Free Republic

“Are you guys religious?” It’s a question every pro-life activist doing educational outreach has heard. The question is always leveled suspiciously, as if the truth of our abortion victim photography is contingent on whether or not pro-life activists believe in God.The response to this question is simple: Abortion is wrong because it is an act of violence that destroys a human being developing in the womb. On this everyone from the late atheist Christopher Hitchens to the pope can agree. Yes, many of us are Christian, both Protestant and Catholic. But a basic overview of embryology textbooks used in medical...

....“I usually tell a bunch of jokes at these events, but with the Patriots in town, I was worried that 11 out of 12 of them would fall flat,” Obama said, referring to the team’s Deflategate ball controversy. He then looked at head coach Bill Belichick, who smiled and gave Obama a thumbs-down signal. “That whole story got blown a little out of proportion,” Obama acknowledged. But jokes weren’t the only thing missing; also notably absent from the ceremony was quarterback Tom Brady. Team officials said Brady was unavailable because of a family commitment.

Following is Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle’s homily for the funeral Mass of Cardinal Francis George, on April 23, 2015. As a pastor in Memphis 20-something years ago, one day I picked up a national Catholic publication and read a talk by the bishop of Yakima, Francis George. I cannot recall the topic, but I do recall my reaction. Here was a clear voice, a voice I wanted to listen to, a pastor who helped me understand the faith and taught me how to teach it. From that point on, whenever I noticed Bishop George’s name associated with a...

The Prince George’s County Police Department’s Homicide Unit arrested a suspect in connection with the homicide of a toddler. The suspect is 29-year-old Joshua Riley of the 9900 block of Good Luck Road in Lanham. The victim is 23-month-old Anthony Winfrey of Lanham.

The Sierra Club is turning up the heat on Minnesota's largest utilities with another advertising campaign aimed at coal-fired power plants. The ads target Minnesota Power and Xcel Energy and come, not by chance, as the utilities are developing updates to their 15-year energy plan that go to the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission later this year. The television ads started Thursday and will run on cable channels in northern Minnesota and in Xcel's coverage area. As part of its "Energy Forward'' plan to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, Minnesota Power already has stopped burning coal at its Laskin plant in...

The divisions within the Bay Area’s Catholic community over gay rights hit Marin Catholic High School full force the other day, when a group of nuns walked out of their classes to protest the sponsors of a program intended to protect gay and lesbian teens from bullying. The five members of the Dominican Sisters of Mary order exited their classrooms Friday as students began handing out flyers at the Kentfield school promoting a nationwide Day of Silence.

A victory Friday would give the Mets a franchise-record 12-game winning streak. They have won 11 in a row five times, including in the championship seasons of 1969 and 1986. They just swept a 10-game homestand, something no team has done since the 1991 Minnesota Twins. That team also won the World Series. It is much too early for the Mets to talk about that kind of goal, but deep down they must be thinking about it. Terry Collins, the manager, has been thinking big for months. The Mets, he insisted, would be winners — for real this time.

Tough new environmental rules and cheap energy prices are heightening the battle between coal miners and natural-gas pumpers over which fuel will dominate the U.S. power market. At the IHS CERAWeek global energy conference here, there were some heated words on both sides of the debate. “Cleaner coal, there’s no such thing,” Eldar Saetre, chief executive of the Norwegian oil giant Statoil ASA, told an audience of hundreds of people, most of them employed in the fossil-fuel industry. He added climate-conscious electric companies should burn natural gas instead. “The only thing that gets tense is when somebody like the head...

Major improvements by natural gas exploration-and-production companies have allowed them to continue to drill profitably in a period of depressed prices, adding to the glut of gas and putting further pressure on prices, an E&P executive said Wednesday at the IHS CERAWeek conference in Houston. "What's happening is that we continue to get better and get more production per rig," Kyle Mork, president of Energy Corporation of America, said in reference to the seeming paradox of growing US natural gas production despite a record low level of rigs. "We're the problem," he said. It is common knowledge in the industry...

Journey’s classic tune was blasting as students bathed in purple stage lights began signing “Don’t Stop Believin’.” What happened next was not on the script for Thursday night’s performance of “American Pie” at Westfield High School in Westfield, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis. As the students began their finale, with performers leaping joyfully on to the stage for a big dance number, the stage collapsed, injuring at least a dozen people, police said. Officials were relieved that no students were seriously hurt in the dramatic collapse, which was captured on video by several audience members. The injured students are “doing...

