Free Republic

ormer Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley is readying himself for a White House run. His recent rhetoric on economics shows that he will run to the left of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. After two terms of an unpopular left-wing president, that is surely the last thing the country needs. The good news is that O’Malley has a record we can examine, so voters will have more to go on than promises of “hope and change.” For fiscal policy, Cato grades the governors from “A” to “F” every two years in its “report cards.” One thing stands out about O’Malley’s record: his...

Hall of Famer Marcel Pronovost, who spent 15 years with the Detroit Red Wings before capping his playing career with a five-year run in Toronto, has died. He was 84. Pronovost won the Stanley Cup five times as a player and recorded 88 goals and 257 assists in 1,206 regular-season games. He moved into coaching after his retirement and had served as a scout for the New Jersey Devils since 1990.

Apple today announced financial results for its fiscal 2015 second quarter ended March 28, 2015. The Company posted quarterly revenue of $58 billion and quarterly net profit of $13.6 billion, or $2.33 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $45.6 billion and net profit of $10.2 billion, or $1.66 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 40.8 percent compared to 39.3 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 69 percent of the quarterÂ’s revenue. The growth was fueled by record second quarter sales of iPhone and Mac and all-time record performance of the...

April 28, 2015Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter    Reading 1 Acts 11:19-26 Those who had been scattered by the persecutionthat arose because of Stephenwent as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch,preaching the word to no one but Jews.There were some Cypriots and Cyrenians among them, however,who came to Antioch and began to speak to the Greeks as well,proclaiming the Lord Jesus. The hand of the Lord was with themand a great number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem,and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch.When...

The federal government is calling for lower levels of fluoride in drinking water, the first update since the 1960s. The new recommendation is for 0.7 milligrams of fluoride per liter of water, which replaces the previous range of 0.7 to 1.2 milligrams, according to the Health and Human Services Department on Monday. Americans have access to more fluoride through toothpaste and mouth rinses than when the recommendations were introduced in 1962, the agency said. Because Americans are using more fluoride, officials are worried about increases in cases of fluorosis, a condition that stains teeth exposed to too much fluoride. "The...

The world is "closer than ever" to reaching a comprehensive nuclear deal with Iran but the work is far from over, with key issues unresolved, Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday told a global gathering on nuclear disarmament, where he and Iran's foreign minister met on the sidelines. Several of the world's nuclear powers over the month ahead will discuss progress on a landmark treaty on disarmament, with Israel attending for the first time in two decades as an observer. Diplomats said the ongoing Iran discussions are separate from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, review conference, which is...

Things have gotten way out of control in Baltimore County following the death of Freddie Gray, but at least one mother is doing her best to make sure her son doesn’t get caught up in the rioting. Look what one CNN news crew caught live on camera:

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It gets a fair amount of attention in the U.S. military, in which thousands of assaults are reported annually and the Pentagon has acknowledged cultural problems that need to be addressed. One place where the military is addressing the issue is college campuses, where Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) organizations train students before they earn a commission and become new officers. That has led to this: Cadets and cadre put on their favorite pair of high heels and marched in Temple’s Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event to raise awareness of sexual assault...

Experts discovered the centuries-old pattern just weeks before Saturday's devastating earthquake. Geologists say Nepal's last two deadliest earthquakes, one in 1934 that killed thousands and another 81 years later on Saturday, is part of a pattern that occurred centuries before, the BBC reported.  In the jungles of central Nepal, French researchers digging along the country's main earthquake fault say they found evidence within the ground's charcoal indicating that a set of devastating earthquakes occurred in two areas along the fault in 1255 and then 89 years later in 1344- the same area where the two recent quakes occurred over 700...

The last Republican Mayor of Baltimore: Theodore R. McKeldin 1963 - 1967

The Supreme Court issued an order today preventing the Obama administration from forcing a Catholic group in Michigan to obey the HHS mandate that requires them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. This is the fifth time the Supreme Court has rebuked the Obama administration and prevented it from making such a mandate. For the sixth time in a row, the Supreme Court took steps to protect another religious objector from the HHS mandate. It ordered a lower court to reconsider its ruling that denied a group of Catholic ministries in Michigan the freedom to follow their faith.  “The government keeps making the same...

