re safe from such persecution. Our freedoms evolved in part from an infamous, hysteria-induced episode in 17th century Puritan Massachusetts where anyone suspected of witchcraft was persecuted. The Salem Witch Trials became a cautionary tale about the dangers of false accusations and contempt for due process, and an allegory for...

We must journey back to March, 1987, and the United Nations document entitled Our Common Future: Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, to discover what is probably the only universally agreed upon—if nebulous and contradictory—definition of “sustainable development,” the precursor of “sustainability,” viz. Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: the concept of ‘needs’, in particular the essential needs of the world’s poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and the idea of...

“Marco gives the same speech with donors that he does in public,” one Rubio advisor assured BuzzFeed. I’m sure he’s right. After all, when has Marco Rubio ever said different things to different audiences about his stance on immigration? I do think it’s safe to say that Rubio’s choosing his words carefully on this subject, even among friends in private settings. All it would take to blow him up for good on the right is a hidden smartphone recorder catching him crowing about amnesty, and he knows it. He’s the safest pick in the field precisely because he’s not prone...

That means going by more than how many guns there are and how many concealed permits there are. And Swanson isn’t one to pass the same label on all gun owners, most of whom are responsible owners. Rather, the study looks at “angry adults” who have access to guns and though they have the necessary permits and may never have been treated for mental health problems could pose a threat to others.

Tabletalk: Your book is titled The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert. Could you explain some of your “secret thoughts,” and why you were an “unlikely convert”? Rosaria Butterfield: I considered myself an atheist, having rejected my Catholic childhood and what I perceived to be the superstitions and illogic of the historic Christian faith. I found Christians to be difficult, sour, fearful, and intellectually unengaged people. In addition, since the age of twenty-eight, I had lived in monogamous lesbian relationships and politically supported LGBT causes. I coauthored Syracuse University’s first successful domestic partnership policy while working there as a professor...

On the Senate floor a few moments ago, Ted Cruz SLAMMED the new Senate Republican majority for refusing to block Loretta Lynch’s nomination to Attorney General. He said that the Republican majority could continue to block the nomination if they wanted to and it’s something he’s urged them to do do because of her admissions to run the DOJ in a lawless fashion just like Eric Holder. He pointed out that more than a few voters are asking what is the difference between a Republican and Democratic Senate majority when someone promising the exact same lawlessness as Holder will be...

Two years after the Newton, Connecticut, school massacre, Americans are coming to appreciate their gun rights more than ever. And despite the billions of dollars spent to convince people otherwise, the idea of more gun control is anathema to most Americans. Even women and black Americans are less likely to see guns as a safety risk and more likely to view them as protection against crime, according to a Pew Research Center poll. And for the first time in 25 years, more Americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, 52 percent to 46...

A nine-ship Iranian convoy believed to be laden with weapons bound for rebels in Yemen turned around Thursday after being followed by U.S. warships stationed in the area to prevent arms shipments, multiple sources in the Pentagon told Fox News. The sources said the nine-ship convoy is south of Salalah, Oman, and now headed northeast in the Arabian Sea in the direction of home. The ships, which include seven freighters and two frigates, had sailed southwest along the coast of Yemen heading in the direction of Aden and the entrance to the Red Sea. They appeared to drop anchor in...

A House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing was the scene of a tense exchange Wednesday as a top-ranking VA official was forced to answer questions about a $300,000 relocation package the agency gave her to take a job in Philadelphia last year. Committee chairman Jeff Miller, a Florida Republican, grilled Diana Rubens, the current director of the Philadelphia VA Regional Benefits Office, about whether such a large payment was needed to incentivize her to move the 140 miles from Washington D.C. to Philadelphia. “I don’t know that, sir,” Rubens said when Miller asked her during the hearing if she would have...

Call The Rush Limbaugh Show program line between 12 Noon & 3PM Eastern Time, at: 1-800-282-2882 E-mail Rush: ElRushbo@eibnet.com or Fax Rush at: 212-445-3963 Write a letter to Rush and mail it to: The Rush Limbaugh Show, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. Join This Ping List Now! E-mail Rush: ElRushbo@eibnet.com Fax Rush at: 212-445-3963, Write a letter to Rush and mail it to: The Rush Limbaugh Show, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.< Join This Ping List Now! Click Here To Join This Ping List! < AND NOW... amidst billowing clouds of...

From Joshua Green writing at Bloomberg Politics: The past week can’t have been very pleasant for Peter Schweizer. On Sunday, the New York Times revealed that his forthcoming book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, was roiling the political world—“the most anticipated and feared book of a presidential cycle still in its infancy,” as the Times put it. That landed Schweizer squarely in the crosshairs of the Clinton team and allied liberal groups, which have launched a campaign to discredit Schweizer as “disreputable” and blinded by partisan...

Try as I might to get away from the “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary” meme, I just can’t stay ahead of the baggage backup. Isn’t anyone going to claim this baggage?At the rate it’s flying down the chute these days even some of the MSM have been forced to acknowledge a few of the unsavory facts still swirling around our American Power Rangers. Whoa! That’s quite a bubba nose one of our Power Rangers is sportingStarting with formerly reliable (and supportive) Ron Fournier in the National Journal who writes an article titled “The Questions Hillary Clinton Doesn't Want Answered About the Clinton Foundation”...

Gay community, I am your daughter. My mom raised me with her same-sex partner back in the ’80s and ’90s. She and my dad were married for a little while. She knew she was gay before they got married, but things were different back then. That’s how I got here. It was complicated as you can imagine. She left him when I was two or three because she wanted a chance to be happy with someone she really loved: a woman. My dad wasn’t a great guy, and after she left him he didn’t bother coming around anymore. Do you...

There is no one way to prevent school shootings-- Most school shooters leave a trail of warning signs that are either not noticed or not responded to In April 1999, we were all stunned by the news that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had attacked and killed students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and, more recently, in December 2012, that Adam Lanza, after killing his mother at home, then massacred twenty-six staff and students at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. These events evoke dread of potential events, a quest to understand why they occurred, and ways...

Featured Term selected at random:MALEVOLENCE Positive ill will. The disposition to do evil to someone, characteristic of the devil. As a human vice, it is opposed to the virtue of benevolence or good will. (Etym. Latin malevolentia, ill will, ill disposition.) All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.

This shocking video shows black racism on the street; can you imagine the media coverage if these guys were white? Extreme language, NSFW

Obama is keeping both of America's arms tied behind its back. Under his leadership, we're no sleeping giant --we're downright comatose The Obama Administration continues to show complete incompetence in dealing with ISIS. Case in point: It’s decided that Ramadi, the capital of Anbar Province in western Iraq, is expendable—thereby showing it understands nothing about the value of the city or even its own capacity to defend it. The reason? According to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey, Obama is emphasizing defending a refinery in the same province to protect the oil supplies. As if we couldn’t do both—and...

Wellness advocate Belle Gibson, who translated her high profile as a cancer survivor into publishing success, has admitted her cancer diagnosis was not real.Ms Gibson, 23, who claimed to have healed terminal brain cancer by eating wholefoods, made the admission in an interview with the Australian Women's Weekly.The success of Gibson's book, The Whole Pantry, and her smartphone application, which advocates natural therapies, has been largely dependent on her high-profile as a cancer survivor.Asked if she had ever had cancer, Ms Gibson told the magazine: "No. None of it's true."I don't want forgiveness. I just think [speaking out] was the...