Full title: Senate GOP leadership wants to restore federal ObamaCare subsidies through 2017 if SCOTUS strikes them down Remember the Halbig case? There’s a part of the ObamaCare statute that says you’re eligible for money from Uncle Sam to pay the premiums on your new health insurance plan provided that you bought your plan on “an exchange established by the State.” The left says that phrase includes the federal exchange; the right says nope, it means only the exchanges established by individual states. The whole point of the subsidies, in theory, was to create a financial incentive for state governments...

Italian security forces were rounding up 18 Islamic extremists Friday who prosecutors said were behind a failed 2010 plot to attack the Vatican as well as a bombing at a Pakistan market that killed more than 100 a year earlier. Prosecutor Mauro Mura told reporters in Cagliari, Sardinia, on Friday that wiretaps indicated the suspected terrorists, including two former bodyguards for Usama bin Laden, planned a bomb attack at the Vatican and went as far as to send a suicide bomber to Rome. Mura said the attack plans never went further and that the suicide bomber left Italy, though it...

There's an understandable tendency not to take Donny Deutsch too seriously. He can come across not as a credible political analyst but as a guy more interested in his abs and biceps and the next lady at the next Hamptons cocktail party. But let's give Donny his due: as an ad man, he at times offers interesting insights on politics seen in terms of brands and marketing. He also serves as a credible bellwether for a certain segment of the East Coast Dem donor class. And so it was noteworthy that on today's Morning Joe, Deutsch declared that the string...

It was a day that should have belonged to the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots, but in a reversal of last February’s fortune it came to a dramatic and sudden halt. Interception, Obama. The president called a very different play as the champs gathered at the White House South Lawn to accept an attaboy for their Super Bowl victory. But the egotist in chief made it all about him. “I usually tell a bunch of jokes at these events,” he mused, “but with the Patriots in town I was worried that 11 of 12 of them would fall flat.”...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota's Senate added language to a bill Thursday that would legalize gun silencers — a surprise development as majority Democrats had shown little interest in changing the state's gun laws and a direct challenge to Gov. Mark Dayton's promise that such a measure would meet his veto pen. The silencer language was added to a grab bag of policy changes that would also mandate external investigations for officer-involved deaths, set ground rules for law enforcement's use of drones and restore voting rights to felons after they're released from prison. The full bill passed 39-22, with...

Listen up all you Young Whipper Snappers ~You all know, I have been a retired for a long time. I've become very bored so decided to open a medical clinic. I put a sign up outside that said: "Old Dr. Geezer's Clinic. Get your treatment for $500, if not cured get back $1,000."My neighbor, a 'young' doctor, was positive that this 'old geezer' didn't know beans about medicine, and thought it would be a great opportunity to get $1,000.  So he visited my clinic ... 'Old Dr. Geezer's Clinic'. This is what transpired: He told me, "Old Dr. Geezer,...

U.S. crude oil production fell at least 135,000 barrels of oil per day in January 2015 compared to December 2014 according to the EIA (Figure 1). Bakken Shale production fell the most of any play or jurisdiction losing 37,000 barrels per day in North Dakota and 4,000 barrels per day in Montana for a total of 41,000 barrels of oil per day (Figure 2). Production in California, the offshore Gulf of Mexico, Alaska and Wyoming also declined significantly. Figure 3 shows Bakken production based on DrillingInfo data. The 42,000 barrels of oil per day drop in January production is completely...

Gov. Bobby Jindal declared that he won't be backing down from the fight over same-sex marriage or Louisiana's controversial religious freedom bill in an opinion piece for The New York Times Thursday morning. (April 23). Jindal said he will continue to back the legislation that some have called discriminatory, even if more businesses leaders come out against the bill. In the essay, he chastises conservative leaders in Arkansas and Indiana over bowing to pressure "That political leaders in both states quickly cowered amid the shrieks of big business and the radical left should alarm us all," Jindal writes.

With this being budget week, the federal government’s taxing and spending decisions are under the microscope — as they should be in a healthy democracy. But what about government’s hidden tax: regulation? With no equivalent of a federal budget day, regulatory decisions and their implications get precious little scrutiny and we are all worse for it. Thankfully, regulatory transparency got a considerable boost Thursday when the Red Tape Reduction Act (C-21) received Royal Assent and became law. Minister Tony Clement, who has championed the bill, can be proud that Canada is now the first country in the world to require that for...

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem Character Studies From The Bible Saul New International Version (NIV) 20 Early in the morning David left the flock in the care of a shepherd, loaded up and set out, as Jesse had directed. He reached the camp as the army was going out to its battle positions, shouting the war cry. 21 Israel and the Philistines were drawing up their lines facing each other. 22 David left his things with the keeper of supplies, ran to the battle lines and asked his brothers how they were. 23 As he was talking with them, Goliath, the Philistine...