Free Republic

April 28, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- I’ve been saying for quite some time that pornography is dangerous for more reasons than those that we typically discuss. Pornography is not dangerous just because it is spiritually dangerous. Pornography is not dangerous just because it is addictive, unhealthy, and unrealistic. Pornography is dangerous because it is becoming a new ideology of sex, in which women are objects to be abused and consumed and men are sexual aggressors, using the girls and women to physically extract as much so-called “pleasure” as possible.When I first spoke on this issue at the University of Ottawa with...

Finally, an answer to the most important question of the 2016 election.Kidding aside, though, this is a bit surprising. The question of whether or not a candidate would attend the gay wedding of a loved one has become an increasingly common litmus test for candidates on the issue…The poll showed 56 percent of Republicans would attend the gay wedding of a loved one if invited. That compares with 80 percent of Democrats and 70 percent of independents, who said they would go.Overall, 68 percent of Americans would attend, the poll showed, while 19 percent would not and 13 percent...

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif calls it “laughable” that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has become everybody’s nonproliferation guru.” “He’s sitting on 400 warheads, nuclear warheads, acquired in violation of the NPT (non-proliferation treaty),” to which Israel isn’t a party, he tells an audience at New York University. Zarif says that the greatest threat to global security is nuclear weapons possessed by the P5+1 world powers, and next is Israel’s nuclear weapons. He says that he would welcome Saudi Arabia having the same arrangements and enrichment program as Iran under the NPT. “It’s their right.”

While we already observed that in Q1, US GDP rose by an appalling 0.2%, far, far below the consensus Wall Street estimate (in case you missed it, here again is the one thing every Wall Street economist desperately needs) and precisely in line with the Atlanta Fed forecast which we brought attention to in early March, confirming yet again that US stocks no longer reflect any fundamentals but merely Fed and global liquidity injections, there is something far more disturbing under the surface of today's GDP report. Inventories.Specifically, the $121.9 billion increase in private, mostly nonfarm, inventories in the...

In meeting with South Korean minister, PM says: "We both face the threat of rogue states." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday warned that the recent framework agreement on a Iranian nuclear deal "repeated the mistakes" made during nuclear negotiations with North Korea. The premier reiterated his condemnation of the outline accord reached in early April in Lusanne, Switzerland on Iran's disputed nuclear program, calling it a "historic mistake." During a meeting with with South Korea's Deputy Prime Minister and Education Minister Hwang Woo-yea, Netanyahu indicated that the tentative agreement would lead to the breakout of nuclear weapons in Iran...

Dion Jordan's 2015 season is over before it started, and his tumultuous time with the Miami Dolphins may be finished as well. The Dolphins and the NFL announced Tuesday that Jordan has been suspended for the 2015 season for violating the NFL Policy and Program for Substances of Abuse.

A new study published by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy makes the case for a new state-led process for amending the U.S. Constitution. Nick Dranias, the study’s author and president of the Compact for America Educational Foundation, argues that Michigan should join the effort already under way to use this new process to create a constitutional amendment to require the federal government to balance its budget. Gov. Rick Snyder already signed a resolution in 2014 calling for such an amendment to the Constitution, but Dranias writes that that effort likely won’t amount to much. Instead of using such resolutions,...

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered the execution of 15 senior officials this year as punishment for challenging his authority, South Korea's spy agency told a closed-door parliament meeting on Wednesday. A vice minister for forestry was one of the officials executed for complaining about a state policy, a member of parliament's intelligence committee, Shin Kyung-min, quoted an unnamed National Intelligence Service official as saying. "Excuses or reasoning doesn't work for Kim Jong Un, and his style of rule is to push through everything, and if there's any objection, he takes that as a challenge to authority and comes...

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told the Senate Tuesday that he has no regrets at all for going around Congress to implement President Barack Obama’s several immigration-related executive actions. “Do you regret the actions that you and the administration have taken that have gotten us to this point?” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked Johnson at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. “No, I do not, senator,” Johnson replied. “I believe that the undocumented population in this country, at least half of which has been here more than 10 years, has to be reckoned with. We know they’re here, and they are...

WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy slowed to a crawl at the start of the year as businesses slashed investment, exports tumbled and consumers showed signs of caution, marking a return to the uneven growth that has been a hallmark of the nearly six-year economic expansion. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, expanded at a 0.2% seasonally adjusted annual rate in the first quarter, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. The economy advanced at a 2.2% pace in the fourth quarter and 5% in the third. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected growth...

