Free Republic

Remember when Ian Reisner and his partner – two gay businessmen from New York – hosted an event for Ted Cruz? Allahpundit wrote about the unusual meeting shortly after it happened and he made some rather prescient predictions. [Cruz] says the NYT was trying to suggest that he was somehow compromised in his conservatism for socializing with pro-SSM gay constituents, but I don’t know. Maybe the Times’s angle was really that Weiderpass and Reisner were compromised in their gayness for socializing with Cruz. The media understands very well by now what happens to business owners who stray from gay-marriage...

Last week General David Petraeus, as the result of a plea agreement, was sentenced to two years probation and a $100,000 fine for the crime of, as reported by CNN.com, "sharing classified information with his biographer and lover, Paula Broadwell." He was allowed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor rather than a felony. The notebooks he shared with Broadwell "included notes from national security meetings, the identities of covert officers and more classified documents," according to CNN. I have met David Petraeus although he would have to feign knowing me if we ran into one another. He rose to the...

As the nation struggles with the idea of body cameras on police officers there are plenty of other places where some George Orwell style surveillance state technology may come in handy. One example of this may be found on the nation’s college campuses. Since our colleges are no longer institutions of learning and preparation for productive careers so much as they are factories churning out the next generation of liberal activists and community organizers, a new generation of problems have beset them. Even though each and every event must be squeezed through the sieve of liberal politics, we’ve seen...

Please Pray This Week for Traditional Marriage – The Supreme Court Is in Session By: Msgr. Charles PopeThe March for Marriage yesterday in Washington, D.C. was successful for numerous reasons. Among them was the turnout: over 10,000 people. This is especially impressive given the date change (the march had been planned for June but was moved to April when the Supreme Court’s schedule for the marriage cases was announced).Second, the march manifested a diversity that shows that the concerns for traditional marriage are not coming only from older white Catholics and Pentecostals. You can see some pictures from the march here: March for Marriage 2015. Indeed...

George Stephanopoulos got aggressive yesterday in challenging author Peter Schweizer on his book Clinton Cash.  But in relying on the principal talking point proffered by the Clinton campaign, he indicted himself on charges of bias. Ramesh Ponnuru and Scott Johnson both picked up on the irony. From the ABC News transcript: STEPHANOPOULOS: As you know, the Democrats have said this is -- this is an indication of your partisan interest. They say... SCHWEIZER: Well... STEPHANOPOULOS: -- you used to work for President -- President Bush as a speechwriter. You're funded by the Koch brothers. How do you respond to...

News Man accused of killing cop and ex-CHA officer to stand trial Posted: 04/26/2015, 12:25pm | Rummana Hussain Opening statements are expected Monday in the trial of a South Side man accused of killing a Chicago Police officer and a former Chicago Housing Authority cop. Timothy Herring, a 19-year-old parolee at the time of the double murder Nov. 26, 2010, allegedly told his friends that he killed “two polices” because he didn’t want to go back to jail. Authorities said Herring, fitted with an ankle bracelet, opened fire when he returned to the scene of a burglary he’d committed hours...

Nineteen men lie prostrate for their ordination as priests for the Diocese of Rome on April 26, 2015. Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA Vatican City, Apr 26, 2015 / 12:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis presided over the ordination of nearly twenty men to the priesthood on Sunday, where he warned them against being vain priests who live first for their own pleasure rather than for God’s. “A priest is ugly who lives for his own pleasure,” Pope Francis said, adding that such a priest “acts like a peacock.” Pope Francis presided over the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Apr. 26,...

April 23, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new study confirms what numerous past studies have already shown: Birth control pills are reducing the fish population.A new laboratory study of the effects on fish of environmental exposure to the synthetic hormone found in contraceptive pills reiterates numerous previous studies from around the world that found evidence of fertility reduction, sex reversal, and even entire populations of fish dying off.Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Missouri exposed a small species of aquarium fish, the Japanese medaka, to 17a-ethinylestradiol (EE2), a major ingredient in oral contraceptives for women.The scientists stated...

By his own logic, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should lead the court’s majority in upholding individual states’ laws against same-sex marriage. In the four conjoined cases on the subject set for oral argument April 28, the high court is asked not whether same-sex marriage is good policy. It is instead asked if such marriage is a national, constitutionally protected right, one so fundamentally interwoven in our nation’s fabric of protections that no state law can refuse to recognize it. Kennedy’s most recent decision regarding marriage, the 2013 case of U.S. v. Windsor, contained two notions seemingly in tension with...

Dr. Dorothy E. Roberts, who is described by Penn Law as "an acclaimed scholar of race, gender and the law," believes that the United States is run by "patriarchal white supremacists" and that reparations are, in part, the answer to inequity between African Americans and whites. Dr. Roberts teaches at the University of Pennsylvania and has made appearances on MSNBC. Writing publicly, Dr. Roberts has made her sentiments on race relations in the United States known. The United States, she believes, systematically oppresses people of color. She goes as far as to say that studies on wealth must account for...

