Free Republic

This week, the House of Representatives is voting on a bill that would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The last time the House considered this bill, an expert on human embryonic development informed members of the committee that unborn babies have the capacity to feel pain as early as 8 weeks. Maureen Condic, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Anatomy at the University of Utah and obtained her Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley. She is a widely-published scientist whose works have appeared in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals. “The earliest “rudiment” of the human...

Presidential candidate Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite and leading figure in the 2013 government shutdown that rattled investors, isn’t the kind of politician who usually wins a lot of friends among Wall Street campaign donors. The freshman Republican senator from Texas has none of the moderate tendencies that financiers often prefer in presidential candidates. Cruz relishes his image as an anti-establishment figure and boasts of his aversion to compromise. He has vowed to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare plan, commonly known as Obamacare. Despite the uncompromising rhetoric, Cruz is winning praise from...

It is nearly axiomatic that presidential contests tend to shine a harsh light on conservative Christians — inasmuch as they are viewed as the Republican Party’s base and are, therefore, deemed fair game. Of course, religious folks come in a variety of stripes, checks and polka dots. Many are Democrats. But it is the members of the Christian right — evangelicals and Catholics, especially — who are treated every four years to the sneers of lefties, academics, proud atheists (allow me to quote myself: “There’s no dogma like no dogma”) and certain but not all media. Roger Ailes’s Fox News...

A consequence of America growing more secularist, by which I mean more materialistic, is clear in public reactions by secular sophisticates after the crash of Amtrak 188 in Philadelphia. The dead had yet to be confirmed, the injured were still trapped in smashed train cars, but partisans steering the news narrative griped about “infrastructure” and lectured about “funding.” They blamed Tuesday night's calamity on Republicans, though investigators said speeding into a curve at 106 m.p.h. likely caused the crash. (Maybe the engineer is a Republican.) Two hours after the crash, as aerial shots of the tangled disaster scrolled on social...

Sean Hannity said last night that champions of free speech are refusing to back down after being accused of provoking radical Islamists to attack the Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas. One of the speakers at that event, Dutch politician Geert Wilders, is planning to stage a Muhammad cartoon expo in the Dutch Parliament. Hannity asked Wilders if he is anti-Islam. "Well, I'm certainly not anti-Muslim, but indeed I believe Islam is a threat to our civilization," Wilders replied. "I believe that our country is based on values that are based on Christianity and Judaism, and that Islam is really a...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Tuesday | May 12, 2015 A bill backed by Rep. Labrador would send EPA and the Army Corps back to the drawing board WASHINGTON, D.C. – A measure forcing the Obama Administration to withdraw its “waters of the United States” rule cleared the House Tuesday on a bipartisan 261-155 vote. Rep. Raúl Labrador, R-Idaho, is an original cosponsor of H.R. 1732, the Regulatory Integrity Protection Act. Labrador has been working since last year on a legislative remedy, which now heads to the Senate. H.R. 1732 would require the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers to...

Excuse me, Mr. President, but the New Testament, not the Old (a historical account of the era's events and immoral practices), represents the true teachings of Christ. And exactly how is Sharia law - those tenets denying women basic human rights, condoning sex with children and killing gays for merely existing - the moral high ground or an acceptable alternative to anything? I too can tear apart politically convenient misconceptions but without resorting to distorting religious texts. America, our very laws and cultural norms - from liberty to marriage and our fabled work ethic - was founded upon Judeo-Christian principles....

The California almond is getting a bad reputation. At least that’s what the numbers show. According to an April report released by the Pacific Institute, a non-profit research firm based in Oakland, almonds are not the most water intensive crop grown in the Golden State. In fact, almonds tie with pistachios for fourth place in the ranking of California’s water intensive crops and require on average four acre-feet of water per acre. One acre-foot is approximately 326,000 gallons of water. Alfalfa and rice are the top two water users, averaging five acre-feet of water per acre a piece, though alfalfa...

The king of Bahrain has apparently snubbed President Barack Obama to attend a horse show with Queen Elizabeth. According to Reuters, King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has elected to attend the Royal Windsor Horse Show, which begins Wednesday, at Windsor Castle outside London.

Sympathy for the Devil in all its variations represents the Boomers acme and epitaph. [Embedded Video: The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (Live) - OFFICIAL ] I last saw the Stones perform this at Altamont, where it was accompanied by pool cue bludgeoning and a lethal stabbing. I sort of last my taste for it after that concert, but I check in on variations from the Stones' endless tours from time to time. More and more the penultimate line, "Just as every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints" seems to be prophetic of this...