Now that I'm back after some travels, I often wonder what my European and Asian friends will think of the upcoming 2016 Presidential race. On the Democratic side, they believe that Hillary Clinton appears to have the upper hand. However, somewhere out in Iowa, former Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley is trying to build an insurgency to Clinton's left. On the Republican side, it appears that everybody under the sun is off and running, including moderates Jeb Bush, evangelicals like Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, Tea Partiers like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and Libertarians like Rand Paul. In the end,...

<p>Interesting, not because it’s a surprise that Ron Paul’s son feels this way — remember this? — but because this is a subject that every Republican in the field, Rand included, would probably prefer to avoid during the primaries.</p> <p>Or am I wrong about that? Could this be a smart play for Paul, especially given how it’ll make Jeb Bush squirm?</p>

Terrible. The fire in East Baltimore. Dozens of people out here crying and in disbelief: "This is our church!" pic.twitter.com/2DTf1m7sia— Yvonne Wenger (@yvonnewenger) April 28, 2015 CNN reports the senior center was newly built, part of Baltimore’s Southern Baptist church. That massive fire in Baltimore confirmed by CNN reporter as a Southern Baptist Church's new senior center. Now, in ruins.— Noah Rothman (@NoahCRothman) April 28, 2015 Pastor Hickman: burning building was to be 60-unit affordable housing for seniors. "It hurts my heart," he says. pic.twitter.com/jYXuMMDtBx— Jon Swaine (@jonswaine) April 28, 2015 Update: After I originally posted this, there was...

Six years from now a machine that makes oxygen will be in operation on Mars. The small oxygen device will be sent to the Red Planet with the NASA Mars 2020 mission. "We're going to build a small instrument that will generate oxygen on Mars. It will be the prototype of a much larger 'factory' that will provide astronauts with oxygen at some point in the future," says Morten Bo Madsen, the head of the Mars group at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. The project is known at NASA as MOXIE (Mars OXygen In Situ resource...

The Magisterium of the Catholic Church Defined as "the Church's divinely appointed authority to teach the truths of religion". In other words, Our Lord gave His Church the authority to teach the faithful about what is expected of them, and that is what the Church has done consistently from the start. The Magisterium of Catholic Church teaches the faithful in two ways; 1) Solemn Magisterium: is Church teaching which is used only rarely by formal and authentic definitions of councils or Popes. This includes dogmatic definitions by councils or Popes teaching "ex cathedra"2) Ordinary Magisterium: this second form of...

In the fall of 2007 during her first run for president, Hillary Clinton was often asked why her name was so polarizing in politics. She had a good answer: Unlike the other Democrats competing with her for the nod, she had a record of withstanding Republican attacks that went back for decades. It had taken its toll on her, of course, but the fact that she was still standing was a testament to her electability. Today, her campaign is barely a week old, and she’s already endured years of attacks since she emerged as the overwhelming favorite for the nomination...

Nationally syndicated radio host and columnist for the Washington Times, Steve Deace, explained that there are three specific issues animating the 2016 Republican presidential contest. “If you are weak on these, don’t even show up,” Deace cautioned conservative Republican presidential aspirants. “This is sort of the triumvirate of issues. That is amnesty, that is religious freedom, and the other is Common Core. If you are soft on these issues, or have been in the past, you’re done.” The author of Rules for Patriots: How Conservatives Can Win Again, told Breitbart senior writer and guest host of Breitbart News Sunday airing...

“We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit, law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth…We can and we must write in a language which sows among the masses hatred, scorn, and the like towards those who disagree with us”, wrote Vladimir Lenin. The basis of Lenin’s statement is very much alive today within the Democrat party as they relentlessly attack and sow hatred towards cultural, moral, and religious institutions that conservatives hold dear. “This is the basis of the great cultural war we’re undergoing…. We are two countries now. We are two countries morally, culturally, socially, and theologically. Cultural wars do not...

Earlier this year, a new law went into effect in Canada that required ISPs to report instances of suspected piracy among their customers, the so-called “notice and notice” system. The result is that a bunch of foreign companies–third parties not affiliated with the actual rights holders of the material that may (or may not) being pirated–have been sending emails to Canadians demanding that they pay up now or face massive legal consequences. It’s been reported that hundreds of thousands of these warnings have been sent to Canadians. First things first: Canadians are NOT obligated to pay. Demanding a cash settlement...