Free Republic

For a sense of the neighborhood in which Freddie Gray grew up, and which has been set partly ablaze over the last several days — the plot of West Baltimore known as Sandtown-Winchester — one need only read the relevant portion of the Baltimore City Health Department’s 2011 Neighborhood Health Profiles. According to the department (which included in its analysis the adjacent neighborhood of Harlem Park), the 10,000-person neighborhood, which is almost entirely black (97 percent), had a median household income of $22,277 as of 2011– 40 percent below Baltimore City’s average. One in five residents age 16 or older...

Modern industrial society commenced with the use of coal and oil to power factories, trains, ships, and agriculture and to generate electricity. With abundant energy, prosperity increased, and people could save enough to support leisure, education, culture, and environmental concerns.

 But the dark greens have a dream to dismantle all this, and return society to the hunter/gatherer era.

 In an unguarded moment, Maurice Strong, a leader of the international green movement, said:

 Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?

More Precious than Silver or Gold – A Meditation on the Spiritual Work of Mercy to Instruct the Ignorant By: Msgr. Charles PopeTo instruct comes from the Latin in + struere, which means to build up or (even more literally) to pile up. In English, there is also the notion of strewing something. For example, to strew hay or to say that the seed has been strewn. Thus, to instruct means to disperse knowledge or build someone up in what is learned.These days, the word “ignorant” is most often used in a negative or pejorative sense. And thus to say that someone is ignorant usually...

The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits tumbled to a 15-year low last week and consumer spending rose in March, signs the economy was regaining momentum after stumbling badly in the first quarter. The economic outlook was brightened further by another report on Thursday showing a solid increase in wages in the first quarter, which should keep the Federal Reserve on track to raise interest rates this year. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 34,000 to a seasonally adjusted 262,000 for the week ended April 25, the lowest reading since April 2000, the Labor Department said....

April 29, 2015 (AlbertMohler.com) -- “It is … it is going to be an issue.” With those words, spoken yesterday before the Supreme Court of the Unites States, the Solicitor General of the United States announced that religious liberty is directly threatened by the legalization of same-sex marriage. Donald Verrili, representing the Obama Administration as the nation’s highest court considered again the issue of same-sex marriage, was responding to a question from Justice Samuel Alito. His answer confirms with candor the threat we have long seen coming.Back in 2005, long before the movement to legalize same-sex marriage had gained cultural...

Watch live streaming video below as the defense continues to present its case in the trial of Cleveland police officer Michael Brelo. He’s is facing two counts of voluntary manslaughter for the 2012 police chase and shooting that killed Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams. The live stream is courtesy WKYC.com and is not available on some mobile devices nor during courtroom breaks.

Mark truly blasted, if not utterly destroyed, Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate for opposing amendments to the now notorious Iran bill. The first amendment literally says this: "To require a certification that Iran has not directly supported or carried out an act of terrorism against the United States or a United States person anywhere in the world." You’d think that’s a rather low threshold to hold a country to, but for Republican leaders it's “a bridge too far.” “We have eight Republicans who voted ‘no’ on this amendment. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Just got reelected. Had gone back to...

Nine hundred kilometers off the east coast of Madagascar lies the tiny island paradise of Mauritius. The waters are pristine, the beaches bright white, and the average temperature hovers between 22°C and 28°C (72°F to 82°F) year-round. But conditions there may not have always been so idyllic. A new study suggests that about 4000 years ago, a prolonged drought on the island left many of the native species, such as dodo birds and giant tortoises, dead in a soup of poisonous algae and their own feces. The die-off happened in an area known as Mare aux Songes, which once held...

UPDATE: The implementation of Barack Obama's takeover of the Internet is less than 45 days away. And as Marsha Blackburn says, if Congress does not take action to stop Barack Obama, the government will "control the Internet" in a little over the month. Make no mistake, the Internet as you know it will never be the same if we let Barack Obama implement this takeover. You'll pay more for less service and the government will use this draconian ruling as a club to bludgeon Internet freedom, including ultimately your free speech. And if you think we exaggerate, consider what Rep....

Before the Supreme Court rules on enforcing gay marriage on all of us at the barrel of a government gun, we must consider how we answer legitimate questions, and how we conservatives and Bible-believing Christians can defend our ideals playing into the “hate and bigotry” the Left would so readily use to define us. After being banned from Reddit groups /r/feminism and /r/LGBT for posting opinions they find disagreeable, I was finally asked an excellent question in response to my post on Jutice Alito’s line of questioning in Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on gay marriage. The question illuminates much about the...