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the debt of both the Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Park District on Wednesday, a day after it downgraded the city’s bond rating to junk status. Moody’s has given a Ba3 rating to the school district’s debt, down from a Baa3 rating, saying the district faces “increased strain on its precarious financial position” due to last week’s Illinois Supreme Court decision overturning state pension reform. It reduced the Chicago Park District’s rating to from Baa1 to Ba1, one notch below investment grade. The rating service’s moves affect the school district’s $6.2 billion in general obligation...

When Ted Cruz next returns to New Hampshire, he’ll have a team of at least 42 activists – including a few of the state’s top conservatives – working with him to bolster his showing in the first-in-the- nation primary, where the most conservative candidates have struggled in recent years. Former speaker of the House Bill O’Brien, former U.S. senator Bob Smith and Executive Councilor David Wheeler announced they’d be the foundation of Cruz’s leadership team yesterday in Concord. The big three took the stage in the lobby of the Legislative Office Building in front of a group of the Texas...

On Hugh Hewitt’s radio program Wednesday, Charles Krauthammer, a licensed psychiatrist, couldn’t decide if President Obama is delusional or merely cynical. He also said the president is “sort of … pathological” in the way he picks up “these (anti-Fox) memes” while not knowing “a damn thing” about what’s on Fox News. Dr. K. was reacting to the startling comments Obama made at George Washington University Tuesday: “There’s always been a strain in American politics where you’ve got the middle class, and the question has been who are you mad at if you’re struggling, if you’re working, but you don’t seem...

New mother claims doctor left his MOBILE PHONE inside her after delivering her baby... and she only realised when her stomach began VIBRATING Hanan Mahmoud Abdul Karim, 36, had a Caesarean in April this year By MADLEN DAVIES FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 10:09 EST, 13 May 2015 | UPDATED: 14:10 EST, 13 May 2015 A Jordanian woman claims a doctor left his mobile phone in her abdomen after delivering her baby by Caesarean section. Hanan Mahmoud Abdul Karim, 36, was admitted to a private hospital in Amman, Jordan, for the operation on April 24th this year. Her mother, Majeda Abdul Hamid,...

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that Republicans will "rue the day" if the Supreme Court buys their arguments and invalidates tax subsidies for millions of people under President Barack Obama's health care law. Republicans have said they will try to ensure people don't lose insurance if the high court rules this summer against tax subsidies for health care coverage in certain states. But they haven't said how they would do it. Such a ruling would present a major challenge to the GOP. Without a congressional fix some 8 million people could lose subsidies, which help them pay for...

Sometimes it helps to review what you know I’ve gathered the most essential Multitouch gestures Mac users need to know in this report. Of course, some may not be enabled within your system, so if you want to enable them, go to System Preferences>Trackpad and tick (or untick) the appropriate text box. Furthermore, some applications – particularly third-party, big-name apps -- do not support all (any) of the gestures, which seems a shame. To be fair, the gestures offered on your Mac haven’t changed too much since I wrote The Lion Multitouch Gesture Guide. Four-finger freedoms Use four fingers on...

Law enforcement officers at Washington, D.C.’s annual Police Week tell The Daily Caller that the anti-police climate is taking its toll on the men and women in uniform and that morale is low in departments across the country.

The Hollywood Reporter revealed Tuesday that Reese Witherspoon has been cast into the leading role of a new drama called “The Pale Blue Dot” in which she plays a female astronaut whose life spirals out of control after returning from a space mission. She begins an affair with a fellow astronaut and soon finds herself in a love triangle. The story seems to be not so loosely based on the incident in which real life astronaut Lisa Nowak who drove nonstop between Houston and Orlando wearing an adult diaper and disguised in a trench coat and sunglasses to confront a...

This city’s Spanish name recalls grassy, spring-fed meadows that nourished the first farms here and gave laborers relief from desert heat. Now Las Vegas draws a new generation of settlers epitomized by California transplant Joe Beck: CalPERS pensioners who have made Sin City their No. 1 destination for retirement outside California. Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/the-state-worker/article20702106.html#storylink=cpy

Rose is back. She is on . You can go to www.am1250theanswer.com to hear her live or go to www.roseunplugged.com/bio-encore to hear archives.