Graham Williams at the University of Huddersfield, UK, has a different way – to look for modifications to the twins' DNA that have come about as a result of their lifestyles. Such epigenetic changes occur when a chemical group known as a methyl group attaches to a gene and modifies the way it is expressed. This happens as a body is influenced by a person's environment, lifestyle and disease. Williams's team took mouth swabs from five pairs of twins. After extracting the DNA from each sample, the group used a chemical to target parts of the DNA that did not...

The Nasdaq has surpassed the psychologically important dot-com record, but it would have to rise another 36% to 6,941 to truly be in record territory, taking into consideration inflation and the drop in the value of the dollar since 2000. It could still get there, since Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA) have yet to report earnings. Still, after 15 years and two recessions, one great, the Nasdaq has beaten its nominal all-time closing high of 5,048.62 reached on March 10, 2000. The Nasdaq then plunged a sickening 78% by October 2002. Meanwhile, the Dow has hit new all-time nominal and...

Be afraid -- be very afraid. This is the warning the world deserves to hear. Because the leader of the free world refuses to look with clear eyes at the chief security challenges of the 21st century: the fruits of radical Islam. The results of the Obama White House's innovative efforts to make the world a better place can be accounted for in the ever-growing numbers of victims of radical Islam in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. Not to mention here in the United States, Canada and Europe. Is it not a tragic irony that the Arab...

Here’s an article, in where Dr. John R. Lott Jr., eviscerates Harvard Professor David Hemenway’s survey of cherry picked authors. That of course lead to the conclusion that guns are bad. It’s what these people do. No matter real credible research, and the longstanding Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which is an obvious social utility of the people. I wonder why gun prohibitionists think the Second Amendment was created to begin with. It’s in the Bill of Rights. Even still, they love to refer to guns as if being deprived of arms, is some sort of benefit.

There is no time in the history of mankind that would be a better time to be alive than today. Nearly every objective measure of the state of the planet and the state of human progress shows vast improvement over time. You can find proof of this in about 30 seconds on your iPhone, a computing powerhouse that places the world at your fingertips. Why is there so much pessimism about the state of our planet? Last week I watched the Earth Day speeches on the National Mall in Washington, and they were drenched with Chicken Little tales of a...

<p>Boys and girls, Count Victor presents a berrry, berrry scarrrrrry tale of political corruption run amok.</p> <p>1.That the accusations are “old news.” 2.That the accusers are funded by right-wing conspiracists. 3.That everyone does what the Clintons did. 4.That the media pick on the Clintons. 5.That there is no hard evidence (because they have destroyed documents) that would ever lead to a criminal case. And: 6.That they are moving on, to work on behalf of the folks.</p>

After a week of being attacked for shady bookkeeping and questionable expenditures, the Clinton Foundation is fighting back. In a tweet posted last week, the Clinton Foundation claimed that 88 percent of its expenditures went “directly to [the foundation’s] life-saving work.” More than 88% of our expenditures go directly to our life-changing work: http://t.co/5BrnpBtIp6 pic.twitter.com/GoKfRE9rKq Clinton Foundation (@ClintonFdn) April 25, 2015 There’s only one problem: that claim is demonstrably false. And it is false not according to some partisan spin on the numbers, but because the organization’s own tax filings contradict the claim.In order for the 88 percent claim...

According to Gallup, only 7 percent of Americans want immigration levels to increase, while 86 percent either want them to remain at current levels (47 percent) or decrease (39 percent). With most current and prospective Republican presidential candidates tripping over each other to vie for that 7 percent, it would seem to be good politics for a candidate to break from the pack and speak for the other 86 percent essentially unopposed. That’s more of less what Scott Walker has done over the past week. Actually, Walker hasn’t even said that immigration levels should not be increased. He has merely...

Personal and medical experience indicates that switching genders will not give Bruce Jenner peace. With the airing of his interview with Diane Sawyer last Friday, Bruce Jenner became the most triumphant, celebrated, photographed, and interviewed transgender in the world. Jenner, a longtime transvestite, now at 65 years of age is going to explore his feminine side by transitioning to female. Along the way, he hopes to inspire others. Jenner’s interview opened a window for millions of viewers to see the psychological deliberation of a cross-dresser. Jenner shared that the emotional stress of hiding his secret has become unbearable. His internal...

In September, Breitbart News reported that the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence joined with Sandy and Lonnie Phillips in suing Lucky Gunner and other firearm-related stores for selling ammunition and other supplies to alleged Aurora theater gunman, James Holmes. Holmes allegedly opened fire on movies-goers watching The Dark Knight Rises on July 20, 2012. In late March, Senior District Judge Richard Matsch threw out the suit and held that Lucky Gunner and the others “are entitled to an award of reasonable attorney fees and costs.”