BALTIMORE — A prisoner sharing a police transport van with Freddie Gray told investigators that he could hear Gray “banging against the walls” of the vehicle and believed that he “was intentionally trying to injure himself,” according to a police document obtained by The Washington Post. The prisoner, who is currently in jail, was separated from Gray by a metal partition and could not see him. His statement is contained in an application for a search warrant, which is sealed by the court. The Post was given the document under the condition that the prisoner not be named because the...

- A Restructuring and H-1B Visas Affect the Magic Kingdom's IT Operations At the end of October, IT employees at Walt Disney Parks and Resorts were called, one-byone, into conference rooms to receive notice of their layoffs. Multiple conference rooms had been set aside for this purpose, and in each room an executive read from a script informing the worker that their last day would be Jan. 30, 2015. Some workers left the rooms crying; others appeared shocked. This went on all day. As each employee received a call to go to a conference room, others in the office looked...

The chief of the Navy Reserve told a key Senate subcommittee that she is “only able to accept 25 percent of applications from separating [active] sailors” because of high retention rates in her command, but also that the reserve has had some trouble filling reserve billets for unrestricted line officers and medical professionals. The reason for the shortfall, in part, was because of continued high retention of these officers in the active force, said Vice Adm. Robin Braun before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense. Recruiting medical officers “remains an even more significant recruiting challenge,” in part, because of higher...

How did Howard Dean go from vivid voice of the New Left to political hack defending Hillary Clinton at all costs? Joe Scarborough called Dean on it today, telling Howard he had become the "New England version of James Carville." Dean, on today's Morning Joe, dismissed the latest Washington Post story suggesting possible financial improprieties at the Clinton Foundation as "a breathless piece of hot air" and, incredibly, Dean said he'd advise Hillary not to address the rising tide of questions. The depth of Hillary's dilemma is reflected in the fact that defenders like Dean are reduced to claiming that...

Hillary Rodham (Clinton) was a Republican before she became a hard leftist Democrat. In 1965 she became president of the Wellesley Young Republicans at Wellesley College. She supported the campaigns of African-American Republican Senator Edward Brooke, and the then Republican Mayor of New York John Lindsay. She considered herself a "conservative and a heart liberal". Her 2008 view was that illegal immigrants should NOT have the right to obtain driver's licenses. Hillary said only last year that same-sex marriage should be a state-by-state fight.

“Peace be upon all auspicious prophets of God, from Adam, Noah and Abraham to Moses, Jesus and Mohammed Mustafa..”

On day six of Nepal’s tragedy, life triumphed as rescuers pulled an 18-year-old man from the rubble of a multistory residential building in one of Kathmandu’s hard-hit neighborhoods. A large crowd erupted in cheers as Pemba Tamang was carried out on a stretcher. He was wearing a New York shirt and blue neck brace, was blanketed by dust and had the look of a deer in the headlights. His rescuer, Inspector Lakshman Basnet of the Nepalese Armed Police Force, said Tamang was responsive and showed no apparent signs of serious injury. He was given an IV drip and rushed from...

(CNN)Two new accounts of what happened to Freddie Gray question the narrative that has fueled protests in Baltimore -- the claim that Gray died as a result of police brutality. The first comes from a relative of one of the officers involved in the arrest. She told CNN the officer thinks Gray was injured while he was being arrested -- before he was put inside a police van. The second is an account from a prisoner who was in the same police van, as published in The Washington Post. The prisoner reportedly told investigators he thought Gray "was intentionally trying...

The term "Fifth Column" came into popular use in the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and thereafter as socialism and fascism were sweeping into conflict to take over the nations of the West. It means a group of guerrillas, activists, intellectuals, etc. who work to undermine a nation (or some larger organization) from within. Its activities can be out in the open, or they can be secret. Today in America, the neoconservative political movement represents a "Fifth Column" for the forces of collectivism. Its intellectuals and activists promote themselves as conservatives who oppose the liberals, but their political philosophy has...

KC-135 Lands Safely After In-Flight Emergency A KC-135 Stratotanker landed safely at RAF Mildenhall, England, at 1:20 a.m. on April 29, about one hour after experiencing an in-flight emergency, according to a base release. No injuries were reported. The tanker, which had taken off from NAS Souda Bay, Greece, en route to Mildenhall, was about three hours into its flight plan when it experienced a "flight control-related malfunction." Despite some reports claiming the aircraft disappeared from radar, the flight crew and aircraft remained under air traffic control authority throughout the mission, states the release. "At no time did the controlling...