LAGOS, Nigeria — After carrying out a mass rescue of 200 girls and 93 women from the forest stronghold of an Islamic insurgent group, Nigeria's military is evacuating them and plans to check their physical and mental health, the army spokesman said Wednesday. The military is flying in medical and intelligence teams to examine the females, many of whom are traumatized, said Col. Sani Usman. He earlier said that none of the so-called Chibok girls appeared to be among those rescued but later said it remains to be seen if any were among the 219 who are still missing more...

Oh my, corruption thy name is “the Clintons.” "Former president Bill Clinton reaped more than $2.5 million in speaking fees from 13 companies that lobbied the State Department while his wife was secretary of state. Ten of those companies paid him within the same 3-month reporting period covered by the government documents that disclosed the lobbying activity." Now, don’t get me wrong. This kind of behavior is completely acceptable in the average banana republic. If you’d do this in, say, Haiti, nobody would say anything. In the States, however, there are some basic rules of conduct for government officials and...

Where are the black fathers in Baltimore? They don‘t exist. I saw black mothers in the streets. I saw black male teens. But no black fathers trying to keep their kids off the streets and away from violence. Where is Barack Obama? Our nation’s first black president has been silent as blacks tear apart a major America city. He’s quick to weigh in and assign blame every time one black kid gets shot by a white cop. But not a word on the day thousands of blacks rampage and terrorize a city? Not a word ever about black-on-black crime? As...

Why didn’t I think of this? Industrial schtrength neoprene - approved by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors – over industrial strength Spanx. Neoprene (or polychloroprene) is a family of synthetic rubbers that are produced by polymerization of chloroprene. Neoprene exhibits good chemical stability, and maintains flexibility over a wide temperature range. It is used in a wide variety of applications, such as laptop sleeves, orthopedic braces (wrist, knee, etc.), electrical insulation, liquid and sheet applied elastomeric membranes or flashings, and automotive fan belts. This schtuff can be used for anything! Everything from fashionable scuba diving wet suits (with matching...

MADISON, Wis. — Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has broken his usual “no-comment” silence on all things John Doe by firing off a very public and very confrontational response to Gov. Scott Walker. First Amendment and other legal experts have blasted the partisan prosecutor’s rhetoric as somewhere between childish and downright scary. Could the man who brought Wisconsin its notorious John Doe investigations face professional sanctions for suggesting Walker could face criminal defamatory charges for criticizing Chisholm’s investigation? Maybe, but actual charges probably aren’t likely, legal ethics experts tell Wisconsin Watchdog, although many agree Chisholm’s threatening language is troubling....

BALTIMORE — On April 27, Daily Caller News Foundation reporters Connor D. Wolf and Casey Harper went to Baltimore with The TheDC’s Grae Stafford to find the truth behind the Freddie Gray protests. What we found instead were violent thugs willing to go after anyone — even us. While we interviewed looters, gang-bangers and activists, criminals violently set upon us. Here is the story of that chaotic night, and the events that led us to that frantic melee. Wolf: I was interviewing a group of rioters who were busy stealing an ATM machine at the intersection of North Fulton Avenue and West North Avenue. They initially agreed to speak with...

A Christian print shop owner who refused to print pro-LGBT T-shirts in 2012 has the constitutional right not to print messages that conflict with his Christian beliefs, a Kentucky court ruled on Monday. After Blaine Adamson, the managing owner of a Lexington print shop called Hands on Originals, refused to print T-shirts for Lexington's 2012 gay pride festival, he was found to be guilty of discrimination by the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights Commission last year, even though doing so would have violated his religious conviction. Additionally, the print shop was ordered to serve future requests from LGBT activists. The...

As the Supreme Court's oral arguments on whether states should be constitutionally obligated to issue same-sex marriage licenses adjourned Tuesday afternoon, Heritage Foundation's Ryan Anderson said in a news conference outside the building that the likely swing vote justice, Anthony Kennedy, was "not persuaded" by LGBT arguments. As many are predicting the Supreme Court's decision in June to come down to a narrow 5-4 vote, Justice Kennedy has been pegged again as the justice who is likely to decide which way the court leans in making the tough decision on whether the 14th Amendment requires states to uphold same-sex marriages...

Sen. Marco Rubio has proposed a change to the Iran nuclear review bill that could unravel a carefully crafted compromise and kill the Obama Administration’s negotiations. MORE Longtime Marco Rubio–Jeb Bush Alliance Fades in GOP Contest How Barack Obama’s Trade Deal Puts Hillary Clinton in a Bind Fight to the Death: Supreme Court Hears Execution Case NBC News Here's a First-Hand Look at Mount Everest Base Camp NBC News New Misery for Nepal? Quake Sets Stage for Cholera NBC News At issue is a one-page amendment from the Florida Republican and 2016 presidential candidate that would certify as part of...

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